[1] History and Legends of the Alamo and Other Missions in and around
San Antonio, by Adina De Zavala, San Antonio, 1917; San Antonio de
Béxar, Historical, Traditional, Legendary, by Mrs. S. J. Wright,
Austin, 1916; Combats and Conquests of Immortal Heroes, by Charles
Merritt Barnes, San Antonio, 1910. The last named of the three books is
now very scarce; the other two are obtainable at reasonable prices.
[2] See Bolton, H. E., Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century, p. 4. I
am indebted also to Mrs. Mattie Austin Hatcher, Archivist in History at
the University of Texas, for information in her unpublished (1923) book
on The Opening of Texas to Foreign Settlement, particularly Chaps. II
and V.
[3] Brewster County, in which mines were worked, was not in the old
Mexican state of Texas and Coahuila.
[4] Sutherland, Mary A., The Story of Corpus Christi, Houston, 1916,
pp. 2–3. Mrs. Sutherland does not give her authority.
[5] Bolton, H. E., Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century, p. 9;
Priestley, H. I., José de Galvez (University of California Publications
in History, 1916), p. 288. According to Priestley, some presidios were
established by the Spanish in America to protect the special interests
of large landholders.
Don Pedro de Terreros, banker and wealthy mine owner of Mexico, who
advanced the money for the establishment of the Mission of San Saba,
may not have been so altruistic as Bancroft, Dr. Dunn, and Dr. Bolton
have all implied. The government must bear the cost of military
protection for the mission. With government protection and Indian
labor, the mines at San Saba, which Miranda had in his famous reports
made so promising, would richly pay any individual working them. Don
Pedro had an interest in the mines. The Terreros records, if extant,
might throw a great deal of light on the subject.
[6] About $11 around for each man in the Texas army, besides $3000 that
was voted to the Texas navy. There was $11,000 in specie in Santa
Anna’s military chest. His “finery and silver” were auctioned off at
$1600 and his rich saddle at $800. See “An Account of the Battle of San
Jacinto,” by J. Washington Winters, Texas State Historical Association
Quarterly, Vol. VI, pp. 139–144; “Memoirs of Major George Bernard
Erath,” by Lucy A. Erath, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. XXVI,
pp. 266–269.
[7] Austin Papers in University of Texas archives. Information given by
Mrs. Mattie Austin Hatcher, Archivist.
[8] See “The Legend of the San Saba, or Bowie, Mine.”
[9] Dr. Barker, in treating of “Land Speculation as a Cause of the
Texas Revolution,” Texas State Historical Association Quarterly, Vol.
X, p. 76 ff., ignores all idea that reputed mineral riches had anything
to do with the land speculation.
An unfounded but popular view to the contrary is offered by Captain
Marryat, who says: “The dismemberment of Texas from Mexico was affected
by the reports of extensive gold mines, diamonds, etc., which were to
be found there.”—Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur
Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Texas, Leipzig, 1843, p. 147.
[10] Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, Book V, Chapter III. I am aware of
the fact that some historians question the loss of any great treasure.
[11] Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Philadelphia, 1874, I, pp. 420–422;
453 ff. Also, Bandelier, A. F., The Gilded Man, p. 19.
[12] Bandelier, p. 26.
[13] Zahm, J. A. (H. J. Mozans), Through South America’s Southland, New
York, 1916, p. 361.
[14] For full accounts of the El Dorado history and legends, see
Adolphe F. Bandelier’s The Gilded Man, New York, 1893, and Z. A. Zahm’s
(H. J. Mozans) The Quest of El Dorado, New York, 1917. Both are
readable and distinguish well between history and legend. Bandelier is
the more scholarly of the two writers.
[15] Zahm, J. A. (Mozans), Through South America’s Southland, pp.
353–362.
[16] Bandelier, The Gilded Man, “The Seven Cities,” p. 125 ff.
