Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  22 Sparks in Ellis, Crockett, 223-24; case #3040, Cushing and Ames v. Rezin P. and Stephen Bowie, General Case Files, Entry 21, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, New Orleans, Record Group 21, National Archives—Southwest Region, Fort Worth, Tex.

  23 Richardson, “Teche Country,” 593, 594-97; Sparks, Memories, 376-77.

  24 Sparks in Ellis, Crockett, 223-24.

  25 Charles Robert Goins and John Michael Caldwell, Historical Atlas of Louisiana (Norman, Okla., 1995), 67. Mims, Browie Knife, 26 says—without source, as usual—that the Bowies chartered “‘The Bowie, Lafourche & Northwestern’ on which the principal shipping point was a town called ‘Bowie.’” No source of any kind for this statement has been found, and it is probably merely the sort of local hearsay that informs much of Mims's strange booklet. Certainly no railroad was ever built by the Bowies. There is an intersection in the parish called Bowie Junction not far from Raceland, on what is now the Southern Pacific line. Nearby there is also the Bowie Canal, which by a complex interchange of canals and bayous connects the Lafourche with the Mississippi. It is possible that both named features are artifacts of some planned railroad that never came to be, but more likely they simply take their names from the much later—and unconnected—Bowie Lumber Company. Seeing the name “Bowie Junction,” Mims may well have simply dreamed up the idea of a Bowie railroad.

  26 New Orleans Louisiana State Gazette, July 25, August 8, 1826; Michel's New Orleans Annual and Commercial Register (New Orleans, 1833), 38; Report, Register and Receiver of Land Office, New Orleans, Louisiana on Private Land Claims 1833, Entry 296, Record Group 49, NA; Conveyance Record 4, 496, Clerk of the Court, Orleans Parish Courthouse, New Orleans.

  27 Joseph Fenwick to Johnston, May 10, 1829. Johnston Papers, HSP; Conveyance Book D, 389-90, 425-29, Book E, 27, 79-80, Terrebonne Parish Courthouse; Conveyance Record F, 157, Lafourche Parish Courthouse. Rezin also sold seven of James's slaves in Lafourche for $4,300

  28 Later that month Turner notified Graham specifically of some of the grants that he “considered spurious claims,” almost all of them Bowie's, and announced that he would do nothing on them. He also secured testimony from old Judge Bullard, no friend of Bowie's anyhow, that after living in the area for over twenty years, he had never heard of one of the supposed grant recipients. In fact, rather, it was discovered that the locations Bowie had chosen for some of his claims were actually on property already confirmed to genuine grantees years before, further confirmation of the fraudulence of his forged grants. Graham soon replied endorsing Turner's policy, and directed him not to proceed on any claim without the original papers and all suspicion of fraud eliminated. Turner was delighted, though he predicted that Graham's instructions would “give rise to considerable clamour amongst the claimants, they have been so long indulged in the practice of fraud and imposition on the Government, that they are ready to contend, that they are priviledges in which they are warranted by Law and common usage, let their cases be ever so absurd and ridiculous” (Turner to Graham, March 4, 23, April 15, 1829, Graham to Turner, March 27, 1829, Entry 404, Ethan A. Brown to Levi Woodbury, September 18, 1835, Letters Sent Relating to Private Land Claims, Records of the General Land Office, vol. 2, 235-37, Entry 200, Record Group 49, NA).

  29 If Turner had ironclad proof of forgery in his hands, it could jeopardize title to all the tracts Bowie had sold, and cost him a fortune since in many cases he had pledged his personal bond in high amounts that clear title would be forthcoming, and in any event all of the purchasers would come after him for the refund of their money when the land office negated their titles.

  30 Harper to Graham, August 29, 1827, Graham to Rush, December 14, 1827, Turner to Graham, June 29, 1829, Entry 404, Record Group 49, NA.

