SONS OF DEWITT COLONY TEXAS Biographies of DeWitt Colony families (surnames beginning A-G) for which there is evidence they were residents or landholders in Gonzales Town or spent significant amounts of time in the town in public service or commerce. Biographies of other DeWitt Colonists may be found at 1828 Residents, The Battle of Gonzales-Old 18, Gonzales Alamo Relief Force, Land Grantees & Residents and Citizens-Free State of Lavaca. For More Biographies, Search Handbook of Texas Online BAKER. Moses, Isaac, Rachel, John, Margaret. BEDFORD. Jose (Joseph) Ramon Bedford received a quarter sitio of land arriving 20 Sep 1830 on Geronimo Creek west of current Seguin in GuadalupeCo. He was a translator for land commissioner Jose Antonio Navarro, secretary of the Gonzales Ayuntamiento of 1833 and probably a Spanish teacher for the newly arrived English-speaking naturalized citizens of Mexico. He apparently died in 1833 since the Ayuntamiento replaced him with John Francis Buetti at their meeting of 28 May 1833. His name and signature appears on DeWitt Colony documents of the period. BELLINGER. Carnot Bellinger of Luling, Texas. Edmund Bellinger, the father of Carnot Bellinger, of Luling, was born in Beaufort, S. C., March 4, 1802, received a classical education and completed a full collegiate course of study at Columbia College, South Carolina. He was prevented from graduating, but received a certificate of high standing in all his classes by the faculty. In 1826 he married Miss Ann Le Gare Roach, a native of Charleston, S. C., a daughter of William Roach, of Bristol, England. Through her mother she was a descendant of the "Huguenots " through the Le Gare family, and through her grandfather her family reaches back to the McGregor clan, in Scotland, to the year 700 A. D. Hugh Swinton Le Gare, her first cousin, was Attorney General of the United States. By marriage she was connected with William Gilmore Simms. Mr. Bellinger was directly descended from the "Landgraves" of South Carolina, a title hereditary conferred by one of the Georges of England on Edmund Bellinger of Westmorland County, England, who married Elizabeth Cartwright, and emigrated to America about the year 1688, at which time he was created first Landgrave. His son Edmund was second Landgrave. He married Elizabeth Butler; their son Edmund became third Landgrave. He in turn married Mary Lucia Bull; their son Edmund was fourth Landgrave. William Bellinger, the youngest brother of the fourth Landgrave, was the father of this Edmund Bellinger, who, with his wife, soon after his marriage, moved to Illinois. He remained there six years, and came to Texas in 1839, and assisted in the early development of this country, then "The Republic of Texas." He took part in the Indian troubles, and participated in the battle of Plum Creek and others. The hardest of these struggles fell upon his wife, a woman reared amongst all the luxury and refinement of the most aristocratic society of Charleston, S. C. It is a wonder she passed through those perilous times and lived to enter and almost complete her four-score years. A few of her perils will give an idea of the life she endured in those days. One night she was left alone in her little cabin, with her babe and two small children. Mr. Bellinger had gone as an express on horseback to warn some settlers, fifty miles distant, of their danger from an invading party of Indians, estimated to consist of 500 warriors. He was to collect what men and boys be could to pursue the enemy. At midnight came a gentle tapping on the door, with these words: "Mrs. Bellinger, get up very quietly; we are in great danger. Don't speak or strike a light. Fifty Indian warriors are within 100 yards of this house." To use her own words, she came out in a few moments "more dead than alive," with her baby wrapped in her cloak, the two small children in their night clothes. They made their way, with the neighbor who came to warn them, to a house where all the women and children were assembled, under the protection of four men who were left to guard them. Every other man and boy who was able to handle a gun had gone in pursuit of the Indians under Captain Caldwell (better known in Texas history as Old Paint). The names of those four men who stood guard that night will always be remembered by the descendants of those women who sat up all night to hush and keep their babies quiet---Pleasant Barnet, Adam Zumwalt, Ezekiel