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
