Let's Cross Before Dark: A History of the Ferries, Fords and River Crossings of Texas

By Bill Winsor

Let’s Cross Before Dark… A History of the Ferries, Fords and River Crossings of Texas

The state of Texas claims over 12,000 named rivers and streams stretching approximately 80,000 linear miles within its boundaries. In this book, Bill Winsor identifies and locates over 550 named river crossings within the state that once served as vital destinations for Native Americans, European explorers, and Mexican and American soldiers and colonists. Winsor has catalogued their origins and histories. Included in the work are maps of major rivers and their crossings as well as select images of early ferry operations of Texas.

In addition to an alpha index of the crossings, the 625-page book presents an in-depth examination of the roles principal rivers and their crossings assumed in the framing of Texas history. Each of its fourteen chapters explores the founding of these various sites and the characters that brought them to life.

This information, under one cover, presents an incomparable resource for future generations to better understand and appreciate the historical relevance of these vanishing theaters of history. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665565615

Bill Winsor

Bill Winsor is an independent student of Texas history having served as CEO of Dallas Market Center and remains affiliated with his former firm in a semi-retirement role. He is the author of “Texas in the Confederacy” and several articles on Texas history. 

Book preview

Let’s Cross

Before Dark

A History of the Ferries, Fords and River Crossings of Texas

Bill Winsor

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2022 Bill Winsor. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/12/2023

ISBN: 978-1-6655-6476-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-6712-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-6561-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022913184

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

ONE

El Rio de Los Brazos de Dios

Le Maligne: the Wicked One… the Mischievous One

TWO

El Río Bravo del Norte: Wild and Unpredictable

THREE

European Colonies on the Trinity River Crossings

FOUR

Rio de los Sabinos: River of the Montezuma Cypress

FIVE

El Salado Rio Rojo: The Salty Red River

SIX

Rio Colorado… I am of Red Color

SEVEN

Rio de Magdalena… The Guadalupe River

EIGHT

El Rio de San Antonio de Bexar… A Flowing Coliseum of History

NINE

Vicksburg Veterans Perish in Texas Ferry Disaster McHenry Bayou, Matagorda Island

TEN

A Tale of Multiple Ferries and Two Retreats: General Houston Retreatsfrom Gonzales… General Filisola Retreats from Madam Powell’s

ELEVEN

A Contradiction of Loyalties… Two Tejano Patriots and their River Crossings

TWELVE

El Sabinito y El Muelle Viejo… The Ancient Wharf below the Confluence of the San Antonio and Guadalupe Rivers.

THIRTEEN

TThe Pecos River… Graveyard of the cowman’s hopes- Charles Goodnight … Horsehead Crossing of the Pecos – The Most Celebrated and Feared River Crossing in Texas

FOURTEEN

Alpha Index to the Ferries, Fords, and Crossings of Texas

Ferry Regulations

Endnotes

Selected Bibliography

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Mexican General Jose Urrea, and the San Luis Potosi Battalion

encamped at Cayce’s Crossing leading up to the Battle of San Jacinto.

Elliott’s Ferry, near present-day Bay City, replaced Cayce’s Ferry

during the Civil War. It was located on the Colorado River.

05.jpg

A typical cable drawn ferry of the mid- to late 19th century serving

the rivers of Texas. Note the cable harness above the ferry. Draft

animals on opposing banks generally powered the ferries.

Preface

Experiencing Nativity on the Navidad

Many years ago, I had two loyal metal detecting companions that lived in Dallas. Both were slightly older and more experienced at digging than I. We frequently convened at the end of a work day and drove for three to four hours to different historical sites. There, with permission from landowners, we searched for relics. We shared an enduring fascination of early river crossings as they tended to produce layers of artifacts representing multiple episodes of Texas history.

Given our late starts after work, we conducted most of our digs in the dead of night with only the aid of a flashlight. We worked until we were too tired to continue or until we were sure there was nothing else to find, typically arriving back in Dallas around 3:00 a.m. Even so, we were always at our respective offices by the start of business. Occasionally, we would get away on weekends, but that was the exception.

One of the more memorable weekend digs I participated in occurred a few years before the construction of Lake Texana at the Navidad River. I still have vivid memories of that particular expedition. We were on our fifth separate attempt to locate the historic Atascosito Crossing of the Navidad River.

The Ancient Atascosito Road

The Atascosito Road was among the most prominent trails of early Texas, blazed and mapped by the Spaniards. It began in Refugio and crossed the San Antonio River near the Presidio Nuestra Señora de Loreto de La Bahía. Then it wound northward to the Guadalupe River at De Leon’s Colony (Victoria), and on to the Lavaca and Navidad rivers close to present-day Edna, Texas.