[17] Skinner, Chas. M., Myths and Legends of Our New Possessions,
Philadelphia, 1902, p. 103.
[18] Bandelier, The Gilded Man, “The Amazons,” p. 113 ff.
[19] Bolton, H. E. (Editor), Spanish Explorations in the Southwest, New
York, 1916, pp. 130, 156, 184, 186.
[20] Ibid., p. 130.
[21] Ibid., pp. 283–284.
[22] Bancroft identifies the “mountain of silver” with “the famous iron
mountain near the city of Durango.”—History of the North Mexican States
and Texas, I, p. 100.
[23] Bolton, Spanish Explorations, pp. 313–317.
[24] Lummis, Chas. F., The Enchanted Burro, p. 161 ff.
[25] Zahm, J. A., The Quest of El Dorado, p. 6.
[26] Ibid., pp. 197–200.
[27] Bandelier, The Gilded Man, “Quivira,” p. 223 ff.
Dr. Bolton points out that the Spanish searched in Texas for “the
Kingdom of Gran Quivira, where ‘everyone had their ordinary dishes made
of wrought plate, and the jugs and bowls were of gold’”; also “for the
Seven Hills of the Aijados, or Aixaos, where gold was so plentiful that
‘the natives not knowing any of the other metals, make of it everything
they need, such as vessels and the tips of arrows and lances.’”—“The
Spanish Occupation of Texas, 1519–1690,” by Herbert E. Bolton,
Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. XVI, pp. 1–2.
[28] The Alhambra, “The Journey.”
[29] Bandelier, The Gilded Man, p. 223 ff.
[30] See “The Snively Legend,” infra.
[31] Webber, Chas. W., The Gold Mines of the Gila, New York, 1849,
especially pages 189–191 and 196–197. Webber concludes the book with an
actual proposal to readers to join him in an expedition after the
treasure. He had been a ranger with Jack Hays a short time and he
claims to have gotten his information about the San Saba deposits from
the talk of men in camp. Use is made of the same legendary material in
Webber’s Old Hicks the Guide, 1848.
[32] Galveston Weekly Journal, May 13, June 6, June 16, 1853.
[33] “The Hunt for the Bowie Mine in Menard,” in Frontier Times,
Bandera, Texas, October, 1923, pp. 24–26. The article is full of
concrete evidence not to be questioned.
[34] San Antonio Express, October 21, 1923, p. 1.
[35] For good satire on Texan credulity in Mexican mines, see On A
Mexican Mustang Through Texas, by Alex E. Sweet and J. Armory Knox,
Rand, McNally and Co., New York, 1892, pp. 439–452.
[36] Bolton, H. E., Spanish Explorations in the Southwest, pp. 283–284.
[37] “Miranda’s Expedition to Los Almagres and Plans for Developing the
Mines,” a Spanish transcript from original documents in the archives of
Mexico, now in the history archives of the University of Texas,
“1755–1756, A. G. I. Mejico, 92–6–22, N′ 16A.” See also another
transcript from original sources: “Report on Disposition of San Saba,”
listed “1767, A. G. I., Guad., 104–6, 13.”
[38] “Miranda’s Expedition to Los Almagres,” etc. Vide ante.
[39] For a succinct history, see Dunn, William E., “The Apache Mission
of the San Saba River,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XVII,
379–414; also, Bolton, H. E., Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century,
pp. 78–93.
[40] Bolton, supra, p. 83.
[41] This is an interesting but somewhat confusing document. It was
printed in 1905 and is already so rare as to be almost unobtainable. It
is in neither the Texas State Library nor the Library of the University
of Texas. I am indebted to Mr. E. W. Winkler for use of his
presentation copy. Mr. Hunter was living at Mason when he issued the
pamphlet and had a rare first-hand knowledge of the ground and of
traditions as well as access to some original documents.
[42] Op. cit., p. 47.
[43] History of San Antonio and the Early Days of Texas, compiled by
Robert Sturmberg, San Antonio, 1920, Chap. III.
