Pheasant,
or Pheasant Switch, was a “neighborhood” settlement
about six miles north of Palacios. The area, informally
platted as far as can be determined, was situated
immediately east of the Southern Pacific Railway and
just north of a country road in the N. Reed Survey. The
railroad was completed to Palacios in 1903.
NBC
engineers await the "go ahead"
from New York on the "Army
Hour" broadcast
February 15, 1943. The show included a display
of anti-aircraft fire
from Well
Point.
Cortes |
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Cortes, situated on the Southern Pacific Railroad approximately four miles of the Colorado River, was named for H. W. Cortes, president of the Moore-Cortes Canal Company. The small depot stop on the railroad was in operation for some three years, 1901-1903, before being moved to Markham. Postmasters were Arthur A. Moore and Thomas Smith.
The Northern Headquarters was only a few miles to
the north, and Cortes station was used by persons living in that
area of the county. |
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Culver |
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Culver, in central Matagorda County, was
established in the late 1880’s and named for W. D. Culver, who
secured a post office in his general store. In 1900 the site became
a station on the GS&SF from Bay City to Matagorda. William D.
Culver served as postmaster from 1888 to 1894; Lemuel P. Coulter
from 1894 to December, 1895, when the post office was moved to
Coulterville. |
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El Frieda |
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El Frieda was situated on the Missouri-Pacific Railroad west of Blessing. John W. Gaines had the El Frieda townsite platted in 1909. Streets were named Harris, Logan and Campbell, and there was Gaines, Bay City, and Elizabeth Avenues.
The July 21, 1917, issue of the Matagorda
County Tribune gave the El Frieda’s population as between 50 and
100. |
Electra |
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Electra was on the same site or quite close to
Elliott’s Ferry on the west side of the Colorado River. It is shown
on maps of Texas drawn in 1836 by J. D. Freeman and in 1845 by C. S.
Williams. The maps show Electra on the early trails from Victoria
to Brazoria. Mary B. Ingram |
Fitzmaurice |
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Fitzmaurice, situated north of Cedar Lane, was a
switch on the GH&SA. |
Forgason |
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In the early 1900’s, Forgason, south of Pledger,
was a switch on the Southern Pacific Railroad, |
Furber |
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Furber Switch was a railroad siding with loading
pens for cattle west of Markham on the Southern Pacific Railroad.
It was named for William Alard Furber, a banker from Illinois, who
bought the Markham Hotel in 1905 and placed it under the management
of his sister, Caroline B. Fisher. |
Grovedale |
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Grovedale (Groverdale) was a switch on the GH &
SA near the John Rugeley Plantation of Caney Creek. The switch was
in existence as late as 1917. In 1917 the population of Grovedale
was between 50 and 100. |
Hurd's Landing |
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The Tres Palacios River was a popular area for
outings and picnics. One of the most popular spots on the river was
Hurd’s Landing near the communities of Dunbar and Tres Palacios. A
grove of oak trees gave shade during the hot days of summer.
Shallow-bottomed boats carried picnickers up the river to the picnic
area for the day. |
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Juanita |
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Juanita, on Juanita creek east of Midfield, was a
railroad switch on the Southern Pacific Railroad in the early
1900’s. |
Lehan |
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In the early 1900’s, Lehan was a switch on the
Santa Fe Railroad north of Bay City. |
LeTulle |
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LeTulle, situated north of Bay City on the Santa
Fe Railroad, was a rail switch in the early 1900’s. |
Manhattan |
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The town of Manhattan was situated at the mouth of Caney Creek on the Benjamin Wightman and Margaret Wightman Leagues. The town was in existence before 1838 as in that year several of the settlers along Caney Creek met to formulate plans to deepen the channel at the mouth of Caney. Tolls were to be collected at Manhattan on all vessels, steamboats, rafts and freight passing up or down the creek.