This primeval, low-water crossing of the Navidad River began as a game trail and was a favorite among regional Indians long before European explorations began. Alonso de León, Domingo Terán de los Ríos, Fray Damian Massanet, and Marques de Rubí all used this crossing during their expeditions.¹ Explorers named it for the Nativity of Christ, and during its time as a prominent destination, it served multiple caravans of explorers, priests, empresarios, Mexican troops, immigrants, and freedom fighters. Soldiers of the Texas Republic established three temporary bases near the crossing: Camp Independence, Camp Bowie and Camp Preston.²

During the Texas Revolution, members of Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna’s Mexican Army encamped at the Atascosito Crossing as they marched to the fields of San Jacinto.³ In 1863, when the Civil War engulfed the lower coast of Texas, Confederate Gen. John Bankhead Magruder established Camp Davenport at this site to monitor the activities between La Bahía and Houston.⁴ Following the war, the crossing became popular with drovers and teamsters transporting cattle and supplies to the Trinity River and Houston City.⁵

Narrowing our Search

With the aid of period maps, diaries, and early Texas narratives, my companions and I knew we were in close proximity to this once prominent crossing. Even so, we had not recovered a single artifact to verify its existence. More than once, we came home empty handed.

This particular Saturday was a blustery, raw morning in the dead of winter. By early afternoon, I was stiff from the cold and, in five hours of non-stop searching, had experienced not a single, positive signal. Hungry, cold, and tired–having walked several miles in crisscross patterns over the same ground–I attempted to locate my two comrades with the goal of convincing them it was time to abandon the search. They were off on a different stretch of the river bank, and I decided to wait for them in the brush, out of the windswept, misty rain. As I sought shelter, my detector blared a distinct, sharp signal indicating a non-ferrous metal: the goal of artifact searching. Having hundreds of hours of experience dragging a detector through the brush, this signal was unmistakable. Following the sound to a point on the ground, I turned out one spade of dirt. A shiny, six-inch fragment of a solid nickel wrist guard and quillion from a sword rolled out of a lump of black gumbo at my feet. I was stunned by this remarkable relic. It was clearly a portion of an early sword guard, likely European.

Discovering the site… Patience and Providence

Adrenalin kicked in. As I moved deeper into the catclaw thicket, I found myself oblivious to the cold, wet wind. Within three feet of my first discovery, another positive, distinctly non-ferrous, signal rang out. The brush was an entanglement of solid brambles and digging was extremely difficult. I employed my entrenching tool and as I removed the first spadeful, a coin lodged within became visible. It was an undated, ¼ Spanish Real. Within a distance of a few feet, I also uncovered three Mexican 1st battalion buttons. Moments later, another signal produced a ½ Spanish Reale cob coin dated 1687. This coin, struck and trimmed by hand with a cross as its central feature, could have been dropped by a member of Governor Domingo Terán’s expedition as it predates their crossing of the Navidad and encampment. A hole had been drilled in its top to accept a lanyard of twine or leather to be worn around the neck by its owner.⁶

In a span of thirty minutes, I had uncovered the sword guard, three buttons, two Spanish coins, and an early-Spanish brass heart-shaped martingale breastplate from a horse collar. All of the relics I discovered were encountered within an area the size of a small home. After receiving no other positive signals for almost an hour, I once more became aware of the cold. I selected a gully along the embankment of the river and leaned into the brush to rest. Gazing across the river, I saw a swale, or gully, leading toward my makeshift shelter. Then I knew that this was not only an early campsite, it was likely the Atascosito Crossing of the Navidad River. It seemed obvious as no other depressions (or vaults) cut into the bluffs on either side of the river nearby. Two highly visible, opposing twelve-foot-wide depressions led from the mouth of their swales and met at the stream. They exhibited obvious characteristics of an ancient trace, carved by bison, deer, horses, cattle, and humans over hundreds of years.

It was at that moment that I experienced the Nativity of lost generations on the Navidad.

About the Work and People of Let’s Cross Before Dark

I am not an academic, but rather an avocational student of Texas history. My fascination and quest for researching the early-Texas river crossings was ignited by my deep admiration and respect of the courage, determination, and sheer bravery of the pioneers and settlers that brought these destinations to life. This intrigue is not inspired by some romantic interpretation of their heroism as much as it has been a product of my appreciation of their audacity, their strength, and their leadership in carving out livelihoods from a raw and unlawful wilderness.

Throughout the compilation of this work, it became apparent that these characters were not ordinary immigrants that merely decided to lay claim to a headright and cultivate land or herd livestock off the beaten trail. Not that being a pioneer planter or rancher was trivial, but the courage and determination of these entrepreneurs was markedly different. Many of them created a homestead and business on a site that, throughout time, served Natives, explorers, soldiers, priests, traders, outlaws, cattlemen, and common wayfarers. Unidentified and unannounced strangers arrived at these crossings by day and night. The women and men that established these waystations were uncommonly brave with a thirst for adventure and change. They, along with their families, risked being robbed, beaten, or killed at the hands of thuggish travelers.

The Early Wayfarer’s Natural Barriers and the Importance of Crossings: They provided life and sustenance, as well as obstacles and barriers.

Water dominates life. A person can survive without food for weeks, but only a few days without water. We take water for granted today, but Native Americans, the early European explorers of Texas, and the colonists that followed, were dependent upon streams, rivers, and lakes to provide potable water. Therefore, the early European explorers’ diaries, notes, and memoirs focused on providing exact locations of streams and rivers for those who would follow.

Over the years, I have cataloged hundreds of crossings and ferries that were prominent enough to bear a proper name during the state’s early history. With the permission of land owners, I have visited most of the historically relevant crossings.