[44] “Report on Disposition of San Saba.” Vide ante.
[45] Op. cit., p. 48.
[46] See, for instance, “The Lost Gold Mines of Texas May Be Found,” by
W. D. Hornaday in the Dallas News, January 7, 1923.
[47] U. S. Geological Survey, Bulletin 450, “Mineral Resources of the
Llano-Burnet Region, Texas,” by Sidney Page, Washington, Government
Printing Office, 1911.
But note the following dispatch in the San Antonio Express, February
26, 1924, p. 5:
“AUSTIN, Tex., Feb. 25—Sam Young, Llano banker, was in Austin
Monday and reports much activity in that region in the mineral
line. Young says experts think they have found gold in paying
quantity, also graphite, and that capital now is being interested
in the deposits with the early prospects of real mining and
shipping of valuable ores and probably the refined products. Many
small deposits of precious metals have been found near Llano in
recent years, but the new finds are said to be large enough to
warrant exploitation and give that section a new and valuable
industry.”
Thus history never tires of repeating itself; thus the dream of
treasure once dreamed lives on.
[48] Fournel, Henri, Coup d’oeil ... sur le Texas, Paris, 1841, p. 23,
speaks “des richesses metalliques depuis longtemps signalées par les
Espagnoles.” I am unable now to verify the reference, but I am sure
that Gustave Aimard introduces the subject in one of his romances,
probably The Freebooters.
Of course the rumor of the mines had a wide vogue in Spain, where the
viceroy’s reports went direct.
An English novel published in 1843 has this sentence: “The Comanches
have a great profusion of gold, which they obtain from the neighborhood
of the San Seba [sic] hills, and work it themselves into bracelets,
armlets, diadems, as well as bits for their horses, and ornaments to
their saddles.”—Marryat, Captain, Monsieur Violet, etc., p. 175.
[49] As examples of fictional uses of the legend in America, see
Webber, Charles W., The Gold Mines of the Gila, New York, 1849, pp.
189–191; Webber, Old Hicks the Guide, New York, 1848. In this last
named book, the use is so vague and general that no particular pages
can be cited. Other examples are “The Llano Treasure Cave,” by Dick
Naylor, The Texas Magazine, Vol. III, pp. 195–204, reprinted in the
Dallas Semi-Weekly Farm News, with T. B. Baldwin as the name of the
author, July 11 and July 14, 1922; The Three Adventurers, by J. S. (K.
Lamity) Bonner, Austin, (no date given).
[50] Sowell, A. J., Early Settlers and Indian Fighters of Texas, pp.
405–408.
[51] “Several days previous to the fight it was currently reported in
Camp that there was a quantity of silver coming from Mexico on pack
mules to pay off the soldiers of General Cos. Our scouts kept a close
watch, to give the news as soon as the convoy should be espied, so that
we might intercept the treasure. On the morning of the 26th, Colonel
Bowie was out in the direction of the Medina, with a company, and
discovered some mules with packs approaching. Supposing this to be the
expected train, he sent a messenger for reinforcements.”—Baker, D. W.
C., Texas Scrap Book, p. 92.
[52] The Battle of Calf Creek, 1831, in which eleven Texans fought one
hundred and sixty-four Indians under the leadership of Chief Tresmanos
of the Lipans. Only one of Bowie’s men was killed. Rezin P. Bowie wrote
an account of the battle that has often been quoted in Texas histories.
The account by James Bowie seems not so well known. It is to be found
in John Henry Brown’s History of Texas, Vol. I, pp. 170–175.
[53] A signed article on the Calf Creek fight in the Dallas News,
January 28, 1923.
[54] “Command El Cañon and Los Almagres to deliver up their known
treasures,” wrote De Mézières in an effort to stimulate Spanish
activity in Texas.—Bolton, H. E., Athanase de Mézières, II, 297.
[55] Vol. I, No. I, October, 1923, p. 25.