In January, 1838, during the first year of
President Mirabeau B. Lamar’s administration, an effort was made by
the residents of Matagorda County to establish a state university in
this town to be known as Manhattan University. A company was
organized to issue one hundred shares of stock—valued at $50
each—with the right to issue an extra one hundred shares, should
they be needed. The university project never materialized. |
McCrosky |
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McCrosky was a switch on the Cane Belt Railway between Bay City and Wharton. Situated on the Runnells-Pierce Ranch (which was once the John Duncan Ranch), the switch had cattle pens where cattle was shipped to market. The switch received its name from J. N. McCrosky, a cowboy for the Pierce Ranch. McCrosky’s grandson, Voss, lived in his grandfather’s house on the ranch for eighteen years. He recalled hauling lumber by mule and wagon from the east side of the Colorado River back to the ranch. The lumber was used to build a home for the fence rider, Albert Rhodes, who lived at Podo, a switch on the GH&SA.
McCrosky Switch made the news in one of the early
Daily Tribunes: “The big barn at McCrosky Switch, together
with its contents of hay and other feed stuff, was burned
today.” |
Mays |
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Mays, north of Bay City, was a railroad switch on
the Santa Fe Railroad in the early 1900’s. |
Nance |
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In the early 1900’s Nance was a railroad switch
on the Santa Fe Railroad north of Bay City. |
Orchard City |
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Orchard City was situated southeast of
Collegeport near Mad Island Lake. |
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CAVALLO Lawrence P. "Hoss" Gwin, Jr. Pass Cavallo lies between Matagorda Bay and the Gulf of Mexico and separates Matagorda Island from Matagorda Peninsula . The Spanish name means ''Pass of the Horse." This pass into Matagorda Bay was used by the early explorers and was the site of many shipwrecks in the 1800's. In 1847 Port Cavallo was listed as having a post office. The post office papers show William E. Hanson as postmaster from July 28, 1847, to April 28, 1848, and listed the post office as being in Matagorda County. The post office was discontinued in 1848, and reinstated in 1852, with Thomas Decrow as postmaster. For a short time during Decrow's tenure, the records show the post office as being in Calhoun County.Decrow served from March 15, 1852, until October 27, 1853, when the post office again was discontinued. Decrow lived on the western end of Matagorda Peninsula, where he had a wharf(extending outward to ten feet of water) that could accommodate steamers. This area was known as Decros (Decrow's) Point. Pass Cavallo has been a strategically important area throughout Texas history, for control of the pass meant control of Matagorda Bay and its coastline. The pass is situated approximately 55 miles southwest of Bay City; it is bordered on the east by Decros Point on Matagorda Peninsula, and on the west by Matagorda Island. Several important towns have been situated around the pass : Saluria was built on Matagorda Island within sight of the pass, and before the Civil War, it boasted the largest lumber yard west of Pensacola; Fort Cavallo, settled in 1840 was situated on Decros Point; as was Calhoun City where most of the bar pilots lived; Indianola, the oldest and largest, was established north of the pass. At present Port O'Connor is situated at the mouth of the pass.Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle sailed his ship La Belle through Pass Cavallo when he entered Matagorda Bay in 1685. He established Fort Saint Louis at a point somewhere near Indianola. The pass was used by Stephen F. Austin when in 1821 , as an empresario under Mexican Rule, he brought colonists to settle along the Texas coast. During the Texas Republic, Albert Sidney Johnson established a garrison of three cannon and twenty-five men on Matagorda Island in anticipation of a Mexican blockade that never occurred. The Mexican War saw Zachary Taylor establish a garrison on Matagorda Island to protect the pass and to take care of the shiploads of troops and ammunition needed in the war with Mexico. In 1850 J. T. Mansfield made an inspection tour of the Texas coast in search of a site for an ammunition depot .and decided that Indianola provided the most advantageous location. Anita Hill recounted the story of her grandfather, William Andrew Hill, who left Denmark for Texas in 1835. Shipwrecked off the coast of Cuba, where he had to await transportation, he arrived in Indianola in 1836. He became a "bar pilot," one of those hardy men who guided vessels over the shallow and shifting sandbars