The Munsons of Texas — an American Saga

Chapter Thirteen

THE MUNSON SONS AT OAKLAND — 1828-1848
AND WILLIAM BENJAMIN MUNSON AND GEORGE ANN SUTHERLAND

SUMMARY
The four Munson sons and the two Caldwell children were raised at Oakland Plantation by Ann and James Caldwell. Public schools were non-existent and early private schools were one-room, one-teacher schools. The Munson sons attended early private elementary schools in Texas and Kentucky, and then attended colleges in Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois, and New Orleans. All received good educations at much trouble and expense to their stepfather, James P. Caldwell. William Benjamin Munson married George Ann Sutherland in 1848 and acquired the first Munson land at Bailey's Prairie in that same year. He and his wife both died in the spring of 1849, leaving no children.

It appears that the Munson sons' childhood years at Oakland Plantation were pleasant years despite occasional severe family and political upheavals, such as the death of their father, the remarriage of their mother, and the Texas Revolution. The family spent the summers at Old Velasco on the gulf, while the slaves ran the plantation. This was the practice of many plantation owners because of the hot, humid, and unpleasant summer weather inland as compared to the more pleasant sea breezes at the beach. The Munson families continued this practice until after 1900, and they still love to visit Surfside Beach, the site of Old Velasco.

A document written by Ernest Dean Dorchester in 1936 describes these early times in Old Velasco [1]:


     The home life of these rich plantation owners was almost feudal. All labor was performed by slaves, open-house hospitality was general and there was much entertaining. The young men had their fine horses, their pack of hounds, and in season indulged in hunting and fishing. Everybody had his negro servant. During the winter months, relatives and friends from the old states came to visit, and some married and remained.
     In the fall of the year, after the crops had been harvested, everybody went to the race track, which was located about a mile up the river [from the Gulf] on the big bend. There was a pavilion for people, fine horses competed, and much money changed hands. This immediate section became immensely popular and continued year after year. Many vessels entered the port from New Orleans and North Atlantic cities. Ice even came in from Boston, and while cargoes of cotton and molasses were shipped out, manufactured articles so badly needed in this country were shipped in to find their way to the distant plantations.

On the plantation the boys learned early about the use of horses, guns, and dogs. They learned to hunt, and they acquired a willingness — even an eagerness — to join in the battles in later years against the Indians and against the Mexicans. They played among themselves, and probably with the black children. Correspondence in later years indicates that they felt care and compassion for the Blacks within a quasi-family relationship, but clearly in laborer and servant relationships. Despite slavery's obvious inequities, the Munson sons were born into and grew up knowing only a slave society, and, accepting it, they practiced it, fought for it, and gave it up with much regret.

James Caldwell carried out the dying wish of Henry William Munson — he provided the Munson boys with a fine education. In the final settlement of Henry William's estate in 1848, a listing of the educational expenses for each son was given, and that amount in dollars was charged against that son's share of the inheritance. Although there was a spread of five and a half years in age, the three older boys, William Benjamin, Mordello Stephen, and Gerard Brandon, appear to have attended the first ten years of school together. Similarly, in later years, the two younger boys, George Poindexter Munson and Robert Milam Caldwell, although four years apart, appear to have attended school together for many years. Each of the early elementary schools was conducted by a single teacher. The list of schools attended by the older boys illustrates the difficulty of obtaining elementary education at that time:


1833-34      Thomas I. Pilgrim — Gulf Prairie School
1836-37      Fayette Copeland — Liverpool
1837      M. Newell — Velasco
1838-41      Mr. & Mrs. James D. Rumsey — Hopkinsville, Kentucky
1842-43      Rutersville College, La Grange, Texas