[56] Santa Anna, according to Brown, did cross into Texas at Laredo,
but he went to San Antonio, not Goliad. See Brown, John Henry, History
of Texas, Vol. I, p. 569 ff. Another Santa Anna chest is said to have
been dropped off near Lockhart on the road to Nacogdoches. Of course,
Santa Anna never went from San Antonio to Nacogdoches.
[57] This latter explanation is more probable. The feminine Santa is
never apocopated in Spanish, and caja is feminine.
[58] A tale common to both legend and roguery. I have a copy of a
letter written in 1911 by a prisoner in Madrid to an American at Aguas
Calientes, Mexico, in which the prisoner offered to share $273,000
concealed on the American’s land, provided the American would send
funds for passage of the prisoner and his wife.
[59] “The company, being six months’ men, were discharged at Fort
Merrill on the Nueces, on the 4th day of May, 1851, but reorganized as
a new company for another six months the next day.”—Brown, John Henry,
History of Texas, Vol. II, p. 356. See a report to the Secretary of
War: Sen. Ex. Doc. 1, 32d Cong., 1st Session, Serial 611.
[60] See, for instance, “The Mission de Los Olmos, near Falfurrias,” by
Marshall Monroe, reprinted from the Houston Chronicle, in Frontier
Times, January, 1924, pp. 44–45.
[61] Sutherland, Mary A., The Story of Corpus Christi, Houston, 1916,
pp. 2–3.
[62] A euphemism of the Texas Rangers.
[63] Old-timers still call much of the “Magic Rio Grande Valley” by
nothing else than The Sands.—Editor.
[64] This last legend was printed in the Dallas Times-Herald, October
22, 1922, and in other papers over the state about the same time, I
having given it to the press in the hope of creating a wider interest
in legends.
[65] The mine is often referred to as the “Nigger Ben Mine.” I have not
been able to learn why, but I have a guess. In the early seventies a
half-breed negro-Mexican named Ben Hodges, but known as “Nigger Ben,”
went up the trail to Kansas with a herd of Texas cattle. “Nigger Ben”
remained in the vicinity of Dodge City and became a notorious, almost
legendary, fraud. He claimed to possess a Spanish grant to lands on the
Rio Grande on which were located wonderfully rich mines. It would be
very much in the manner of legend to blend “Nigger Ben’s mine” with
another mine on the Rio Grande claimed by another negro. For an account
of “Nigger Ben,” see Wright, Robert M., Dodge City the Cowboy Capital,
Wichita, Kansas, 1913, pp. 273–280.
[66] Raht, Carl, The Romance of Davis Mountains, El Paso, 1919, pp.
331–334.
[67] In Hunter’s Frontier Magazine, October, 1916, I, 6, 177–179.
Further testimony to the existence of “the Sublett Mine,” given by an
old buffalo hunter and prospector named Dixon, is printed in Frontier
Times, March, 1924, Vol. I, No. 6, pp. 1–3. Dixon heard of the mine in
1879 from his sweetheart, daughter of a Mescalero Apache chief.
[68] Bolton, H. E., Athanase de Mézières, II, 33–34; see also p. 47;
also, Vol. I, p. 104.
[69] Shipman, Daniel, Frontier Life: 58 Years in Texas, 1879, pp.
23–26.
[70] Edward, David B., History of Texas, Cincinnati, 1836, pp. 44–45.
[71] See Bolton, H. E., Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century, pp.
89–90, for an account of the Parrilla Expedition.
[72] Ibid., 129, 414. See also Bolton’s De Mézières, II, 187–238.
[73] After having written the above, I was informed by Mr. Joseph B.
Thoburn, secretary of the Oklahoma Historical Society, that he had
received a letter from Dr. Bolton identifying “Old Spanish Fort” with
the fortification attacked by Parrilla.
[74] See page 99.
