Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  23 Rosanna Travis to James Dellet, September 6, 1834, James Dellet Papers, ADAH. Allowing for her time and place, Rosanna's letter is very well constructed and expressed.

  24 Autobiography of William Barret Travis, 1833, quoted in Kuykendall, Sketches of Early Texians Kuykendall Family Papers, UT.

  25 McDonald, Travis, 49, says without authority that Alexander Travis and James Dellet were well acquainted, and that this is how William was introduced to his mentor. There is no evidence for this, though it is possible.

  26 The assumption that Travis started reading under Dellet in early 1828 is based solely on the fact that Travis commenced his own practice in February 1829 and would have had to read for at least a year beforehand, though Kuykendall, Sketches of Early Texians (UT), says that Travis was a precocious student. Since Kuykendall also says that “at age 18 or 19 he taught school for some months,” presumably basing this on Travis's autobiography then in Kuykendall's possession, it would appear most probable that Travis ceased teaching at some point after his nineteenth birthday, which would likely be sometime around the beginning of 1828.

  27 Sketch of James Dellet, Dellet Papers, ADAH.

  28 James Dellet tax list, September 16, 1831, Dellet Papers, ADAH.

  29 Benjamin F. Porter Reminiscences, Porter Collection, Auburn University, Auburn, Ala. Travis biographers shave persistently tried to suggest that Travis himself witnessed Lafayette's welcome in Claiborne, or even that he assisted Dellet in preparations for the visit, but the fact is that there is not an atom of evidence that Travis was even in Claiborne at the time. He would not have been their studying with Dellet until at least two years later. This is not to say that he could not have gone to Claiborne to witness the festivities, only that it is unwarrranted to assume that he did. Mixon, “Travis,” 7; McDonald, Travis, 44; Martha Anne Turner, William Barret Travis, His Sword and His Pen (Waco, Tex., 1972), 6.

  30 While there seems to be no reason to doubt the fact, it is worth noting that there is no firm contemporary evidence to support the claim that Travis read law under Dellet. The earliest reference to his legal education is in Kuykendall's 1857 Sketches of Early Texians, and he only says that “Travis commenced the study of law,” with no mention of Dellet (Kuykendall Family Papers, UT). Travis's cousin Phillip Travis—who never met him—said at an unknown time that Travis studied under Dellet, as did Travis's nephew Mark Travis, who also never met him. It has long been a local Alabama tradition that he did so. Fulmore, History and Geography, 140-41, says that he studied under Dellet and Enoch Parsons, and James K. Greer told Samuel Asbury on January 17, 1934 (Asbury Papers, UT), that an old former probate judge of Monroe County told him that Travis had read with Dellet. Ed Leigh McMillan, Memoranda with Regard to Williams Barret Travis, May 26, 1940, McMillan Papers; Letford, Story of William B. Travis, William B. Travis Surname File, ADAH.

  31 Rhoda C. Ellison, History and Bibliography of Alabama Newspapers in the Nineteenth Century (University, Ala., 1954), 37; Claiborne Gazette, March 19, 1825; Woodville, Miss., Republican, October 27, 1827. Only one issue of the Gazette is known to exist, at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass. No issues of the Alabama Whig are known to survive, and its existence is only known from its being quoted in the Republican.

  32 Claiborne Herald, February 27, 1829. Only tow issues of this newspaper survive, both at the Library of Congress. Since it was a weekly, and the February 27, 1829, issue is volume 1, number 42, that would make the date of the first issue May 16, 1828, though since Travis certainly did not maintain a precise schedule after February 1829, it is possible that he had not prior to that time.

  33 All the above is deduced from the February 27, 1829, issue of the Herald.

  34 M. J. DeCaussey to William B. Travis Chapter, Daughters of the Republic of Texas, January 31, 1895, Asbury Papers, UT.