03.jpg

Data from the U.S. Geological Survey identifies 11,247 named streams within Texas, accounting for a combined distance of 80,000 linear miles. Fourteen of these are major rivers and include the Rio Grande, Pecos, Nueces, San Antonio, Guadalupe, Lavaca, Colorado, Brazos, San Jacinto, Trinity, Neches, Sabine, Red, the three forks of the Brazos (Salt, Double Mountain and Clear), and the Canadian.

All rivers with headwaters within the boundaries of the state flow southeastward from their origins in northwestern portions of the state to the Gulf of Mexico.

Origin of the phrase Let’s Cross Before Dark

Captain Berroteran continued along the river until he came to a suitable crossing on April 23. Fearful that he may not be able to regain the right bank should the river rise, he crossed over to wait until April 27 for the scouts to come in.

- Captain Jose de Berroteran, Commandant of Presidio San Francisco de los Conchos at the Paso de las Sirenas (Cibiloas) near present day Comstock, Texas.⁷

Vaulted banks and swollen rivers often presented impassable barriers and risks for early voyagers. In many instances, the rainy season delayed caravans for days, if not weeks. If conditions permitted, experienced trail bosses and travelers crossed a river immediately upon arrival before camping for the night; it was impossible to predict what the stream might do the next day.

Father Pedro Nuñez’s Expedition of January 1719, reached the Trinity River on their route to the East Texas missions and found the river at flood stage. They encamped for two months and ultimately cached the supplies and equipment near the crossing and returned to San Juan Bautista on the Rio Grande. Another expedition, the following July, found the stores and moved them on to the missions of East Texas.⁸

Accounts of Risk and Peril

Ironically, either the dearth of clean drinking water or an abundance of flood waters constituted the principal threats these early travelers encountered. Many of the diaries and accounts of early travelers moving across Texas are filled with harrowing tales of the perils during river crossings. Sterling Brown Hendricks, a member of the ill-fated 1842 Somervell Expedition, included multiple entries in his reports illuminating both heroism and heartache experienced at many crossings as this group marched toward Mexico.⁹

The mud was belly deep to our horses and the water nearly swimmable. The stream was greatly swollen and although it was a cold, cloudy dismal day we were under the necessity of preparing a raft, pulling baggage over by ropes, after which we swam our horses over then swam ourselves over. ¹⁰

Four years later, Capt. W. S. Henry vividly described Gen. Zachary Taylor’s march into Mexico. He included detailed accounts of numerous accidents and drownings of livestock and soldiers at various crossings.¹¹

Fray Pedro Pérez de Mezquía’s diary of Martín de Alarcón’s Expedition into Texas in 1718, provides a set of gripping personal accounts of a loss of life and property during this very early mapping stage of Texas.¹²

In virtually all of the period diaries and accounts, these men described misfortunes created when their caravans reached flooded rivers. High water required them to search for alternate crossings by backtracking, but normally resulted in an unplanned encampment until flood waters subsided. Often they lacked sufficient supplies to sustain an extended layover. Hendricks, for example, stated that he and his campmates were forced to eat roots, hawks and rabbits as they awaited a clear passage across the Nueces River.¹³

In his informative article entitled An 1821 Trip Down Trammel’s Trace, Gary L. Pinkerton provided an insightful perspective on the issues confronting caravans crossing deep rivers:

A crossing of a river with a wagon increased the danger and difficulty and put more belongings at risk. There was always a danger that the current might push against the side boards or sweep over the top, swamping the wagon and pulling the horses under the current. Carts and mules had been lost in similar circumstances, even when the flow did not seem that strong. Eddies and currents caused the sandy bottom to shift underneath the horses’ feet, and the force of the flow could overcome a horse or topple a wagon. Only the inexperienced or foolhardy made a treacherous crossing with a wagon loaded with their only possessions. To get flour wet this early in the trip down the emptiness of Trammel’s Trace would be unfortunate. To get gunpowder wet would be a disaster. If the water was deeper, wagon boxes were raised by placing logs between the bottom and the running gear to gain a foot or so of height. If the water was too deep for the wagon to be pulled across at all, the wheels were removed and trees felled to build a log raft to carry it across. Traveling in a group made many things easier. With enough men, wagons that had been tarred and sealed, helping them to float, could be pulled across with a rope made from hide.¹⁴

Swimmers Assisting at the Crossings

Several early European diarists describe the employment of Indian swimmers that would assist their caravans in fording rivers. This profession, associated with Texas rivers and their crossings, prevailed throughout the centuries and became a commonplace practice during cattle drives.

During the 1720 Marqués de Aguayo Expedition, the Marqués employed fifty Indian swimmers to pull rafts across the Rio Grande at Paso de Francia, or Frances’ Way. The Marqués then provided brandy, chocolate, and food to the swimmers as they reached the opposite bank of the river.¹⁵

One of the more colorful cattle swimmers was Sterling Spell of Beaumont, Texas. The Beaumont Journal provided a biography of Spell in 1908:

Sterling Spell was an extraordinary man in some respects. He was six feet and six inches in his bare feet, and his usual weight was 256 pounds. . . .The stock raisers here would employ him when driving beeves to the New Orleans market to assist them, and it was related to this writer by an eye witness that when the drove arrived at the Neches River, Spell would take off his outer clothing and go in among the cattle and seize a big 1,000 pound, four-year-old steer by the horns, back him into the river, turn him around, hold to the horns by his left hand, and swim across the river with him. The other steers of the drove would follow. No other man was ever known to have attempted that feat of strength.¹⁶

In compiling this work, other legendary swimmers that worked the cattle crossings of Texas were identified and described in various period memoirs and diaries affirming that this was a relatively common avocation. And those that pursued it were typically large, burly men like Spell.

