Hello fellow Texans and friends of Texas. Today is Monday, Nov. 3, 2014. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Stephen F. Austin, father of Texas, born in Virginia< On Nov. 3, 1793, Stephen Fuller Austin, known as the Father of Texas, was born in Virginia. He moved to Arkansas where the territorial governor appointed him circuit judge. He took office in July 1820, but he only briefly held court. At the end of August he was in Natchitoches, La., and in December in New Orleans, where he planned to study law. At the same time, his father, Moses Austin was on his way to San Antonio to apply for a grant of land and permission to settle 300 families in Texas. Though not enthusiastic about the Texas venture, Austin decided to cooperate with his father. He arranged to obtain a loan from a friend to float the enterprise and was at Natchitoches expecting to accompany his father to San Antonio when he learned of Moses Austins death. He proceeded to San Antonio, where he arrived in August 1821. Authorized by Gov. Antonio María Martínez to carry on the colonization enterprise under his fathers grant, Austin came to an understanding about certain administrative procedures and was permitted by the governor to explore the coastal plain between the San Antonio and Brazos rivers for the purpose of selecting a site for the proposed colony. The first colonists began to arrive in Texas by land and sea in December 1821. To his great disappointment, Austin was informed by Martínez that the provisional government set up after Mexican independence refused to approve the Spanish grant to Moses Austin, preferring to regulate colonization by a general immigration law. Austin secured a new agreement with development incentives. Despite the changes, Austin had complete civil and military authority over his colonists until 1828, subject to rather nominal supervision by the officials at San Antonio and Monterrey. He allowed them to elect militia officers. The Mexican practice of issuing titles on loose sheets without a permanent record invited confusion, and Austin asked and obtained permission to record titles in a bound volume having the validity of the original. Both copies and originals had to be attested by the land commissioner, who represented the government, but Austin and his secretary had to prepare them. Because of his great influence with state and federal authorities, colonists sent Austin to seek relief from continuing oppression. He left San Felipe in April, arrived in Mexico City in July, and, after unavoidable delays, persuaded the government to repeal the Law of April 6, 1830, and to promise important reforms in Texas local government. He started home in December, reasonably satisfied with his work and convinced at least that he had left nothing undone. President Santa Anna would not approve state government for Texas. Austin was arrested at Saltillo in January and taken back to Mexico City. No charges were made against him. He was shifted from prison to prison, until December 1834, when he was released on bond and limited to the area of the Federal District. He was freed by a general amnesty law in July 1835 and at the end of August returned to Texas by way of New Orleans. Austin was out of Texas for 28 months. Upon his return, he learned that an unofficial call had been issued for a convention to meet in October. Probably he could have quashed this call, but in a notable speech at Brazoria on Sept. 8 he gave it his sanction and election of delegates proceeded. The Consultation organized on Nov. 3. Austin became chairman of a central committee at San Felipe and, in effect, civil head of Anglo-American Texas. War began at Gonzales on Oct. 1. Austin was elected to command the volunteers gathered there and led them against the Mexican army at San Antonio. In November the provisional government elected him to serve, with William H. Wharton and Branch T. Archer, as commissioner to the United States. He arrived in New Orleans in January 1836 and returned again to Texas in June. The business of the commissioners was to solicit loans and volunteers, arrange credits for munitions and equipment, fit out warships, and do whatever they could to commit the government of the United States to recognition and eventual annexation if Texas should declare independence. They were fairly successful in accomplishing this program, except in the effort to obtain assurances from President Andrew Jackson and Congress. Austin was convinced, however, that Congress would have voted for recognition in May, after the battle of San Jacinto, if the acting president, David G. Burnet, had cooperated with the commissioners by sending them official reports of conditions in Texas. Somewhat hesitantly, Austin consented to offer himself for the presidency after his return to Texas. He was defeated in the election of September 1836, but accepted the office of secretary of state from the successful candidate. He died in service on Dec. 27, 1836, at the untimely age of 43. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= East Texas Normal College founder born in Kentucky in 1861< On Nov. 3, 1861, William Leonidas Mayo, founder and first president of East Texas Normal College (now Texas A&M-Commerce), was born in Kentucky. After graduating from Central Normal College in Danville, Ind., he returned to Virginia to become head of Cedar Bluff Academy. After nearly three years he cut logs to earn money for additional study at Indiana University. A flood washed away his entire seasons work. Mayo went to Denver to teach but discovered that the school system was integrated and resigned. He went to Pecan Gap in Northeast Texas to visit relatives. He arrived in 1886 in poor health and nearly destitute. After several weeks of rest, he taught at Pecan Gap. Three years later he became superintendent of schools in nearby Cooper. In 1889, he purchased the public school property and founded East Texas Normal College, a private teachers college, in connection with the public schools. While in Cooper, Mayo married Etta Booth of Henderson on June 24, 1891. The couple had eight children, five of whom survived childhood. When the college was destroyed by fire in 1894, Mayo moved the institution (East Texas State University, now Texas A&M Commerce) to its present site in Commerce. By 1917 the school had grown to an enrollment of almost 2,000 students. Mayo and his college were known primarily for the emphasis they placed on the education of rural schoolteachers. Seeking to ensure greater permanence for his institution, Mayo had begun to lobby for an appropriation from the Texas legislature to purchase the college from him and make it part of the state system. On March 14, 1917, he received word in Commerce that the House of Representatives had passed the bill that appropriated funds for the purchase of the school. While walking back to the college from the telegraph office, he suffered a heart attack. He was taken to the administration building, where he died a few minutes later. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Weatherford native Mary Martin, mother of actor Larry Hagman, died in 1990< On Nov. 3, 1990, Weatherford native Mary Martin, mother of actor Larry Hagman of Dallas fame, died of cancer at her home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Her cremated remains were buried in East Greenwood Cemetery in Weatherford. The musical theater star was born in Weatherford on Dec. 11, 1913. Her mother was a violin teacher. Family and friends encouraged Mary to perform in local theater as a child. At 12, she began taking voice lessons. At 16, she attended Ward Belmont Finishing School in Nashville for a few months. She married Benjamin J. Hagman, a Weatherford accountant, on Nov. 3, 1930, and the couple went back to Weatherford, where their son, Larry, was born. Mary Hagman opened a dance school in the town. She divorced Hagman in 1935 and left Weatherford to try a performing career, billed as Mary Martin. She got a role in Cole Porters production Leave It To Me. Martins rendition of My Heart Belongs to Daddy soon endeared her to Broadway audiences. The media attention had Hollywood calling. Paramount Pictures signed her and during the next three years she starred in 10 films on contract with that company. Martin met Richard Halliday, an editor and producer, at Paramount. They were married on May 5, 1940, and two years later, Halliday became Mary Martins manager. The couple had one daughter. In 1951 she moved to London for a two-year run of South Pacific. For the rest of the 1950s she divided her time between stage and television performances. She took the youthful character of Peter Pan, in the play of the same name, from a brief Broadway run to repeated NBC-TV presentations. Martin won Tony Awards for performances in Peter Pan and The Sound of Music. In the latter she played the leading character of Mary Rainer from 1959 to 1961. She also starred in a 1965-66 production of the musical Hello, Dolly! on a challenging tour for military audiences stationed in Asia. Her lifetime achievements brought Martin a coveted award from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1989. She is credited with having advanced the significance of the performer in musical theater. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Also on Nov. 3 in Texas: • In 1815, Robert Simpson Neighbors, Indian agent and legislator, was born in Virginia. As Indian agent of Texas, he commanded the Brazos Reservation near Fort Belknap in Young County. When settlers and Indians had problems, he moved the Indians to a new reservation in Indian Territory. On his return he was shot and killed. He was buried in the civilian cemetery at Fort Belknap. • In 1891, construction started on the Pecos High Bridge in Val Verde County. Completed in early 1892, this structure was actually the second bridge built to serve trains traveling on the Southern Pacifics Sunset Route, and the new crossing greatly shortened the route of the rail line. The Pecos High Bridge towered as a landmark for many years until a new bridge, located 440 feet downstream, opened in 1944. • In 1923, attendance hit a one-day record of 117,208 at the Waco Cotton Palace. By 1894 Waco had become one of the major inland cotton markets in the nation, and plans were laid for a fair and exposition center to be named the Texas Cotton Palace. In January 1895 the building was destroyed by a spectacular fire, and the Cotton Palace was not reactivated until 1910. • In 1930, Braniff Airways was incorporated and went public as a subsidiary of the Universal Air Lines System, with Oklahomans Paul Braniff as secretary-treasurer and Thomas Braniff as president. In 1934, the airline moved company operations and maintenance facilities to Love Field, Dallas, from Oklahoma City, and its administrative offices followed in 1942. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Texas History Day-by-Day is compiled by retired newspaper journalist Bob Sonderegger (anglebob61@yahoo). A primary source of information is Handbook of Texas Online. Your comments or additions are welcome.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 11:31:11 +0000
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