Ghosts along the Texas Coast (9 page)

Now Mary is an elderly widow who lives in a tiny white frame cottage in a small community south of McAllen. Her husband had been a citrus farmer before his death. They had no children, but Mary was very devoted to a little gray toy poodle whom she called Buttons because of his shiny little shoe-button eyes. The dog slept in a little basket beside Mary's bed. Sometimes if Mary overslept, Buttons would wake her up by rearing up on the bed and scratching at the covers to uncover Mary's arm. He would often make a little whimpering noise as if to say, “Wake up! I need to go outside!”

In time, little Buttons became very old and arthritic, and then he developed a heart problem. Mary was heartbroken, but she knew she had to have her beloved pet put to sleep. She vowed never to get another dog to whom she would become so attached.

Several months after the dog died, on a rainy November night, Mary was awakened in the middle of the night by feeling the covers being tugged from her arms. And she heard the unmistakable sound of Buttons' “let me out” whimpers. As she awoke, she looked at the side of the bed, and there in the glow of her night-light she could plainly see two shiny shoe-button eyes staring at her.

Astounded, she turned on the lamp beside her bed. But there was no dog there . . . nothing at all. Mary had been so sure she had seen and heard her little poodle. Unnerved, she decided to get up and go out in the kitchen and make a cup of hot chocolate to calm herself. As she walked through the hallway into the kitchen she was almost overcome by the smell of gas coming from her gas range. Evidently the pilot light had gone out and the odor of gas filled the room. She raised the window and opened the outside door, but it took some time for the noxious fumes to disappear.

Mary always wondered if, had she slept all night in that tiny little cottage with all the doors and windows tightly closed, she would have been “put to sleep” by the gas fumes coming from her kitchen if not for the protective spirit of her little poodle, Buttons, coming back to alert her.

The story I am about to tell you is so unusual that I frankly didn't know what else to call it. Since it isn't exactly (or is it?) a ghost story, I didn't know just what to do with it, but I want to share it with you. It is a true story of an ongoing situation, and therefore I am changing the names of the principals and not mentioning the name of the town, which is in far South Texas.

It was just a few weeks ago that I heard of the experience a young woman I will call Betty Chambers. She and her husband live on a farm a short distance from the town where she serves as the elementary school's librarian. One summer night about a year and a half ago, she woke with a start, from a sound sleep. The room in which she and her husband slept was not very dark, as there is a giant security light mounted outside the bedroom window. Usually the Chambers kept the drapes drawn to darken the room, but tonight they were open and the room was well illuminated. Betty glanced to her right, and there, standing beside the bed, was the figure of a little boy. He looked to be no more than 7 or 8 years old. He had very fair skin that had an almost translucent look to it, big blue eyes with dark circles beneath them, and blond hair. Although he appeared real, Betty said he also looked to be of another era. He wore a collarless buttoned-up white shirt, dark knicker trousers, and had long socks tucked up into the knickers. He looked to be wearing old-fashioned high-buttoned boots. His attire was that of the early 1900s. Betty said she was very startled to see the youngster standing there, staring at her, and yet she was not particularly frightened by the figure. She called out, “Who are you . . . what do you want?” When she spoke, the figure disappeared! Her husband, Bill, awoke and asked her what she had said. Betty told him that she had seen a little boy standing by the bed, and her husband said, “You must be having a bad dream. Go back to sleep.” And with that, he rolled over and it was only a few minutes before his deep, even breathing told her that he was fast asleep.

Betty didn't mention seeing the youngster again, but she certainly did not forget the incident, and she thought of the strange nocturnal visitor many times over the rest of the summer.

When school started in late August, Betty was in her library with a group of first-graders clustered about, when the first-grade teacher came to the door with a little boy. She called Betty to come over and meet the youngster, who had been late in enrolling. As she bent down to say hello and take his hand, she said the child looked up at her and she knew. There was no doubt. The same fair skin and blond hair, the same deep-set blue eyes, with the same dark circles beneath them. And unlike the other blue-jean clad little boys, his clothes seemed “different” too, sort of old-fashioned, Betty said.