Henry William Munson and James F. Perry made arrangements for a plantation school for their children. They hired the esteemed teacher Thomas I. Pilgrim, who had been teaching at San Felipe de Austin, to come to Peach Point. Their contract with Pilgrim called for him to "render his services. . . in the capacity of teacher. . .[for] as many scholars as shall be sent to him, and in such a house as they shall construct for him on the Prairie between Thomas Westalls and James F. Perrys — obligating himself to teach every other week six days, the other five, and as many hours each day as they shall think proper. . ." Munson and Perry further agreed "to construct a comfortable house for the accommodations of the School and to dig a well which shall be completed by the 1st of Sept next [1833] and in remuneration for his services, to furnish. . .board and washing and to give him the amount of tuition but Should such tuition not amount to five Hundred Dollars all deficiency they promise to make up at the expiration of the year. . ." [2]. The school opened for the 1833 school year, just a month before Henry William's death, and the three Munson boys, aged nine, eight, and four, were enrolled. Total tuition expense paid to Pilgrim by Munson was $95.66 for each child, and this appears to have been for two years. The boys could surely walk to and from this school. Pilgrim was still there in May of 1834, but the school was probably closed by 1835, and Pilgrim operated a school at Bell's Landing in 1835 and 1836. It is recorded that Guy Bryan attended this school, and the Munson boys may have also. In 1836-37 the Munson boys attended school at Liverpool, south of the present town of Alvin, with Mr. Fayette Copeland. Liverpool was too far from Oakland for daily transportation, and there were almost no roads in that area of the county, so the boys surely boarded at the school. The expense for tuition, room, and board was $93.00 each.

A letter to Col. M. S. Munson from a Mr. Fayette Copeland, postmarked May 31, 1897, Chico, Texas, states that his grandfather, Fayette Copeland, taught school at Liverpool in Brazoria County in the winter of 1836-37 and died there in the summer of 1837. This, no doubt, created an immediate educational crisis, and in 1837 the boys attended school with M. Newell in Velasco. As the tuition expense was only $14.00 each, this must have been a less than satisfactory educational opportunity, and the boys may have been out of school in the spring of 1838.

There was then apparently no satisfactory schooling for them in Texas, and the three (William, Mordello, and Gerard) were sent to the school of Mr. & Mrs. James D. Rumsey in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Ann and James P. Caldwell, whom the boys called "Pa", made the trip with the boys to Hopkinsville and visited with the Rumseys and other friends there. The boys were then aged 14, 13, and 9, and they attended this school for three years, from 1838 until 1841. A letter home from 14-year-old William Benjamin, written in beautiful penmanship, dated Hopkinsville, Ky, Nov. 27, 1838, reads:


Dear Parents,
I now take this opportunity of writing you a few lines. We are all well and learning tolerably fast. We have not received a letter from you since you left Mills Point, and we are very uneasy. . .thinking that something has happened to you. I have wrote three letters to you. . .I am now reading Latin and studying the Arithmetic and English Grammar. Mr. and Mrs. Rumsey are very kind to us and treat us well. . .Gerrard and Mordello send their love to all as well as Myself. . .I have had another fight but we both were well whiped by Mr. Rumsey. . .The Indians are coming through here every week or two in bodies of a thousand together. . .

Your affectionate son,
W. B. Munson



In 1840, Rutersville College, the first institution of higher learning in Texas, was opened on a hill-top location about four miles north of La Grange, Texas. This was only about sixty miles from Oakland, and the three Munson boys, aged 18, 17, and 13, were enrolled there in 1842. James P. Caldwell was an active Methodist, and in 1837 the Methodist Church sent Dr. Martin Ruter, formerly president of Berea College in Kentucky, to Texas as a "foreign missionary". Within ninety days he organized twenty Methodist missions. Among his many efforts was a recommendation to establish a Methodist college in Texas. After Ruter died at Washington-on-the-Brazos in 1838, his Methodist associates continued his efforts and opened Rutersville College in January of 1840 on four leagues of land granted by the Republic of Texas. While the college lasted only until 1856, it is reported that present-day Southwestern University in Georgetown and Southern Methodist University in Dallas developed from this original Methodist organization.

The three Munson boys are listed on the roll of Rutersville College in 1842, where Mordello is listed as Stephen Mordello Munson. Another student was George Ann Sutherland of Jackson County, Texas, just to the south of Brazoria County near Matagorda Bay. In 1847 William Benjamin Munson and George Ann Sutherland were married in Texana, Jackson County. Her brother, William D. Sutherland, was killed at the Battle of the Alamo, and the Sutherland family Bible is preserved in the Alamo where one may read the entry of the marriage of William Benjamin and George Ann.

