This Day In Texas History - April 16

[joe817]

1836 - The Texas army, 1100 men under the command of Sam Houston, stopped at Matthew Burnett's Homesite about dusk on April 16, 1836, after turning southeast at the Robert's crossroads earlier in the day. During their overnight stay they consumed most of Burnett's livestock and grains, and burned fence rails for fuel. The next morning the Texas army departed for Harrisburg. (The homesite is located Telge Park, just east of Telge Rd. on Pleasant Grove St. in Houston.)

1836 - Mexican Col. Juan N. Almonte and a company of dragoons arrived and seized the warehouses and buildings on Galveston Island. The Mexicans consumed or destroyed what was stored in the warehouses, slaughtered cattle, seized horses, and appropriated the lighter used to land merchandise from vessels anchored in the river. When they left to attack Sam Houston's army on Buffalo Bayou on April 20 they burned all of the buildings.

1852 - The wealthy twenty-six-year-old Mexican widow Petra Vela de Vidal married Anglo rancher Mifflin Kenedy in Brownsville. Though Kenedy was raised a Quaker, he accepted his wife's Catholicism, and she became one of the few upper-class women of Mexican origin in nineteenth-century Texas. In 1850 Mifflin Kenedy had formed an immensely profitable steamboat company in partnership with Richard King, and the two gradually began buying up vast amounts of ranching land. In 1869 the Kenedy family moved from Brownsville to the Laureles Ranch in Nueces County.

1947 - The ship SS Grandcamp exploded at the docks in Texas City. The French-owned vessel, carrying ammonium nitrate produced during wartime for explosives and later recycled as fertilizer, caught fire early in the morning. While attempts were being made to extinguish the fire, the ship exploded. The entire dock area was destroyed, along with the nearby Monsanto Chemical Company, other smaller companies, grain warehouses, and numerous oil and chemical storage tanks. The concussion of the explosion, felt as far away as Port Arthur, damaged or destroyed at least 1,000 residences and buildings. The ship SS High Flyer, in dock for repairs and also carrying ammonium nitrate, was ignited by the first explosion; it was towed 100 feet from the docks before it exploded the next day. The ship's anchor monument records 576 persons known dead, only 398 of whom were identified. Probably the exact number of people killed will never be known.

1971 - Tejana superstar Selena Quintanilla Perez was born in Lake Jackson. She won the first of eight Tejano Music Awards as female entertainer of the year in 1987. Her 1992 album Entre a Mi Mundo made her the first Tejana to sell more than 300,000 albums, and her bilingual 1995 album Dreaming of You hit number one on the national Billboard Top 100 the week it was released. On March 31 of that year in Corpus Christi, Selena was fatally shot by the founder of her first fan club. More than 30,000 people viewed her casket at the Bayfront Plaza Convention Center in Corpus Christi. A biographical film of her life was released in 1997.

1996 - On her nationally televised talk show, Ophra Winfrey and vegetarian activist Howard Lyman suggested that feeding practices of Cattle could lead to Mad Cow disease in humans, even though there had been no reported cases of Mad Cow disease in the United States. To an enthusiast audience, Ophra exclaimed that Lyman's stories were enough for her to give up hamburgers. Cattle prices pludged, and Texas cattlemen soon lost an estimated $11 million in beef prices. The Cattlemen sued Winfrey and Lyman under the Texas "veggie liability" law protecting the agriculture industry against false claims of tainted foods. Ophra's attorneys argued for the first amendment right to free expression of opinion. In February 1998, a Jury found Ophra Winfrey not liable for damages to the Texas Cattle industry.

[joe817]

Letters From The Past: Recollections of Stephen F. Sparks. These reminiscences were written by Mr. Sparks in the form of a letter to Reverend J. L. Walker, of Bruceville, Texas, dated March 18, 1899

"We moved to Texas in 1834. I was then sixteen or seventeen years old. We first rented land in San Augustine County, but in the fall of 1834 we moved and settled five miles north of the town of Nacogdoches, on a league of land that my father had bought. In the fall of 1835 I started to school, some twenty miles north of us, in what was then known as the Williams Settlement. The school was taught by T. D. Brooks. The school-house was fourteen by fourteen feet, built of pine logs and with no floor. I think eight of us attended school there.

I did not stay more than a month before General Cos invaded Texas with an army of 1000 or 1500 men, and there being a call for volunteers to meet them, I left school and joined the army. My captain was H. T. Edwards of Nacogdoches County. We arrived at General Ed. Burleson's camp about one o'clock one morning, and went to what they called the brush fence, where all who wanted to fight could get arms. We drove the squad of Mexicans that came to meet us across the river, and went into camp...... "

Note: This is THE best story I've read. The actual account from Sparks recounting his joining The Texas Army with Sam Houston, and their march to San Jacinto is WELL worth the read. But it is much to long to post here.

Please take the time to read it. It's very entertaining, and at times quite funny. A short exert:

"While we were telling our adventures, a man came up, who seemed very much excited; he carried an old flint lock rifle, and inquired if there was a. blacksmith in the army. He said he had just got into camp, and his gun would not stand cocked. A mischievous looking fellow said, "Yes, sir, you see that tent down yonder; the blacksmith is there." It was General Houston's tent, the only one in camp. The man went, and there sat General Houston. The man said to him, "I want you to fix my gun; the lock is out of order, it won't stand cocked." "Very well," said Houston, "set her down here, and call in one hour and she will be ready." Houston knew at once that some one had sent this fellow to him just to have a little fun. So as soon as the man left, he took the lock off, cleaned it and put it back. The news spread all over the army, and after a while a man told the owner of the gun that he had taken his gun to General Houston, and that he heard that Houston intended having him shot for insulting him. The poor fellow was nearly out of his wits, and said, "What shall I do? They told me he was a blacksmith, and I did not know that he was General Houston." Finally some one told him the best plan was to go to Houston and ask forgiveness. So he went, and with hat off, he tremblingly told his story. General Houston said, "My friend, they told you right, I am a very good blacksmith," and taking up the gun, he snapped it two or three times, and said, "She is in good order now, and I hope you are going to do some good fighting." "

http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/miscmemoirs2.htm#sparks" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ELB]

Thanks for the story about the Republic of Texas's first "official" gunsmith! (and all the rest as well).