[75] See Roberts, Capt. Dan W., Rangers and Sovereignty, San Antonio,
1914, pp. 185–186.
[76] Bolton, H. E., Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century, pp. 114,
391; Cf., also, pp. 90, 414.
[77] According to Charles M. Skinner, Myths and Legends of Our Own
Land, Vol. II, pp. 279–280, the Hessian troops, after the surrender of
Burgoyne, packed their plate, pay, and jewels into a howitzer and
buried it somewhere near Dalton, Massachusetts.
[78] I have never heard the details of the legend, though I have heard
of it from several sources. Mr. E. G. Littlejohn sends in a legend
clipped from the Galveston News of 1909, in which a Spanish prince,
besieged by Indians about the year of 1700, cast a great quantity of
“gold, silver, and jewels” into Brand Rock Water Hole, of Peña Creek in
Dimmit County.
[79] Wooten’s Comprehensive History of Texas, Vol. I, p. 292; Brown,
John Henry, History of Texas, Vol. II, pp. 46, 66, 67.
[80] In 1816, Luis de Aury, well known in Texas history as a slave
smuggler and privateer, was, by the incipient republic of Mexico, made
civil and military governor of the province of Texas. He stationed
himself on Galveston Island and among other acts made an alliance with
the romantic Colonel Perry. See Bancroft, H. H., History of the North
Mexican States and Texas, Vol. II, 34–39. Dyer, J. O., The Early
History of Galveston, Galveston, Texas, 1916, pp. 4–9, has a rather
detailed account of Aury.—Editor.
[81] The Republic of Fredonia was announced December 16, 1826.—Editor.
[82] Manuel Flores, Mexico-Indian agent, with a party of twenty-five
men, was met by Lieutenant James O. Rice, with seventeen men, near
Austin, May 14, 1839, and Flores was killed. Burleson shortly afterward
met and defeated Vicente Cordova, Flores’ aid. See Yoakum, History of
Texas, Vol. II, 257–261.—Editor.
[83] According to his own statement, Mr. J. O. Webb of Alvin, Texas,
who is writing a history of Galveston, has never met the name of
Steinheimer in his researches.—Editor.
[84] For a history of his first expedition, see any Texas history, but
particularly “The Last Stage of Texan Military Operations Against
Mexico, 1843,” by William Campbell Binkley, in the Southwestern
Historical Quarterly, Vol. XXII, pp. 260–271. Perhaps a juster estimate
of the motives of Snively is to be found in J. W. Wilbarger’s Indian
Depredations in Texas, Austin, 1889, pp. 51–58.
An excellent account of the highly romantic second expedition is
“Reminiscences of the Schnively Expedition of 1867,” by A. Whitehurst,
Texas State Historical Association Quarterly, Vol. VIII, pp. 267–271.
[85] Smithwick, Noah, The Evolution of a State, p. 267.
[86] Brown, John Henry, History of Texas from 1685 to 1892, St. Louis,
Vol. II, p. 291.
[87] Bolton, H. E., Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century, pp.
140–141.
[88] Ibid., 260–261.
[89] Ibid., 138, 227.
[90] Ibid., 268–269.
[91] Ibid., 275–276.
[92] The legend may be compared with that of La Vaca de Lumbre (the
Fiery Cow) of the City of Mexico, fabled to come forth at midnight from
the Potrero de San Pablo and gallop through the streets like a blazing
whirlwind, breathing from her nostrils smoke and fire. Janvier connects
the story of La Vaca de Lumbre with that of the goblin, El Belludo de
Grenada, “who comes forth at midnight from the Siete Suelos Tower of
the Alhambra and scours the streets pursued by hell-hounds.” See
Janvier, Thomas A., Legends of the City of Mexico, “La Vaca de Lumbre,”
Harper Brothers, New York, 1910.—Editor.