The lionized Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight described how he and Oliver Loving swam herds on the trail in a letter to J. Evetts Haley:

We used bell steers and drove these ahead of the herd until the herd got to following them. We had got the sun behind them and kept the men quiet and got them started into the water and finally when they hit swimming water, the leaders would start to turn them back. The men would shoot in and turn them and head them on across to the other side.¹⁷

Blazing Trails and Crossings

The earliest pathways of Texas were animal trails leading through forests and across prairies to springs, streams, and rivers, establishing easily navigated tracks. Native Americans adopted these footpaths, expanding them to include campsites at river crossings, linking hunting grounds and the villages that evolved and establishing trade and commerce. After 1700, Spanish explorers and their settlers adopted these same trade paths, widening them, clearing trees for horsemen, wagons, and soldiers. Their routes, like those of the Indians, always converged at well known river crossings.¹⁸

The idiom of blazing a trail can be traced back to aboriginal times and involved marking trees with notches and crosses by chipping the bark or by stacking stones into a cairn to mark a path forward. The use of trees to identify a location was a common practice among various Indian tribes of Texas. In some instances saplings were lashed to the ground with thongs of leather and anchored with stones to coerce the growth of a tree to point in a specific, unnatural direction. It might be identifying a campground, water hole, river crossing or medicinal herbs. These wayfinding guides are termed Indian Marker Trees and the subject of a fascinating study conducted by Steve Houser, Linda Pelon and Jimmy W. Arterberry.¹⁹

Low-water, gravel bottomed, rocky fords were highly coveted as they provided firm footing for wagons and livestock. Ferry locations of the larger rivers of Texas, as a general rule, tended to be within bends of the rivers. These natural curves and arches of a stream deflected the currents producing a calmer, more favorable passage. Steep banks were avoided if other lower-walled approaches were available. If a vaulted bank could not be avoided, the access to the crossing would be carved away by the ferrymen and constantly maintained by dragging logs behind oxen to smooth a gentle slope to accommodate wagons and livestock.

During the Spanish entradas, prayers and masses prepared the participants for the challenges they faced at river crossings and blessings of gratitude were expressed upon successful crossings.²⁰

From the earliest of times through Reconstruction and into the 20th century, these major crossings became centers of trade and commerce. In many instances campgrounds evolved to a stockade, a homestead, and an overnight inn. These small communities often became cities. They represented terminal destinations that connected the vital links and roads of early Texas establishing significant cornerstones of the state’s history.

*Author’s Note: Throughout the research of this work river banks were frequently designated as right or left banks by early journalists and diarists. This common reference is derived from the perspective of the boatman facing downstream.

Time and Distance: A Researcher’s Challenge

Throughout my research of this work it became apparent that various historians have in some instances applied different names to crossings and are often inconsistent in their identification of specific locations of river crossings that were mapped by the Spaniards. French explorer, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle’s attempted colony on Garcitas Creek ultimately generated eleven Spanish expeditions into Texas to eliminate the French threat to Spain’s northern empire. These first expeditions secured experienced Indian guides that led the entradas along well-established trade routes that crossed Texas. The explorer’s accounts, coupled with the use of compass and astrolabe, were frequently unreliable and created confusion as to the precise routes and river crossings these expeditions followed. Specifically, the Spanish explorers invariably confused the Brazos and the Colorado rivers. These inconsistencies have been compounded by over zealous local communities and historical societies attempting to lay claim to these routes and river crossings as part of their county heritage, often in error.²¹

As noted by William Foster in his superlative Spanish Expeditions Into Texas, historians including Hubert Howe Bancroft, Herbert Bolton, Carlos E. Castañeda, J.W. Williams, and Robert Weddle in addition to the Texas Department of Highways study of the routes of the expeditions, each differ widely in their identification of crossings and routes of Alonso De Léon and others. Taking these inconsistencies into account, I attempted to source multiple primary references when available to cross check and verify site locations.²² And, when all else failed, I went with Foster.

Among the hundreds of crossings that are covered within this work, some of the sites, and the men and women that gave them life, warranted more recognition than just being an entry among an alphabetical index. To illuminate these more historically relevant sites and prominent characters, I produced nine individual chronicles of the larger rivers of Texas and presented four additional chapters highlighting important crossings and the people that made them notable.

The last section of the work is an alpha index of crossings for additional reference.

Lost Landmarks: The Introduction of Iron Bridges, Paved Highways and Man-made Lakes

By the mid-1850s, the development of railroads began to materialize, linking certain cities and circumventing hundreds of others. These smaller, bypassed communities experienced commercial decline and many faded into oblivion. The need for river crossings vanished with them.