of the pass. He and his wife settled in Saluria where they built a large house with a lookout on top from which vessels in the pass could be observed. During the Civil War, northern soldiers commandeered the Hill's home, and the family was forced to move up the coast to Portsmouth, near present-day Palacios. William Hill became captain of the blockade runner Lizzie Lake which took cargoes of cotton from Indianola to the neutral Mexican port of Baghdad, where it was exchanged for guns and ammunition. The Lizzie Lake and several other "cotton-clads" were used to transport Captain E. S. Rugeley and his company, known as the "Matagorda Coast Guards" in December, 1863, when they made an attempt to dislodge a federal force encamped below Fort Caney on Matagorda Bay. They were put over the side of the larger boats in small skiffs and were some distance away when a sudden "norther," so typical of this area, blew in and swamped the skiffs. Twenty-two of the men died by drowning or freezing before the "cotton-clads" could reach them. The era of heaviest traffic through Pass Cavallo was from 1848 until the Civil War. During this time Indianola grew in importance as a center of commerce. It had long been a freight-wagon center for goods brought in by sea to be carried overland to San Antonio. After peace with Mexico, the wagon trails extended to forts along the border west of San Antonio, and on to Chihuahua in Mexico. The heavy covered wagons, pulled by oxen at first and later by mule teams, carried heavy mining machinery for the silver mines in Mexico, as well as cotton, tools, firearms, books, whiskey, and even an iron bridge carried piecemeal for the city of San Antonio. On the return trip the wagons brought silver in coins and in bullion, and hides to be shipped from Indianola to tanneries in the East. The beginning of the Civil War found a contingent of Union soldiers stationed in San Antonio with orders to return to the North. An undated issue of the Galveston News describes the new part that this are was to play: The beginning of the Civil War found Te xas in dire need of a military commander. General Earl Van Dorn was selected to lead the Texas forces, and he set up his headquarters in Indianola, which thus had the distinction of being the first military headquarters in Texas during the Civil War. Upon receiving the order to return with all Union forces, General [David E.] Twiggs surrendered the Union fortifications in San Antonio, and marched with his men to Green Lake (south of Victoria) which had been selected as a point of congregation for Union soldiers awaiting a ship to take them to New York. General Van Dorn felt that he could persuade some of the Union troop to join the Confederate forces , so he journeyed to Green Lake to try to convince them. He met with little success. Later he received orders from Jefferson Davis to try to capture these Union soldiers, so he proceeded to fill the sloop Matagorda with Galvestonians and head for Saluria. There he met the Star of the West and captured all the Union soldiers on board.In 1861 Texas troops under the command of Dan Shea set up camp on Matagorda Island. His force was not strong enough to protect the pass, so in 1862 work was begun on a fortress on the eastern tip of Matagorda Island. Christened Fort Esperanza, it was built by slave labor using oyster shell, concrete, and logs brought from a log jam on the Guadalupe River. The fort was designed to repel attacks from the sea only, all gun emplacements were pointed across Pass Cavallo. General Paul Octave Hebert, the commander reduced the strength of the garrison, and as a result two Union gunboats sailed through the pass unchallenged and conquered Indianola. When General John B. Magruder took command of the Texas forces, he began the task of retaking the ports along the Texas coast that had fallen to Union forces. At Pass Cavallo, he strengthened the garrison at the fort and ordered the wharves and warehouses burned. In November, 1863, during a severe "norther," Union troops advanced up the coast from Aransas Pass, approaching the fort from its undefendable lower side. For four days approximately 3,000 Union soldiers laid siege to the garrison of 500 Confederates in the fort, until its surrender. The Union forces were ordered to remain in the Pass Cavallo area, thus giving Magruder time to fortify and strengthen Lavaca against a possible attack. When Union orders arrived, the troops were to march around Magruder's forces and join General Nathaniel P. Banks at the Red River. The Union forces were defeated in the Red River campaign, and the Confederates drifted back to Fort Esperanza, but there was only blockade action until the end of the war. Today the ruins of Fort Esperanza lie under water, some of which can be seen at low tide.
