The armadillo was adopted as the Texas small state mammal on June 16, 1995. The state held a mock election with hundreds of elementary school children to decide on the state mammal. Support for the longhorn and armadillo was equally divided so the state decided to create a designation for small state mammal and large Read more
Pan de Campo was adopted as the Texas state bread on June 18, 2005. Pan de Campo is also called Cowboy bread and is a sort of flat bread. The bread was eaten by Cowboys who worked the ranches in early Texas. The cowboys prepared it in small portable ovens which gave it its distinct Read more
Bluebonnets were adopted as the Texas state flower on March 7, 1901. Bluebonnets were once thought to have come over with the Spanish priests because the priests used to plant the flowers around their missions. However, there are many Indian folklores centered on the flowers that have them being here before the Spanish arrived. There Read more
The San Jacinto battleground was actually the land of Peggy McCormick. She took possession of the land after her husband died in 1824 and continued to live on it. She abandoned her home before the battle but returned soon after. Upon her return, she discovered over 700 Mexican corpses scattered near her home. She appeared Read more
The story of Emily Morgan or Emily West is still highly debated to this day. Emily was a house worker for Col. James Morgan at New Washington that was believed to be captured by Santa Anna during his raid through the area. Historians believe she was a worker and not a slave of Morgan’s even Read more
One of the most well-known woman of the Texas Revolution was Susanna Wilkerson Dickinson. She moved to Texas in her early twenties to elope with Almeron Dickinson, a man twice her age. While living in Gonzales in 1835, she survived an assault by “a gang of newly arrived American volunteer troops, who in a drunken Read more
Women had a huge part in creating the early flags of Texas. In late 1835, Sarah R. Dodson made the first Texas “tri-color lone star” flag out of calico that consisted of red, white and blue squares with a single white star on the blue square. The flag was made in late 1835 for a Read more
Mary Jane Briscoe, previously Mary Jane Harris, was the daughter of John Richard Harris, the founder of Harrisburg, Texas. At the age of eighteen, she married Andrew Briscoe, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a solider in the Battle of San Jacinto. The couple had five children, four of whom survived into childhood. Read more
Many of the women that migrated to Texas were southerners by birth. They had grown up with “southern” values which included having family as the central institution of society. The “ideals of true womanhood, with is admonitions to purity, piety, submissiveness, and domesticity, accompanied them westward.” Women sustained themselves as daughters, mothers and wives where Read more
The other Austin woman that played a big part was Emily Austin Bryan Perry, sister to Stephen F. Austin. She came to Texas in 1831 with her husband and several children and became the mistress of Peach Point Plantation. She was the sole air of Moses Austin (her father) and Stephen F. Austin. After 1836, Read more
Mary Austin Holley, cousin to Stephen F. Austin, was widowed in 1827 and the sole supporter of her two children. She secured a land grant from her cousin but never actually made it her permanent residency. She hoped “to sell her Texas lands one day to ease her financial straits, her frequent trips, correspondence, and Read more
Jane Wilkinson Long was one of the first white women to arrive in Texas in 1819. By 1822 though, she was widowed and left as the sole supporter of her family. She struggled for years financially but in 1832 purchased an inn between San Felipe and Brazoria, an occupation seen as acceptable for women at Read more
Once the Anglos took over the government for the Republic of Texas, they changed the legal system to English common law instead of the Spanish legal system that had been ruling the area for years. The Spanish system valued women to be almost as equal as men. However, in the English system married women had Read more
Lorzeno de Zavala was the 47 year old Harrisburg representative. De Zavala was extremely active in Mexican politics before moving to Texas. Early in his life in Mexico, he founded and edited several newspapers in which he expressed the democratic ideas that were to mark his political career. He was imprisoned in 1814 for his Read more
James B. Woods was the 31 year old either Liberty or Harrisburg representative, records are conflicting. Woods was born in Kentucky in 1802. He moved to Texas in 1830. In 1834, he became the alcalde of the Liberty District. He also represented Liberty at the Consultation of 1835. After the Convention, he served in the Read more