The construction of paved roads and bridges that connected early settlements continued to gain importance as the state matured and the demands of commerce heightened. Natural crossings of rivers generally dictated where the Indians and early travelers established routes and most modern roadways tended to follow these same pathways. In the 1880s, riding the wave of technology, cities and counties awarded funding for truss bridges constructed of metal and wood. Gradually bridges displaced the ferries and fords that were once so vital to framing the history of Texas.

Today, like the Atascosito Crossing of the Navidad, these once heavily traveled and prominent river crossings, and the towns that supported them, exist only as dim traces advancing down river banks if at all. Their existence and importance has been erased by new highway bridges or rendered inaccessible behind locked gates on private lands. Others have been inundated with the damming of rivers to create reservoirs. Their collective histories have been figuratively drowned out by the incessant march toward improving infrastructure serving Texas.

My goal in producing this work was to source and collect the hundreds of stories and accounts of these crossings dating back to the birth of Texas and bind them under one cover. Their role and importance is far easier to grasp as a collection as opposed to discovering them individually.

As an apologia, I confess that some crossings and fords will have been overlooked and left out of this work. Unfortunately, it is impossible to create a complete, unabridged listing of every named crossing, ford, or ferry that existed in this vast state and its labyrinth of rivers and streams over the past five centuries.

In closing, one need not be an academician or student of history to realize the historical records and colorful narratives regarding the river crossings of Texas are deeply entwined within the roots of the empire’s early beginnings and evolution as a state. A study of Texas history would be incomplete without an understanding of the role its river crossings, fords, and ferries contributed to its outcome.

Bill Winsor

Kelmar Ranch,

Lexington TX.

Unless otherwise indicated, all county and town names

included within are to be considered in Texas.

Acknowledgments

How fortunate I was, as a young boy growing up in the small town of Refugio in South Texas, to have Hobart Huson as a mentor and writing coach. He was an accomplished land lawyer and highly regarded master of Texas History, producing several seminal works. My mother was his legal administrator, and he generously employed me at a young age during summers to catalog and index his extensive map collection that he relied upon as supporting exhibits within his practice. He willingly gave me complete access to roam the halls of his massive collection of Texana books, documents and journals in his Dawgwood Library. When he was completing his manuscript for Captain Phillip Dimmitt’s Commandancy Of Goliad, his last work before his passing, Huson asked me to review his book for the Southwestern Historical Quarterly Journal. His inspiration and guidance kindled within me a passion to seek a better understanding of our past.

Mike Paul, my brother-in-law, was also an inspirational force in my late teens as well. He was a transplanted Yankee from Chicago that served his country in Rockport where he met and later married my sister Hallie. Mike was a lover of books and an avid reader of history with a passionate interest in the Civil War. During the production of my first book, Texas in the Confederacy, Mike provided invaluable suggestions and comments along the way. Clearly, I missed not having him a phone call away during the production of this work. He was taken too early in life. Hallie, a retired newspaper executive, stepped in to read the manuscript and provided insightful edits and suggestions for which I am indebted.

My spouse Kathleen has always been selflessly patient during the hundreds of hours that I was locked away in my library poring through resources and hammering on the keyboard over the years. When I wrote my first book in the late 1970s, she labored alongside me in the Texas Room of the Houston Library viewing microfiche and journals and taking notes. During the production of this book, she read the manuscript as it was being produced, and provided a number of important suggestions. Without her support, this work would not have seen the light of day.

A special thanks to our son Mark for providing his digital expertise and lending his talent in producing the cover artwork and maps, and ensuring that we were at hi-res across all supporting graphics.

Lastly, by happenstance, I stumbled upon Lucy Fagan’s website a couple of years ago and our paths were bridged by the Internet. After sharing notes and observations she offered to help and spent countless hours converting me from low to higher tech. The Mesquite Landing story within this work was written by Lucy as it was near her river bank haunts as a child.

One

El Rio de Los Brazos de Dios

Le Maligne: the Wicked One…

the Mischievous One

This longest river in Texas captures the most melodic and symbolic of names… El Río de los Brazos de Dios… the river of the arms of God ironically presenting a dichotomous reputation as the most deadly and destructive of all rivers of Texas.

The Brazos rises at the confluence of its Salt Fork and Double Mountain Fork in eastern Stonewall County and lumbers southeast for 840 miles across Texas, emptying into its Mexican Gulf delta near the present-day town of Freeport in Brazoria County.¹

Bold torrents during the rainy season swell the river rapidly when it becomes gradually turbulent, then gradually assuming a milder aspect its anger disappears leaving the unruffled bosom of the river as quiet as a lamb. - Col. Edward Stiff, Texan Emigrant, 1840.²

Over a thirty-two year period, from 1890, through the year 1932, the flooding Brazos drowned 542 people. The flood of 1913, among the worst in history, destroyed croplands and communities from Waco to the Gulf, a distance of 250 miles. Its watershed in Texas embraces over 42,000 acres of bottomland and its discharge is far greater than any of the other major rivers of the state. When not at flood stage, the river immediately transforms into a languid and lazy ribbon of water. At flood stage it has been described as violent and deadly.³

Given its radical persona, this river of the arms of God, presented the most formidable barrier to early travel across the state when it was swollen from rains. Suitable ferries, fords and crossings were critical to these early wayfarers given the fickle restlessness of the river as it is prone to swing from drought to flood stage in a mere matter of hours.