  35 Kuykendall, Sketches of Early Texians, Kuykendall Family Papers, UT.

  36 William Barret and Rosanna E. Travis Bible, TXSL. The speculation that Charles may have been born on August 8, 1828, instead of a year later, is based on the fact that the entry for his birth is apparently in Travis's handwriting, while all other birth and death entries are in other hands, and at some time someone altered the year in the entry for Charles by using a dark ink to write “1829” over what Travis had originally written. Also, the last numeral of the year in the entry for Travis's wedding is illegible, yet has always been assumed to be 1828, with which there is no quibble. The point is that when children appeared before a marriage made them legitimate, or when the firstborn came less than nine months after the wedding, the most common means of “sanitizing” the record for future generations was either to backdate the wedding by a year or to postdate the birth by a year, and such alterations are to be found in probably half of the extant family Bibles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this particular instance, putting the baby before the wedding would have been entirely in keeping with Travis's known impulsive—and libidinous—nature, and also with what some suspect of Rosanna.

  37 Claiborne Heard, February 27, 1829.

  38 Porter, Reminiscences, Porter Collection Auburn, lists the bocks he was required to read when studying law in Claiborne in 1830, presumably under Dellet, and therefore Travis would have read the same texts.

  39 United States Census, Monroe Country, Alabama, 1830.

  40 Peter A. Brannan, “Claiborne,” Alabama Historical Quarterly 19 (Summer 1957): 241; Harry Edgar Wheeler, Timothy Abbott Conrad (Ithaca, N.Y., 1935), 14; Claiborne, Ala., Herald, December 5, 1829; Claiborne, Ala., Gazette, March 19, 1825; Caroline G. Hurtel, The River Plantation of Thomas and Marianne Gaillard, 1832-1850 (Mobile, 1946), 2-8.

  41 Hurtel, River Plantation, 8; Claiborne Herald, February 27, 1829; Claiborne Gazette, March 19, 1825; Samuel Forwood to Isaac Grant December 4, 1888, “Samuel Forwood's Letter Concerning Old Claiborne,” Clarke County Historical Society Quarterly 5 (Spring 1981): 29-30; Riley, Makers and Romance, 5-7; fragment, January 22, 1830, Samuel Dale Papers ADAH.

  42 Riley, Makers and Romance, 18-19; Porter, Reminiscences, Porter Collection, Auburn; Claiborne, Ala., Gazette, March 19, 1825; Monroe County (N.p, n.d.), 441-43.

  43 Porter, Reminiscences, Porter Collection, Auburn, states that in 1830 he took the examination from Crenshaw, so it is assumed that Crenshaw would have administered it to Travis the year before, especially since the Herald, February 27, 1829, states that Crenshaw was presiding at the court then in session.

  44 Kuykendall, Sketches of Early Texians, Kuykendall Family Papers (UT), states that “Travis commenced the study of law and so intense was his application thereto that he was admitted to the bar before he was twenty-one years of age.” Kuykendall had just prior to this quoted from Travis's autobiography, which he obviously had in front of him, so it is reasonable to suppose that this information, too, cam from that now lost document, including the testimony to his application and precocity. Travis announced his practice in the Herald on February 27, 1829, and Travis's code on the advertisement is also dated February 27, indicated that this was is first insertion and therefore must have come immediately after his passing the bar.

  45 B. F. Hampton v. William B. Travis, Practice Docket, 1828-1830, note of William B. Travis to W. H. Simpson, February 16, 1829, Dellet Papers, ADAH.

  46 Claiborne, Ala., Herald February 27, 1829. The conclusion that Travis took boarding pupils is derived from the 1830 United States Census, Monroe Country, Alabama, which shows in addition to Travis himself and Rosanna and tier infant son, one teenage female, one teenage male, and another male between twenty and thirty. While there is no way of identifying who they were, boarding pupils seems the most logical explanation, given Travis's financial straits.

  47 There has long been a prevailing belief that Travis actually lived in Clarke County, in or near Gosport, and that he commuted to Caliborne. Probably the earliest such recorded statement is Timothy H. Ball, A Glance Into The Great South-East, or, Clarke County, Alabama, and Its su
rroundings, from 1540 to 1877 (Grove Hill, Ala., 1882). 196, which states that Travis practiced out of Clarksville. This would appear to be the foundation for all subsequent statements. Letford, Story of William B. Travis, Travis Surname File, ADAH says that he opened his office in Gosport but only stayed a short time before moving to Claiborne. John S. Graham, History of Clarke County (Birmingham, 1923), 131, merely reiterates Ball. Travis J. Benson, a distant cousin, wrote to Ruby Mixon on March 22, 1929 (Mixon Papers, UT), that Travis had his office in Clarkesville. Clarke County Historical Society, Illustrated Sketches of Clarke County, Alabama (Huntsville, 1977), 102, says that Travis was a member of its bar, and 103 refers to “Travis, a lawyer at Clarkesville.”

