Fun reading Texas history books

[Wes/Tex]

I quoted some from pal Charlie Eckhardt's book in the section about knives. Would like our group to know of several of his works. Charlie has a dry sense of humor and is a first rate story teller. I joke that he never lets truth stand in the way of a good story, but in fact, he is a meticulous researcher who has a natural ability to present his stories in an entertaining style. For those folks who would like to learn some Texas history the fun way, I recommend:

"The Lost San Saba Mine", 1982 by the Texas Monthly Press. Basically a look at the mine that somehow got Bowie's name attached to it along the way through history. Charlie is first to note that Bowie had nothing to do with it, it's not in San Saba and it's never been lost. he also noted on the jacket cover that, "'The Lost San Saba Mine' is not intended to be a scholarly treatment of the history of the mine, and anyone who tries to treat it as such will be shot with a large caliber musket."

"Texas Tales Your Teacher Never Told You",1992 by Wordware Publsihing Inc. Humorous retelling of Texas tales from the first English speaking Texan o the oil boom of the 1930's. All the good stuff from 'The Ghost of Bailey's Prairie' to "Who Was Three-legged Willie?' to 'Jim Bowie's Elusive Knife'.

"Tales of Bad Men, Bad Women and Bad Places: Four Centuries of Texas Outlawry", 1999 by Texas Tech University Press. Pretty much what it sounds like, with things like 'Texas's First Claim Jumper', 'How Elgin Got It's Name', 'The Devil's Disciple of Waco' and 'When Santa Claus Robbed the Bank'...including the riotous tale 'The Peculiar Incident of the Public Arch', which sounds like a Sherlock Holmes story but isn't even close!

"Texas Smoke", 2001 by Texas Tech University Press. Basically, an interesting retelling of the history of firearms in Texas from the time of the first Spaniards until the start of the Civil War...yes, it was hard to get a 'gun book' published in this day and age and I won't push this book since it was my great privilege to illustrate it for Charlie.

If you want to read an entertaining history of Texas try some of Charlie's epistles!

 

[satx78247]

Wes/Tex,

FYI,

I just ordered a "perfectly acceptable" copy of TEXAS TALES YOUR TEACHER NEVER TOLD YOU for ONE CENT + 3.99 S&H from Amazon.
AND
a copy of TEXAS SMOKE, too.
(When/IF I see you in person, you will autograph my copy????)

yours, satx

 

[satx78247]

Wes/Tex,

FYI, I also found a copy of BAD MEN, BAD WOMEN & BAD PLACES, too & ordered same.

Speaking of "bad men, bad women, bad places", etc. - I read an undated letter written from Galveston from "before the Flood" by a man named JOBIAS TUCK, who said (I have corrected NONE of his spelling or grammar errors.),

"I waz one recent evenin out and about in the Strets of The City and must be truth-full that I waz in my cups when I fell doun and cutted my own person with my Bowie knife right in my nether regions. - It bled something terible."
(Having been in that "overly intoxicated state" at times, I understand how that "unpleasant incident" could have happened.= CHUCKLE.)

yours, satx

 

[Wes/Tex]

Nothing like a cut to the "nether regions" to get your attention, especially during a hurricane! You'll find the "Public Arch" story similar but was the result of two madams fighting it out over a "working" girl!! :rotf:
Might also add I'm descended form such gullible Iowa farmers that they believed the hucksters who went through that state showing photos of beef sides hanging on the north rafter ends and telling folks the sea air in south Texas was so salty it'd preserve beef. So my clan sold the farm, loaded it all on the train and went to Texas...just in time for the 1900 hurricane! The whole gang, except my grandfather and one brother, loaded it all back up and choo-chooed back to Iowa! Don't it just make you proud??!! :haha:

 

[satx78247]

Wes/Tex,

RotflmRao.=====> If nothing else, we know who the smarter people in your family tree were.

Btw, a letter (in possession of an older cousin in Jefferson ,TX) was from my G-G-Great Aunt Molly (in MS) to her elder sister (in northern AL) & reads in part:

Dearest Emily,

Uncle Willy and Aunt Martha are leaving Pickins County for Red River County, Texas tomorrow. - You should pray for them.


yours, satx

 

[tenngun]

Fun stories taken from the settlers of your state are just great reading. We are blessed in the ozarks to have had several writers from the 1930s on collect some good old stories. Of corse the foxfire books also come to mind. There is something fine however about walking in the place te story was told.
Just finnished "Sons of the Profits" about the founding of seatle,very fun read.
Texas stories are to tall to ignore,So much fun,mostly true and infact so much fun you don't care if they are true or not.

 

[satx78247]

tenngun,

TWO old sayings (that are commonplace here) come to mind, when reading your comment:

1. "If it ain't true, it oughta be."
and
2. "Every story has an element of truth."

yours, satx

 

[Wes/Tex]

Dearest Emily,

Uncle Willy and Aunt Martha are leaving Pickins County for Red River County, Texas tomorrow. - You should pray for them.

The term "Gone To Texas" meant something a lot more serious back in the good old days! :thumbsup:

 

[satx78247]

Wes/Tex,

YEP. = People from "back East" used to believe that people who headed West to Texas were moving to "the far side of the Moon".