Betty said she must have had a totally stunned expression on her face, because the first-grade teacher said, “Are you all right?” Betty said she just managed an “uh-huh.” The teacher told her the little boy was named Geoffrey, and she introduced him to Betty. Betty asked him, “Are you new here in town?” The youngster replied in a very strange manner for a first-grader. He looked up at her and said, “Yes and no. I know you. I've always known you.” Betty said it gave her the cold chills as she recalled seeing that very same little white face, those same dark-circled blue eyes, in her bedroom on that summer night visit.

Betty went on to tell me that all year little Geoffrey would try to sit as close to her chair as he could. He didn't seem to want to mix with the other children, and she would catch him just staring at her. Sometimes he would lean over and say to her . . . “You know, I've always known you.”

The books the youngster seemed to like most were old-fashioned books, with illustrations from the late 1800s and early 1900s. He showed no interest in Ninja Turtles and space adventures like the other children.

This year the youngster is again at school, and he still comes to the library story sessions. Betty says he is beginning to mix more with the other children, but there is still something very strange, very disturbing, and rather sad, about the little boy. And he still continues to tell her . . . “Don't you know? I've always known you.”

Has anyone any explanation for this? I have had several psychics suggest that this is a classic case, supportive of reincarnation. Have you a better explanation?

Docia Williams

Oh, there are lots of phantom lights

That light the still and foggy nights;

Lights that bob along a fence,

Or in the forests, dark and dense.

Lights, no bigger than a ball,

And lights, we've heard, near six feet tall!

Lights like those on Bailey's Prairie,

Big, and bold, and downright scary . . .

That's seen to come, and seen to go

'Bout every seven years or so.

Oh, so strange, these ghostly lights

That come to haunt our Texas nights!

Down near Angleton there's a place known as Bailey's Prairie. “Brit” Bailey, for whom it is named, was one of the most colorful of Texas' frontier characters. What was the truth, and what was fiction, has all gotten sort of tangled up over the years as different tale spinners talk or write about the colorful figure.

Brit, a hard-living, hard-drinking, sometimes controversial but always highly interesting Texas frontiersman, still seems to appear from time to time! At least that's what folks around Bailey's Prairie say. Bailey's appearances, which take the form of a big ball of light, known as Bailey's light, seem to take place about every seven years. Old Brit has carved himself a unique and permanent niche in the “Hall of Fame” of Texas “ghostdom.”

Having read numerous accounts of Bailey's life, death, and subsequent hauntings, all of which did not always agree, I was delighted when I was contacted by his great-great-granddaughter, Mary Lou Polley Featherston, of Port Arthur. Her letter stated, “I was a Polley, great-granddaughter of Mary Bailey Polley, daughter of Brit Bailey. She married Joseph H. Polley who was also one of the Old Three Hundred. (This refers to Stephen F. Austin receiving permission from the Mexican government to bring 300 Anglo families into Texas in April of 1823.)

James Briton “Brit” Bailey was born on August 1, 1779, in North Carolina. He took pride in being descended from Robert Bruce of Scotland. As a young man, he moved about a good bit, and lived in both Tennessee and Kentucky. During the War of 1812 he served as a U.S. Navy captain.

In 1812 he packed up his wife, Edith Smith Bailey, and their family of six offspring, and came to Texas where they settled on a piece of property along the Brazos River in what is now known as Brazoria County. This land grant was under Stephen F. Austin's jurisdiction. At first, it's said that Austin tried to oust Bailey and his family when he
(Austin) learned that Bailey had served time in the Kentucky state penitentiary for forgery. Bailey often stated it wasn't serving in the pen that caused him embarrassment; it was the term he'd served in the Kentucky legislature that set heavy on his conscience. After paying his debts to society, Bailey packed up his family and came to Texas, just wanting a new start where they could be left alone. The settler finally got squared away with Austin, and while they were never really friendly, Austin accepted Bailey in July of 1824 as one of the “Old Three Hundred.” He was able to live and die on his original land claim, a “league of land.”

