The Daughters of the Republic of Texas

This weekend, Carla Miller’s family met in Yancey, Texas for a memorial medallion service. Daughters, grandchildren, aunts, nieces, nephews- all arrived at the Yancey cemetery to honor their mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister & aunt. As members of the DRT, we place memorial medallions at gravesites to honor veterans, defenders & citizens of the Republic of Texas, but we must continue to honor other members of our families so they will not be forgotten. These children present for this ceremony will long remember their great grandmother; they placed roses, participated in the ceremony & listened to family stories.
At the March 2nd celebration in San Antonio this year, our President General Ora Jane Johnson mentioned the three deaths that can happen to a person:
1) when he draws his last breath,
2) when he is buried or laid to rest, and,
3) when his name is spoken for the last time.
Say their names. Tell their stories.
Place medallions on their graves.

Following the decisive victory of the battle of San Jacinto, Thomas J Rusk & members of the Texian Army trailed the Mexican Army making sure they returned to Mexico. On June 3, 1836, Rusk & his men stopped in Goliad, where they gathered the bones & remains of the men who had been massacred on March 27, 1836 near the ruins of the Presidio La Bahia. The approximately 342 men had been partially burned & left unburied with their remains left for scavengers. Rusk determined that they would have a military funeral with honors. On June 4, 1836, nine & one half weeks following the massacre, all remains were gathered and buried in a mass grave. On June 4, 1938, the site was marked by the Fannin Memorial with a solemn dedication as part of the Texas Centennial.
Each year, the Daughters & Sons of the Republic of Texas, along with other historical groups, remember these brave men who fought for Texas.

Goliad
Daughters from the La Bahia chapter today observed & honored the burial of Fannin & his men.

June 5, 1837, the Congress of the Republic of Texas granted a charter to the citizens of Independence, Washington County, for the establishment of a nonsectarian, nonpolitical "seminary." The charter was a response to a petition presented a month before by John P. Coles, a large landowner and Old Three Hundred settler who had founded Coles' Settlement, later Independence. In order to carry out the charter, the young Henry F. Gillette bought an existing girls' school from Frances Thompson. Hugh Wilson, a Presbyterian minister, taught at the new academy. In 1839 the institution, known as Independence Female Academy, enrolled more than fifty students taught by a Miss McGuffin. In 1841 Edward Fontaine, a Methodist minister who later became an Episcopalian minister of considerable importance in Austin, taught at the school. Independence Academy closed in 1845. Its property was purchased and donated to the newly chartered Baylor University. Not until the Constitution of 1845 were the requirements for a system of public education legally and thoroughly specified.

TSHA
Photo in Washington County, credited to Michael P

I Love Texas

EVENTS
“Austin & The Republic” Film Premiere

JUNE 18, 2026|5:30 PM-8:00 PM

Description
“AUSTIN THE REPUBLIC” FILM PREMIERE, THURSDAY, JUNE 18TH IN AUSTIN

The Birth of Texas Film Series from Night Heron Media is an epic project, chronicling Texas from the Indians and the Spanish until Statehood. The series totals close to 20 hours of award-winning documentary film featuring the top 50 Scholars on this portion of Texas history. Some of the films have run on multiple Texas PBS stations, and now “Austin & the Republic,” the final movie in the eight-part series, is ready to premiere!

Please join us at the Republic of Texas History Center at 810 San Marcos Street in East Austin on Thursday, June 18, for the world premiere of “Austin & the Republic.” The ticketed reception begins at 5:30PM, and the film screening will run from 6:30PM to 8:00PM, with proceeds benefitting the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

Heavy hors d’oeuvres and beverages are included in the ticket price. A free pre-event will take place next door at the historic French Legation State Historic Site, beginning at 4:30 PM. The premiere offers a rare and exclusive chance to meet more than a dozen top Texas historians and managers of the Texas Revolution-related state historic sites used as filming locations for the Birth of Texas Series. Filmmaker Mike Vance, who produced and directed all eight films, will be on hand to answer questions.

