A Beloved Pioneer Couple

March 20th, last, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Maverick, Sr., of San Antonio, celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of their marriage at the home of their son, James S. Maverick, on the Sunshine Ranch near San Antonio. Mr. Maverick is the son of the Texas patriot, Samuel Maverick, whose place in history is well grounded. On March 20, 1877, Albert Maverick was happily married to Miss Jeannie L. Maury, of Charlotesville, Virginia, and they became the parents of eleven children, one of whom is the Hon. Maury Maverick, now a Member of Congress. About a year after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Maverick purchased a ranch in Bandera county, and moved here. This was in 1878, when the country was still the wild frontier. In 1928 Mrs. Maverick wrote a sketch of their experiences in Bandera county, which we published in Frontier Times. The ranch property, located on the Medina river and Winan's Creek, comprises several thousand acres of rich grazing land, and was purchased from a man named Mott of Galveston. Since the Mavericks disposed of the property it has been cut up into several small ranches and farms, the old headquarters place now being owned by George Miller.

In writing of this ranch, Mrs. Maverick said:

"It was a most beautiful place when we moved there. It looked like a well kept park. Occasional big postoak and liveoak trees shaded green grass which went to the very edges of the river and creek. Mr. Mott, who had, been `batching' there with John Gairagan, went back to Galveston, but John stayed, fortunately for us. He was considered a cranky old Irishman, and when he had headaches he would tie a red bandana on his head, get a quirt and whip every dog in sight. In reality he was one of the kindest men, and was a Godsend to two greenhorns like we were. Coming from Virginia, where darkies were plentiful, I was one of the poorest housekeepers to be found. I did not know how to boil water, but Mrs. Annie E. Brown came over and saved our lives. Mrs. Brown was a well educated lady and had been raised by her uncle, who was a banker of New Orleans, but she, like many others at that time, had been stranded in Texas during the gold rush to California. She always carried her own feather bed wherever she went. We were devoted friends and when I came back to San Antonio she came with me, and went to Europe with Mr. Maverick's sister, whose husband was minister to Belgium."

I was the first woman to set foot on the Mott ranch, and when the chickens, dogs and stock of all kinds, caught sight of me the shock was too great, and they all took to the brush. The house was just what one might expect it to be—kept by two middle aged bachelors. Mr. Mott was small, fat, and red, and was very nervous, so much so that when a hen would do her duty by laying an egg her cackling would annoy him to such an extent that he would rush out and throw stones until she quieted down. Consequently, every fall a wagon load of stones would have to be cleaned out of the corn house before the new crop could be stored. John was an entirely different type—tall, thin, and gotten up in a most attractive style. He rode a good horse, and always wore a pistol and cartridge belt, high boots, high hat, and red handkerchief around his neck. I think he must have belonged to the better class in Ireland. He was well educated, and spoke of taking fencing lessons which is only taught to people of means. He had beautiful hunting dogs, and was very fond of animals, and on one occasion when he lit the fire to make coffee he was, deeply grieved because he shut the oven door and burnt up his cat."

For the few years we lived in Bandera county there was a great influx of people from everywhere, and there was a good deal of money spent. The people did not know how they were going to do lt, but they all expected to get rich some way. Above us on the river, a little below Medina City, a young blood from Boston, Job Parker, bought a ranch, put up a nice house, and bought most anything in sight that anyone brought around. Somebody sold him a drove of geese and told him they always roosted in trees and that he must put planks up to the trees and drive them up until they were accustomed to the place. The cowboys made it convenient to be on time for the drive, and had great fun watching the procedure. Mr. Parker brought with him from Boston a young friend, a sailor named Ladd, to run the ranch. You can imagine how successful they were. This young scapegrace, we understood, was a wayward son of a fine old Boston family, and he had the earmarks not entirely rubbed off. He had been to Harvard, and once he had eight Harvard friends to come and visit him. Some of them were most attractive men. My cousin, Miss Price, was spending the winter with us, and Miss Jeannie Carpenter, about the same age, whose parents had recently moved above us on the river, made a very gay company at my house at the ranch. We had lots of ponies to ride, and there was always some excuse for the girls to go on some jaunt. I had a grand outfit for horseback that would be very amusing now, but was considered the latest thing at that time—a very expensive English side-saddle, a dark blue habit, fitting as tight as the skin, and a beaver hat. In this grand costume I accompanied the girls and young men. John Gahagan led the trail to a camp meeting given under a brush arbor. One night on the way we encountered a pole-cat. My pony was the first to strike it, consequently my habit had to be buried for some time. The young people were hilarious over the experience, and I had some trouble quieting them down before we arrived at the meeting, when someone remarked in an undertone, `Hicks' dog has killed another pole-cat.' Mr. Ventris Pue was often with us, and it was at my house about that time that he met Miss Jeannie Carpenter, whom he afterwards married. She was a dear, sweet girl, and we were very fond of her.