  31 Conveyance Record 3, 586, Orleans Parish Courthouse; Certificate of Adolphus Sterne and William Garret, June 8, 1829, Nacogdoches Archives, Archives Division, TXSL. The capture of William Ross is the only known means of dating Bowie's 1829 trip to Texas with any precision. Adolphus Sterne delivered him to Alexandria, suggesting that the slave ran away and was caught in Texas near Sterne's home in Nacogdoches, and his delivery to Alexandria on June 8 suggests that Bowie must have passed through Nacogdoches sometime earlier in late May or very early June, and probably on his way back rather than out. The suggestion that Rezin may have gone with James is only supposition, based on several stories that Rezin also visited the San Saba around this time. Since Rezin did not undertake any transactions for several months after April 1829 in Louisiana, a trip to Texas with James could explain his absence from the conveyance books.

  32 Baptismal certificate, Ursula de Veramendi, November 1, 1811, San Fernando Cathedral, San Antonio.

  33 Testimony of Menchaca, Veramendi v. Hutchins, 126, Documents Pertaining to James Bowie, UT.

  34 Adele Looscan, “The Old Fort on the San Saba River as Seen by Dr. Ferdinand Roemer in 1847,” Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 5 (October 1901): 139, cites Roemer's journal as stating that he saw the Bowie inscription on February 18, 1847. This will also be found in Robert S. Weddle, The San Saba Mission (Austin, 1964), 208, and “Old Fort San Saba, Part, IV” Ben C. Stuart Papers, Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Tex. Of course the inscription does not give a first name, and one could conclude that it was Rezin who went, and some accounts suggest that he made the first exploration looking for the silver. Or it could simply be a bit of early hoax graffiti. Nevertheless, given James Bowie's confirmed visit to Texas in 1829, it seems most reasonable to assume that he was responsible. In the Kuykendall Family Papers (UT) there is an account of an 1829 expedition to the San Saba, but Bowie is not mentioned, and it was probably an entirely separate venture.

  35 This is admittedly something of a surmise. It is possible that the slave ran away at the beginning of Bowie's trip, and was only just caught and returned as he was concluding the journey in June.

  36 Certificate of James Turner, September 22, 1829, Entry 404, Record Group 49, NA.

  37 Nevitt Diary, July 1, 1829, SHC, UNC.

  38 Turner to Graham, June 19, 1829, 404, Record Group 49, NA.

  39 Ibid.

  40 On Charges by a Deputy Surveyor Against the Official Conduct of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, February 27, 1827, American State Papers, Public Lands Series, vol. 4, 922-57.

  41 Archibald Hotchkiss quoted in Speer and Brown, Encyclopedia, vol. 1, 436. Hotchkiss says he saw Bowie in Washington in 1832, but as there is no certain proof that Bowie made a trip east that year, 1829 is the more likely time.

  42 Speer and Brown, Encyclopedia, vol. 1, 436. The Jefferson statement says he met Bowie in 1829, was with him on a steamboat, and knew him in Natchez, and this October arrival in Natchez from his eastern trip would be the only time that fits. Jefferson's memory was hardly infallible, however, for he also said that Bowie had a plantation called “Sedalia” near Natchez on the west side of the river, whereas Bowie had no property there at this time, and his only plantation, the Lafourche cane operation, is believed to have been called “Acadia,” though there is no evidence that Bowie called it that during his ownership.

  43 John Nevitt Diary, October 10, 1829, SHC, UNC. It must be noted that Nevitt's handwriting is difficult at times, allowing for the misconstruing of names, so the apparent mention of Bowie in the entry cited here as evidence of Bowie's being in Natchez in October is not an absolute certainty.

  44 Montfort Wells to Johnson, November 15, 1829, John Johnston to Josiah S. Johnston, September 18, 1829, Johnston Papers; HSP. Musso, “Sandbar Fight,” 4, erroneously says that Cecilia Wells died of pneumonia two weeks before her scheduled wedding to Bowie. His source is Lucy Bowie, and as noted before, she is entirely in error. Montfort Wells makes it clear that she died of fever, undoubtedly malaria. Moreover, if they had had a wedding date two weeks hence, that would have meant on or around October 1, and surely her death just short of her nuptials would have called for comment in John Johnston's letter.
<
br />   45 Turner to Graham, September 22, 1829, Entry 404, Record Group 49, NA. Meanwhile, following Bowie's visit to Washington, Graham reiterated his own positive order that henceforth any claims founded on supposed Spanish titles believed to be forged were to be considered void, and further that on any claims where fraud was suspected, survey must not proceed until presentation of the original papers, and only the originals (Graham to Turner, August 4, 1829, Entry 404, ibid.).