Presently Pass Cavallo
is used by pleasure craft and
small shrimpers;
all deeper-draft vessels
use the Matagorda
ship channel
which traverses Matagorda Peninsula
a short
distance to the east of
the pass. |
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Peach creek was a farming community in eastern Wharton County and was part of Matagorda County before 1846. It was named by the early settlers for Little Peach Creek, a tributary of the San Bernard River. There were plantations along the creek during the Texas Republic. By 1870 the plantations had been replaced by smaller farms. In 1838 Peach Creek was on the mail route from Matagorda to Columbus “via Preston, Peach Creek, and Egypt.” J. B. Phillips was listed as postmaster at Peach Creek on April 5, 1839. J. B. Phillips made regular reports on the status of the post office. The post office was abolished April 7, 1841.
The post office was reinstated May 22, 1846, and
Thomas Thacher served as postmaster from May until July 1, 1847,
when the post office was changed to Wharton. |
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By Rosalie Nelson Ellis The Pecan City School District, located near the Colorado River east of Collegeport, was established as Matagorda County Common School District #16 on August 16, 1917. Children in the Pecan City area first attended school classes in a ranch house. In 1916 a one room school building was constructed. During most of the years the school was in operation, approximately 10 to 12 students were in attendance. Two of the first teachers were Mary Laslie and Ora Callahan and they boarded with the Will Corporon family.
Students in later years attended school in Collegeport and the Pecan City School District was annexed to the Palacios Independent School District on October 20, 1947.
Palacios ISD 75th Anniversary 1906 - 1981, Palacios Beacon Supplement
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In 1917 the Pecan City School had four grades
and seven grades in 1924. |
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No. 16
Tax 15c. |
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Velma Blackwell, Pecan City |
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District #
16 - Pecan City - Velma Blackwell |
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Velma Blackwell
- Pecan City |
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Dorothy Merck
Historic Matagorda County, Volume I, pages 334-335 |
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R. C. Keeley, wife and daughter, Ruth, were in town Saturday from Pecan and dined at Hotel Collegeport as guests of G. E. Black.
Matagorda County Tribune, July 11, 1913 |
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Collegeport New Era, January 8, 1914 |
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J. S. Ryan of
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A W. LeCompte of Pecan City was in town Monday.
Collegeport New Era, November 26, 1914 |
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Mr. and Mrs. Frank Brown of Pecan City neighborhood bought the Jimmie Cottongame house and remodeled it. They have moved here and we are glad to welcome them to our community. The Daily Tribune, March 12, 1941 |
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COLLEGEPORT By Mrs. J. J. Harbison
Mr. and Mrs. John Merck are moving to a farm near Pecan City this week. We will miss them.
The Daily Tribune,
Thursday, June 15, 1939 |
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Podo was a shipping pen switch on the Southern Pacific Railroad which ran through the John Duncan Plantation situated in the northern part of Matagorda County. The switch was named for the colorful Kaffir slave, "Podo," who worked for John Duncan prior to the Civil War. He came from Africa and was a leader of his people and "slave boss" for many years. The Duncan home was in the vicinity of the switch, and when the railway came through in the early 1920s, the Pierce family named it "Podo." In 1917 the population of Podo was between fifty and one hundred. All that remains today are two crepe myrtle trees and several brick cisterns in the vicinity of the former slave quarters. Also, in 1936 the State of Texas erected a granite marker bearing the name of John Duncan, his birth and death dates. From John Duncan's history: Duncan was said to have owned ninety-four slaves in 1860. Their quarters were situated about one-half mile north of the home site; the brick cisterns were built from brick made on the plantation. One group of slaves was led by a tribal chief from Zululand named “Podo.” The tribe had been captured after being made drunk and hauled aboard ship in chains. The Kaffir slave was a leader for many years—even after they were free men and the plantation had been sold to A. H. “Shanghai” Pierce. The sugar cane producing area and the shipping switch on the Southern Pacific Railroad which ran through Duncan’s plantation, were known as “Podo.” Reminiscences of Walter of Brown of Ashwood included this information about Podo: He [Walter] recalled a small settlement on the banks of Caney and a railroad that was called Podo. This was about five miles south of Pledger. The settlement got its name from one of Mr. Duncan's slaves. He was a tall, heavily built man with shiny black skin and red eyes. He wore very little clothing and went barefoot year round. His name was Podo and that was the only word he could speak. Mr. Duncan had quite a large acreage and a large white house with lots of red roses; a store; quarters for the slaves; and a cattle pen on the railroad so cattle