The wreck of French explorer La Salle’s ship, The Belle, more than three hundred years ago in Matagorda Bay is one of the compelling tales of Texas history that most schoolchildren here learn. These six to ten foot, dismounted bronze cannon, recovered in the remarkable 1995 discovery and subsequent preservation of the ship’s hull and cargo, are just part of the story.
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Posted in Texana
Tagged bronze cannon, La Belle, La Salle, Texana
Tatyana snapped this one on her recent trip to London. Is that a Tardis in the corner? Speaking of time machines, London and Paris might still have some remnant of an old Texas Embassy, considering the French, Brits, the Netherlands and Belgium recognized the Texas Republic in the 1830s-40s. Texas sent Dr. Ashbel Smith as chargé d’affaires to both England and France to establish trade relations. But a restaurant and grill is the next best thing!
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Posted in Texana
Tagged chargé d'affaires Ashbel Smith, Republic of Texas, Tardis, Texana
That’s what kids around the world are doing these days, thanks to the Handbook of Texas Online: "…a trailblazing resource about all things Texas." It’s also, just plain fun to read. And more is coming. Watch the video, pard.
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Posted in Texana
Tagged Handbook of Texas Online, Remember the Alamo, Texana, Texas history
I finished this one last night, sandwiched in between the first and second volumes of U.S. Grant’s memoirs, and it was well worth the buy and the read. It’s billed as the most comprehensive look at the massacre, and I’d go along with that, though I haven’t read many others. Especially interesting is the section on weapons, which explains how so many of the American volunteers killed so many Mexican soldados in the Battle of Coleto, while they survived, and how the few survivors of of the massacre got away: the Mexican Brown Bess flintlock muskets were rendered poorer by weak, field-made powder.
I’ve seen several descriptions of how Fannin, who was executed last, supposedly asked not to be shot in the face but was, anyhow. Author Jay Stout quotes from the only eyewitness account, available at this site at Texas A&M, that Fannin actually asked only that the Mexican muskets not be held so close to his face that it receive powder burns, but he was disregarded. A strange sort of vanity, either way. You can find a good deal of the background material Stout cites here and at the A&M site. His bibliography is worth having by itself, and much of it also is online. Despite recent efforts to get the Mexican government to return the flag of the New Orleans Greys, about half of whom were murdered at Goliad, I agree with Stout that it belongs in Mexico, but wish that it would be put on display or, at least, photographed for public view.
Good as Stout’s book is, I must reiterate, that if you can only afford/read one book on the Texas Revolution, Stephen Hardin’s Texian Illiad is still the best.
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Posted in Library, South of the Border, Texana
Tagged Jay A. Stout, La Bahia, Slaughter at Goliad, Stephen Hardin, Texana, Texas Revolution, Texian Illiad
All we lack here is a dead body, and who knows? One might turn up yet. So far we have a Texas Supreme Court justice and his wife indicted for burning down their suburban Houston house for financial reasons–and inadvertently torching a neighbor’s house in the process. Then the DA says there’s not enough evidence against them to go to trial, the foreman of the grand jury disagrees and accuses the DA of politics. Today, a judge dismissed the charges, though the grand jury foreman remains adamant. We could still use a hidden love child, drug dealing, or at least the "other woman" with big hair and oversize plastic-surgery boobs. But even without them, or the dead body, it’s still a pretty classic Texas case. Stay tuned. Bound to be more to come here.
UPDATE: Well, there is a little matter of $57,000 the judge illegally spent from his campaign donations for mileage reimbursement over three years. I didn’t realize gas was THAT expensive. And there’s still hope for the love child and the other woman, since the daily notes the judge has still not accounted for his absence the night of the fire.
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Posted in Texana
Tagged arson, Harris County DA, Texana, Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina and wife Francisca
Is it better to die from a hunter’s bullet or an arrow? Either one would seem preferable to what actually happened to this nine-point buck northwest of Dalhart in the Texas Panhandle:
"…the magnificent buck in the prime of life merely limps in painful increments from the feeder to the tall grass, the grass to live oak, live oak to cedar and, finally, out of sight."
Mike Leggett, the Austin daily’s often-eloquent outdoors writer, describes the sad end of a whitetail buck.
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Posted in Texana
Tagged hunting whitetail deer, Mike Leggett, sad end to a buck's life, Texana, Texas
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 