[93] Skinner tells a tale of two young men who were digging for a
treasure chest supposed to have been lost by a Spanish galleon at New
London, Connecticut, in 1753. “They had dug down to water-level when
they reached an iron chest, and they stooped to lift it—but, to their
amazement, the iron was too hot to handle! Now they heard deep growls,
and a giant dog peered at them from the pit-mouth.”—Chas. M. Skinner,
Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, II, 282–283.
See also Pete Staples’ story of the ghost-dog as a guardian of
treasure, page 54.—Editor.
[94] For a brief account of “Moro’s Gold,” see Rose, Victor M., Some
Historical Facts in Regard to the Settlement of Victoria, Texas, Laredo
[1883?], pp. 36–37.—Editor.
[95] Reprinted from The Coming Empire or Two Thousand Miles in Texas on
Horseback, by H. F. McDanield and N. A. Taylor, A. S. Barnes and
Company, New York, 1877, pp. 49–73.
[96] Benavides, Alonso de: The Memorial of Fray Alonso de Benavides,
1630, translated by Mrs. Edward A. Ayer; annotated by F. W. Hodge and
Charles F. Lummis, R. R. Donnelley and Sons, Chicago, 1916, pp. 58–59.
[97] Casis, Lilia M.: “Letter of Fray Damian Manzanet to Don Carlos de
Sigüenza Relative to the Discovery of the Bay of Espíritu Santo,” Texas
State Historical Association Quarterly, II, pp. 282–283.
[98] Casis, ibid., pp. 311–312.
[99] A copy at St. John’s College, Fordham, New York.
[100] “Carta en que se da noticia de un viaje hecho a la bahía de
Espíritu Santo, y de la población que tenian ahi los franceses.” In
Buckingham Smith, Documentos para la historia de la Florida.
[101] Shea, John Gilmary: The Catholic Church in Colonial Days, New
York, 1886, p. 197. Vol. I of A History of the Catholic Church Within
the United States, 4 vols.
[102] Bolton, H. E., Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XVI, No. 1,
July, 1912, pp. 8–9.
[103] Chapman, Charles E., The Founding of Spanish California, The
Macmillan Company, New York, 1916, p. 333, footnote.
[104] Hodge also recounts the legend in his “Bibliography of Fray
Alonso de Benavides,” Indian Notes and Monographs, Vol. III, No. 1, pp.
11–13.
[In addition to the references given by Mr. Heimsath, the following may
be added. The story is told in the History of San Antonio and Early
Days in Texas, compiled by Robert Sturmberg, and published by St.
Joseph’s Society, San Antonio, 1920, Chapter IV. The legend is
discussed in “Ven. Maria Jesus de Agreda: A Correction,” by Edmond J.
P. Schmitt, Texas State Historical Association Quarterly, Vol. I,
121–124; also in a note by M. M. Kenney, ibid., I, 226–227.—Editor.]
[105] Yoakum, History of Texas, I, 184.
[106] Lubbock, Francis Richard, Six Decades in Texas (edited by
Raines), Austin, 1900, p. 32.
[107] British Diplomatic Correspondence Concerning the Republic of
Texas, edited by Ephraim Douglass Adams, Austin, “Crawford to
Pakenham,” p. 13.
[108] Hudgins, Charles D., The Maid of San Jacinto, New York, 1900, pp.
12–13, footnotes.
[109] An old corruption of bore.—Editor.
[110] Cf. Southey’s “The Inchcape Rock.”—Editor.
[111] An adequate treatment, in a brief space, of the marriage customs
of the Plains Indians is to be found in Chapter II of North American
Indians of the Plains, by Clark Wissler, published by the American
Museum of Natural History. The volume includes a good bibliography of
works on Indian life.
[112] Author of Die Tochter Tehuans.—Editor.
[113] Originally there were two Spanish sites in the Menardville
vicinity, both founded in 1757: the presidio, San Luis de Las
Amarillas, on the north bank of the San Saba River, and the mission,
San Sabá, three miles south. In 1758 the Comanches destroyed the
mission; then the presidio was strengthened and maintained until 1769.
