Mom had difficult time understanding me as I explained just how perfect her sterling silver dinner knives were for digging perfect holes in the dirt, digging up the garden's carrots and radishes and replanting them after finding they were not ready for harvest, following a ground squirrel hole or two deeper to see if the squirrel was home, but not much else. That all changed when Dad brought home some real digging implements: Captain Matheny's collection.
AROUND SOMERSET Elm Creek, just a couple of miles north to northwest of Somerset, this often dry creek, has in the last century, given residents living near it’s banks floods that have wiped buildings, topsoil, crops, livestock, fences, bridges, and the lives of several people. Our other river-neighbor, the Medina, flooded in 1919 from a hurricane that unexpectedly came through Port Aransas (wiping it out), Rockport, and Corpus Christi. This Medina River flood wiped out our area’s Santissima Trinidad Catholic Church (established in the mid 1800s) and cemetery. A “DAD STORY” ABOUT HIS FIRST FLOOD Another regional river, the Frio River, flooded end of May-June 1935, nearly took this author’s Dad (Jesse Columbus James, aged 12 years old at the time) with is as it […]
"There between the clouds of dust come the soldiers of Joaquin de Arredondo. This is the frontier of Terror." 1867 poem by G. Prieto
A frequently forgotten document, Texas FIRST Constitution of 1813. See also First Declaration of Independence, 1813
NOTE: TEXAS’ FIRST DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, read aloud to the assembled public in Military Plaza, Presidio and Villa of San Fernando de Bexar (at what is now called the Spanish Governor’s Palace in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas) on the APRIL 6, 1813 Source: Niles, H., Ed. (July 17, 1813). The Weekly Register, Vol. 4. (A transcription of this document was found on the Portal of Texas History accessed through Texas Historical Commission at https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth296840/. The Declaration of Independence together with the first Constitution of the State of Texas (April 17, 1813) can be found on pages 39-40 in the Documents of Texas History book, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth296840/m1/52/.) Typist Peggy Weyel’s note: There are a few misspellings by modern standards. Examples: “conduced” and not “conducted,” “intrust” (1813) […]
De Lara spoke with President Jefferson and Secretary of state Monroe, receiving their monetary and military support for establishing a republican government in Texas.