  Travis biographers, starting with Mixon, have accepted this story. Mixon, “Travis,” 9, did so, and so did Turner, Travis, 6, while McDonald, Travis, 48, reiterates the Gosport office story. There is no support at all for it, and much to argue against it. Travis's own first announcement of his practice clearly states that his office is in Claiborne. The next year, in the 1830 Monroe census, he is quite clearly a resident of Caliborne, despite the statement of Peter Brannan, “Claiborne,” 281, that he could find no evidence that Travis ever lived in that community, and that “it is generally concluded that he lived across the river in the neighborhood of Gosport and commuted back and forth every day for the meetings of the court.” The loss of the Monroe County court records in a fire in 1834 neatly erased much evidence that might have shown more Travis activity in the town, but the Clarke County Courthouse records in Grove Hill are extant. County court Minutes, Book A, 1824-1833, and Minutes of the Commissioners Court, Book A, 1813-1832, Clerk of the Court, Clarke County Courthouse, Grove Hill, Alabama, have been scanned for every page, and not a single mention of Travis as either resident or practicing attorney appears in any of its suits, court minutes, or subpoenas issued or in any indexes of conveyances. Moreover, given his heavy debts in Monroe, and the resulting court actions against him, he would undoubtedly have borrowed in Clarke as well, yet there are no records of judgments for collection of debt against him there. All the Claiborne lawyers occasionally practiced before Clarke court when it sat, and surely so did Travis on at least on occasion early in 1831. But any idea that he lived anywhere other than Claiborne simply does not survive scrutiny.

  48 Forwood to Grant, December 4, 1888, “Forwood's Letter,” 29-30.

  49 Brewton, Ala., Standard, July 13, 1967; Deed Book A, 33-34, Clerk of the Court, Monroe County Courthouse, Monroeville, Alabama.

  50 Claiborne, Ala., Herald February 27, 1829; W. A. Stewart to Travis, May 13, 1829, W. A. Stewart Letterbook, quoted in Theodore B. Pearson, “William Barrett [sic] Travis,” Clarke County Historical Society Quarterly 18 (Summer 1993): 15.

  51 George A. Beauchamp to Mixon, March 28, 1929, Mixon Papers, UT; Gordon Evatt to Archie McDonald, February 27, 1969, cited in McDonald, Travis, 49; Pearson, “Travis,” 13-14.

  52 Military Roster of Alabama, vol. 2, 1820-1832, ADAH; Peter Brannan to Asbury, February 10, 1932, Travis Surname File, ADAH; George Medlock to Gabriel Moore, February 17, 1830. Militia Correspondence, Governors' Papers, Gabriel Moore, ADAH.

  53 Dellet's papers and the Tait Family Papers, ADAH, contain receipts for numerous publications to which these two men subscribed in this period, but none for the Herald.

  54 Claiborne, Ala., Herald, December 5, 1829; William, B. Travis receipt, November 8, 1829, American Book Prices Current 1979 85 (New York, 1979): 1037.

  55 McDonald, Travis, 49, states without authority that Travis published the Herald until he left Claiborne in early 1831. Considering its faltering condition in December 1829, and Travis's increasingly dire financial straits throughout 1830, this hardly seems possible.

  56 B. Hampton v. Travis, January 1, 1829, James Colburn v. Travis, October 1829, N. N. B. Hays v. Travis, January 1, 1830, Francis Pridgeon v. Travis, January 1, 1830, D. L. Weakley v. Travis, Joseph Lindsey & Co. v. Travis, August 13, 1830, Practice Docket 1828-1830, J. Emanuel to Dellet, July 14, 1831, Dellet Papers, ADAH.