"Mr. Parker did not prove a credit to his family by any means and didn't tarry long in the country. On his last visit he borrowed a very beautiful Indian shield from a gentleman in Bandera county, who, of course, prized it highly. Mr. Parker told him that `Mrs. Maverick wished to exhibit it in San Antonio.' He left it at our house for awhile and then took it off north with him, explaining to me that he had bought it. We were much distressed that our name had been used in the affair.

One of the next celebrated people we had to visit us was King Fisher, at the height of his career. He arrived late one evening with a lot of cowboys and a good sized bunch of cattle. Someone explained that he wished to sleep in the house for fear of being killed in the night by some one of his various enemies. That night he was careful when he sat at the supper table not to be a target for a gun, but as Rose Kalka, a little Polish girl, happened to touch him while handing around the batter cakes, he jumped like his time had come. He slept in a small room on the gallery. The cattle bellowed all night long. Someone had told me of his many wild experiences, how he said that he had killed twenty-seven men, one for each year of his life. After all was quiet, I spent a very restless time—and one time when he got up to get a drink of water from the bucket, I held my baby very tight, thinking we would die together. I didn't realize that he was a man-killer, and not a baby-killer. To my inexperienced eye, he was a very innocent-looking cowboy, tall and thin and dark. He and I had a very pleasant conversation about his wife and babies before I knew who he was. Not very long after this visit he was shot in San Antonio at the Jack Harris Theater, with Ben Thompson.

"My second daughter was born in Bandera and named Agatha. Mr. Maverick's mother was to have been with me, but we missed count, so she didn't arrive. I was very ignorant on such subjects, so Miss Agatha arrived almost unattended. The old Polish midwife arrived, riding straddle — unheard of for women in those days. She relieved the extreme anxiety of Mrs. Brown and a neighbor. I was entirely exhausted and went to sleep. When I awoke my eyes opened on quite a medieval scene. darkened, a big wood fire was roaring in the rough stone fire-place. The clock ticked on the mantel shelf, and the only person I could see was the old Polish midwife, kneeling at the side of the bed praying audibly. She had a little gray shawl around her shoulders, a big white apron on, and her hair was very smooth. She held a rosary in her hand, and with her eyes raised to heaven, she looked like an old painting. Seeing I was awake, she brought the baby triumphantly to me, and a worse looking specimen I never saw. A poor wretched looking little thing—long black hair, and a sight to behold. The old Polish lady believed in the ways of the old country and did not believe in the modern invention of pins, so she had torn up a piece of cloth into wide strings and bound the baby in swaddling clothes, which I had heard of, but had never seen before. All the babies in the country that year had a hard time. There had been a dreadful drouth through the country, and no one had anything fresh to eat, which Dr. Hudspeth, a good old doctor from Houston, explained was the reason babies had something which was not recognized then, but is now, a form of scurvy. It gave the babies a sore mouth and a nasty little eruption, and my baby was not cured until I went to Virginia to my old home where we had different food. We had many jokes in the country about the food that year. Somebody, said that they had biscuits, molasses and coffee for supper; condensed milk, but no butter. When I mentioned keeping a cow for milk I was laughed at, although there were hundreds of cows. Our fruits consisted of prunes and dried apples. A man volunteered to bring me some fresh goat meat. When it arrived, the man laid it down in the kitchen window, and as the sun shone on it it was a shiny blue. I took one look at it and decided it meant starvation. There; were no eggs, and John Gahagan remarked that a hen would have to have an iron beak and feet to scratch anything out of the hard, dry ground.

"We decided in a year or two that we were not a grand success at ranching, and moved back to San Antonio with a very affectionate remembrance of the friends we had made while living there."

