Alamo Traces (12 page)
Authors: Thomas Ricks Lindley
To eliminate the name of “John Moran” Williams claimed: “Morton, E. This name is a variant for either Edward Norton or John Morman. Both those men fought at the storming of Bexar, but both were honorably discharged on December 27, 1835. John Morman was killed at San Jacinto; Edward Norton was living in 1838 (see Lost Book of Harris County, p. 119).”
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For this investigator, it is hard to see any similarity between E. Morton and John Moran. Also, the Lost Book of Harris County contains no entry for John Morman. Neither does the book have entries for E. Morton or Edward Norton. And John Morman was not killed at the Battle of Sam Jacinto.
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Another example of Williams's failed methodology is analysis of the name “T. P. Hutchinson.” A review of her sources clearly demonstrates the unreliability of her work and the reliability of the Breece muster roll. Williams dismissed T. P. Hutchinson with this explanation:
Hutcherson
, ______. This name is variously spelled Hutchinson, Hutcherson, Hutchison, and is found on Muster Rolls, p. 25, and on every Alamo list that I have found. On Breece's company roll and on Frank Templeton's list the name is “T. P. Hutchinson”; everywhere else only the last name is given. Every land certificate, issued in the name of Hutcherson, or any of its possible variants, has been carefully examined, and all other available documents have been searched, but none of them show that any Hutcherson died at the Alamo. There were, however, two Hutchinsons at the storming of Bexar in December, 1835. There were Robert L. Hutchinson and Thomas J. Hutchinson. Bounty certificate, Matagorda, 190, shows that Robert L. Hutchinson was honorably discharged, January 16, 1836. Thomas J. Hutchinson participated in the battle of San Jacinto and evidence is found (in related papers in I Milam, 1384, he signed his name) that he was living in 1841. My guess is that the service and record of Thomas J. Hutchinson is what confused the list makers of the Alamo men and has caused them to include his name among the victims of the massacre of March 6, 1836.
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There are several problems with Williams's Hutcherson and Hutchinson analysis. She claimed that bounty land grant certificate, Matagorda, 190, identified a “Robert L. Hutchinson.” There is no such bounty certificate. There are
no
land grants in the name of Robert L. Hutchinson or any variant of the name. Next, Williams claimed that “papers in I Milam, 1384,” contained the signature of a “Thomas J. Hutchinson.” First class headright Milam 1384 was issued to William Trampton in Austin County on March 29, 1838, and does not include any document with the said Hutchinson's signature or any information about a Thomas J. Hutchinson.
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Williams, despite the name “T. P. Hutchinson” or a variant of it being on every Alamo list, eliminated Hutchinson from her Alamo roll because: “Every land certificate, issued in the name of Hutcherson, or any of its possible variants, has been carefully examined, and all other available documents relating to soldiers of the Texas revolution have been searched, but none of them show that any Hutcherson died at the Alamo.” She reinforced that by concluding that the name “Thomas J.
Hutchinson” is what has confused the list makers of the Alamo men and has caused them to include his name among the victims of the massacre of March 6, 1836.” The problem with Williams's alleged research and analysis is that the list makers never included the name of “Thomas J. Hutchinson” on their lists. Thus, Williams's allegation of confusion make no sense.
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The name on “Captain Thomas H. Breece's Co. Texas Volunteers,” the First Company of New Orleans Greys, was “T. P. Hutchinson.” The next quoted document shows the Breece listing of Hutchinson was correct.
Bexar Dec 27th 1835
We the undersigned being appointed by the 1st Company of Texas Volunteers from New Orleans to value the property of Francis William Jackson one of the members of the aforesaid Company. We appraised his horse at $90 Saddle $35 & Rifle $30.
Robt. Musselman
Thos P. Hutchinson
John J. Baugh
N. O. Greys
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The document does not claim that Hutchinson died at the Alamo, but it does prove his existence as a member of the First Company of New Orleans Greys. Musselman and Baugh died at the Alamo. And as previously stated, a muster roll identification of an Alamo defender was sufficient evidence to General Land Office officials. In the case of Hutchinson there are no land grants in his name because no heirs ever surfaced to claim them. Undoubtedly, Hutchinson died at the Alamo, and his case clearly demonstrates the unreliability of Williams's methodology.
