This Day In Texas History - July 24

[joe817]

1824 - Joshua Parker, member of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, along with his colonist partner William Parks received title to a sitio of land in what is now Wharton County on July 24, 1824. Parker's home place on Palmetto Creek was adjacent to Stephen F. Austin's headquarters. In November 1830 Parker was listed among persons who must comply with the conditions of their grants or have their lots sold by the ayuntamiento of San Felipe. He was an acquaintance of William B. Travis at San Felipe in 1833. Parker died on July 24, 1838, at Independence, Texas.

1824 - Thomas J. Tone, surveyor and soldier, was one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists. He and his partner, Thomas Jamison, received title to a sitio of land now in Matagorda and Brazoria counties on July 24, 1824. In January 1827 he met with other colonists of the Mina District to declare loyalty to the Mexican government and opposition of the Fredonian Rebellion. In 1833 Tone was appointed one of three members of a commission to oversee the construction of a proposed canal from old Caney Bayou to Matagorda Bay. He received 320 acres of land for his service in the Texas Revolution in 1838 and an additional 320 acres in Hamilton County in 1854. "T. T. Tone," listed as a member of Captain Stewart's Matagorda Volunteers, was probably Thomas J. Tone; the troop returned on July 15, 1836. In 1839 Tone was a deputy surveyor and made a survey on Blue Creek.

1824 - A. W. McClain was a partner of James McNair as one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists. The two received title to a league of land on the east bank of the Colorado River in what is now southern Colorado County on July 24, 1824. McClain voted in the alcalde election in January 1825 but wrote Austin on January 30, 1825, that he had been in the colony for seventeen months, had not yet secured the land of his choice, and would leave the colony if Austin did not mean to let him have his land. McClain was listed as a tanner in the census of December 1825; in March 1826 he was classified as a farmer and stock raiser, aged between twenty-five and forty.

1832 - The expedition of José Antonio Mexía during the summer of 1832 had two purposes: the carrying into execution of the Plan of Vera Cruz against Anastacio Bustamante and absolutism in Mexico, and the preservation of Texas in the Mexican union. He was hospitably received at Brazoria, where on July 17 a meeting of the townspeople explained to him the causes of the Anahuac Disturbances and the battle of Velasco and asserted that the Turtle Bayou Resolutions were in conformity with the Plan of Vera Cruz. All matters of consequence were satisfactorily settled during his six-day stay at Brazoria. When Mexía reached Galveston on July 24, he met the five vessels bearing 400 troops from Anahuac who had also embraced Santa Anna's cause. Mexía decided that Texas affairs were progressing satisfactorily for Santa Anna and returned to Tampico, where he arrived on July 28.

1837 - James D. Boylan became commander of the Passaic and used the ship in defensive operations with the Texas Navy, which bought it, recommissioned it, and renamed it the Viper. In July 1837 he was with the fleet off the Yucatán coast and on July 24 went ashore at Chilbona. He explored the main islands in the Alacráns, hoisted the Texas flag, and took possession in the name of the government. On April 10, 1839, Boylan applied to President Mirabeau B. Lamar for appointment to the navy, but apparently his request was not granted, for he went to Yucatán and was commander of the Yucatán flotilla in May 1842 when it cooperated with the Texas fleet against Mexico.

1854 - Robert Sylvester Munger, inventor, son of Henry Martin and Jane (McNutt) Munger, was born at Rutersville, Texas, on July 24, 1854. He attended Trinity University at Tehuacana, but before graduating he was placed in charge of his father's gin at Mexia, where his interest in machinery and his inventive talent developed until he became a pioneer in the improvement of ginning machinery in the United States. He devised a pneumatic system to convey seed cotton to the gin, patented saw cleaners for ginning machines in 1878 and 1879, and patented a saw-sharpening tool in 1882. In 1888 he organized the Munger Improved Cotton Machine Company at Dallas. In 1889 he moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where in 1892 he organized the Northington-Munger-Pratt Company to manufacture cotton-gin machinery. He perfected his system of pneumatic handling of cotton and patented his system machine on July 12, 1892. His other inventions included the duplex cotton press (October 4, 1892), an improvement in the pneumatic system (November 28, 1893), a baling machine and cotton elevator, a cleaner and feeder (August 1901), and an improvement on the cotton cleaner (August 1919). In 1902 Munger sold his interest in the business and devoted his time to real estate interests by developing Munger Place in Dallas.

1861 - Lt. Col. John Robert Baylor led 300 men from Fort Bliss forty miles up the east bank of the Rio Grande to Fort Fillmore, New Mexico. With him were two companies of the Second Texas Mounted Rifles, a Texas light-artillery company without its howitzers, an El Paso County scout company, and some civilians. The Texans reached the vicinity of Fort Fillmore at night and placed themselves between the fort and its water supply at the river. Baylor canceled a planned attack after learning that one of his men had warned the garrison. His Texans forded the Rio Grande and early that afternoon entered nearby Mesilla, a strongly pro-Confederate community. With 380 infantry and mounted riflemen, plus howitzers, Union major Isaac Lynde approached Mesilla from the south. Baylor rejected his demand for surrender, and Lynde ordered his artillery to open fire. After three Union enlisted men died in a bungled charge and two officers and four other men were wounded, Lynde ordered a return to the fort. The Confederates suffered no casualties but remained in Mesilla, fearing a trap. Baylor sent to El Paso for artillery and additional men. When he found out that Baylor had sent for artillery, Lynde ordered the fort abandoned that night.

At sunrise on July 27 Baylor discovered Lynde's withdrawal. Baylor's troops and some "Arizona" civilians gave chase. By the time Baylor's speediest horsemen caught up with the stragglers, the roadside was littered with discarded equipment and prostrate regulars begging for water.