History enthusiasts and proud Texans alike will be thrilled to attend this Texas Star-studded evening and limited tickets are available for purchase at:

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/austin-the-republic-film-premiere-2



The Daughters of the Republic of Texas (DRT) is a nonprofit organization of over 6,900 women descended from citizens of the Republic of Texas - a sovereign nation from 1836 to 1846. Organized in 1891, DRT continues to grow and through its committed volunteers and more than 90 chapters to perpetuate the spirit of Texas independence; encourage historical research; and aid in the preservation of documents and historically significant properties such as the Alamo Complex and French Legation. The DRT Library Collection in San Antonio, open weekdays for research, houses over 30,000 books, documents, maps, paintings, and artifacts on Texas history. For more about DRT, visit www.drtinfo.org.

Media Contact:

Ashley Schick, 512-575-5751, [email protected]

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COST125.00

Location
Republic of Texas History Center
810 San Marcos St,
Austin, 78702, TX , US
Additional Information
Host: Daughters of the Republic of Texas
Email: [email protected]
Contact Person: Ashley Schick
Website: http://drtinfo.org
Ages: Open to all

Home

At the Alamo in San Antonio, then called Bejar, 150 Texas rebels led by William Barret Travis made their stand against Santa Anna's vastly superior Mexican army. On the second day of the siege, February 24, 1836, Travis called for reinforcements with this heroic message:

I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all dispatch. ...VICTORY OR DEATH.

Little help came. Santa Anna's troops broke through on March 6. All of the defenders of the Alamo died.

This historic letter was carried from the Alamo by 30-year-old Captain Albert Martin of Gonzales, a native of Rhode Island. The next day, en route to his hometown, Martin heard the distant rumble of artillery fire. At the first opportunity he stopped and added a postscript:

Since the above was written I heard a very heavy Cannonade during the whole day. think there must have been an attack made upon the alamo. We were short of Ammunition when I left Hurry on all the men you can in haste...

When I left there was but 150 determined to do or die tomorrow I leave for Bejar with what men I can raise & will be there Monday [a?] at all events - -

Col Almonte is there the troops are under the Command of Gen. Seisma.

Martin arrived at Gonzales on the afternoon of the 25th. He passed the dispatch to Lancelot Smither, who had arrived from the Alamo the day before with an estimate of Mexican troop strength. Smither felt obliged to add his own emphatic note to the back of Travis' letter:

N. [B ?] I hope Every One will Rendevu at gonzales as soon as poseble as the Brave Solders are suffereing do not deglect the powder. is very scarce and should not be delad one moment

There is evidence that Smither extracted the essence of the letter and deposited this copy with Judge Andrew Ponton before he departed Gonzales. Ponton prepared other copies and forwarded these to Nacogdoches and other population centers in the province. One such copy existed in the C.H. Raguet Papers in Marshall and was reproduced in full by Amelia Williams in her "Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo."

Smither left that evening, heeding the admonition to forward the dispatch to San Felipe "by express day and night." Fighting an icy north wind, he covered the distance in less than 40 hours and delivered the appeal to the citizens' committee in that town. The proceedings of the citizens' meeting and a reasonably accurate printing of Travis' message are preserved ina broadsheet printed by Joseph Baker and Gail and Thomas Borden entitled "MEETING OF THE CITIZENS OF SAN FELIPE." Two hundred copies of this broadsheet were printed order of the committee, and at least three other preproductions of the letter were completed by Baker and Borden. One was a separate printing of the letter exhibiting further variations from the original holograph, another printing of 200 copies with "THE LATEST NEWS" appended, and a third printing of 300 copies with a proclamation of Provisional Governor Henry Smith. Although there were five distinct printings of the Travis letter by Baker and Borden, there were only two versions, and neither provided an accurate transcription of the famous appeal.

The Texas Republican was the first newspaper to carry Travis' letter in the March 2 issue; the Telegraph & Texas Register printed the letter on March 5. Both of these printings drew on the variant copies produced by Baker and Borden, not the original letter. The same is true of a dozen or more reproductions of the Travis message appearing in various Texas histories, published between 1836 and 1891. This supports the contention that the original holograph was returned to the Travis family shortly after the Revolution.

According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1891, the February 24 appeal came into the possession of Travis' daughter, Susan Isabella Travis, who was less than five years old at the time of her father's death. The letter passed to her daughter, Mary Jan Grissette, and hence to great grandson John G. Davidson.

