a day trip and a little Texas history

You may have noticed I've been mostly MIA this last week. That's because my brother has been in town and he and Pam and I have been out and about. Before I get on with this post I want to inform you, my readers, that Blogger is getting rid of the 'follow by email' function starting in July. If that is how you get notifications of a new post by moi, you will no longer receive notifications via email after that time. So they have given instructions on how to download those subscriber contacts and migrate them to another service but have not suggested another service. Consequently, if you still want to be privy to the minutia of my life, you will have to either bookmark my blog and check it however often you like (I generally try to post every other day) or get a blogger account (no you don't have to have a blog) and follow that way after I put the 'follow this blog' widget back on the sidebar. In either case, you will have to be a little more proactive and in the meantime I will try and migrate you to another email notification service if there is one. It may be beyond my personal ability though.

Now for some Texas history. Last Monday we went to Washington-On-The-Brazos state park. W-O-T-B was a community on the Brazos River at a ferry crossing in the hill country an hour and a half drive north of Wharton. The region, at the time Mexico won their independence from Spain in 1821, was mostly populated by Native American tribes. To help protect the area from horse thieves and Native American attacks, Mexico invited Americans to settle there and many did, lured by the large land grants available, bringing their slaves with them and while the Mexican government abolished slavery in the 1820s it allowed a temporary exemption in Texas. By the 1830s the population had increased significantly with tensions rising between the American settlers and the Mexican government over the attempt to end slavery, end immigration from America, and taxes that Mexico imposed. Things deteriorated rapidly when Santa Anna became president of Mexico in 1833 and abandoned the Mexican constitution that the American settlers had agreed to live under. As Santa Anna attempted to control the unruly Texians, war became inevitable.

The first battle with Mexico came after Texian settlers in Gonzales on October 2, 1835 told the Mexican army to “come and take it”. A few days later, the colonists surprised the Mexican army at Presidio La Bahia in Goliad. The short battle confirmed the Texas Revolution was under way. In November 1835, delegates, known as The Consultation, met at San Felipe. The group agreed to form an interim government, appointing Henry Smith governor and Sam Houston as head of the army. By the end of 1835 Texians had managed to take San Antonio from Mexican General Cos giving the settlers the impression they had won the war. But the Texian fighters, even though they had a cause they believed in, were a scraggly disorganized force and by February, the fledgling government had disintegrated, they failed to reinforce San Antonio thinking it would take months for Santa Anna to retaliate and when word of Santa Anna's approach came in late February 1836, the few defenders left in the city took refuge in the Alamo Mission.

Meanwhile on March 2, 1836 the Council in Washington drafted and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. A few days later a rider who managed to escape the Alamo arrived to gather up reinforcements. General Houston told the Council to continue their work of designing a government and constitution while he gathered up a group of men and headed to San Antonio only to find the Alamo surrounded with no hope of getting through. They returned to Washington and the Alamo fell on March 6 as did Goliad later in the month and Santa Anna turned his attention to the rest of the Texian upstarts. As Santa Anna approached orders went out to the townspeople to gather up only what they could carry, pile everything else up to be burned, and to flee. As the last folk left, they torched the town leaving nothing behind for Santa Anna's army to sustain themselves with. This, the Runaway Scrape, was repeated in other communities as Santa Anna approached.

General Houston and Santa Anna kept tabs on each other as they traveled on opposite sides of the river eventually meeting up at San Jacinto. Facing each other across the river, Santa Anna decided that the Texians would not cross the river and attack and so he ordered his army to spread out, have lunch, and siesta, a fatal mistake. General Sam Houston's army crossed the river and surprised a napping Santa Anna who was taken prisoner and Texas won their independence. 

“This village – site of the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence and first capitol of the Republic of Texas – began in 1822 as a ferry crossing, here the historic La Bahia Road (now Ferry Street) spanned the Brazos River.

In 1834, a townsite was laid out and named, probably for Washington, Georgia, home of a leading settler.

In 1835, as political differences with Mexico led toward war, the general council (the insurgent Texas government) met in the town. Enterprising citizens then promoted the place as a site for the convention of 1836 and, as a 'bonus', provided a free meeting hall, thus Texas' Declaration of Independence came to be signed in an unfinished building owned by a gunsmith.

The provisional government of the Republic was also organized in Washington, but was removed March 17, as news of the advancing Mexican army caused a general panic throughout the region. The townspeople fled too on March 20, 1836, in the 'Runaway Scrape'.

After the Texan victory at San Jacinto, the town thrived for a period. It was again the capitol of Texas, 1842 – 1845; and became center of Washington State Park in 1916. It now contains historic buildings and 'Barrington' (plantation), home of Anson Jones, the last president of Texas.”

Now the site of all this history is a state park. Since nothing of the original village remains, a group reconstructed the unfinished building owned by the gunsmith on the original site of that building using the same materials and original construction techniques of the time.

I took the next picture standing at the lookout where the ferry was supposed to be but the topography must have changed because it's a steep drop down to the river from there. That brown streak through the middle behind the greenery is the Brazos River.

They also have an amphitheater in the park

and as I rounded the corner of the far retaining wall of the stage in front of the rows of benches I came face to face with a huge black snake, 5' - 6' long. It startled me...snake! big snake! I shouted...I startled it and it turned pronto and zoomed back into it's bolt hole in the retaining wall.

And the biggest magnolia tree I have ever seen. I couldn't get it all in the picture.