biography – Page 24 – Texas History Notebook

Death of William Marsh Rice

William Marsh Rice was born on March 14, 1816 and died September 23, 1900. Rice was eighty-four at the time of his death. During his lifetime, Rice had been a successful businessman in numerous fields. He left his fortune to fund the founding of the educational institution now known as Rice University in Houston, Texas. William Rice died in New York City though he had lived in Texas for many years.

Two Texas Grigsby Families

There have been numerous families with the Grigsby name who lived in Texas around the time of the Texas Revolution and the Republic of Texas. We mention two families today. They both had interesting stories. One settled near the eastern border of Texas, generally in Jefferson County and the other more in and around Houston County.

George Armstrong Custer and Elizabeth Bacon Custer

George Armstrong Custer is probably best remembered for the defeat of members of the Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. He was thirty-six years old at the time of his death. Prior to that event, he had enjoyed a mostly successful military career. About ten years after his death, his widow, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, published a book called “Tenting on the Plains” in which she described their military life including the period in which Custer served in Kansas and Texas.

Mow-way (Shaking Hand or Hand Shaker)

This individual was a Comanche leader of the Kotsoteka branch or band of the tribe. He is thought to have been born about 1826 and he died in 1886. He was known to have been a warrior and participated in some of the earliest treaties between the tribe and the Confederate government in 1861. The Confederate negotiations were led by Albert Pike (1809 – 1891) who had been appointed in March of 1861 to serve as Indian Commissioner by Confederate President Jefferson Davis to attempt to draw up agreements with the tribes west of the Arkansas River. Pike was trained as an attorney and in the past had represented other tribes in negotiations with the United States government. In the summer of 1861, Pike worked on treaties with the Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Osage, Senaca and Shawnee. In August, 1861 he met with representatives of four bands of the Comanche tribe and Mow-way was a representative of the Kotsoteka. The agreement with the Comanche tribe seems to have been that they would give up their captives and receive compensation and confine themselves to agreed areas. Pike went on to serve in the Confederate Army. He eventually resigned his command after a disagreement over leadership decisions and did not serve to the end of the Civil War.

Henry Clay McGonagill

Henry Clay McGonagill was born on September 24, 1879 to George M. McGonagill (1841 – 1921) and Narcissa Josephine “Grandma” Haynes McGonagill (1839 – 1935) in Sweet Home, Texas. George was born in Oxford, Mississippi in 1841. By the time he was nineteen, his family had moved to Lavaca County, Texas where George was working on his father’s farm. George then served in the Civil War after which he returned to Texas. By 1870, he had married Narcissa and two of their children were born. Narcissa had been born in Tennessee. At the time the 1870 federal census was taken, George was working on his own stock farm. By 1880 their family was complete. They had six children that lived to adulthood, of which Clay was the youngest, and they were still residing in Lavaca County. By 1900, they had moved to West Texas and were living in Midland. Sometime within the next ten years, they had moved to what was then Eddy County in the New Mexico Territory where George was raising horses.