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Wednesday, April 21, 2004
I've Been Thinking, Historical Account of the Montgomery Area
by Narcissa Martin Boulware
Historic Lands Called "Places”
I think the time has come to talk about the families and their heirs and descendants that were the origin of the Village, Town, City of Montgomery. There are a few pictures I'm sure of the homesteads of the immigrants to the Mexican owned State of Texas, though from all accounts, both money and photographers were scare. In order to show what the homesteads of such early families called home, I have used two pictures copied from a book called "William Bolleart's Texas", this man wore many hats in his life and his account of his visit to the settlement in Montgomery and the drawing he left, leave no doubt of "That's how it was." His drawings of the Scotch Hermitage owned by Robert Robson Esq., two miles from Montgomery where Bolleart visited a number of times and his sketch of a Texan farm in Montgomery could be an accurate account of the Landrum, Griffith, Gay and Rogers homesteads in 1843, though those settlers had already been in Texas ten years at that time. The very first consideration of the first families in 1831 was to select the homestead by a good dependable supply of water, which was an immediate necessity. Records show that the Rogers', Gay and Landrum families were living in the "Lake Creek Settlement". The second consideration was shelter all the above families arrived in Montgomery with slaves, who were immediately sent out with axes to hew logs to build cabins.
Ten years after the traveler, Bolleart passed through Montgomery, he describes one of the first cabins as a "log hut, not sealed or boarded inside and no fireplace fixed". This seems to prove that Bolleart's picture of a Montgomery County Farm in 1842 shows the progress the 1831 families had made. It was at that period of time, 1843 that today's Montgomery began.
For anyone who is interested in knowing the beginning of the City of Montgomery, great honor must be paid to the Davis' and Price families for their untiring efforts to preserve the beginning by written accounts. The book "William Bolleart's Texas" is a priceless treasure when he tells of his journey into Montgomery in 1843. this story shows how much progress the little village/town had made in the twelve years since the Mexican land grants immigrants had arrived in the Montgomery wilderness in 1831.
This account can be easily connected by some today and in my case greatly enjoyed. Date, 1843- Stayed at Senator Grimes at Plantersville, traveled to Colonel Jacob Shannon's (north of Dobbin) who farmed cotton, corn, sheep and cattle. Rode two miles to the bridge over Lake Creek (this being six miles west of Montgomery)". Then Bolleart gives a description of the Julian Devereaux Plantation. This man Devereaux was the husband of Zachariah Landrum's granddaughter, Sarah. This plantation certainly in existence in 1843 is known today as the "Nutter Place". This place is about two miles east, southeast off the old Dobbin Road. At that time, 1843, that Bolleart visited there, he describes Devereaux as having all his slaves together forming a "nigger village". The handbook of Texas says Devereaux at one time owned ten thousand acres of land and eighty slaves. Bolleart's journey said the next stop was two miles west of Montgomery, which was about where the present Dr. Price home is on Hwy. 105.
His next host was a Squire H, no further clue as to who the host was. He next rode on to the plantation of his long time friend Robert Robson, Esq., who owned a plantation two miles from Montgomery.
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