Claiborne West was the 36 year old Jefferson representative. West moved from Louisiana to Texas in 1831. He served as a member of the subcommittee for safety and vigilance for the district of Cow Bayou during the Convention of 1832. Upon the formation of the General Council, he was elected to represent the Jefferson Municipality. Read more
Edwin Waller was the 35 year old Brazoria representative. Waller moved to Texas from Missouri in 1831 and owned/operated the Sabine, a vessel used to transport cotton from Velasco to New Orleans. In 1832 he was wounded in the battle of Velasco. At the Convention, he served on the committee that framed the Constitution. Afterward, Read more
John Turner was the 34 year old San Patricio representative. Turner studied law and taught school before moving to Texas in 1829. Once he became a part of the San Patricio area, he wrote letters on the colonists to Capt. Philip Dimmitt, Col. James Fannin and the General Council. He was appointed as a second Read more
David Thomas was the 35 year old Refugio representative. Thomas come to Texas in 1835 from Tennessee. Upon arriving here, he joined the U.S. Independent Volunteer Cavalry company organized at Nacogdoches. He was commissioned first lieutenant for a volunteer Matamoros expedition in January 1836. At the Convention, he was elected ad interim attorney general of Read more
Charles Stanfield Taylor was the 28 year old Nacogdoches representative. Taylor moved to Texas in 1828 after emigrating from England that same year. He opened up a mercantile business in Nacogdoches. While in Nacogdoches, he participated in the battle of Nacogdoches and represented it in the Convention of 1832. In 1835, he was appointed land Read more
James Gibson Swisher was the 41 year old Washington representative. Before coming to Texas, Swisher worked as a land surveyor in Tennessee. He also participated in the War of 1812 and in the two battles of New Orleans. He and his family settled in Robertson’s colony in 1834 and then Chriesman Settlement, what became Washington Read more
Charles Bellinger Stewart was the 30 year old Austin representative. Stewart worked as a druggiest in Georgia and South Carolina, a trader in Cuba and a coffee merchant in New Orleans before moving to Texas in 1830 and opening up an apothecary shop in Brazoria. While living in Brazoria, he fought in the battle of Read more
Elijah Stapp was the 53 year old Jackson representative. Stapp became interested in Texas when he encountered empresario Green DeWitt, who write a letter to Stephen F. Austin on Stapp’s behalf in 1826. After investigating the new land, he moved his wife and children from Missouri to settle in the colony in 1830. He quickly Read more
George Washington Smyth was the 33 year old Jasper representative. Smyth moved to Texas in 1828 against the wish of his parents. By 1830, he secured an appointment as a surveyor for Bevil’s Settlement. In 1834, he became surveyor for George A. Nixon, who had been recently named commissioner of the Zavala, Vehlein and Burnet Read more
William Bennett Scates was the 34 year old Jefferson representative. Scates lived in Virginia, Kentucky and Louisiana before arriving in Texas in 1831. He almost immediately got involved in fight for the Republic. He participated in the battle of Velasco and the siege of Bexar. During the Convention, Scates sat on the committee to devise Read more
Thomas Jefferson Rusk was the 32 year old from Nacogdoches. Rusk started out as a lawyer in Georgia around 1825. He made sizable mining investments in the gold region of Georgia but in 1834, the managers of the company that he invested in had embezzled all the funds and fled to Texas. He pursed them Read more
Jose Francisco Ruiz was the 54 year old Bexar representative. Ruiz, along with his nephew Navarro, were the only delegates born in Texas. In 1803, he was appointed San Antonio schoolmaster. The house that held the school was removed from its original location in Military Plaza in 1943 and reconstructed at the Witte Museum. Ruiz Read more
Sterling Clack Robertson was the 50 year old Milam representative. Robertson served as deputy quartermaster general under William Carroll in the battle of New Orleans from Nov. 1814 to May 1815. By 1816, he owned a plantation in Tennessee. He was one of seventy stockholders of the Texas Association in 1822 that asked for permission Read more
John S. Roberts was the 40 year old Nacogdoches representative. At sixteen, Roberts participated in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. He moved to Louisiana soon after and in 1826 became a deputy sheriff of Natchitoches. That same year he served as a major in the Fredonian Rebellion. From 1827 to Read more
James Power was the 48 year old Refugio representative. Power emigrated from Ireland in 1809. He was a merchant for twelve years in New Orleans before moving to Mexico in 1821. There he formed a partnership with James Hewetson. They created the Power and Hewetson colony, a colony along the Texas Coast with 200 Catholic Read more