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Then there is James Morgan, who served under the alias of James Washington. The name “J. Washington” was on one of the General Land Office's muster rolls. Still, Williams ignored the name and did not explain why she rejected the name. After the revolution Thomas G. Masterson of Palacious, Matagorda County, requested that the Harris County probate court appoint him as administrator of his cousin James Morgan's estate. Masterson claimed that Morgan was killed at the Alamo under
the name of “James Washington.” One of the first reconstructed Alamo muster rolls includes the name “J. Washington.” James, however, should not be confused with defender Joseph George Washington.
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The “Little Irishman” was identified by Major George Bernard Erath in his memoirs. Erath wrote:
I set out from Bastrop with the surveyor, Thomas A. Graves, about the last of September [1835]. There were seventeen of us in the party, including four land speculators. We reached our destination in three days and commenced work, each compass running out a league of land a day. We intended to go farther east after surveying ten leagues, but, on the last day of our stay the Indians attacked one of the parties and killed Lang, an Irishman, who ran the compass. Such occurrences were not uncommon, especially near the Colorado, and even occurred in the midst of a settlement. A party of Indians always lurked around, waiting to find a solitary man to scalp, and would then put off immediately. As they generally did put off immediately after the killing, it seemed to me there was little danger in our whole party remaining a few days longer. One man of the party attacked had escaped and brought us the news; three men to be accounted for were missing, two besides Lang. We thought the dead ought to be found and buried, and after deliberation in camp found that all the hands and one land locator, Fiske, were in favor of this course, or, at least, to remain long enough to ascertain the fate of the missing men. So after a little opposition from Graves and the other land locators, we started the next morning, not to the settlements, but to the place of attack, guided by the man who had escaped. We paused there and, after another deliberation, Graves cut the matter short by declaring he had fitted out the expedition, would have to pay the hands, and did not propose to be at unnecessary expense in public service. So we turned back. Had we gone but a few hundred yards farther we would have found Lang's body. We kept a lookout for the other missing men, and one of them we found. He was quite wild from fright, mistook us for Indians, and ran from us for some time. He had grown up in some large city, a tailor by trade, and was
altogether unused to the frontier. The other man, McLellen, a little Irishman, carried a pistol and a Jacob's staff with him in flight, and escaped to the Colorado; he lived to be killed in the Alamo the following March.
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The “Little Irishman” appears to have been Ross McClelland. According to a Washington County first class headright document from July 1838: “Robert Merrett [and] Thomas S. Saul Proved that the deceased Ross McClelland was a resident citizen of Texas at the date of the Declaration of Independence, and that he was killed in the Alamo, a Single man.”
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In the case of McClelland, Williams was guilty of nothing more than sloppy research. George Bernard Erath's memoirs were first published in the
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
(volumes 26 and 27) in 1923. Williams's failure to read the Erath narrative is an example of her failure to conduct a proper survey of all the biographical materials that contained information about the Texas Revolution that were available to her. Nor did Williams look to the many probate records that were available at the county level. A review of Williams's footnotes shows that she did little research outside of Austin. She depended on source materials she could find in state archives and at the University of Texas. Otherwise, she used sources that were sent to her by other scholars and historians.
In addition to the Alamo defenders that Williams eliminated for no good reason, she put men on her Alamo roll that did not die at the Alamo, or at least her sources fail to prove their deaths. This analysis does not reflect a complete review of Williams's list, but the number of names examined is sufficient to prove that Williams's roll is unreliable.
There is Johnny Kellogg, who, according to Williams, was: “Age, 19; rank, private; resident of Gonzales. Sources: I Bastrop, 240; I Bexar, 553; Miles S. Bennett,
The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association
, II: 240; Rather, Ibid., VIII, 159. This man was the son of John Kellogg, Sr., of Gonzales, and he was one of the thirty-two who went to the Alamo on March 1.”