Mr. and Mrs. Maverick are kindly remembered by many of those friends who are yet among the living. Sixty years is a long span, and many changes have occurred since the young couple honeymooned on their ranch nestled among the blue hills of Bandera. In those days it usually required four days to journey to San Antonio and back in a horse-drawn carriage, over a rough and dangerous roadway. Today the trip can be made there and back in four hours and still have plenty of time to attend to brief business matters in the city. After removing to San Antonio Mr. and Mrs. Maverick reared their family of eleven children, and took their place among the leading families of the Alamo City. We hope they will be spared to celebrate many more happy anniversaries.

Frontier Times, May, 1937

Ranch Life in Bandera County in 1878

About 1878, Mr. Maverick had little or nothing to do, so he spent most of his time riding around the country looking for a ranch. I had been raised on a farm in Virginia, and of course, thought all respectable people lived in the country. He had a beautiful "paint pony" which was supposed to have been a descendant of some Arabian stock brought out to Texas to be used by the U. S. Government: whether she was or not, she was a "dear girl" and was named "Lady." As a boy, Mr. Maverick had spent a good deal of time on the Jose Policarpo Rodriquez ranch in Bandera County. He had hunted with Mr. Polly and had an affectionate and romantic idea of the country. In those days there were no fences and the Indians and sheep men had been in the habit of burning the grass every spring, so there was no underbrush and even the large trees were often burnt at the bottom and the trunks of the trees would be hollow to the branches. In the springtime all the way from San Antonio to Bandera it would seem as if you traveled through a beautiful park. The stage stopped at Mrs. Miller's ranch on the San Geronimo, or if you traveled in your own conveyance, people camped anywhere there was water or good grass for the horses. I saw a bear on Red Bluff Creek one day going up, another time I was wonder struck at the beauty of my first view of Polly's Peak and another mountain near, where hundreds of white goats were being herded near the top. It only needed the bright red serapes like the shepherds wear in Mexico to complete the beauty of the scene.

After much riding, Mr. Maverick decided on a ranch situated on the Medina River and Winans Creek, lying between Bandera town and Medina City. Mr. Mott, of Galveston owned the place and he and John Gahagan batched there together. It was a most beautiful place when we moved there. It looked like a well kept park. Occasional big post oak and live oak trees shaded green grass which went to the very edges of the river and creek. Mr. Mott moved back to Galveston, but John stayed, fortunately for us. He was considered a cranky old Irishman and when he had headaches, he would tie a red bandana on his head, get a quirt and whip every dog in sight. In reality he was one of the kindest men and was a God send to two greenhorns like we were. Coming from Virginia, where darkies were plentiful, I was one of the poorest housekeepers to be found. I did not know how to boil water, but Mrs. Annie E. Brown, who recently died at Tarpley, came over and saved our lives. Mrs. Brown was a well educated lady and had been raised by her uncle who was a banker of New Orleans but she, like many others at that time, had been stranded in Texas during the gold rush to California. She always carried her own feather bed wherever she went and mentioned to me one day, "I have had to work so many years, I like to have some proof of better days, so I carry my bed and sewed up on the inside are some little trophies of my youth." She also mentioned that Big Foot Wallace wished to send her son to North Caroline to school, but for some reason she refused. We were devoted friends and when I came back to San Antonio, she came and went to Europe with Mr. Maverick's sister whose huband was minister to Belgium.

I was the first woman to set foot on the Mott Ranch and when the chickens, dogs and stock of all kinds, caught sight of me the shock was too great, and they took to the brush. The house was just what one might expect it to be—kept by two middle-aged bachelors. Mr. Mott was small, fat and red and was very nervous, so much so that when a hen would do her duty by laying an egg, her cackling would annoy him to such an extent he would rush out and thrown stones until she quieted down. Consequently, every fall a wagon load of stones would have to be cleaned out of the corn house before the new crop could be stored.

John was an entirely different type—tall, thin, and gotten up in a most attractive style. He rode a good horse and always wore a pistol and cartridge belt, high boots, high hat and red handkerchief around his neck. I think he must have belonged to the better class in Ireland. He was well educated and spoke of taking fencing lessons which is only taught to the people of means. He had beautiful hunting dogs and was very fond of animals, and on one occasion when he lit the fire to make coffee he was deeply grieved because he shut the stove door and burnt up his cat.