Williams and John Patrick. That terrible night of suspense passed with no further alarm. The next day it was considered safe for all to go to their homes. That night Mrs. Bellinger was again aroused with the whispered words: "The Indians are burning and killing as they go; come quick, we are going to the woods (or river bottom) for safety." The news of the burning and massacre at Linnville reached town that night. Whilst they were crouched in the thicket, the mothers keeping watch over their little children, the wellknown voice of Capt. (afterwards General) Ben McCollough, was heard, hallooing at the house he was accustomed to stop at, as saying, "All is well; come, get us something to eat." All emerged from their hiding places. The balance of the night was employed by the women in baking corn bread and molding bullets, the men in getting their saddles, bridles and guns in order for the next day's battle with the Comanches, which took place at Plum Creek, near where the town of Lockhart now stands. Edmund Bellinger owned a ranch in Gonzales County, paid much attention to raising horses and cattle, for many years was County Judge, and was a man of established reputation. During the Civil War he was a Union man and opposed to the war, as were Sam Houston and others. However, three of his sons were in the Confederate service, and one of them gave his life to the cause. While residing near Springfield, Ill., he came to know and admire Abraham Lincoln, and at a time when it was almost treason to speak his name in kindness Mr. Bellinger had the courage to express his admiration for that great man. Mr. Edmund Bellinger died in Luling in 1878, at the residence of his son, our subject. His wife died in San Antonio in 1885. Carnot Bellinger was born in Gonzales, Texas, June 23, 1850, the youngest of ten children born to the above mentioned couple. He was reared in that town. The war coming on interrupted his education to some extent. This he has greatly remedied by reading and contact with the world. When eighteen years of age -he entered a drug store, and after clerking for a number of years became a thorough pharmacist. He opened a drug store in Prairie Lea in 1869. In 1874 he removed to Luling, was appointed its first Postmaster and held the office for twelve vears. In 1889 be associated himself with the Luling Lumber Company. Later he purchased a dairy farm, and has now a herd of fifty Jersey cows. About the same time he bought a controlling interest in the Luling Water Works, which he still holds. In 1894 he engaged in the grocery business with Mr. W. G. Weaver, under the firm name of Bellinger & Weaver, and is doing a good business. He is a Democrat, and a member of the K. of P. In the year 1878 he married Miss Mary E. Keith, at Beaumont, Texas, daughter of Cortez and Sarah (Le Port) Keith, residents of eastern Texas. Six children have blessed their union: William, Franklin, Bessie, May, Addie and Marguerite. Goodspeed Brothers (Publishers). Memorial and Genealogical Record of Southwest Texas. Goodspeed Brothers Publishers, Chicago, IL, 1894. BRANCH. Umphries Branch. Rebecca Sowell. BROWN. According to author Judge Paul Boethel of Lavaca County, Barney (Bernard) Brown settled just across the Lavaca River from Mrs. Margaret Hallett in current Hallettsville just after she had moved to her land in the area from Goliad after the death of her husband there in Oct 1836. Author John Henry Brown also referred to him as an early settler of the Lavaca River valley. His residence was 300 yards from that of James Brown. He was on the Lavaca County tax rolls of 1846. Brown was among the first registered voters of Lavaca County formed in 1846. Brown was a devout Catholic who donated 44.5 acres of land to Bishop Odin on 22 Nov 1844 for a parish church and cemetery at St. Marys in memory of their old parish in Missouri of the same name. The same day he donated 305.5 acres to parish priest Clark who turned the property over to the diocese. Bernard Brown was deeded lots 1 and 2 in block 9 of the inner Gonzales town in 1833 and his wife Nancy Ann Riney Brown was deeded lots 3 and 4 in block 11. It is unclear if the family ever lived in Gonzales town. According to descendants, the couple had four sons, Anthony, James, Thomas B. and Bernard Jr., and a daughter Mary Ann (m. Holster). Both James and Anthony Brown were members of Capt. Adam Zumwalt's Lavaca River minuteman and joined in the pursuit