Gonzales County History

Empresario Green C. DeWittqv's petition for a land grant to establish a colony in Texas was approved by the Mexican government on April 15, 1825. In January 1825, confident that the grant would be awarded, he had appointed James Kerr to survey the colony and its capital. Though Kerr selected a site near the confluence of the Guadalupe and San Marcos rivers to be the capital, he and his assistants built cabins near a creek (ever after called Kerr's Creek) while the townsite of the capital was being surveyed. This group became the first Anglo community west of the Colorado River. After two Indian attacks, the first probably the work of the Waco Indians and the second by the Tonkawas, Kerr's group abandoned their cabins in July 1826. DeWitt's colonists settled for a time at a site called Old Station, about six miles from the mouth of the Lavaca River. The Mexican government, however, refused their request to remain at Old Station, and late in 1827 some settlers returned to the Gonzales townsite that Kerr had surveyed. When Jean Louis Berlandier passed through in April 1828, he found six cabins near the river crossing, encircled by a fort-like barricade; other cabins were located in the surrounding forest. Cotton and corn had been planted, and there were domestic cows, pigs, and some horses. Buffalo were present, and nearby were two permanent Indian villages, one of Tonkawas and the other of Karankawas.

Within three years more than 100 families had arrived to settle in DeWitt's colony. The Mexican government refused to recognize Kerr as the official surveyor, and Byrd Lockhart was appointed in 1831 to resurvey the townsite. A population of 532 in 1831 convinced the Mexican government to send a six-pound cannon to Gonzales for protection against Indian raids. DeWitt's colony sent delegates to the conventions of 1832 and 1833qv and to the Consultation of 1835. The Mexican government considered the conventions a treasonable act, and in September 1835 Mexican troops were sent to Gonzales to retrieve the cannon. On October 2, at the battle of Gonzales, the colonists resisted the attempts of Mexican troops to confiscate what came to be known as the Gonzales "come and take it" cannon. This was the first armed encounter of the Texas Revolution. Stephen F. Austin arrived in Gonzales and was elected the first commander in chief of the revolutionary army by the volunteers, many of whom took part in the siege of Bexar. Thirty-two men from DeWitt's colony who answered the call for assistance at the Alamo, and eight or nine other men from the colony who had volunteered earlier, perished at the battle of the Alamo. Sam Houston's order to retreat and the burning of Gonzales after the battle of the Alamo began the Runaway Scrape.

Gonzales County, named for the capital of Green DeWitt's colony, was established in 1836 and organized in 1837 as one of the original counties in the Republic of Texas. It occupied the same area as DeWitt's colony-a territory some sixty miles long and twenty-five miles wide, with an area of 1,100 square miles. After the annexation of Texas to the United States in 1845, portions of Gonzales County were detached to form what are now the counties of Caldwell, Comal, DeWitt, Fayette, Guadalupe, Jackson, Lavaca, and Victoria. James W. Robinson, the first official of Gonzales County, was appointed district judge by the Congress of the Republic of Texas in 1836. In 1837 an election was held for the "depopulated counties"; those settlers who had participated in the Runaway Scrape or were temporarily living in other locations voted in this election. On December 14, 1837, the first Gonzales county court was organized, with B. D. McClure as chief justice. The settlers of DeWitt's colony obtained land grants and patents in the fertile blackland valleys of the Guadalupe and San Marcos rivers and along the major creeks, including Plum Creek (now in Caldwell County), Rocky Creek (now in Lavaca County), Peach Creek (named Arroyo de los Theodolites before Anglo settlement), Sandy Fork, and Sandies and Salt creeks. Early Gonzales County settlers had established farms and ranches first in the river valleys, then in the sandy lands, and finally on the black mesquite uplands. Settlers from soil-exhausted southern states quickly converted the rich alluvial soil into productive acreage, finding it possible to grow peaches, grapes, plums, pears, figs, apples, and apricots. Timber was harvested early in the county's history, and walnut was used by skilled local cabinetmakers. Some wheat was raised in the early years, and all kinds of vegetables and some fruits have been raised throughout Gonzales County history, but cotton and corn became the chief crops in the county. Salt was pressed by the pioneers on the salt flats near Pilgrim but was never produced in commercial quantities. By 1840, cotton, corn, potatoes, sugarcane, rye, oats, and barley were produced in abundance, along with significant numbers of hogs and sheep. Early trade passed through Indianolaqv, roughly 100 miles away.

County residents joined in the fight against Indian and Mexican incursions during the 1840s. After the Comanche Indians raided Victoria and Linnville in August 1840 (see LINNVILLE RAID OF 1840), a number of Gonzales County men joined other volunteers in the attack and defeat of the Indians in the battle of Plum Creek in nearby Caldwell County. During the Mexican invasions of 1842, volunteers from the county joined the Texas forces and families living along the rivers, and many from the town joined in what is sometimes called the Second Runaway Scrape. By 1850 the county population had reached 1,492, including 601 slaves. The port of Indianola was used not only for trade, but as a port of debarkation for immigrants. The arrival of immigrant settlers in the 1850s stimulated enough growth to establish in 1853 the first newspaper in the county (the Gonzales Inquirer), as well as post offices in several communities, including Rancho, Mule Creek, Copperas Creek, Moulton, Harmony Grove, Centerville (Belmont), Canoe Creek, China Grove (Big Hill), Ebenezer, Lemmonds School (Five Mile), Hopkinsville, McClure's Hill, Palo Alto, Peach Creek, Pilgrim, Pecan Grove, Round Lake (Clabbertown), Sandies Chapel, Sandy Fork, Sulphur Springs, and Zoar. Gonzales College, founded in 1851 by slave-owning planters, was the first institution in Texas to confer A.B. degrees on women before the Civil War. By 1855 the number of slaves in the county had reached 2,140. Before the Civil War only a single free black was reported in Gonzales County.

In 1860 Gonzales County had a total population of 8,059, more than a fivefold increase since 1850; the 1860 population included 384 slaveholders and 3,168 slaves. On February 23, 1861, residents voted for secession (802 in favor and 80 against). Gonzales County, with a population of about 5,000 free inhabitants, saw some twenty-two volunteer companies, including home-guard units, organized there during the Civil War. Membership rosters for seventeen of these companies are on record. In 1863 the Confederacy commissioned Fort Waul to be built to protect against invasion by northern troops through Indianola. In the 1990s remnants of the fort could still be seen north of the city of Gonzales. Though no Union troops fought in Gonzales County during the war, a small group of fifteen or twenty Union soldiers was encamped on the Gonzales public square for several months during Reconstruction. In February 1868 the mayor of Gonzales complained to the military authorities that the soldiers were intimidating county citizens. Several months later two soldiers were accused of murder. According to accounts in the local newspaper, they began firing into the town, beat the postmaster, wrecked the post office, and pulled a civilian into the street and murdered him. The two soldiers were eventually tried by a military court and found not guilty. Gonzales County was also involved in the outlaw conflicts of the late 1860s and 1870s and witnessed numerous lynchingsqv. In addition, several citizens were involved in the Sutton-Taylor Feud. John Wesley Hardin married Jane Bowen in the county and, after his 1894 pardon from prison, practiced law in Gonzales.

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