Baylor with part of his command crossed the mountains by another pass and early in the afternoon of July 27 rode unopposed into Lynde's temporary camp. After a short discussion, Lynde surrendered his 492-man force, despite objections from many of his officers. The only casualty was one Union soldier killed as he threatened a Confederate. The size of Baylor's force was presumably smaller. Baylor proclaimed Arizona Territory, Confederate States of America, in Mesilla on August 1 and named himself governor. He remained in the area until the spring of 1862, several weeks after Confederate general Henry Hopkins Sibley arrived with three regiments of Texas Mounted Volunteers. The victory at Mesilla was one of the war's early and surprising Confederate successes. Baylor's dashing actions of the summer of 1861 added to his fame as a folk hero. This battle later became known as the Battle of Mesilla.

1862 - The Fifteenth Texas Cavalry was mustered into service at McKinney in Collin County. It formed ten companies from Bexar, Wise, Dallas, Johnson, Tarrant, Limestone, Denton, Red River, Van Zandt, and Johnson counties. Initially, the regiment marched through Clarksville and into Arkansas. On July 24, 1862, the regiment was dismounted, and their horses were sent home. For the rest of the war, the Fifteenth was to serve the Confederacy as infantry.

1898 - William T. Anderson, clergyman and physician, was born a slave in Seguin, Texas, on August 20, 1859. During the Civil War he and his mother moved to Galveston, where he joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1888 he graduated from the Homeopathic Medical College of Cleveland. In 1897 President William McKinley appointed Anderson chaplain of the Tenth United States Cavalry, with the rank of captain. In April 1898 the regiment departed for the Chickamauga area from its headquarters at Fort Assinniboine, Montana. Anderson remained behind and is believed to be one of the first black officers to command an American military post. On July 24, 1898, he joined the Tenth near Santiago, Cuba, where he treated the sick for fever and dysentery. After the war he coedited Under Fire with the Tenth Cavalry (1899, 1969), a book about the heroism of black soldiers in the war based on eyewitness accounts. In April 1907 he and the regiment were sent to Fort William McKinley, near Manila, Philippines. Anderson was promoted to major in August 1907 and commanded the United States Morgue. On January 10, 1910, he retired because of a disability caused by a fever contracted in Cuba in 1898. Anderson died in Cleveland on August 21, 1934.

1900 - The Texas and Louisiana Railroad Company was chartered on July 24, 1900, in the interest of the Lufkin Land and Lumber Company, to build a railroad between Lufkin and Newton. The company built twenty-two miles of track from Lufkin to Monterey to gain access to the timber owned by the Lufkin Land and Lumber Company. The construction was accomplished in two stages, first from Lufkin to Donovan (14½ miles) in 1900, and second from Donovan to Monterey (7½ miles) in 1902. The unballasted track was laid with thirty-five pound rail. The road was consolidated with the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company of Texas (Cotton Belt) on July 7, 1903. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, the Texas and Louisiana reported passenger earnings of $6,000 and freight earnings of $66,000, and owned one locomotive and two cars.

1917 - The Dayton-Goose Creek Railway Company was incorporated on July 24, 1917, by Ross S. Sterling, who was later governor of Texas. The capital was $25,000. The Dayton-Goose Creek constructed twenty-five miles of track at a cost of $632,738. Construction began at Dayton in 1917 and the railroad opened to Goose Creek in Liberty County on May 1, 1918. The extension to Baytown was completed in August 1919. The line was constructed to connect the newly discovered Goose Creek oilfield and the Baytown refinery of Humble Oil and Refining Company (later Exxon Company, U.S.A.) with the Texas and New Orleans at Dayton. In 1926 Sterling sold the Dayton-Goose Creek to the Southern Pacific, which leased it to the Texas and New Orleans for operation. The former Dayton-Goose Creek line is still operated as part of the Southern Pacific.

1917 - Camp Logan, an emergency training center in World War I, was earlier a National Guard camp just beyond the western city limits of Houston. Construction of the center began on July 24, 1917. In the Houston Riot of 1917, trouble between local police and black soldiers quartered at the camp resulted in a riot on August 23 and the declaration of martial law in Houston. The camp was used for hospitalization of wounded men in 1918. At the close of the war the site was acquired by William C. Hogg and his brother, Mike, who turned over to the city of Houston, at cost, more than 1,000 acres. Memorial Park, the city's largest recreational area, is on the site.

1982 - Amon Gary Carter, Jr., publisher, civic leader, and philanthropist, was born in Fort Worth, Texas. As a youth he sold newspapers on a corner in downtown Fort Worth. During his teens he worked in the summers as a copy boy, staff photographer, and advertising salesman for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He graduated from Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, in 1938. He served in the army during World War II and was captured by German forces in North Africa in 1943. He subsequently spent twenty-seven months as a prisoner of war near Szubin, Poland, where he published a clandestine camp newspaper and established an unofficial pipeline for packages from home. In 1955 he succeeded his father as publisher of the Star-Telegram, a position he held until his death. He influenced the move of American Airlines (see AMR CORPORATION) from New York City to Fort Worth. As its second largest stockholder, he also brought the Texas Rangers baseball team to the area. His long list of civic activities included service on the boards of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, the Amon Carter Museum, the West Texas Chamber of Commerce, and Texas Christian University. He died in Dallas of a heart attack on July 24, 1982.

[joe817]

As a side note in gathering today's events, I ran across at least 14 mentions of people being granted sitos & leagues of land on July 24, 1824. Most came from the Austin Colony's "Old Three Hundred". A LOT of land was passed out on this day.

I can't help but feel that these actions made the Mexican government VERY worried about the influx of immigrants into Texas. And perhaps laid the foundations for the Mexican government to start restrictions of immigration into Texas. Just my opinion.