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Pendleton, Sabine County, Texas. 29 April 1838; [Unknown], postmarked 12 March [1837]. Autograph letter, 12” x 7.75”. 2 pp. in ink. CONDITION: Very good, a few small holes along old folds, numerous document tape repairs. [With] Autograph letter, signed, 6.75” x 8.25”, 1 p. in ink, docketed and postmarked on verso. CONDITION: Good, old folds with 3” separation and several document tape repairs, two small holes, no loss of sense.

A pair of partial but intriguing and informative letters written by early settlers to the Republic of Texas—one a newly-appointed land agent—discussing land, crops, cattle, the influx of settlers, and more.

The longer of these two letters, written by an “agent to transact land business in Texas,” is a detailed survey of conditions in the rapidly growing settlement of Pendleton. Writing to “Brother and Sister” back home, the author expresses his “great anxiety to hear of your health as you were sick the last we heard from you,” but continues with a measure of self satisfaction:

I hope this may find you in as good health as we all are at present and if you had had the good fortune to come to Texas when we did perhaps you might now say as I can…we have been here two years and a quarter and I have not lost the first meals victuals by sickness and our family have all been remarkably healthy it has not cost us one pickiyune for doctors bill and our children are all fat and healthy and grow beyond expectation…

The author proceeds to describe his land (“we have a healthy and beautiful building place in the fork of two small creeks with a never failing spring of good soft water and a beautiful hickory grove around the house and we can clear 100 acres and see over it all from the house. Our land is surrounded by other settlers and of course it is rather a bad shape…”); his timber (which “I have already been obliged to stop people from cutting”); the nearby Sabine River (“which is now cleared out” with “steam boats running on it”); his fellow settlers and the consequences of their arrival on the price of food (“the emigrants came in so fast that they have been like locust eat up all before them and are still coming in and it has created a great scarcity of provisions flour is 15 dollars per barrel corn two dollars a bushel pork twelve dollars a hundred ham 20 cents per pound butter fifty cents a pound…”); and his and his wife’s new liking for coffee (“Tea is very little used here as coffee is more suitable to the climate…and Catharine is now as fond of coffee as she ever was of tea and it agrees better with her constitution. You know I never did like tea but I have got to be a great hand for coffee”). He also describes the local practices for keeping cattle:

We make no provisions for cattle in the winter as the grass fails in the beginning of the winter the cattle draw to the cane or reed which is always green and grows on low land and near water where they get good feed all winter and in the spring we set fire to the old grass which runs through the woods and burns the old grass and brush the young grass soon starts and the cattle draws out to the open woods every person has a branding iron and marks and brands his cattle by which they are known and as it is customary to take up all cows with young calves and milk them till the summer comes we have had 5 this spring which was a help to us…

After reporting on Texan flora and fauna (“Bears and wolves are not more numerous here than with you, deer wild turkey turkey buzzards parrots and possoms here. Almost all kinds of timber but white pine hemlock whitewood and butternut is not found in Texas…there is no clover Timothy no buckwheat no horse radish no currants Oats do well here rye does well wheat has been tried and does well but we have no mills to grind it…”) the letter sums up the new Republic for the potential settler: “Cotton corn sweet potatoes garden vegitables cattle and hogs is the main object in texas. An industrous man can support his family and pay for a hundred acres of land in one year.”

The letter is incomplete, and the author is unknown, a couple references in the letter to the New Orleans suggest he had ties to that city, which served as a center for commercial and financial relations with the Republic before its annexation.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, the town of Pendleton “was laid out in 1837 by Thomas S. McFarland at the request of James Gaines, who operated Gaines Ferry, originally called Paso del Chalan when it was established in 1795. Gaines named the community Pendleton, a family name of his. The town…became an important port of entry during the republic. During the postbellum period, changes in transportation caused the settlement to decline,” and by the 1970s was completely abandoned.

The second, shorter letter, written by “John and Catherine Cheveral To John and Barbary N Phillips and Mother Balsley and all our friends in manlius [New York],” lacks the upper half but details the rush of settlers into the Republic: “Land will soon become very valuable the number of persons emigrated into Texas in one year [is] near 5000—the name of Texas and the quality of the soil is s[pr]ead so that people are flocking in from all the states and Texas is filling up very fast last fall there was ninety one families came in one company.” The authors extend an offer “to let any of you have rent for free for a year or two” from them, and a final, cramped paragraph underscores the promise of the new Republic by comparing it to the stagnation of home: “In New York State the money is all in rich mens hands. But Texas is the place, Where poor men have a chance. We have plenty of good land. And money for our work. But there they must take store pay. That’s living in New York.”

A pair of partial letters providing vivid evidence of the lives and attitudes of early settlers to the Republic of Texas.

REFERENCES: Harper, Cecil Jr. “Pendleton, TX (Sabine County),” Texas State Historical Association online; Winston, James E. “Notes on Commercial Relations between New Orleans and Texan Ports, 1838–1839,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 2 (1930), p. 91.

Item #8207

Price: $950.00