The Many Legends Behind this Beautiful Name…

It is understandable that this longest river of Texas would be known by multiple names over the centuries. The Indians referred to it as Tonkonhono. The French explorer, Rene Cavalier de La Salle, named it Maligne, the wicked one, or the mischievous one. In his journal recording La Salle’s last voyage, Henri Joutel claimed the naming of the river was the result of the fact that one of La Salle’s personal servants was devoured by an alligator as he swam across the river.⁴

Over time, the Spanish explorers applied multiple names to this major stream including Trinidad, Santa Teresa y Barroso, Espirtu Santo, Rio Rojo, San Geronimo, and Baatse.⁵

The origin and source of its final name, El Río del Brazos de Dios…the river of the arms of God is steeped in multiple legendary tales.

Francisco Vazquez de Coronado is attributed with naming it in 1541, as he and his expedition searched for the Seven Cities of Gold and were stranded for days in search of water. They came upon the stream that saved them from death and Coronado allegedly christened it Brazos de Dios.⁶

A second version involved a group of Spanish sailors that shipwrecked near the mouth of the river and followed a muddy trail of water that streamed out into the Gulf. They located the mouth of the river and proceeded upstream until the tidal wash of salt water changed to fresh, potable water. At that point the sailors encamped and are also credited with naming it for the arms of God.⁷

A third legend records that a group of Spanish miners searching for gold in San Saba found themselves in the grip of a severe drought that dried up all of the surrounding streams and huecos forcing them to search for water. An Indian guided them to the Brazos at the Waco Crossing in the center of present-day city of Waco where they found sufficient freshwater and they are among those credited with its naming in some annals of history.⁸

The facts are, as they are with most legends and myths, the precise origin surrounding the naming of the Brazos will never be known, other than the fact that it was named by Spanish explorers. Despite the mystery and murkiness of its derivation, its full name remains the most soulful appellation of any of the Texas Rivers.

Early European Exploration

As many as five Spanish expeditions surveyed the Brazos River in the early 18th century. All of which used DeLeon’s route (El Camino Real) from Mission San Juan Bautista to the Brazos at a junction of the Little Brazos called Rancheria Grande. This route that led to the Tejas settlement of Los Adaes in Louisiana followed an ancient Indian trading route.⁹

De Leon, and those that followed, employed the use of Indian guides with many of these guides participating in multiple expeditions over the decades. The trails were marked with signs carved in trees in the form of wooden crosses, or petroglyphs carved in stone atop cairns the Indians assembled along the way to blaze the path through forests and prairie.¹⁰

Capt. Jose Domingo Ramon and Fray Isidro de Epinosa discovered a large encampment of over 2,000 Indians on their expedition of 1716. It was located in the Monte Grande (Great Mound) region at the center of present-day Burleson County near the town of Gause. The Indian swimmers that assisted Ramon and his men cross the Brazos were frightened by alligators that were prevalent in this stretch of the river. Ramon and his troops used lances to ward off alligators during the crossing and the swimmers were fed cabrito and barbecued beef after troops and freight had successfully been transferred across the river.¹¹

The precise location of the main crossing of the Brazos at Monte Grande remains a subject of debate among historians and researchers. In his excellent work, Spanish Expeditions into Texas 1689-1768, author William C. Foster concludes, with studied conviction, that this crossing was at the junction of the Little River and the Brazos in Burleson County one mile below the present-day U.S. Highway 21 bridge spanning the Brazos and adjacent to the Texas A&M campus south of College Station. Foster utilized 17 diaries from 11 expeditions to reach his conclusion. Historians Herbert Bolton, Robert Weddle, and the Camino Real Association along with the Texas Handbook have placed the Rancheria Grande in three different counties some 40 miles apart.¹²

The early Spanish explorers often confused the Brazos and Colorado Rivers and historians using the diaries from these explorations as primary sources have in turn perpetuated confusion regarding these rivers. Distances were measured generally by the Spanish league. The use of compass and astrolabes were common among these early travelers and their ability to record long distances between sites tended to be generally accurate as evidenced by overlaying contemporary maps to confirm their notes. Conversely, close distances were measured as a gunshot away producing far less reliable measurement results.¹³

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Major Crossings of the Brazos

ATASCOSITO CROSSING: The First

Official Texas Republic Crossing

Stephen F. Austin founded this settlement as the first urban center of the Austin Colony and it became the unofficial capital of the colony. It was located on the west bank of the Brazos River at the Old San Antonio Road crossing, also known as the Atascosito Crossing, a site now on Interstate 10 in southeastern Austin County. Austin had originally considered a different site on the lower Colorado River for his colony but, with the counsel of Baron de Bastrop, this site was selected having been originally settled by ferryman John McFarlan.¹⁴

McFarlan and his brother Achilles owned a cabin at this early crossing in 1823, and technically they were the first settlers of the site that later became San Felipe de Austin. In consideration of their early residency, Austin and Baron de Bastrop granted the McFarlans a lifetime license to provide exclusive ferry service at the Atascosito Crossing. John was a farmer and stock raiser and died in poverty in December of 1826. Stephen Austin settled the accounts against McFarlan’s estate in recognition of his service to the community.¹⁵