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Remember, Williams said: “I set myself the task, however, to verify every name on this work [her work list of four hundred names], or to determine definitely that it should be discarded.” Also, in 1939, when
Williams was questioned about the accuracy of her list, she claimed that she had “several official sources” for each man on her roll.
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The name Johnny Kellogg appears on none of the Alamo rolls. The only source that identifies Kellogg as an Alamo defender is a secondary one, an article by Miles S. Bennett, who came to Texas after the revolution and joined his father in the Gonzales area. Williams misrepresented her sources by claiming that Ethel Zivley Rather's “De Witt's Colony” article identified Kellogg as an Alamo defender. The Rather work is not a legitimate source because Rather's source for Kellogg's death at the Alamo was the Bennett article, which Williams had already cited as a source.
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The only evidence in the land grant documents cited by Williams that speaks to Kellogg's death comes from Harrisburg residents William P. Harris and John W. Moore: “Harris said he first knew him [Benjamin Kellogg, not Johnny] in Oct. 1835 on his return from the Army of Texas, has also known him to have been in the army since that time, as also that he was a married man. Moore stated that he [his] first acquaintance was at Gonzales previous to the Declaration of Independence, also knew him in the service, knows he is dead and also that he was a man of family.” Harris also knew Kellogg in Harrisburg when Kellogg worked on the steamboat
Cayuga
for eleven days between August 15 and September 8, 1836. Harris was the boat's captain.
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According to the court case of A. S. Miller versus Mary S. Rogers: “Kellogg died at Harrisburg in 1836, and Mrs. Kellogg, in 1837 or 1838, moved with her child upon the Thomas R. Miller homestead place, and lived there until her death, in 1839, leaving one son [Johnny Kellogg], then two or three years old, by Kellogg.”
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Lastly, none of the evidence cited by Williams identifies a “John Kellogg, Sr., of Gonzales” as being Johnny Kellogg's father. Actually, there is no evidence of a John Kellogg Sr. or a Johnny Kellogg at Gonzales during the time of the Alamo. The “Kellogg” in question was Benjamin Kellogg, who had a son named Johnny, who was born after the fall of the Alamo. Benjamin was a private in Captain Albert Martin's Gonzales volunteer company during the siege of Bexar in October and November 1835. The company appears to have disbanded after Stephen F. Austin turned the Texian army over to Edward Burleson on November 24, 1836. Thus, it appears that Miles Bennett was not only wrong about Kellogg dying at the Alamo, he also got the man's first name wrong, confusing
Benjamin, the father, with Johnny, the son, who was born in 1836 and probably named for his uncle, John Gaston, who did die at the Alamo.
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To prove that Jose Maria Guerrero died at the Alamo, Williams cited: “I San Patricio, 320; I Bexar, 143, 237.” Nevertheless, Texas land historian Thomas Lloyd Miller examined the cited land grant documents and concluded: “Miss Williams erred in this case. She cited three General Land Office Headright files to prove his [Guerrero] death in the Alamo. The writer carefully examined each file. Perhaps due to a printing error, the files do not concern Guerrero at all; I San Patricio 320 is for Josefa Guerra; I Bexar 143 is for Juan de Dios Neito; I Bexar 237 is for Manuel Martinez y Marquis.”
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There was no printing error. In the 1870s Guerrero received a Texas pension for having taken part in the siege and storming of Bexar as a member of Philip Dimmitt's company. Clearly, Guerrero did not die at the Alamo.
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Williams claimed that “Jerry” or Jeremiah Day, James Hannum, and Isaac Robinson died at the Alamo. Other documents identify the three men as members of Philip Dimmitt's Goliad company. In reality, Robinson was killed by Indians near Bastrop in 1838. Williams used her father and son theory again for Day, stating that her sources indicated that Jeremiah Day was the father of Jerry Day. Williams's sources, however, do not identify Jeremiah as the father of Jerry. Jeremiah and Jerry were the same man. Day died sometime after the revolution, but he was alive on October 26, 1836, when William Delany and he “valued a gray horse of Charles Thomas Jackson into the public service at fifty dollars for which the government is responsible.”
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