  46 Turner to Graham, June 29, 1829, ibid.

  47 Isaac T. Preston to Graham, October 10, 12, 1829, ibid. These documents are also in American State Papers, Public Lands Series, vol. 6, 4-8.

  Yet Preston found some cause for encouragement. Originally the Bowies filed more than 300 claims. But in the fall of 1828 they gave up on 188 of those because they could not, or would not, post a cash security with the land office covering the costs of surveys. Of the remainder, the 117 had been confirmed, but there were still seven unsettled, covering another 20,000 acres, and at least these could be delayed. Moreover, Preston looked into the manner of presentation of the Bowie claims, and found a familiar system at work. In every one of the 124 claims that they pursued, they submitted depositions from the same three men testifying that they had known the original Spanish grantees. In the other 188 abandoned cases, Preston found that the depositions came from quite a number of men, yet all proved nearly identical in wording, in itself a statistical miracle. The claims they supported just happened to fall on what in 1827 was land appropriated as public domain by the United States, not conflicting at all with any confirmed private property or the land settled on the future state for its own purposes. That “ought to have excited surprise,” said Preston, while the fact that all of the depositions came from men in Louisiana in 1827 who yet somehow had known Spaniards getting grants as much as forty years earlier between 1785 and 1798 was, he suggested, “impeached by nature.”

  Moreover, Preston possessed the original journals of the orders of survey of Governors Miró and Gayoso, and none of the Bowies' appeared in them. He recognized the signatures on the requétes as clumsy forgeries, especially Miró's, and then Preston found that in the 124 requétes there were only about four different handwritings, and perhaps as few as two, even more miraculous. He spotted the unconvincing attempt to age some of the documents, the failure to use distinctive Spanish calligraphy, and the signatures by men notorious as illiterate hunters and itinerants. Tiera is used instead of tierra, ordiniaria rather than ordinaria, profondidad instead of profundidad, and even Nueva Orleans (New Orleans) is spelled Nueva Orlieans. Besides these and more crippling anomalies, the signature of Gov. Esteban Miró is wrong. “Miró wrote a free, careless, quick hand,” said Preston; “the counterfeiter has invariably written slowly, with great care, and generally pointed.” All the mistakes that the Bowies made he found. In addition he noted that the Bowies tried to locate some of these claims in areas completely unknown to the Dons, adding wryly that “it is almost as notorious that he Spanish governors never made consessions in those countries as that they never granted lands in the District of Columbia.”

  Genuine Spanish grants all carried the regulation statements that the grant could only be located on land already vacant, that the grantee was not to seek in any way to injure adjacent landholders, that he must make a good road in one year from settlement, and that the grant would be void if not settled within three years. The last two requirements automatically nullified grant claims presented decades after the fact, while the first interfered with locating the grant on the best possible land. As a result the Bowies simply omitted those clauses from their forgeries. But now Preston noted that their claims, and only their claims, contained such omissions, while every undeniably genuine grant carried the full wording. He hardly needed any more evidence of their fraudulence, but could not help telling Graham that “an individual came here some time ago with one hundred similar claims,” but refrained from filing them when he learned of the suspicion attached to the others. He did not say that the man was either of the Bowies or someone acting on their behalf, but he went on to say of them that “the fact that 188 of those claims filed have been abandoned proves the falsity of the whole.” Even while Preston made his investigation in Little Rock, John Bowie employed an agent in town charged with trying to renew the 188 abandoned claims, offering now to post the necessary security against the costs, and Preston only saw in that additional proof that they were not genuine, or Bowie would not have abandoned them in the first place.

