This Day In Texas History - September 21

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This Day In Texas History - September 21

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1595 - Juan de Oñate, explorer and founder of the first European settlements in the upper Rio Grande valley of New Mexico, son of Cristóbal de Oñate and Catalina de Salazar, was born around 1550, most likely in the frontier settlement of Zacatecas, Mexico. In his early twenties Oñate was leading campaigns against the unsubdued Chichimec Indians along the turbulent northern frontier around Zacatecas and prospecting for silver. On September 21, 1595, Oñate was awarded a contract by King Philip II of Spain to settle New Mexico. Spreading Catholicism was a primary objective, but many colonists enlisted in hopes of finding a new silver strike. After many delays Oñate began the entrada in early 1598. He forded the Rio Grande at the famous crossing point of El Paso del Norte, which he discovered in May 1598, after making a formal declaration of possession of New Mexico on April 30 of that year. By late May he had made contact with the first of the many pueblos of the northern Rio Grande valley. In July 1598 he established the headquarters of the New Mexico colony at San Juan pueblo, thus effectively extending the Camino Real by more than 600 miles.

It was the longest road in North America for several subsequent centuries. While awaiting the slow-moving main caravan of colonists, Oñate explored the surrounding area and solidified his position. Construction of the mission at San Francisco and a mission for the Indians of San Juan soon began. Some of his men explored east beyond Pecos pueblo towards the Texas border in search of buffalo; they probably reached the headwaters of the Canadian River, twenty-five miles northwest of the site of present Amarillo. On June 23, 1601, Oñate began an expedition to Quivira in search of wealth and an outlet to the sea. He followed the Canadian River across the Texas Panhandle and near the Oklahoma border headed northeast. Probably in the central part of what is now Kansas, Oñate's expedition arrived at the first of the Quivira villages. The great settlements of Quivira proved to be a disappointment to men who had come looking for easy wealth, however, and they soon turned back. In 1606 King Philip III ordered Oñate to Mexico City until allegations against him could be investigated. Unaware of the order, Oñate resigned his office in 1607 because of the condition of the colony and financial problems. He remained in New Mexico to see the town of Santa Fe established.

1791 - Jane Birdsall Harris, innkeeper and hostess to the provisional government in Harrisburg, daughter of Lewis and Patience (Lee) Birdsall, was born on September 21, 1791, in Waterloo, Seneca Falls, New York. She was married to John Richardson Harris in New York on May 7, 1813, and they had one daughter and three sons. The Harrises moved to Missouri and remained there until 1824, when Harris, preparing to settle in Texas, returned his family to New York. Mrs. Harris removed to Texas in 1833, four years after her husband's death, and settled in Harrisburg. In March and April 1836 she was the hostess of the government. So crowded was her house that all of the cabinet, except the president, vice president, and secretary of state, were obliged to sleep on the floor. During the Runaway Scrape she went first to Anahuac and then to Galveston. Shortly after the battle of San Jacinto she returned to Harrisburg and with Mexican prisoner of war labor built a new dwelling to replace the one destroyed by the Mexican army. From 1839 to 1849 she was a stockholder in the Harrisburg Town Company. Until her death she operated an inn that, after the construction of the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway, was well patronized by travelers who changed from railroad to steamship and from steamship to railroad at Harrisburg. Mrs. Harris was a devout Episcopalian and a communicant of Christ Church, Houston. She died in Harrisburg on August 15, 1869, and was buried in Glendale Cemetery, Houston.

1793 - Levi (also spelled Levy) Charles Meyers Harby, naval officer, was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, on September 21, 1793. In the War of 1812 he served as a midshipman in the United States Navy. He left Charleston on the privateer Saucy Jack and was involved in many naval battles. Though records indicate that Harby resigned his U. S. Navy commission in late 1827, he was again listed as an officer in the navy in 1832, when he accepted a commission as a first lieutenant in the Revenue Cutter Service. He left the Cutter Service in early 1836 and apparently sailed on the schooner Brutus to Texas at that time to serve in the Texas Navy. In July 1838 he was once again listed as an officer in the Revenue Cutter Service, with which he was commissioned a captain three times—in 1846, 1852, and 1857.

Harby arrived in Galveston in 1857 and took command of the H.A. Dodge for the Revenue Cutter Service. Galveston’s Civilian and Gazette for August 11, 1857, printed that Harby had been reportedly “in command of the Texas man-of-war Brutus, during the revolution.” Harby’s wife Leonora established the first Jewish Sunday school in Texas, and she also founded the Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society in Galveston. While in Galveston, when Harby’s native South Carolina seceded, he turned in his cutter, resigned his commission, and joined the Confederate States Service as a heavy artillery captain. In 1862 he served on the steamer Rusk and captained the Bayou City. In the fall of 1862 he was an artillery training officer at Harrisburg. Harby was artillery commander of the guns on the Neptune at the battle of Galveston when he engaged with the Union steamer Harriet Lane. Eight of his fifteen gunners were killed in that battle along with his lieutenant, Harvey Clark. During the fight the Neptune was sunk, and Harby, nearly seventy years of age, was the last off the boat. At the end of the war he was in command of Galveston harbor. He resided in that city until his death on December 3, 1870. His obituary was short and made no mention of service other than commanding a cutter in Galveston Bay.

1846 - Barnard Elliott Bee, Jr., Confederate general, was born on February 8, 1824, in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Anne and Barnard E. Bee, Sr. In the summer of 1836 the family moved to the Republic of Texas, where Bee's father served as secretary of state. The young man was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point with an "at large" status on July 1, 1841, and he graduated thirty-third in the class of 1845. He was brevetted a second lieutenant in the Third United States Infantry regiment on July 1, 1845, and was confirmed in that grade on September 21, 1846.

After resigning his United States Army commission on March 3, 1861, Bee was elected lieutenant colonel of the First South Carolina Regulars, a Confederate regiment of artillery. On June 17, 1861, he was appointed brigadier general and assigned to the command of a brigade in Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard's Army of Virginia at Manassas Junction. There, on July 21, 1861, his men sustained the brunt of the federal assault on the Confederate left wing in the first battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, and Bee is said to have ordered his men to "Rally behind the Virginians! There stands Jackson like a stonewall!" thus giving Gen. Thomas J. Jackson his famous sobriquet, "Stonewall Jackson". Leading by example, Bee was constantly at the head of his brigade and fell mortally wounded just as the enemy assault began to recede. He died on July 22, 1861, in the small cabin near the battlefield that had been his headquarters. The Confederate congress confirmed his rank as brigadier general more than a month after his death.
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