As early as the 1880s, supporters were wanting to place a memorial to those Texans who were killed in the Battle of San Jacinto. On August 10, 1881, about forty-five years after the historic battle, the New Orleans Times-Picayune carried a story stating that such a monument had been completed by Messrs. A. Allen and Co. The monument was complete except for the proposed engraving to be placed on it. It was described as a plain square spire made of blue American marble, fifteen and a half feet high and was to be set on a two foot foundation, making the whole structure just under eighteen feet tall.
Nat Love
Nathan/Nathaniel “Nat” Love was born into slavery but became a well known cowboy, even publishing a book on his life experiences, “The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as ‘Deadwood Dick’.” The book can be purchased or downloaded free from various sources.
The Legacy of John Avery Lomax and Alan James Lomax
We first became acquainted with the name John Avery Lomax, Sr. when we found a 1942 recording of “Goodbye Old Paint,” which song is attributed to singing cowboy Charley Willis. The following is a brief overview of the many achievements of John Avery Lomax and son Alan James Lomax.
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Liz Carpenter
Mary Elizabeth Sutherland Carpenter was born in Salado, Bell County, Texas on September 1, 1920 to Thomas Shelton and Mary Elizabeth Robertson Sutherland. Her father was a state highway inspector and her mother was a homemaker. Liz was the middle child of five children. According to traditional genealogical sources, her mother, Mary Elizabeth Robertson was the daughter of Maclin Robertson who was in turn the son of Sterling Clack and Sarah Maclin Robertson. Sterling Clack Robertson was born in 1785 in Tennessee and came to Texas as empresario of his own colony, settling in what would become Bell County near the current town of Salado. Robertson was also a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. On Liz’s father’s side, her Texas roots went back just as far. Her father was Thomas Shelton Sutherland III. His father was Thomas Shelton Sutherland II and his father was George Sutherland, born in Alabama and by profession a cowboy and rancher, who is noted as having served in the Texas Army and fought in the Battle of San Jacinto.
John R. Baylor
Various members of the Baylor family have figured into Texas history over the years. John Robert Baylor was a nephew of Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor, a judge and a preacher and also co-founder of Baylor University. John Robert was born in 1822 in Paris, Kentucky to John Walker Bledsoe and Sophie Marie Wiedner Baylor. John R. Baylor grew up in a military family, as his father was an Army doctor. John Robert was the brother of George Wythe Baylor, a Texas Ranger and Henry Weidner Baylor, also a surgeon and a Texas Ranger. Henry Weidner Baylor was the namesake of Baylor County in North Texas.
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