  48 Little Rock Arkansas Advocate, February 9, 1830.

  49 Cron, “Bowie Land Frauds,” James Bowie Vertical File, UT.

  50 Little Rock Arkansas Gazette, March 9, 1830.

  51 Jackson to Graham, November 9, 1829, Entry 394, Record Group 49, NA.

  52 Deed Book G, 256-57, Lafourche Parish Courthouse; Notary William Boswell, Rezin P. Bowie v. His Creditors, vol. 18, #505, statement of Rezin P. Bowie, April 27, May 12, 1832, New Orleans National Archives, Civil Courts Building, New Orleans.

  53 Bowie, “The Bowies,” 381 Henry Clay was in New Orleans in February and March of 1830, so it is just barely possible that the rumored meeting between the two took place as Clay arrived and Bowie departed for Texas. It should also be noted that the Nevitt Diary for December 21, 1829, shows Nevitt playing cards with a man whose name appears to be “Bown,” and which in Nevitt's handwriting could mean Bowie, so he might have made an early winter trip north for a few weeks or less.

  54 Statement regarding sugar prices 1818-1830, John Johnston to Josiah S. Johnston, November 17, 1829, Johnston Papers, HSP.

  55 Rezin Bowie to Johnston, January 28, 1830, Johnston Papers, HSP.

  56 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 627.

  57 Conveyance Book E, 223-24, Terrebonne Parish Courthouse.

  58 Deed Book F, 380-81, Lafourche Parish Courthouse; Notary L. T. Caire, Mortgage, February 20, 1830, vol. 4, #144, New Orleans National Archives.

  59 Deed Book G, 249-50, Lafourche Parish Courthouse.

  60 Ham, “Recollections,” UT. Ham states that in the summer of 1830 Bowie expected to find a large sum in Saltillo, having been shipped to him from Natchez. The only large sum due him at this time seems to be the ten thousand dollars from his land sale, and the assumption that Fisk would have sent it simply comes from his role then as virtually a private banker, and the fact that Rezin and Stephen had credit with him up to fifteen thousand dollars. Indeed, the mortgaging of the slaves may have been to cover money to be sent to James, but it seems unlikely, since according to Ham the money was not in Saltillo when he arrived.

  61 Bowie, “The Bowies,” 381, and the John Bowie in the Washington, Ark., Lone Star, October 23, 1852, both state that James left for Texas with “only about a thousand dollars.”

  62 Ham, “Recollections,” dates their departure as January 1, 1830, but since James was in Thibodeauxville in person on January 15 for the sale to Rezin and Stephen, his departure cannot have been earlier than January 16, and probably a few days later.

  63 John H. Jenkins, ed., The General's Tight Pants (Austin, 1976), 7. In common with most travelers of the time, Bowie almost certainly did not take a horse with him on the steamboat up the Mississippi and Red Rivers, but would have bought a mount in Natchitoches.

  64 A Visit to Texas, 225; Flint, Recollections, 269.

  65 Parker, Trip to the West, 150.

  66 Miller, Public Lands, 21.

  67 J. H. Starr Memoranda Book 1836-1837, February 17, 1837, James H. Starr Collection, UT.

  68 McKinney to Austin, February 13, 1830, Barker, Austin Papers, vol. 3 (Austin, 1919-26), 331-32. It is possible that McKinney also knew Bowie from dealings in Rapides, as a Thomas McKenney was a correspondent of Josiah Johnston's, though any friend of Johnston was unlikely to be recommending Bowie (McKenney to Johnston, May 14, 1824, Johnston Papers, HSP). Bowie also owned property next to a McKinney on Bayou Black in Terrebonne, and this could have been some relation.

  69 Parker, Trip to the Wes
t, 151, 154.

  70 Jenkins, Tight Pants, 6-7, 13

  71 Ham, “Recollections,” UT.

  72 Smithwick, Evolution, 69-70

  73 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 283.

  74 A Visit to Texas, 214.

  75 John M. Niles and L. T. Pease, History of South America and Mexico;…to Which is Annexed A Geographical and Historical View of Texas, vol. 1 (Hartford, Conn., 1839), 226.