of the Comanches at Linnville and possibly Plum Creek as well as participated in the Battle of Salado. BROWN. Dr. Caleb S. Brown was born 5 Feb 1805 in KY and died in Gonzales in 1855. He was the son of Caleb Brown (1759-1837) and Jemima Stevenson (1761-1807) who had at least ten children. He was married first to Ann C. Coleman in 1833 in MS and later to Martha Ann (Darden) Walker in 1849 in Gonzales (b. abt 1810 in MS, daughter of Washington Darden and Anne Sharkey). Brown was the younger brother of Captain Henry Stevenson Brown and John "Waco" Brown who first came to Texas about 1824. Caleb Brown probably came to Texas sometime between 1835 and 1840. He was a business partner with Charles Braches in 1840, the two are thought to have met in MS. He is among the list of participants in the Battle of Plum Creek in 1840 and served as a surgeon there and at the Battle of Salado in 1841 where he was sent to the field of the Dawson Massacre to look for wounded survivors. He is listed as a resident of Gonzales in the 1850 census. Records show that C. S. Brown served as a councilman and as mayor of Gonzales in 1841. He is mentioned in his nephew, John Duff Brown's, (son of John "Waco" Brown) memoirs published in the Texas Quarterly in 1909. In 1846, John Duff Brown returned to Texas and went into partnership as a doctor with his uncle Caleb in Gonzales. Caleb Brown was appointed the administrator of Stephen Smith's estate and guardian of his minor daughters, Elleanor and Caroline. After Smith died, his widow, Temperance, married James Blair Patrick. Dr. Caleb Brown became guardian of the two orphaned children, Margaret and George W. Jackson, of Alamo defender Thomas Jackson. Later, Dr. Caleb Brown's first cousin once removed, James S. Brown, became their guardian. Sometime before 1845, James S. Brown and Margaret Jackson were married. A photo of another Caleb S. Brown (b. 1845), who was the son of James S. and Margaret Brown and a grandson of Alamo hero Thomas Jackson, is displayed in the Gonzales Historical Museum. James S. Brown was the son of Edward and Anastasia Worland Brown, Edward Brown (1792-1846; died in GonzalesCo, TX) was the son of Joshua and Honor Durbin Brown. Joshua Brown was an older brother of Caleb Brown (1759-1837), the father of Henry S. Brown, John (Waco) Brown and Dr. Caleb S. Brown, who came to Texas. Caleb S. Brown's widow, Martha Brown, appears in the 1860 and 1870 census' of GonzalesCo and in the census of 1880 is listed with the household of son-in-law Thomas Jefferson Ponton (1847-1889). Caleb and Martha Brown had a daughter, Martha Kentucky Brown, born 28 Dec 1849. Martha K. Brown married Thomas J. Ponton in 1872, Thomas Ponton was the son of Andrew Ponton and Marie Berry. They had 7 children among which were Barry D., Coloma (m. Lewis) and Brownie. From information provided by Sherri Brown, descendant of John "Waco" Brown and son John Duff Brown, and The Brown Book by Elmer Collier (Feb. 1980). The GonzalesCo census of 1850 (verbatim from Gonzales County History) lists the following Browns in two households on the same page 655 and date of enumeration (Nov. 5) from the Peach Creek district: 53-53, Brown, C.S., 45, m, Physician, $38,000, Ky., 655, Nov. 5; Brown, Martha A., 40, f, Miss., 655, Nov. 5; Walker, Martha A., 5/12, f, Texas, 655, Nov. 5; Waker, Amanda A., 15, f, Texas, 655, Nov. 5; Waker, Caylona A., 12, f, Texas, 655, Nov. 5; Waker, Augustina, 9, Texas, 655, Nov. 5; Wright, T., 22, m, Texas, 655, Nov. 5; Brown, I.D., 15, m, Ky., 655, Nov. 5; 52-52, Brown, T.L., 33, m, $8,000, Ky., 655, Nov. 5; Brown, Margaret, 23, f, Mo., 655, Nov. 5; Brown, C.S., 5, m, Texas, 655, Nov. 5; Brown, Mary, 3, f, Texas, 655, Nov. 5; Brown, Agnes, 9/12, f, Texas, 655, Nov. 5; Simmons, Solimon, 65, m, Carpenter, S.C., 655, Nov. 5; Jackson, George W., 19, m, Texas, 655, Nov. 5. [The Walker (Waker) children are believed to be Martha Brown's children by her previous marriage. Martha A. Walker may actually be the only child of Caleb and Martha Brown, Martha Kentucky Brown. T.L. Brown in household 52-52 is obviously James S. Brown] BURKET. The complete biography of DeWitt Colonists, David Burket and family, who came to Gonzales with the extended Burket, Kent and Zumwalt families from Missouri in 1829 can be found under David Burket 1798-1845. CALDWELL. Mathew (Old Paint) Caldwell, one of the most active and significant DeWitt Colony militia Captains, was a resident of Gonzales