On February 16, 1891, Davisdon forwarded the heirloom to L.L. Foster, Commissioner of the Department of Agriculture, Insurance, Statistics, and History, to be placed on temporary loan until called for by the family. On March 23, 1893, Davidson offered to sell the letter, owing to personal hardship. He repeated his offer on May 8, this time specifying his desire to recover $250 and an accurate transcription of the same. Davidson pointed up that the family had once been offered twice that amount for the letter. At the time, this figure represented half of the Department's entire appropriation for the collection of historical manuscripts, and acquisition would be impossible without an additional appropriation from the legislature. Davidson contacted the Department again on may 16, offering to "sell it to the state $25.00 cheaper than to any society or individual as I know it would be safe."

Commissioner John E. Hollingsworth replied on May 17 that he wanted Davidson's "very best terms." On May 24, Davidson reduced the price to $85.00 and a warrant was issued five days later to purchase the document.

The acquisition of this famous document is memorialized in the Museum accession log (accession #39) of the Texas State Library and Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, Insurance, Statistics, and History (1892). It was exhibited in a "locked glass showcase" with other manuscripts, artifacts, and rare books, according to another accession log, which also documents the loan and final acquisition of the letter along with the family Bible and a copy of Colonel Travis' last will and testament. The exhibit was apparently permanent as the Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, Insurance, Statistics, and History (1903) mentioned that the letter is on exhibition in the main room of the State Library, along with other relics, including the San Jacinto battle flag and President Lamar's pistols.

Custody of the letter devolved upon the Texas State Library and Historical Commission on March 19, 1909, and only once left the protective environment of that agency. On June 22, 1936, the Texas State Library and Historical Commission approved the temporary loan of 143 documents, including the Travis letter and the Texas Declaration of Independence, to the Committee on Historical Exhibits, Texas Centennial Central Exposition.
Since this report was written, many of you must remember going to the Alamo several years ago; standing in line in order to see this famous letter displayed in the Shrine.
Published by:
Texas State Library & Archives

.The name Horse Marines was given to a volunteer ranger group of 1836. Anticipating that Mexican troops might land on the Texas seaboard, Gen. Thomas J. Rusk detailed mounted ranger companies to patrol the coast. On May 29, 1836, Maj. Isaac Watts Burton with about thirty men was ordered to scour the sector between the mouth of the Guadalupe and Mission Bay. Walter Lambert, Nicholas Lambert, and John Keating, Refugio colonists who were with the army and knew the country, accompanied the rangers as guides.

On June 2 Burton learned of a suspicious vessel in Copano Bay and hurried his force to that point. By daylight next morning he had his men in ambush near Copano. Two or three rangers made signals of distress. The vessel hoisted both American signals and Texan colors, but these were not answered; they then hoisted Mexican signals, which the men answered as distressed Mexicans. The captain and four sailors, who came in a boat to their assistance, were immediately seized, and sixteen of the rangers took their places in the boat and rowed out to the vessel, the schooner Watchman, loaded with provisions for the Mexican armies. The crew, mistaking the rangers for their comrades, permitted them to come aboard without resistance. One account states that Col. Juan Davis Bradburn, a passenger aboard the vessel, perceived the situation, jumped into a small boat, and rowed away safely.

Burton prepared to send the Watchman to Velasco as a prize of war, but unfavorable winds delayed immediate departure. The vessel lay in the harbor until June 17, when two more vessels were sighted off the bar. These schooners, the Comanche and the F***y Butler, were also loaded with supplies for the Mexican army. The captain of the Watchman was required to decoy the captains of the Comanche and F***y Butler aboard the Watchman. The officers were seized, and their ships and cargoes fell into the hands of the rangers without struggle.

The three prizes were first taken to Velasco and then sent to Galveston, where the cargoes were condemned, but the vessels, being American owned, were eventually returned to their owners.*Col. Edward J. Wilson of Lexington, Kentucky, wrote of the capture of three Mexican vessels by a troop on horses and said that he supposed they would be called "Horse Marines."
*The two American ships were eventually returned to their owners…without their cargoes.
TSHA

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Each year at Convention, the DRT Library takes notice of one or several books. This year the Virginia M. Law award for best Texas history book for young adults was awarded to “Texas Before the Lone Star.” A collection of 25 illustrated stories written by the Texas Daughters of the American Revolution. The award was presented by Executive Secretary General Cindy Bormann (also a member of the Library Committee) to DAR Editor GeorgiAnne Brochstein & DAR Regent Susan Johnson.