In the fall and winter of 1842 Mordello took time off from school to accompany General Alexander Somervell on the Somervell Expedition to Mexico. This military expedition was in retribution against the Mexican occupation of San Antonio earlier that year. Mordello was 17 years old. The expedition gathered at San Antonio, proceeded to the Rio Grande, and culminated in the Mier Expedition and the famous black bean drawings and executions. (See Chapter 16 for details). In September and October William Benjamin was very ill and stayed with his family at Velasco. On September 24, 1842, he entered in his diary "Mort in the Army".

After leaving Rutersville in 1843, the three boys went East to different schools and their lives took different paths, but they remained the closest of brothers and friends throughout their lives. William Benjamin and Mordello Stephen seemed to be unusually close and affectionate brothers — their close ages plus many years together in school must account for this.

The three brothers attended different Methodist sponsored colleges east of the Mississippi River. Gerard attended Emory University at Oxford, Georgia; William Benjamin attended McKendree College at Lebanon, Illinois; and Mordello first attended La Grange College at La Grange, Alabama. Mordello then attended Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, and finally the New Orleans Law School for a year or two. Information on the education of son George Poindexter Munson and the Caldwell children is not known.


William Benjamin Munson and George Ann Sutherland

In March of 1844, while William Benjamin, aged 20, was attending McKendree College at Lebanon, Illinois, he wrote to his parents:


My Dear Parents,
     I am getting along with my studies very well and will get through in one year. I have concluded with Dr. Finley not to commence Greek but obtain a good Latin and English education. My ambition does not aspire to any occupation better & more honorable than a common Planter, and with the Education I can acquire by a years assiduous & diligent study I think I will be ready to commence the business.
    There is some excitement in this Country about the annexation of Texas. The Abolition principle seems to be prime obj. with them and the advocates of that doctrine oppose it strongly unless Texas should make application as a free state and send her slaves to Mexico or Liberia. Oh, I want to see you all. I am tired of staying from home and if ever I get back you will have no trouble in keeping me. . .

Your Affectionate Son
W. B. Munson     


Concerning his return home in the fall of 1844, an article in the Columbia, Texas, newspaper, The Planter, reported on Friday, November 15:


     Arrival of the Mier Prisoners. . .While our head and heart are full of this subject, we will but pause to pay tribute of acknowledgement to a young gentleman whose benevolent conduct deserves to be commemorated in letters of gold. We allude to our fellow citizen, MR. WILLIAM MUNSON, who happened to be at New Orleans on his return from college, when the prisoners arrived there, divided among them every dollar of which he was possessed, and took a deck passage with them. Truly, such actions are their own reward.


After Texas won its independence from Mexico at San Jacinto in 1836, Santa Anna and other leaders in Mexico never totally recognized its independence and hoped to regain control of the lost territory. In 1836 a majority of Texans voted in favor of joining the United States, and the Mexican Government warned the United States that if Texas were admitted to the Union, Mexico would declare war. James K. Polk was elected president in 1844 and declared himself in favor of annexing Texas. Texas was admitted to the Union as the twenty-eighth state on December 29, 1845, after long years of arguments over the slavery question. The conditions under which Texas entered the Union included: (1) the state would keep its unappropriated and vacant land; (2) Texas might divide itself into as many as five states; and (3) the United States would settle all questions of boundaries with foreign countries. Of all the first forty-eight states, only Texas retained the ownership of its public lands. With later massive oil discoveries, this contributed for a century and a half to its image of wealth and to its low state taxes.

Item (3) above, the question of boundary disputes, helped lead the United States into the Mexican War of 1846-48. Texas and the United States claimed the Rio Grande as their southern boundary, but Mexico claimed that Texas had never expanded beyond the Nueces River. At the same time the United States, driven by its dedication to the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, was actively trying to buy from Mexico the areas then known as New Mexico and California. It has been reported that the United States offered Mexico $25,000,000 for these territories.

