This Day In Texas History - July 7

[joe817]

1716 – Mission Nuestra Senora de la Purisma Concepcion was founded in Nacogdoches County. The mission moved to its present location in San Antonio in 1731.

1835 - On this day in 1835, the Municipality of Gonzales passed resolutions of loyalty to Mexico, thanks to the influence of the mysterious Edward Gritten. Gritten, supposedly an Englishman and a long-time resident of Mexico, first visited Texas in 1834 as secretary to Juan N. Almonte. During July and August 1835 he worked to restore confidence between the Texas colonists and the Mexican government. He urged Mexican authorities to adopt conciliatory measures, assuring them that most Texans were law-abiding Mexican citizens. He was chosen as a commissioner to visit Martín Perfecto de Cos to explain the pacific attitude of the mass of the colonists. On the way to Matamoros, Gritten met a courier from Domingo de Ugartechea with orders to arrest William B. Travis and other Texans. Gritten hastened to Bexar and attempted to persuade Ugartechea to revoke the orders, but he refused. Gritten remained at Bexar as mediator between Ugartechea and the colonists and identified himself with the Texas cause. In December 1835 the General Council elected Gritten collector of the port of Copano, but Governor Henry Smith refused to sign the commission because he considered Gritten a spy.

1842 - Texas troops defeated a Mexican invasion at the battle of Lipantitlán. The Mexican incursion, part of a pattern of attack and counterattack between Mexico and the Republic of Texas, was commanded by Antonio Canales Rosillo. James Davis, adjutant general of the Army of the Republic of Texas, and Capt. Ewen Cameron led a mutinous, disorganized, ill-supplied command, which nonetheless succeeded in defeating a Mexican force three times its size. Lipantitlán had also been the site of a battle in 1836.

1868 - The Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway Company was sold by the sheriff of Harris County in order to satisfy various judgments against the railroad. Like many railroads in the 19th century, many mergers occurred. Through sale and merger it eventually became part of the Southern Pacific system. On the eve of its merger in 1934 the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio operated 1,345 miles of track, which represented 40 percent of the Southern Pacific owned main track in Texas.

1883 - On this date in 1883, the French Minister of Agriculture, Pierre Viala, arrived in Denison, to confer the Chevalier du Mérite Agricole (The French Legion of Honor) to Thomas V Munson for his work is saving the wine industry in France. In the late 1870s and early 1880, vinards in France were being wiped out by the root lice disease Phylloxera. Munson traveled 50,000 miles in research of a grape plant that was resistant to the disease. When he began his research at Denison he struck pay dirt. Thousands of root stock were sent to France, and a massing plant grafting program implemented. It is a literal fact, that every bottle of French Cognac, has it's roots in Texas.

1888 - Two great clans of cattlemen, the Staffords and the Townsends, had trouble that culminated in the killing of R. E. and John Stafford in front of a Columbus saloon on July 7, 1888. Although the feuds of Texas have received far less general attention and publicity than have the Kentucky variety, they were probably even more numerous and bitter.
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1891 - The U.S. secretary of the treasury officially opened the new port of Velasco near the site of Old Velasco, on the Brazos River a few miles upstream from the Gulf of Mexico. The first Austin colonists landed there in 1821. Velasco was important during its early days as the site of the battle of Velasco, as a temporary capital of the Republic of Texas, and as the place where Santa Anna signed the treaties that ended the Texas Revolution.

1911 - Alphonso Steele, last survivor of Battle of San Jacinto, passes away at his grandson's home near Kosse.

1960 - A dedication ceremony was held for the new Big Bend National Park in West Texas.

1981 - On this date in 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated El Paso native Sandra Day O'Connor to the United States Supreme Court, fulfilling a campaign promise to choose the first woman justice in the high court's history.