For the few years we lived in Bandera there was a great influx of people from everywhere and there was a good deal of money spent. The people did not know how they were going to do it, but they all expected to get rich some way. Above us on the river a little below Medina City a young blood from Boston, Job Parker, bought a ranch, put up a nice house and bought most anything in sight that anyone brought around. Somebody sold him a drove of geese and told him they always roosted in trees, that he must put planks up to the trees and drive them up until they were accustomed to the place. The cow boys made it convenient to be on time for the drive and had great fun watching the procedure. Mr. Parker brought with him from Boston, a young friend, a sailor named Ladd, to run the ranch. You can imagine how successful they were. This young scrapegrace, we understood was a wayward son of a fine old Boston family and he had the earmarks not entirely rubbed off. He had been to Harvard and once he had eight Harvard friends come and visit him. Some of them were most attractive men. My cousin, Miss Price, was spending the winter with us and Miss Jeannie Carpenter about the same age, whose parents had recently moved above us on the river, made a very gay company at my house at the ranch. We had lots of ponies to ride and there was always some excuse for the girls to go on some jaunt. I had a grand outfit for horse back that would be very amusing now, but was considered the latest thing at the time. A very expensive English side saddle, a dark blue habit, fitting as tight as the skin, and a beaver hat—in this grand costume I accompanied the girls and young men. John Gahagan lead the trail to a camp meeting given under a brush arbor. One night on the way, we encountered a pole-cat: My pony was the first to strike it, consequently my habit had to be buried for some time. The young people were hilarious over the experience and I had some trouble quieting them down before we arrived at the meeting, when someone remarked in an undertone "Hick's dog has killed another polecat." Mr. Ventrus Pue was often with us and it was at my house about that time that he met Miss Jeannie Carpenter, whom he afterwards married. She was a dear, sweet girl and we were very fond of her.

Mr. Parker did not prove a credit to his family by any means and didn't tarry long in the country. On his last visit he borrowed a very beautiful Indian shield from a gentleman in Bandera County, who, of course, prized it very highly. Mr. Parker told him that "Mrs. Maverick wished to exhibit it in San Antonio." He left it at my house for awhile and then took it off north with him, explaining to me that he had bought it. We were much distressed that our name had been used in the affair.

Another quite interesting man who visited us whom some Bandera people may remember, was the French Count Dodur de Karoman. He was a most imposing figure, six feet four in his stocking feet. He had been a soldier in Algiers and was of a very military bearing and handsome, dignified and claimed to be a very great rider. He would give the Texas boys suggestions which they did not appreciate, so they invited him over to our ranch one day when a lot of young horses were to be broken. The Frenchman announced that he could ride anything they chose to bring out. Nothing suited the cow-boys better than such confidence. They brought out a young Nornan horse about four years old, full of life and as wild as they are made. The count had on a most beautiful costume. Pure white silk helmet and a white silk military coat to his knees. The boys remarked, "We don't want to kill him," so they took the horse to a plowed filed, blindfolded him and held him for the count to get well into the saddle. Then the blinks were pulled off. The Count's ride was of short duration. The blinds once removed, the horse showed the whites of his eyes, shivered and started to buck. It was only a few moments later when the Count's six feet four was flat in the dust. There was unheard of merriment when the boys went to catch the horse. The Frenchman explained with much dignity that he really didn't care to ride again. He went from our house to a place near Boerne where a lot of young Englishmen were dipping sheep. He offered some small advice, which they didn't appreciate and they suggested that he ride on, or they would catch and dip him—in the sheep vat. He evidently felt that he was unappreciated in the country and went back to San Antonio, where he married the daughter of a barkeeper and left for Panama.

One of the next celebrated people we had to visit us was King Fisher, at the height of his career. He arrived late one evening with a lot of cowboys and a good sized bunch of cattle. Someone explained that he wished to sleep in the house for fear of being killed in the night by some one of his various enemies. That night he was careful when he sat at the supper table not to be a target for a gun, but as Rose Kalka, a little Polish girl, happened to touch him while handling around the batter cakes, he jumped like his time had come. He slept in a small room on the gallery. The cattle bellowed all night long. Someone had told me of his many wild experiences, how he said that he had killed twenty-seven men, one for each year of his life. After all was quiet, I spent a very restless time—and one time when he got up to get a drink of water from the bucket, I held my baby very tight thinking we would die together. I didn't realize that he was a man killer and not a baby killer. To my inexperienced eye, he was a very innocent looking cow boy, tall and thin and dark. He and I had a very pleasant conversation about his wife and babies before I knew who he was. Not very long after this visit, he was shot in San Antonio at the White Elephant saloon, with Ben Thompson, and I hope passed on to the happy hunting ground.