In the spring of 1846, President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor, who was stationed with 3,900 men on the Nueces River, to advance to the Rio Grande. Soon after he reached the Rio Grande, a Mexican force crossed the river to meet him. On April 24 a small body of American cavalry was defeated by a body of Mexicans. News of the battle gave President Polk the opportunity to say that Mexico had invaded American territory and shed American blood on American soil, and he thus declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846. On May 18, after winning two initial battles at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, Taylor crossed the river and occupied Matamoros. After waiting for new troops, he moved his army up the river and marched against the important city of Monterrey. William Benjamin Munson and Guy M. Bryan were members of the "new troops", and they may have participated in some of the campaigns that followed.

A letter written to Mordello from his mother on June 14, 1846, concerning William reports, "He went to the Trinity and brought Martha [Munson] and the two children to see us, got ready and with Guy [Bryan] and some others set out for General Taylor's army, three weeks since he left and not a word from him."

William must have left the army due to illness, as on October 8, 1846, William wrote to Mordello from Brazoria County as follows:


     Dear Brother, An opportunity offers to send to Galveston and I embrace it by writing to you. I should have written long since but I have been sick for six weeks and not able to get out of my bed during that time. I had a rising on my thigh and it broke two days since and I am now able to get about on crutches, and will soon be well. Mother has been very sick but is recovering rapidly. The rest of the family are well.

Your aff. Brother
W. B. Munson


At the conclusion of the Mexican War, Santa Anna resigned as president of Mexico, and Mexico accepted the Rio Grande as the border and ceded to the United States, for $15,000,000, the land that now comprises almost all of the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California. The victorious and popular General Zachary Taylor became president of the United States. Others who participated in the war were Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, George B. McClellan, Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and Jefferson Davis. It proved to be a training ground for the generals who were to oppose each other in the War Between the States.



In a letter to Mordello at Lexington on August 8, 1846, William wrote that he and George Ann planned to marry "Jany next", however they did not marry until May 13, 1847. On May 21, 1847, William wrote to Mordello:


My Dear Brother,
I have just finished reading a letter from you to Mr. Caldwell and I feel so much rejoiced to hear from you and to learn of your recovery and more than all the joyous prospect of soon having you with us — you can scarcely imagine the pleasure I have in anticipation of your presence — And it is perhaps heightened more at my being able to present you a sister — yes, a dear, sweet sister — and if it be true that my brother Mordello will, dispite of us all and his own good inclination, live a bachelor life — he will find in George Ann a kind and affectionate sister. We were married on the 13 of May — and are now at our dear Mothers — Oh! how I wish for you. . . I have bought of Mills the place Russell lived on and will take my dear wife to her new home in a week or two. I gave Mills eleven hundred and eleven acres of the Oyster Creek tract for the place and all say I made a firm trade — I am satisfied it is better for me — the improvements are worth 3,000 dollars and the land is fine including 500 acres — I am told you have an idea of commencing your practice in New Orleans but of course did not correct the report — you would not I know leave your native state for the simple reason that your practice would be worth more for a few years elsewhere. No, you must live in Texas — and if you apply yourself I feel satisfyed that your relatives will at some future day feel proud of your successes. . .
     The County is rapidly improving and the sugar raising has taken root with most of the planters. Mr. B. McNeil & Mills plant no cotton this year — and have erected some of the finest sugar houses ever seen — There will be about 3000 tthds of sugar raised in Brazoria Co. this year — I would like to write you a long, very long, letter — but your sister George Ann will not let me have the time — she keeps stopping me — Mother is very proud of her new daughter and I assure Billy is of his wife — it looks strange to see and think of my being married. . . Stephen Perry was Groomsman — we had a fine wedding — I wish you had been there — we danced until daylight — — — you spoke of Mr. Caldwell wanting you to study law in Lexington — and no where else — he wants you without reference to expense to go and study where you can do best — his only motive is your prosperity and success — And if you think you can do better elsewhere — he says go — and there prosecute your study — he will send you money in a short time — he has been all that I could have expected of a Father to me and I shall ever feel grateful to him —
     Write soon and believe me — ever your aff. brother,

W. B. Munson


This purchase of "the place Russell lived" was the first purchase of land by the Munsons at Bailey's Prairie and was the beginning of the Mordello Munson Ridgely Plantation. "Mills" refers to D. G. and Robert Mills, prominent bankers, planters, and land traders in Brazoria and Galveston. There are many records of their ownership of land in the Bailey's Prairie area, and it appears that at one time or another they owned and traded most of the land in that area, sometimes more than once.