This birthplace of the Anglo-American settlement in Texas established the first English language newspaper, and was the site for the founding of the Texas rangers and the community also became the launch station of an official postal system for the state.¹⁶

In April 1827, Juan Manuel Mier y Teran arrived at San Felipe accompanied by a heavily armed military escort guarding his personal coach inlaid with silver and extraordinary trimmings pulled by four stallions. He was accompanied by a mineralogist, Rafael Chovell, a botanist, zoologist and artist named Jean Louis Berlandier, and a cartographer and artist, Jose Maria Sanchez y Tapia. Sanchez’s diary is a rich read of facts and detail sprinkled with dry wit seldom found among these early explorers.¹⁷

Sanchez provided a colorful account of the expedition’s crossing on the ferry at San Felipe:

It must have been around 3 pm when all the baggage was placed on the ferry boat, and loading it we started down the river in search of a landing place agreed upon as it was thought, and rightfully so, the landing on the opposite side would be difficult. A drunk American held the rudder and three intoxicated Negroes rowed singing continuously, this confusing sing-song not in the least pleasant, depriving us, by the irritation it caused us, of the pleasure we could have enjoyed in seeing the immense woods that borders the river. We traveled this way for 2 leagues and then entered the flooded woods until we reached the road we were to follow afterwards. ¹⁸

By 1828, the unofficial capital of Texas had a population of slightly over 200 citizens, supported by three clapboard general stores, two taverns, a hotel, a blacksmith shop and consisting of forty or more log cabins.¹⁹

As war clouds gathered over Texas, San Felipe would become a critical nexus of the opposing Texan and Mexican armies during the Texas Revolution as it represented the second most important commercial center of Texas behind San Antonio de Bexar. On the 28th of March, 1836, Houston’s men arrived at the west bank of San Felipe. They were utterly fatigued from multiple forced marches in extremely poor weather conditions, pelted by rain and winds.²⁰

His worn troops spent just one night at San Felipe under more torrential downpours without cover or fresh clothing. At dawn on March 29th, the soldiers learned their general had ordered another march; this one to the plantation of Jared Groce, some twenty miles from San Felipe also on the Brazos. The conditions could not be more bleak for Houston and his suffering army. Tired and hungry, with many suffering from dysentery and fevers, most of these soldiers had marched and counter marched 175 miles in just 17 days.²¹

Upon Houston’s departure from San Felipe, the town was completely destroyed by fire. Rumor and disagreement as to who actually placed the torch to the capital was a popular debate across the Republic. Some proposed it was Houston’s order, while he claimed it to be an act of the citizens. There also was speculation that the Mexican Army could have also destroyed the town and ferry. Irrespective of these varied opinions at the time, records now indicate Mosley Baker, Capt. of Houston’s Company D, First Regiment of Texan Volunteers, put the torch to San Felipe after the retreat. Following the war, he declared under oath, that Houston had ordered its destruction, but the General continued to deny the claim.²²

In the aftermath of war and destruction, San Felipe struggled to regain its former status as a community. It was incorporated as the county seat of Austin County in 1837, and a courthouse was constructed in the center of the old town. Citizens of San Felipe declined to provide land for a railroad to connect with Houston and this decision was a crowning blow that ultimately spelled doom for the once important first colony of Texas.²³

In 1928, a 4,200 acre tract was donated to the state to construct the Stephen F. Austin State Historical Park. Multiple memorials were erected to honor Stephen F. Austin and his original 300 settlers and replicas of his home and the principal retail stores of the early community were rebuilt on their original sites.²⁴

A public ferry continued to operate at the site of McFarland’s original ferry until the early 1940s, when a bridge was built to allow Farm Road 1458 to span the Brazos at this site.

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Morton’s Ferry, Fort Bend Crossing of the Brazos River,

Courtesy of Fort Bend County Historical Society.

A settlement known as Fort Bend was established at this large bend in the Brazos River near present-day Richmond. It was settled in 1822 by members of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred colonists. A ferry was established at the bend and operated by a man named Morton. White and Knight Mercantile established a sizable store at the site in 1827.

The Fort Bend crossing was briefly defended in April 1836 by a detachment of Houston’s Army under the command of Wiley Martin. His small detachment was overwhelmed by the advance of Santa Anna’s Army as they marched on San Jacinto.

Following the war, the town of Richmond incorporated the community of Fort Bend adopting the name for the county.

Source: Thrall, Pictorial History, 257-58. Zuber, My Eighty Years, 76.

GROCE’S RETREAT: A Much Needed

Hospital for Houston’s Army

This crossing of the Brazos River was located on land owned by Jared E. Groce, also owner of the Bernardo Plantation. The site was alternately called Madelina Crossing, Coushatta Crossing and Groce’s Landing.

Situated on a prominent bluff, four miles southwest of present Hempstead, the site was established in 1822. It operated as a depot and landing, linking the road that ran north of the east crossing of what was called the Fish Pond (Clear Creek) in Charles Donoho’s League. Donoho was also a prominent planter in the area operating a plantation south of Hempstead. Early travelers using this crossing were often entertained at Bernardo’s Bachelor Hall. Leonard Waller Groce, Groce’s eldest son, owned the plantation.