The remains of it are yet to be seen at Menard. The mission was
established for the benefit of the Apaches; their hereditary enemies,
the Comanches, from the north, regarded the Spanish policy of trying to
Christianize the Apaches as an act of war. In the middle of the
eighteenth century, it is hardly necessary to say, the Comanches and
Apaches were not yet “remnants.” The Cheyennes and Arapahoes never got
as far south as the San Saba. The whole story of the San Saba
settlement is to be found in two monographs by William Edward Dunn:
“Missionary Activities among the Eastern Apaches Previous to the
Founding of the San Sabá Mission,” Texas State Historical Association
Quarterly, XV, 186–200; and “The Apache Mission on the San Sabá River;
its Founding and its Failure,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XVI,
379–414. Dr. Bolton in his Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century, pp.
78–101, gives a succinct account of “The Apache Missions and the War
with the Northern Tribes.”—Editor.
[114] Through the courtesy of Miss Nell Andrew, librarian of Texas
Christian University, I have seen a poem by A. Clark, Jr., that relates
a similar tale. A phantom lover on the Rio Grande diurnally meets his
love. The poem is called “Legend of the Great River” and was published
in Add-Rann (T. C. U.), Vol. IV, No. 8, 1898.—Editor.
[115] This legend is reprinted from a small pamphlet called Santa Anna
Beautiful, published by Clay P. Morgan, Santa Anna, Texas, 1907. It is
the only signed article in the pamphlet, which was designed for
commercial purposes.
[116] Morphis, J. M., History of Texas, New York, 1874, pp. 510–513.
[117] Theodosia Burr Allston, daughter of Aaron Burr and wife of Joseph
Allston, Governor of South Carolina, 1812–1814, set sail from
Charleston in December of 1813 on the Patriot bound for New York. The
vessel was never heard of again, and it is supposed to have been
wrecked off the coast of Hatteras. “Some forty years afterward,
however,” according to Lamb’s Biographical Dictionary of the United
States, Vol. I, pp. 76–77, “a romantic story found credence and went
the rounds of the press, to the effect that a dying sailor in Detroit
had confessed that he had been one of a crew of mutineers who, in
January, 1813, took possession of the ‘Patriot’ ... and compelled the
crew and passengers to walk the plank.” The New International
Encyclopedia says that “a tradition of uncertain origin” has the
Patriot to have been taken by pirates.—Editor.
[118] Reprinted from The American Sketch Book (Texas Pioneer Magazine),
Vol. I (Vol. IV), 1879, p. 146; “republished by request” in Vol. II
(Vol. V), 1880, pp. 91–92.
[119] Wright, Mrs. S. J., San Antonio de Béxar, Austin, 1916, pp.
121–122.
[120] De Zavala, Adina, History and Legends of the Alamo and Other
Missions, page 150.
[121] Note the striking resemblance in plot to Lanier’s ballad “The
Revenge of Hamish.”—Editor.
[122] In a note to “The Aguayo Expedition into Texas and Louisiana,
1719–1722,” Texas State Historical Association Quarterly, Vol. XV, p.
39.
[123] Thrall, H. S., A History of Texas, New York, 1876, p. 37.
[124] Captain Rafael Martínez Pacheco, 1763, escaped unseen and
unscorched from the presidio in which he was besieged. According to
Mrs. Mattie Austin Hatcher, Archivist in History at the University of
Texas, the legend is to be pieced out from the Bexar archives. For some
facts of the case, see Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century,
pp. 111–112.
[125] For a copy of the song, I am indebted to Mrs. V. M. Taylor of
Angleton.
[126] “The Arms of God” by Claude M. Girardeau of Galveston, in The
Texas Magazine, Houston, May, 1897, II, 431–434. About this time Mrs.
Davis’ books seem to have been popular with readers of The Texas
Magazine, two reviews of her work having appeared in it during the
preceding twelve months.