William Benjamin states that his purchase contained 500 acres, but by best present reconstructions it appears to have contained about 368 acres. It also appears that ownership problems arose immediately and that William Benjamin and George Ann did not move there. There were several ownership disputes and a major law suit involving portions of this and adjoining land in the years following. Land in those times was a very cheap commodity, about one or two dollars or less per acre; surveying was not prevalent; and it is easy to understand that titles, boundaries, and acreages were often in dispute, especially if the buyer was not careful and precise on the matter. (See Chapter 18 for details of later Bailey's Prairie land acquisitions and conflicts).

William Benjamin's purchase was almost the exact tract of land owned today by the descendants of Mordello's son, Joseph Waddy Munson. It was inherited by Joseph Waddy in the 1907 family division of Ridgely Plantation, and has been owned by his descendants ever since. The "Oyster Creek tract" referred to by William Benjamin appears to have been a large tract of 3,590 acres, between the Brazos River and Oyster Creek, some miles north of Bell's Landing. The remainder of this property was split between brothers Mordello and George in the settlement of the Henry William and William Benjamin estates in 1848. What became of these tracts is not known.

Thus the Munsons first arrived at Bailey's Prairie.

Another letter from William to Mordello, dated June 10, 1847, from Brazoria to Lexington, reads as follows:


My Dear Brother,
Yours of last date came to hand a few days since and although I had just written to you, yet I feel that I am compelled to correct certain statements made in a prior letter. . .I am confident that I was too hasty — and that my remarks were partly from anger — and a belief that I was badly treated. . .There is only one thing that I am unable to see thoroughly — my removal from home. . .
     I am now at Mothers but will not remain long — Russell and myself did not agree and I rented the place to him for the year. I know that I can make more trading than I could have done on the plantation.      You can scarse imagine the pleasure your last letter gave me — to know that you were getting on so well — that your standing among your classmates was a desirable one, and that you had many friends — all these things gave me a pleasure — and I hope and feel satisfyed that your success at home may be the same. Your friends here, all, have high expectations of your success. . .
     I am, as you may well conjucture, well pleased with my little wife. She is a perfect little saint — (but I must not say too much of her lest you should accuse me of filling up my letter with a description of a school girl that you knew all about) but I really think you will be well pleased with your sister — she often speaks of her brother Morty — and is as anxious to see him as any of us. She says give my very best respects and love to Brother Mordello —
     Brother, do not stay long in Louisiana. I know it will be hard to get off — but you have many relatives at home, and your duty calls on you to stay with them. . .I hope you have held out voluntarily against the wiles of "The By belle" you spoke of in yours. Recollect there are Girls in your own state that are acknowledged superior to the belles of Lexington. Your friends are well — Mother's health is much improved — bring me a grey horse if you can get one without much trouble.

Your aff. brother
W. B. Munson    


But, alas, William Benjamin and George Ann were not to live for another year. Records do not tell if William Benjamin and George Ann ever lived in their home at Bailey's Prairie. Family tradition says that they did live there and that they both died there within a few months of each other in early 1848. The Munson Bible gives the date of George Ann's death as February 22 and that of William Benjamin as March 18; but the Caldwell-Munson Bible gives the date of her death as July 22. It would be most romantic to imagine that when William lost his beloved bride there was nothing left to live for; but it's easier to imagine that in those days of terribly contagious diseases they may have both died of the same infectious illness, whatever that might have been. William was buried in the Peach Point Cemetery beside his father. It is not known if George Ann was buried in Brazoria County, or possibly at her home in Jackson County. William was only 24 years old, and they left no children.

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