During the Texas Revolution, the Texas Army encamped on the west side of the river a half mile from the ferry on March 31 until April 14, 1836, establishing a hospital on the east side of the river near the plantation house. After their convalescence, Houston’s army crossed a swollen Brazos River at the site aboard the YellowStone on their march to the Battle of San Jacinto.

This vital recuperation of Houston’s troops at Groce’s has been credited with providing the needed strength and will the troops had to march on to San Jacinto.

Jared Ellison Groce died at Groce’s Retreat in November l836, and is buried at the site.

The Brazos has since changed its course to such an extent that the site of Houston’s encampment is now on the east side of the river in a cottonwood grove.

Source: Waller County History, The Waller County Historical Survey Committee, Texian Press, Waco, Texas, 1971, 579, 668.

TENOXTITLAN CROSSING: A Failed Mexican Colony in Texas

The site of early Fort Tenoxtitlan was established on April 6, l830, by Gen. Manuel de Mier y Teran to establish a string of forts to Mexicanize Texas. Its alluring name was derived from the name of the original capital of the Aztec empire now known as present-day Mexico City. The initial community was established on the Old San Antonio Road at its juncture with the Brazos leading to Nacogdoches. It was later moved to a permanent site on a high bluff on the west bank of the Brazos, twelve miles above the San Antonio Road at the Robertson and Burleson County line juncture with the Brazos.

The Mexicans pronounced the community as Ten-ock-ti-lan. As was common, Anglo Americans mangled the pronunciation of many Spanish words and names and referred to it as the old Tenock Crossing. The small spring-fed creek nearby was subsequently known as Dam Creek, likely due to its water being diverted into the settlement for irrigation purposes. Although Mier y Terán, who envisioned Tenoxtitlán as the future capital of Texas, issued elaborate instructions from Matamoros for the design of the fort, most were eventually disregarded. The fortifications themselves were likely constructed of log with sod filling the chinks. To his dismay, the settlement never materialized to support the vision of its founder due to its remoteness and constant Indian depredations.

On July 13, 1832, in poor health and despondent over the failure of his grand scheme to settle Mexicans in the Texas wilderness, Mier y Terán committed suicide. Diarists record that he dressed in full military regalia with his officer’s jacket, trousers, and hat and impaled himself on his sword behind the church of San Antonio in Padilla, Tamauilipas. The site was the exact location where Emperor Agustin Iturbide had been shot upon his return from exile.

Mier, taking his own life, stunned and demoralized Col. Ruiz, commanding officer of the fort and Ruiz concluded to abandon Tenoxtitlán. He commenced an immediate evacuation of the garrison and removal of the entire Mexican settlement to Bexar on August 22, 1832. By December, only a handful of Americans remained at the site and crossing of the Brazos.

A fortified trading post was occupied at the crossing thereafter, owned and managed by Francis Smith, an enterprising merchant with a very lucrative trading business with local Indian tribes over the years. Smith ordered his goods from Cincinnati and New Orleans via a forwarding firm, A.G. and R. Mills in Brazoria. Wagons transported his merchandise from Brazoria up the Brazos and on to Tenoxtitlan.

The old Tenock Crossing provided an excellent base for Smith’s Trading Post. The Cherokees, Shawnees, Delawares, and Kickapoos were adept trappers and supplied him with trade goods year round. Smith enjoyed a large trading area and was supported by French Indian traders from the west. One trader provided him eighty to one hundred buffalo robes each fall and Smith had a vibrant resale business.

In addition to beaver pelts and buffalo robes, Smith traded for beef hides, deer skins, and wolf pelts. He supplied the Indians, Mexicans, Anglo-Americans, and slaves of the community with hunting and fishing supplies including beaver traps, tomahawks, rifles, fire steels, large fish hooks, pocket knives, and spurs.

His success was also a result of having the largest grocery supply store on the Brazos with sugar, corn, coffee, rice, raisins, spices, molasses, soap and whiskey.

The Smith Trading Post at Old Tenock Crossing had a thirty year successful run. Immediately following his death in 1860, lingering residents of the community of Fort Tenoxtitlan gradually relocated to Caldwell and other communities in Burleson County.

The crossing is behind locked gates on private property today. Rolling pasture and plowed fields surround the site that once was Mier y Teran’s promise of a Mexican Capital in Texas. An inaccessible, lone Texas centennial granite marker, erected ½ mile from County Road 338, is the only testament to this failed mission of Mexican authorities.

Source: DeShields, Border Wars, 95. McClean, Dr. Malcolm D. Tenoxtitlan, Dream Capital of Texas, Southwestern Historical Quarterly July, 1966, Vol. LXX, No. 1.

THOMPSON’S FERRY: Santa Anna’s Gateway to Defeat

The namesake for this early Indian crossing, Jesse Thompson, was an active early colonist of Stephen F. Austin’s Original 300. Thompson and his wife Mary, both natives of Alabama, settled on a league of land along the east bank of the Brazos in present day Fort Bend County in 1828. He graded the approaches to the ford and constructed a cable ferry that supported the operation of a large,