[127] Davis (Mrs.), M. E. M., Under the Man-Fig, Houghton, Mifflin and
Co., Boston, 1895, pp. 1–3. Reprinted by permission.
[128] Aimard, Gustave, The Freebooters, A Story of the Texan War,
Chapter XXIII, Philadelphia [date not given]. The novel came out in
France around 1858 or 1860.
[129] Kennedy, William, Esq., Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects
of the Republic of Texas, R. Hastings, London, 1841, Vol. I, pp.
167–168.
[130] Thrall, H. S., A History of Texas, p. 37. Thrall goes on to say
that “in old maps the San Antonio is marked as the Medina and the
Guadalupe as the San Marcos.” For additional evidence as to the
confusion of the Brazos and the Colorado in nomenclature, Mr.
Littlejohn cites Bolton’s Spanish Explorations in the Southwest, pp.
376, 413.
[131] A History of Texas, p. 37.
[132] George Wilkins Kendall gave this account in his Narrative of the
Texan Santa Fe Expedition, New York, 1844, pp. 89–90. Prior to this
Kendall had written some sketches for the New Orleans Picayune, one of
which was about the Pacing White Stallion. It was this account that he
incorporated in the book. Doubtless many of the later written accounts
are based upon Kendall’s.
[133] The reason some of the mustangs were alone was due to the fact
that the stallion leader had driven the younger and weaker horses from
the herd. Since these horses were young, they would naturally often
have good form. The color is hard to account for. Many of the mustangs
were vari-colored, but it is doubtful if there was ever a solid white
horse.
[134] The poem appeared in The Democratic Review, XII, 367f.,
accompanied by a condensation of Kendall’s story taken from the
Picayune.
[135] Destined to be preserved for generations yet in his offspring in
Emerson Hough’s North of 36. Zane Grey has also introduced him into
fiction, in The Last of the Plainsmen.—Editor.
[136] Spence, Lewis, Myths and Legends, Vol. VII (“Mexico and Peru”),
p. 123.
[137] It should be remembered that some of the ancient peoples grouped
with the Cliff Dwellers inhabited natural caves. See Goddard, Pliny
Earle, Indians of the Southwest, Handbook Series No. 2, American Museum
of Natural History, p. 38.
[138] History has disproved this once common tale of the Lively’s never
having been heard of. See Garrison, George P., Texas (American
Commonwealths), pp. 144–145.—Editor.
[139] Says Carl Raht in his The Romance of Davis Mountains, El Paso,
Texas, 1919, p. 25: “According to these authorities [“Bandelier and
other writers who have examined the records of the early Spanish
explorers”]—and present-day research has failed to refute their
statements—the buffalo never frequented the Rio Grande in the Big Bend
region.” “I never saw a buffalo west of the Pecos”: quoted from an old
buffalo hunter in Frontier Times, March, 1924, p. 1.
[140] Stevens, Walter B., Through Texas, St. Louis, 1892, pp. 28–29.
[141] Although not a legend, this letter illustrates the popular
speculation and tradition concerning La Salle—his followers, his fort,
his death, even his treasure—that once flourished, first among the
Spanish and then among the Anglo-Saxon Texans, but that now seem to be
subsiding. As many places as claimed “Homer dead” have claimed the last
resting place of La Salle. One informant writes that some Henderson
County folk imagine that La Salle’s grave is on the west bank of the
Neches in their precincts and that they have made recent excavations in
search of treasure supposed to lie in the grave. De León made more than
one expedition in search of the French; he did find an old man who had
been with La Salle. See A School History of Texas, by Barker, Potts and
Ramsdell, Chapter II.—Editor.
[142] Rose, Victor M., Some Historical Facts in Regard to the
Settlement of Victoria, Texas, Laredo [1883?], pp. 71–72.
[143] Marryat, Captain, Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of
Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Texas, Leipzig,
1843, p. 278.