  57 Long tradition in Monroe County says that Travis lived in a one-story, two-room house with attic, with probably no more than three hundred square feet in all. This building has been restored and is today open to the public at Perdue Hill, Ala., under the auspices of the Perdue Hill-Claiborne Historic Preservation Foundation, which also maintains the Claiborne Masonic Hall, both structures having been moved from their original sites since Claiborne essentially no longer exists. Joan Headley, who has overseen the Perdue Hill restorations, confirmed to me in a letter of October 25, 1995, that there is absolutely no documentary basis of any kind to connect this house with Travis. “We are indeed dealing with local oral tradition,” she said. Given the grotesque inaccuracy of Monroe local tradition relating to Travis's departure from Alabama, as will be seen, it would be unwise to put much credence in it where this house is concerned. Moreover, as the 1830 census taken between June 1 and December 1 lists nine people living under Travis's roof, this small cottage hardly seems sufficient. The conclusion that Travis lived near Dellet, but in town, comes from the census listing, which quite distinctly segregated Claiborne residents from those of the rest of the county, and Travis's enumeration appears just six names from Dellet's suggesting possibly that they even lived on the same street and block.

  58 Claiborne, Ala., Herald December 5, 1829.

  59 Claiborne, Ala., Gazette, March 19, 1825.

  60 Summons to Francis Farrar, August 14, 1830, Receipt to William M. Cato, August 24, 1830, William B. Travis as administrator of estate of Ansel Erwin, summons, August 14, 1830, Subpoena at G. R. Holland, August 26, 1830, Dellet Papers, ADAH.

  Local folklore and Travis biographers have left the impression that he was a very successful lawyer. Turner, Travis, 6, says that “although it is believed that the young attorney achieve more than indifferent success during these years, no records are available to confirm it.” McDonald, Travis, 46-47, goes muchfarther, concluding that “Travis established such a strong association with Dellet that he may almost be thought of as a junior partner,” and moreover that “Dellet's papers indicate that he was active in the affairs of the county” and that “several cases in which he was an attorney are listed in the dockets of the Claiborne courts” (48). These are misconceptions based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Travis documents in the Dellet Papers. With the exception of a single passing reference in one letter, Travis's name does not appear in any correspondence by or to James Dellet. Travis appears on only two kinds of documents, those in which he is representing someone trying to collect a debt, and the much greater number in which he is being sued for debt, usually by Dellet. The presence of these documents in Dellet's papers is explained by the fact that they are court documents, not his practice papers, and in 1830-32 Dellet served as judge of the local court. Moreover, by 1830-31 Dellet already had another partner, Benjamin F. Porter.

  61 Claiborne, Ala., Herald, February 27, 1829.

  62 United States Census, Monroe Country, Alabama, 1830.

  63 Rosanna Travis to Dellet, September 6, 1834, Dellet Papers, ADAH.

  64 A common story suggests that Rosanna was unfaithful, though like virtually all stories connected with Travis's life in Alabama, this one did not surface until almost a century after he left, and as usual came second- or thirdhand from people who never knew him. Travis's nephew Mark Travis told Samuel Asbury, April 17, 1929 (Mixon Papers, UT),that his father, James C. Travis, had told him that in the marriage “his brother William put up with things tha[t] he never though[t] he would, but he always say it was best, maybe, for him to have done as he did.” At the same time Mark Travis told Rayburn Fisher on March 23, 1929, that James told him that but for “family troubles,” William might not have left (Mixon Papers, UT). On April 4, 1929, Mark Travis told Fisher that William had “charged Infidelity” against Rosanna (Fisher, “Travis,” 10), and later that month, on April 20, 1929, told Fannie J. McGuire (Fisher, “Travis,�
�� 10), that a court determined that Rosanna was an “unfit” mother, the inference being that she was an adulteress. There is more of this, but the important points is that Mark Travis's father James never knew his brother William, and therefore got nothing from him firsthand. As will be shown subsequently, all the stories he apparently told Mark about Travis suing Rosanna of divorce and winning, having her declared unfit by the court, and being granted custody of their children were completely false. Certainly Rosanna would not have told anyone this sort of thing. The most logical explanation is that after Travis abandoned Rosanna and the two children, his family in later years—especially after he became a hero—dealt with the unpleasant fact by concocting this myth, especially when she married Samuel Cloud immediately after the divorce was final in February 1836, suggesting that they had become quite close before she was officially single once more. Of course she had been alone five years at that point, and Travis himself certainly did not hesitate to form new romantic liaisons while still married, and apparently even while protesting his love to Rosanna and promising to return to her. But any suggestions that she was found culpable by a court are completely false.