Texas was a place to "start again" and to "escape one's unfortunate past". - That's what makes doing TX family genealogy so frustrating. = You get to 1830, 1865, 1873, 1898 or ???? and there is just NOTHING.
(Even in my mother's girlhood, in the early 1920s, "a sure and certain way" to start a fistfight was to ask a man, "What was your name in The States?")

Both sides of my family came to Texas to avoid "unfortunate circumstances".:
1. My father's side of the family came to Texas in 1818 as part of "The Long Walk" from north GA & southern TN to escape the fury of the Georgia Pony Clubs and the US Army and therefore missed being on The Trail of Tears.
(Btw, our people call that obscenity in Tsalagiyi, "Place Where We Cried".)
and
2. My mother's side of he family escaped Alabama & Mississippi in late 1865 to escape the DAMNEDyankees, who planned a "necktie party" for at least 4 members of our family.
(Confederate Partisan Rangers weren't real popular after The Late Unpleasantness.)

yours, satx

 

[Wes/Tex]

No kidding! The overall treatment of the Native population is something America should hang it's head about for a long time.

As for "Gone To Texas", I always tell folks that it, 'was usually between suns and one step ahead of the bailiff or sheriff'!

 

[Cowboy2]

For anyone who is interested, T.R. Fehrenbach's Lone Star is simply one of the greatest history books you'll ever read. It reads like a really great novel, and is still the standard by which all other Texas histories are measured. Brand's Lone Star Nation is pretty good, too.

 

[satx78247]

Cowboy2,

TRUE. = Fyi, I paid exactly ONE DOLLAR for a pristine copy of LONE STAR at a local book shop here in The Alamo City just last weekend.

I do not have LONE STAR NATION, but will look for a copy.

yours, satx

 

[satx78247]

Wes/Tex,

My fathers family "got out while the getting was good" of GA in 1818, as one of about 800 families of Tsalagis that "escaped to Texas".
(The "walkers" took everything that they could "pile onto" an ox-cart & their herds & flocks with them. - It took a YEAR & 4 MONTHS to walk to Nacogdoches from northern Georgia, as they had to stop frequently to allow the stock to graze & swine walk really slowly.)

Btw, the "motto" of the GA Pony Clubs was: "NO dog, No Hog, NO Injun in Georgia" and they enforced their prejudices with the gun, knife, rope and torch.
As my late father used to say: "Leaving Georgia was NOT a BRAVE thing; it was a SMART thing."

In 2013, about 500 Tsalagi families still own & farm the land in Northeast Texas that was "granted to" their forefathers by the Royal Governor of New Spain. - Our Tribal Office is at Troup in Smith County.
(We are so "dug into" Texas society & "intermarried with" other Texans now that even most other locals don't realize that the "neighbors down the lane" are NA.)

yours, satx

 

[Cowboy2]

satx78247,

LSN is the history up to statehood and if memory serves, that period on to the Civil War in epilogue. The most interesting part of it, for me at least, is his long form theory that Houston and Jackson were in cahoots to start a revolution, and the Runaway Scrape was a more or less preplanned maneuver to get Mexico into the Neutral Ground to justify the US Army getting involved. His troops just refused to go past San Jacinto.
Personally, while intrigued, I'm not entirely convinced. Its based on a lot of interesting facts, but they are tied together with far too much conjecture and supposition to be anything close to conclusive. Also, while grand conspiracies are fun to think about, the truth is, governments are made of people, and most people, even really smart ones, are far too incompetent to make such things work. Simply too many moving parts and personal failings to keep the thing running.

John Meyer Meyers' The Alamo is also fantastic. Its even great on audiobook, which is always hit and miss. LSN is good on audio, too. They are my go-to books for long drives.

 

[satx78247]

Cowboy2,

THANKS for the info. - I haven't started LONE STAR yet, as I'm currently reading 2 other books.

Sounds like LSN is another "conspiracy tome".

yours, satx

 

[Cowboy2]

Most of its just straight up history, and very well done history at that. The speculative section is set off by itself, and since Brands has made a career out of writing about Jackson, he knows the subject quite well. I think the Jackson/Houston angle has a lot to recommend it: Houston was his longtime protege and confidant, Gaines' actions in moving troops to the border of the Neutral Ground at the start of hostilities (and apparently looking the other way as no few number of his men crossed over into Texas to fight), and that Houston went well out of his way to visit the Hermitage before jumping off.
Personally, I'm more than half inclined to think there is some "there" there, though probably not some itemized grand scheme. It was the great age of fillibustering, after all. But there just isn't enough direct evidence to say that's actually what happened, and in all fairness, Brands presents it that way. Its more a matter of the author saying "hey, I've spent my entire adult life researching these guys, and know their character and habits perhaps better than any man alive, and if I had to lay money on the matter, this is what I think they were really up to....but unless some new letters or documents turn up, we'll never be able to prove it."

Still, circumstantially, he makes a pretty solid case. If I had to take a guess, they had a rough plan in mind, and things in Texas just blew up before schedule, and everything after that was reactive and from the hip, working within the political realities as they existed at that particular moment. Which I guess is what I was saying about grand conspiracies- I never put much faith in some grand plan falling into place like piece sets. Unforeseen events and personal screw ups have too much of a say in how the world turns for anyone to succeed at some seven-dimension chess game.