could be shipped. There was also both a white and a slave cemetery on the plantation. Mae Smith of Ashwood recalled knowledge of Podo as a young girl: In 1940 I knew a young couple by the name of Henrietta and John Glick. They had three children: Julia, John, and Scotty. Julia was a baby and they would place her in the saddle astride a huge black and white horse they called "Polecat" and come to Ashwood for the mail. I would ride back and spend the day coming home late in the afternoon. I had to cross an iron bridge on Caney and the boards were loose and it made an awful noise. Henrietta and John lived within hearing distance and they said it was their door bell telling them company was coming! At that time only their horses and barn was at Podo. In 1976 Mae Smith made a quilt block depicting Podo for a Bicentennial quilt. She embroidered in bright colors a cattle car side track, railroad sign "Podo," a barn, tree and cattle on the block. This quilt top was presented to the Matagorda County Museum. The location of Podo is #49 on the map of the Caney Run.
Typed by Henry Hanson |
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The proposed city of Portland (at the head of the raft on the Colorado River approximately twelve miles above the town of Matagorda) is an interesting account of one of the early promoters who came to Texas during Stephen F. Austin‘s era. Born in Philadelphia in 1766, Nicholas Clopper, Sr., came to Texas in 1822, and was involved in many promotion schemes until his death in 1841. His son, Nicholas Clopper, Jr., was one of the young men killed by Indians at the mouth of the Colorado River in the fall of 1822. League #7 situated at the head of the raft was a sitio of land granted to Clopper by Stephen F. Austin on December 18, 1830, in exchange for the land he possessed at San Felipe. Edward Nicholas Clopper, a great-grandson of Nicholas Clopper, Sr., tells the story of the proposed city of Portland in Matagorda County in his book, An American Family Through Eight Generations. Quoting the story of this daring venture: Nicholas had the proposed Portland City Company’s prospectus and constitution printed in March of 1841 in the form of a booklet of ten pages, and also stock certificates or “scrip” of denominations ranging from fifty dollars to eleven hundred dollars. The scrip was to be sold and then accepted in payment for city lots. The company’s capital stock consisted of two thousand acres of land and the city lots—the upper half of Nicholas’s League No. 7—and the tract was divided into twenty-two shares of $1,000 each. The location of the proposed city was “at the head of the Raft, on the west bend of the Colorado River, where it is intended shall be a Cotton Press, and an extensive depot for cotton and other produce, which will be thence forwarded by railway to the head of tidewater on Wilson’s creek, distant three miles, and thence by steamboats or other craft to Port Austin and Palacios, where is good harbor and sufficient depth of water at all times for vessels of large class to freight for Europe or anywhere.” E. R. Wightman, who surveyed land in Matagorda County under authority of the Mexican Government prior to the Revolution of 1836 and who acted as County Surveyor from the opening of the Land Office in 1838, declared that he was familiar with Nicholas Clopper’s League No. 7 and was aware that planters up the Rio Colorado had been demanding facilities for passing the Raft, which commences immediately below the proposed town of Portland, either by its removal or connection with Wilson’s Bayou three miles distant where eleven feet of water would be at the wharves; the men in Austin and Palacios (ports on Tres Palacios Bay) had an eye to this connection of Rio Colorado with Palacios; that the site of the proposed town was rolling, beautiful country for a great extent, with the rills of water stealing through wild peach, sweet bay, live oaks, and other trees, and was free from inundation; and that the town of Matagorda at the mouth of the Colorado would lose her commerce if this were effected—“and I am truly partial to Matagorda.” The town was to be in the north-eastern corner of the league but like other projects of Nicholas’s it did not materialize. It might have done so if he had lived longer; as it was his death put an end to it. He sold at least five shares of stock in the enterprise; the purchasers of these five shares were William M. Corry, a lawyer, and Thomas F. Corry, of Cincinnati, and each was given a deed for one-twenty-second part of the upper half of the league for each share; as the plans were not carried out, these deeds were annulled in 1858 by Joseph’s [son of Nicholas Clopper] transfer of 1,500 acres on the north side of the half league to T. F. Corry. The matter was finally disposed of, it appears many years later, for Joseph’s widow, Mary (Estes) Clopper, noted on one of the Manuscript copies of the Portland Constitution, “My son and myself sold this tract August 1877, for cash.” Nicholas Clopper, Sr., died December 2, 1841, at the family home, “Beechwood,” in Pennsylvania. A great-grandson, Edward Nicholas Clopper, summed up his life in these few words: ……he was a promoter who failed—an unsuccessful speculator with a strong religious bias. He made a modest fortune as a merchant, lost it through speculation, and then spent the rest of his days speculating in efforts to recoup his losses. He was a rover, too, possessed with the notion that beyond the horizon lay the promised land. He accepted his reverses without complaint and kept firm his faith in his old-school Presbyterian god.