One Christmas we had a grand gentleman's dinner at the ranch at one o'clock in the day. I knew how to make egg-nog like my mother used to make in Virginia, but strange to say, some of my guests preferred the whisky "straight" and a "few fingers" in a glass. The egg-nog did not have enough "bite." There was a joke which had quite a vogue those days. Someone gave a cowboy some whiskey with a few wasps inside. To the astonishment of his friends, he drank it down with evident pleasure, but though "it didn't have enough bite to it." I can't remember all the gentlemen's names at the party, but there was a Mr. Hicks, Buck Hamilton, Mr. Ventris Pue, Mr. Montague, Hugh Duffy, H. H. Carmichael, and others, about ten in all, whose names I can't remember.

My second daughter was born in Bandera and named Agatha. Mr. Maverick's mother was to have been with me, but we missed count so she didn't arrive. I was very ignorant on such subjects, so Miss Agatha arrived almost unattended. The old Polish midwife arrived, riding straddle—unheard of for women in those days. She relieved the extreme anxiety of Mrs. Brown and a neighbor. I was entirely exhausted and went to sleep. When I awoke, my eyes opened on quite a medieval scene. The room was darkened, a big wood fire was roaring in the rough stone fire place. The clock ticked on the mantle shelf and the only person I could see was the old Polish midwife kneeling at the side of the bed praying audibly. She had a little gray shawl around her shoulders, a big white apron on and her hair was very smooth. She held a rosary in her hand and with her eyes raised to heaven, she looked like an old painting. Seeing I was awake, she brought the baby triumphantly to me and a worse looking specimen I never saw. A poor wretched looking little thing—long black hair and a sight to behold. The old Polish lady believed in the ways of the old country and did not believe in the modern invention of pins, so she had torn a piece of cloth up into wide strings and bound the baby in swaddling clothes, which I had heard of but had never seen before. All the babies in the country that year had a hard time. There had been a dreadful drought through the country and no one had anything fresh to eat, which Dr. Hudspeth, a good old doctor from Houston, explained was the reason babies had something which was not recognized then, but is now, as a form of scurvy. It gave the babies a sore mouth and a nasty little eruption and my baby was not cured until I went home to Virginia to my old home where we had different food. We had many jokes in the country about the food that year. Some body said that they had biscuits, molasses and coffee for supper; condensed milk, no butter and when I mentioned keeping a cow for milk I was laughed at although there were hundreds of cows. Our fruits consisted of prunes and dried apples. A man volunteered to bring me some fresh goat meat. When it arrived, the man laid it down in the kitchen window and as the sun shown on it it was a shiney blue. I took one look and decided it meant starvation. There were no eggs, and John Gahagan remarked that a hen would have to have an iron beak and feet to scratch anything out of the hard, dry ground. We decided in a year or two that we were not a grand success at ranching and moved back to San Antonio with a very affectionate remembrance of the friends we had made while living there. Henry McKeen ran this ranch for some years for Mr. Maverick. While living there, he was married to Miss Obieske from up the river. The wedding was a grand affair, lots of people were there, but one thing to be remembered was the bride. She was dressed as the usual bride, white dress, tulle veil and orange blossoms. Her hair was almost a gold color and hung in curls to her knees. She had blue eyes, a fresh complexion, was about eighteen and I remember her as a beautiful sight.

I have forgotten to mention old Mr. Steward. He was quite an old man when I knew him. He belonged to an aristocratic family of Richmond, Va., and had been for many years in the U. S. Navy. He could hold a glass of wine and repeat poetry by the hour. He had seen a great deal of the world and was a very agreeable man. The hardships of a pioneer life were very hard on him and about the only fun he got out of it was to swear like a sailor at the whole "dam business." I went to see him once when he insisted on living alone in a little cabin by the river. I called and he at last told me to come in. In the most polished language he explained his great suffering, while he lay on a raw hide with very few garments on and scratched the mosquito bites with a carving knife. I was ashamed when I went back to San Antonio that I did not do more for his comfort. His death happened shortly after I left Bandera, but my excuse for not doing many things that would have been a pleasure, was because my whole time was taken up raising our children, and I feel certain it could not have been better or more happily spent.