In 1824 Austin used Bailey's cabin to meet with settlers who lived along the lower Brazos, where they took an oath of loyalty to Mexico's federal constitution in 1824. At the same meeting a company of militia was organized, and Brit was appointed as a lieutenant. That same year he took part in the Battle of Jones Creek. This was a no-win fight between Captain Randel Jones and his group of some twenty-three settlers, and a party of thirty or so Karankawa braves who were camped on a tributary of the San Bernard River. The Indians had massacred some settlers, so Austin authorized Jones to go after them. Both sides suffered losses in the skirmish, and no one came out the victor.

Because he was a good talker, Bailey was often called upon by Austin to negotiate with the Indians.

Tired of the cramped conditions of his little cabin, in 1827 Bailey contracted with Stephen Nicholson and Peter Reynolds to build him a frame house 18 feet square, with 9-foot galleries on all sides. The finished house was painted bright red! Bailey paid the builders the sum of $220 in cash and the balance in cattle and hogs. A visitor to Bailey's place in 1831 wrote to a friend that Bailey's red house “sure had a novel appearance.”

Bailey became very successful as a cattle rancher and cotton grower and gradually expanded his land holdings until he owned a great deal of real estate from Houston south to the Gulf Coast.

The Mexican government evidently thought highly of Bailey, because in 1829 General Viesca commissioned him a captain in the militia.

Brit could be the epitome of the solid citizen; responsible and trustworthy, a good businessman and a good leader. But he had two faults. He loved his liquor, and he had a very short fuse. He thoroughly
enjoyed a good fight, and when he was bored or just a little too liquored up, he'd pick a fight just for the sheer fun of it!

His short temper showed itself on many occasions. One time, when a horse he was riding wasn't behaving to his liking, he reached down and bit the critter's ear until the blood flowed. The mustang, not taking kindly to such ill treatment, bucked and threw Bailey to the ground. Not to be bested, Brit promptly took out his hunting knife and slit the poor horse's throat!

One afternoon when his family was away, old Brit got pretty well inebriated. He hadn't counted on the circuit-riding preacher knocking on his door to seek lodging for the night. Brit greeted the churchman with his customary greeting, “Walk in, stranger.” He told the preacher he could stay the night if he would agree to abide by the house rules. Not quite knowing what the “rules” were, the man of the cloth hesitated a minute, but needing a place to stay, he agreed, feeling quite sure the “house rules” couldn't amount to much. After supper, Brit picked up his rifle and told the preacher to disrobe and then get up on the table and dance a jig that was called the “Juba,” an African dance popular with the local black population. The preacher told Brit he didn't know how to dance, but a shot aimed at the preacher's foot convinced him he could dance pretty well after all! He stumbled around on the table top, “jigging” as best he could while one of Brit's black servants played “Juba” on the fiddle!

It was said that Brit was just about the hardest drinker in all of Austin's colony, a dubious honor. The Bailey family history records tales of some of his most noteworthy sprees. One Saturday night, Brit, accompanied by a black boy named Jim, rode into town for a little partying. There was a revival going on, and most of Brit's usual drinking companions had been dragged to the camp meeting by their wives. Brit was pretty let down. He and Jim rode on back out to Brit's place, and after sitting under the old oak tree pulling on his jug for a good long while, Brit decided to liven things up a bit. He really lit up the night when he set fire to the corn crib, and sat drinking and admiring the flames till all his corn had gone up in smoke. It's said he probably would have set fire to the house as well if his favorite daughter hadn't arrived and talked him out of it!

There are all sorts of tales about Brit's drinking escapades, and unfortunately, most of them are true!

Finally, the hard-drinking character took sick and died of what they called cholera fever on December 6,1832, at the age of sixty-three. At the time of his death his marital status was a subject of controversy, also. When he arrived in Texas in 1821, he brought his wife, Edith Smith Bailey, and their six children. However, an 1826 census of the Austin Colony lists his wife's name as Nancy. In his last will and testament he left his property to his “beloved Nancy and our two girls, Sarah and Margaret.” The three surviving children that Brit and Edith brought with them to Texas were disinherited, without any “just cause.” In 1838 Elizabeth Milburn and Mary Polley petitioned to have the will declared null and void, claiming they were Brit's legitimate children and that Nancy was only “represented” to be Brit's wife. (She might have been a common-law wife.) The plea was first denied, and then the will was set aside in January of 1839, some seven years after Brit's death.