town. Land records indicate that he arrived with a family of 5 on 20 Feb 1831. He received title to a sitio of land on 22 Jun 1831 southwest of current Hallettsville in Lavaca County near the Zumwalt Settlement. In Gonzales he acquired the original James Hinds residence on Water St. across from the Guadalupe River south of the Dickinson and Kimble Hat Factory. Capt. Caldwell's activities are covered in detail under DeWitt Colony Captains, Minutemen and Rangers. CAMPBELL. James Campbell was born in Tennessee circa 1806, the son of Alexander and Isabella Campbell. His brothers and sisters were: Elliott W. (circa 1802); Matilda (circa 1804); Eleanor (1807). James Campbell left Lawrenceburg, Lawrence County, Tennessee circa 1831 for Texas. He served as a first lieutenant in the Texas Rangers under the command of Captain Mathew Caldwell while living in Gonzales in 1839. For war services he was awarded Republic of Texas land grants of 1280 acres of land located in Bell and Coryell Counties, one-third league or 1476 acres in Bastrop County, 1133 acres military land warrant, other land unlocated and another 640 acres unlocated. James was the county judge of Gonzales County in 1839 and was one of the original surveyors of the town of Walnut Springs later to be named Seguin. He was one of the three founders of Seguin and was given three blocks of eighteen lots each within the town. He met an untimely death as recorded in the Texas Sentinel newspaper of Austin, Texas June 27, 1840: "On the 18th inst. James Campbell, of Gonzales, formerly of Tennessee, was killed one mile below San Antonio by Indians. He had twenty-six wounds." The probate was completed in 1871 and the administrators for his estate were Andrew J. Neill, Thomas Jefferson Keese and Thomas J. Pilgrim. However, it was not until twenty years later that the last land distribution located in Liberty County was given to the granddaughter of Eleanor Campbell Keese. Winston Morris The death of James Campbell was described by diarist James Wilson Nichols in Now You Hear My Horn. CHENAULT. Felix Chenault was born in 1803 and educated in Bradstown [Bardstown], Kentucky. He moved to Gallatin, Tennessee where he married Ann Trigg. In 1836 he moved to Mississippi and in 1838 he settled in Gonzales County, Texas which was a wild frontier section. He took part in the wars against the Indians. He was elected Gonzales county clerk in 1846 and held that office continuously until his death in 1872. It was not known when his first wife died. His second wife was Eliza Polk of Gonzales, the daughter of Thomas Polk and Mary Ann Sloan [Thomas Polk served in Capt. Gibson Kuykendall's Company at San Jacinto. The company were part of the rear guard camped near Harrisburg during the battle-WLM]. The children of Felix and Eliza were: Ben, Dora, Letitia, Lucien, James "Timmy", Charles Polk and John Bass Chenault.
The old Chenault home in Gonzales was a large two-story house which stood on the southeast corner of St. Louis and St. Paul Streets across from the Baptist Church for many years. The grandfather Chenault worked in the court house for many years. On weekends he would ride the train as far as Maurin where "Miss Lula", his daughter-in-law, and the grandchildren would meet him in the buggy and take him to their home to visit. He died in 1927 and was buried in the Gonzales City Cemetery. Carey Fleda and Charles P. Chenault (From The History of Gonzales County, Texas. Reprinted by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission) In the 1850 census of GonzalesCo, Town of Gonzales were the family: Chenault, F., 44, m,, Clerk, $5,000, Ky; Chenault, Elizar, 23, f, Ark; Chenault, Alaman, 21, m, Tenn; Chenault, Steven, 18, m, Tenn; Chenault, James, 4, m, Texas; Chenault, John, 2, m, Texas; Chenault, Charles, 1, m, Texas; Law, Dalton, 24, m, Carpenter, Tenn. CLARE. Abram M. Clare, according to the narrative from "The Recollections of Judge Thomas M. Duke" arrived in the Austin Colony at Matagorda as early as 1822:
In 1830, Clare was appointed syndico procurador along with Fielding Porter was comisario of police to serve as representatives of the District of Gonzales in the San Felipe Ayuntamiento, a period before Gonzales Municipality was sufficiently large to have its own ayuntamiento. His signature appears on numerous documents of the Gonzales Municipality of the period. Abram Clare witnessed Green DeWitt's Power of Attorney assigned to James Kerr at Old Station on the La Baca on 14 Jul 1827. He, along with Green DeWitt and Norman Woods, signed the marriage bond of Harriett Cottle and Andrew Tumlinson at Gonzales on 2 Jul 1829. Clare later married Harriett's first cousin, Sally Turner, daughter of DeWitt Colonist Winslow Turner. DARST. Jacob C. Darst. David Sterling Hughes Darst. Emeline Zumwalt. Imogene, John, James D. Darst. DAVIS. Daniel, George Washington, James P., John, Zachariah. DAVIS. According to colony land records, James C. Davis arrived as a single man 28 Mar 1829 and received a quarter sitio land grant on the Lavaca River near the Zumwalt Settlement in current Lavaca County south of Hallettsville and Petersburg. He served as alcalde and treasurer of the Gonzales Ayuntamiento of 1834. He married Eliza DeWitt, oldest daughter of Empresario Green DeWitt. Under his leadership, the Ayuntamiento made numerous ordinances and promoted activities stimulating the economic and commerce activity of the community. His name was commonly on deeds related to purchases of lots within the Gonzales town tract in the period. He was killed by Indians in current Lavaca County in 1834. DAVIS. J.K. Davis arrived in the DeWitt Colony as a single man in 1830 according to land grant records. He received a quarter sitio on the east bank of the Guadalupe River northwest of Gonzales next to grants to Green DeWitt and W.W. Arrington. He was deeded two lots in the inner town and it is unclear if he improved or lived on them. According to Eggleston family records, he helped build their "dog-run" home in the 1840's in Gonzales that is a current historic landmark in Gonzales. Davis was a private in Capt. William H. Patton's company, 2nd Texas Regiment under Col. Sherman in the Battle of San Jacinto. Jesse Kincheloe Davis was born in Kentucky January 11, 1802, the son of Warren Davis and his wife Molly Kincheloe. Both the Davis and Kincheloe families were in Kentucky before the American Revolution when it was a county of Virginia. It was not known when Jesse K. Davis and a number of his relatives left Kentucky but his name appeared on many legal documents in Booneville, Missouri between 1820 and 1830. While in Booneville Jesse joined the Masonic Lodge and was made secretary. It was recorded in his hand in the minutes that he and Warren Davis, who could have been either his brother or his father, resigned the lodge. Later he presented himself for membership with the Masonic Lodge No. 30 in Gonzales, Texas. In 1832 Jesse K. Davis received a Spanish land grant in DeWitt's Colony. He married Eliza Davis May 5, 1835 in Brazoria County, Texas. She was born May 11, 1819 in Alabama, the daughter of Kinchen W. Davis and Frances Pleasants who were married in Wake County, North Carolina July 29, 1815. Kinchen and Frances Davis had a Spanish land grant in Brazoria County in Austin's Colony dated 1828. It was in 1833 an epidemic of cholera killed both Kinchen and Frances Davis. Jesse Kincheloe Davis answered the call to arms and fought for the independence of Texas. While he fought in the Battle of San Jacinto, Eliza, his wife, watched from the vantage point of a tree. She had left their first-born, a son one month old, on the ground with a nurse. There were twelve children in all born to Jesse and Eliza Davis: Thomas Jefferson (February 29, 1836-1850); Kincheloe Kompton (October, 1838-1841); Frances Marie (1840) married Doctor McGahan; Warren (1842); Stephen Tippett (July 13,1844-April 3, 1919) married Sarah Jane Hodges December 26,1867; William (November 1845-1848); Louise Adaline (December, 1847) married Doctor Edward P. Belieu; Pelina (April or June 1849-July, 1849); George Tennelle (March 17, 1851-March 4, 1935 Roswell, New Mexico) married Ado Byron Wildy in 1888; Henry Carroll (August 9, 1853) married Addie Bouldin; John B. (March 1856-1858); Jesse William (1861-1864). Jesse Kincheloe received several allotments of land from the Republic of Texas for services to the Republic. He died at his home December 28, 1869 and was buried in the Gonzales Masonic Cemetery where the State of Texas placed a marker in 1936 in his honor. Eliza Davis died January 11, 1875 and was buried at his side. Naomi Dobson Mangum. (From The History of Gonzales County, Texas. Reprinted by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission). In 1932, Mrs. B. B. Hindman, daughter of Jesse Davis, of Cost, GonzalesCo, Texas wrote L. W. Kemp:
Jesse K. Davis's sister Sarah was married to Austin colonist George Tennille. Widow Sarah and children were one time DeWitt County residents, although it is unclear if George resided there for a signficant period. EDWARD. (From the New Handbook of Texas). David Barnett Edward (1797-1870), early Texas settler, teacher, and writer, was born in November 1797 in Forfarshire, Scotland. He emigrated from Scotland and lived in the West Indies and in Colombia for several years before moving to the United States in 1819. He taught at an academy in Alexandria, Louisiana, and in 1830, with a party of five persons, toured Texas. He subsequently moved his wife, Eliza, and three children to Gonzales, in Green DeWitt's colony, where he served as principal of a local academy, Gonzales Seminary. In 1834 he applied for a copyright for a book entitled Observations on Texas, Embracing the Past, the Present, and the Future, as having been published by the firm of Smith and McCoy in Alexandria, Louisiana. No copies, however, exist, and Texas bibliophile Thomas W. Streeter stated that it was unlikely that the book was ever published. While a citizen of Gonzales, Edward wrote The History of Texas; or, the Emigrant's, Farmer's, and Politician's Guide to the Character, Climate, Soil, and Productions of That Country; Geographically Arranged from Personal Observation and Experience, which was published in Cincinnati in 1836. Although Edward claimed to be objective, he was clearly pro-Mexican and anti-Texan in his reporting and was the subject of heated criticism. Stephen F. Austin branded the book "a slander on the people of Texas." Edward was also excoriated for plagiarizing entire passages from Mary Austin Holley's Texas (1833). He also made liberal use of several other published sources without giving credit to the authors. Edward's book managed to offend almost everyone in Texas. Texas boosters, eager to present their country as a place of limitless opportunity, were aghast when Edward asserted, for instance, "There are no poor people here, if land makes rich; and none rich, if money is wealth." He alienated Houston and other supporters of President Andrew Jackson by proclaiming that the Mexican dictator was "a `Jackson' of a fellow." Material for Edward's bitter condemnation of "shouting and howling" Texas Methodists may have come from experiences at Gonzales Seminary, which was operated by the Methodist Episcopal Church. He not only related scandalous anecdotes about several Methodist ministers, but also printed their names. As a leading spokesman for the Tory position, Edward maintained that American settlers had "by their perverse conduct, forfeited every claim to protection from the civil law; and therefore must either come under military control, or altogether be expelled from the [Mexican] Republic." Edward's suggestion that the martyrs of the Alamo and Goliad had been driven by the "wrong motives" and his praise of "enlightened" Mexican immigration policies was more than most Texans could abide. Even so, Edward provided a valuable service in that he quoted the full texts or significant extracts from Mexican regulations relating to colonization, justice, and trade. Also reprinted are one of the first English translations of the Constitution of 1824, the full text of the proposed Constitution of 1833, and a note reporting the death of Benjamin R. Milam during the siege of Bexar. The book's perspective generated such intense enmity in Texas that Edward found it advisable to take his family permanently out of the fledgling republic during or soon after the Texas Revolution. Thereafter, little is known about his activities. He died in Wheelersburg, Ohio, on March 18, 1870. EGGLESTON. Horace Eggleston came to Texas as a single man and was issued a title for a league of land on 16 Jul 1835 in the Ben Milam Colony on which is thought to be the current town of Blanco in BlancoCo, TX. Eggleston was deeded two lots in inner Gonzales in block 28 and operated a store as early as 1834 on a lot deeded to G.W. Davis west of the Fort on St. John St. His name is on numerous land transactions in the period including a tract of land in Gonzales transferred to him on 3 Aug 1837 by Moses Baker. Eggleston was also deeded 4 lots on the San Marcos River in outer Gonzales town west. Thirty-five year old Horace Eggleston married 15 year old Sarah Ann Ponton 3 May 1835 by bond issued by Judge Bart McClure in Gonzales. Sara Ponton Eggleston