Mrs. Albert Maverick, Sr., Frontier Times, April, 1928

Early Life

Although it was the largest town in Texas in 1854, San Antonio had a total population of only about 5300. More than half of these were descendents of Mexico and Spain, many of them native San Antonians. Anglo-Americans numbered considerably less than 2000, and many of these had recently arrived from the eastern states. Seven hundred Germans and Alsatians would be joined in the next few years by increasing numbers of their countrymen. Negro slaves almost equaled the German immigrants in number.

Here on May 7, 1854, Albert Maverick was born in the Maverick homestead at the corner of Alamo Plaza, where the Gibbs Building now (1965) stands. He died in 1947 at the age of 92 years at his home on Sunshine Ranch, which at the time had just been taken into the City of San Antonio.

Albert was the ninth in a family of ten children born to the Texas pioneers, Mary Adams and Samuel Augustus Maverick, and youngest of the six who grew to adult life. An active, healthy boy, with a life-long sense of humor which sometimes led him into trouble, he recalled with some chagrin one of his boyhood capers. Albert and another boy on their ponies, each holding the end of a rope stretched between them, galloped down the road to trip an old Mexican man who was trudging along with a load of wood on his back.

As a boy, Albert became a great friend of the famous scout and Indian fighter, Polycarpio Rodriguez, commonly "Mr. Polly." Some of the most vivid remembrances he carried through life were of hunting and fishing trips with Mr. Polly into hill country above San Antonio, where, even at that time, there was still danger of raids by the dread Comanches. From Mr. Polly he learned all manner of things about the birds and the wild animals; how to find water by watching the bees; how to find a trail through the wilderness; how to be self-reliant.

In 1868, at the age of fourteen, Albert started keeping a diary. At that time he was attending the German-English School, going swimming in the the San Antonio River once or twice every day when weather permitted, and receiving $3.00 a month to cut wood for the large household and to care for the chickens. Rats were a big problem in San Antonio at that time, and unless the young chickens were well housed at night, they would disappear before they reached an age to roost in the trees.

His diary reveals other incidents in his young life. Albert's friend, Will Terrell, had a little green snake for which he had traded 100 marbles, but Albert wanted the snake very much and finally became the lawful owner by giving Will two of his squabs [young pigeons] for it. In May of that year he started to dancing school and became an excellent ballroom dancer.

Times were very hard in San Antonio after the Civil War, but by 1868 the enterprising and intrepid Texas trail drivers were bringing money into the state, and land began to regain some of its value. Albert's father was one of the largest (if not the largest) of landowners in Texas, and so in 1869, when Albert was fifteen, money was available to send him off to school. He went the ninety miles to Bastrop by stagecoach, but as there were only two passengers that day, the extra seats were filled with a pay load of sides of bacon. (This was the Mail Coach, and two months later it was held up and robbed.) Cadet Maverick arrived at Texas Military Institute smelling very much like salt pork. Albert's most vivid remembrance of T.M.I. was the large number of flies in the mess hall and kitchen, for this was many years before the advent of fly screens. At the closing of the school year, the Commandant of the school knocked ten demerits off of Albert's record because his gun had been kept in such fine condition.

In the summer of 1870 Albert's father, Samuel A. Maverick, died, ending a long and very distinguished career as a public servant. On September 12, 1870, Albert left San Antonio for Austin, to which town Texas Military Institute (later incorporated into the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas) had just been moved from Bastrop. Although by modern highway Austin is only 76 miles from San Antonio, our traveler had to spend two nights on the road before reaching there. Five other San Antonio boys departed on the coach which left San Antonio at noon, all bound for T.M.I. Camp was pitched that night on a German farmer's place at New Braunfels and the travelers slept on the open prairie. Somehow during the night all the boys' clothes, except Albert's, disappeared. They were later found tied to the corral fence, and the driver's clothes were found tied to the horses' tails.

On the second day some rain was encountered, and travel was slow. Camp was made near the Blanco River crossing. On the third day the coach passed through Mountain City and reached Austin about 3 P.M.

On his first day at school, Maverick was promoted from Private to Sergeant Major, a rank which he held for some months until he was demoted after being caught at one of his many pranks.

One day while Maverick drilled his squad on the parade grounds, he spied a Negro man dressed in a Yankee uniform and standing on the east side of the grounds watching the military activities. Maverick marched his squad along the east side and when at a safe distance, had them halt and fix bayonets. "About Face, Forward March." When opposite the Negro onlooker came the sharp command: "Column right, Quick time, Charge." The Negro wasted no time, departed in great haste, managing to escape by climbing over a cliff.