Typed for this page by Vera Petteway-Nyormoi |
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Preston |
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Pre ston was established in 1838 in the northeastern part of Matagorda County at the head of Bay Prairie. It was on the road from Matagorda to Columbus and San Felipe and was within four-and-a-half miles of the Colorado River and two-and-a-half miles of Caney Creek.' Serving the plantation owners in that vicinity, the small community existed for some twenty years and then slowly became a ghost town to be replaced by Waterville and later by Wharton. It was some ten miles south of present Wharton in the vicinity of Iago.In the Matagorda Bulletin dated February 5, 1838 , the proprietors, D. Davis D. Baker, John Huff, and Charles DeMorse, had an advertisement telling of the new town and that lots were available. All three of these men were prominent in the affairs of the government during the days of the RepUblic. Baker fought in the Battle of San Jacinto, Huff was a blacksmith, and DeMorse fought in the Texas Revolution. He was also a lawyer in Matagorda.For many years Preston was the only town between Matagorda and Egypt and was a stopping place for the weary traveler. Isham Thompson was the first postmaster, being appointed May 22, 1846, to be followed by T. H. Petty in October of that same year. Maclin S. Stith became the postmaster in July, 1847, when Wharton County was formed out of Matagorda County. Phillimon H. Petty was the postmaster from August 21 , 1849, to April 11, 1856; Shadrach Cayce became the postmaster and served until Preston was discontinued in February, 1857.Among the earliest settlers in Preston were Isham Thompson, P. H. Petty, Maclin Stith, Shadrach Cayce, A. E. Thomas, W. T. Stevens, the Rowe family, and the Manleys. Preston was probably at its height during the days of the Republic as it served as a trading center for those who lived along Caney Creek in the upper part of Bay Prairie.By 1859 the area was known as Waterville (because of Water Hole Creek near by). There was a post office at Waterville from 1858 until 1867, which was reestablished in 1872.These two ghost towns were important in the early history of Matagorda County and later Wharton County as they were stopping places for those traveling from Matagorda to Columbus and San Felipe. They also served the early settlers in the northern part of Bay Prairie. |
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Rugeley Switch, situated on Caney Creek on the Hawkinsville Tap railroad from Van Vleck to Hawkinsville, some eight miles from Bay City was in existence from 1902 to 1930. The railroad not only carried products to market but also carried passengers from one locality to another since roads were poor in the area. The population in 1917 was between 50 and 150. At the Rugeley Switch, passengers could get off the train while cars were being switched to tracks for loading and unloading products such as sugar cane, wood, and cattle. John Rother, county surveyor, told the story that the engineer of the train had to stop frequently to chase a herd of goats off the track. Thus the community earned the nickname “Billygoat Crossing.”
Dr. Henry L. Rugeley lived and reared his family
in this area prior to 1895. He moved to Bay City the first
year the town was established, but his farm and plantation continued
to be called the Rugeley settlement. |