and brother Andrew Ponton obtained title to their deceased father William's league (killed by Indians 20 May 1834) of land north of Hallettsville in the Austin Colony just as they were forced to flee the Mexican Army in the Runaway Scrape. Horace Eggleston joined the Texas Republican Army at San Jacinto. In 1837 the Egglestons returned to the William Ponton league on the Lavaca River and began to improve it receiving title to 1107 acres of it in 1839. Sometime in the 1840's Horace Eggleston with the help of slaves, friends and family and skilled builder Jesse K. Davis build a "dog-run" house from Guadalupe River bottom logs sawed in a pit with a whip saw. The "Eggleston House" is one of the outstanding few early Texas homes that has been preserved and is on current display in Gonzales. Widowed matriarch of the Ponton clan, Isabella Moreland Ponton (wife of William Ponton), made her home in later years with daughter Sarah Ann and Horace Eggleston in Gonzales. Author Ruby Millicent Burkett Fisher in her Concise Genealogy of David Burkett and Horace Eggleston: An Allied Family writes that daughter
Horace Eggleston (1800-1855) was born in East Bloomfield, Ontario County, New York August 22, 1800. He was an attorney and citizen soldier, the son of Sidney Horace Eggleston and Sarah Harwood and grandson of John H. Eggleston and Belle Newton. About January 16, 1819 he married Elizabeth Putnam in New York state. They later separated and he went to Texas. On May 3, 1835 a marriage bond was issued for him and Sarah Ann Ponton who went to Texas with her parents William Ponton, son of Joel Ponton and Hannah Ravenell of Amherst County, Virginia, and Isabella Mooreland, daughter of Andrew Mooreland, natives of Pennsylvania. They were married January 12, 1801 in Amherst County, Virginia. Sarah Ann died May 3, 1837 at San Felipe, Republic of Texas. Horace Eggleston died March 10, 1855 in Gonzales County, Texas. Horace served in the Texas army for the Battle of San Jacinto April 21, 1836 and as a citizen soldier, he joined a group under Adam Zumwalt September 12, 1840 as a member of a citizen army under Colonel Matthew Caldwell. They arrived too late for the battle that was fought the previous day six miles east of San Antonio. In July 1842 Kidder Walker, sheriff of Colorado County, sent word to James Brown to intervene and settle a matter between Alexander M.C. Hughes and John Clark. John Clark had threatened to kill Hughes over some trouble they were having, and Brown asked Horace Eggleston to assist him in settling the matter. Horace owned a store and land in Gonzales County. Horace and Sarah Ann had six children: (May 2, 1836 across the river from the Battle of San Jacinto ground); William Ponton (June 29, 1838 San Felipe, Austin County, Republic of Texas-February 13,1870); Mary Jane (May 27,1841 Gonzales County, Republic of Texas); John H. (December 17, 1842 Gonzales, Republic of Texas-February 11, 1867); George Tyler (July 8, 1845-August 2, 1852 Gonzales, Texas); Newton Harwood (March 15, 1848 Gonzales County, Texas January 5, 1932), married May 11, 1870 Esther Ann Compton (December 8, 1848 May 27, 1925) and had eight children. In 1845 Horace Eggleston purchased a site for a home, and on that site in 1848 with the help of friends he erected his home. That home became known as the Eggleston House, oldest in the City of Gonzales. It was standing on city property in 1984. B. Elmer Spradley (From The History of Gonzales County, Texas. Reprinted by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission). Soon after the burning of Gonzales ordered by General Houston during the evacuation after the Alamo defeat in San Antonio, Eggleston filed the following petition which is in the Claim Papers, Archives, Texas State Library, Austin:
The family is listed in the 1850 census of GonzalesCo, Town of Gonzales: Eggleston, Horrice, 50, m, $5,000, N.C; Eggleston, Sarah, 30, f, Mo; Eggleston, Wm. P., 13, m, Texas; Eggleston, John H., 8, m, Texas; Eggleston, Jage T., 4, m, Texas; Eggleston, Newton H., 1, m, Texas; Ponton, Issabella, 68, f, Penn; Patrick, Sary Jane, 17, f, Texas. After Horace Eggleston's death in 1855, widow Sarah Ann Ponton Eggleston married Benjamin A. Minter, a native of Kentucky, on 15 Oct 1857. Sarah died 25 Feb 1880 in Gonzales. FISHER. Henry Fisher | John Fisher | William Fisher | Samuel Rhoads Fisher. GIBSON/GIPSON. James Gibson. Archibald Gipson. SONS
OF DEWITT COLONY TEXAS |