Albert stayed at school throughout the Christmas holidays that year, and became very much taken with Miss Lilla Porter of Austin. He visited Dr. Porter's home often and danced with Miss Lilla. "The prettiest girl in the state of Texas,—the very image of love, beauty and perfection itself. Her face is fair to look upon, her eyes bright as diamonds, her hair long and curled and black as charcoal." Albert was sixteen.

On February 25, 1871, the German students at T.M.I. recieved news that Paris had fallen, and there was a great German celebration. Albert did not record his reactions.

Near the end of March, Maverick saw many herds of cattle driven across the Colorado River, and heard the shouts of joy that went up from the drovers as the last beef "took to the water." Albert wrote in his diary: "900 beeves in one herd today; yesterday two droves of 900 each, and the day before that, one drove of 3000." Around 5700 animals headed north in only three days, from one ford, on only one of the rivers in the great state of Texas!

Food was not good at the Institute, and often insufficient to meet the desires of growing boys. Albert took part in many nocturnal foraging parties, not only in the college pantry, but also into the surrounding fields. Chickens and pigs were killed and cooked, and either eaten on the spot or smuggled back into the dormitory.

In 1871-1872 Albert transferred to the Bellevue High School in Bellevue, Virginia, and although he often said in later life that he was never a good student, his diploma states that he graduated "with honor" in Latin, Algebra, Geometry, Orthography and Composition.

Near the end of August, 1875, Albert left San Antonio to enter the University of Virginia. He left by stagecoach which took him through the little town of Houston to the western terminus of the Southern Pacific Railway, then building a line from New Orleans toward the Pacific Coast. He entered the University September 1, and not long thereafter he was taken by a friend to visit at Piedmont, the home of the Jesse Lewis Maury family. At Piedmont he met Jane Lewis Maury, a very small girl of seventeen. Somehow, after this meeting, things were never quite the same.

At the University Albert was noted for his athletic ability and strength and for his good humor, which might on occasion take the form of a practical joke. One morning when it was discovered that the great iron gates at the University entrance had disappeared, the young man from Texas was the first suspect. The gates were very heavy and could hardly have been carried off by one man; and where could they have been hidden? The incident had created quite a furor, which developed into a big mystery at the University. To the best of the writer's knowledge, Albert never admitted or denied having carried off the gates; and they were never found.

A friend and fellow student at the University, William Gordon Robertson (later Judge William G. Robertson of Roanoake, Va.), wrote this entry in his own diary:—"Albert Maverick, San Antonio, Texas. A man, every inch of him. Strong not only in body but mind. True as steel, generous, modest and unassuming. A vein of humor peculiarly his own—one of the best companions and the truest of friends. Not a hard student, too much animal spirit for that—."

At the end of his college year in April, 1876, according to Albert Maverick, his professors at the University told him they liked him very much and that they were giving him passing marks in all his classes, but on one condition:—that he not come back to the University again.

Epilogue

Albert Maverick remained in Paris about seven and one-half months and learned to speak French quite well, but February 25, 1877 found him on board ship bound for America, and Charlottesville, Virginia. He went to Piedmont and told Mr. and Mrs. Maury that he intended to stay until he was permitted to take Jane back to Texas as his bride. He brought with him twenty-one boxes of things he had bought in Europe. These were mostly presents for Jane.

Albert Maverick, aged 22 years 10 months, and Jane Lewis Maury, aged 18 years 3 months, were married at Piedmont on March 20, 1877. They came to make their home in San Antonio, arriving only a few weeks after the first passenger train reached that town.

About two years later the Albert Mavericks bought a large ranch in the hill country near Bandera and went there to live. Their second child, Agatha, was born at the ranch with the help of a ranch-country midwife. Life was very happy for a time at the ranch, where there were many visitors, until one of those devastating droughts hit the hill country. Lack of modern day transportation facilities made it impossible to ship in feed or to ship cattle to greener pastures. They died by the hundreds on the Maverick lands, by the thousands through that whole section, and the family returned to San Antonio where Jane and Albert reared eleven children.

Distinguished guests visiting in San Antonio often enjoyed the hospitality of the Mavericks. During the period of the Texas land boom of the 1880’s, Albert was very active in real estate, buying additional properties, and taking part in various developmental projects. A severe depression spread throughout the country in 1891, and in the ensuing panic Albert Maverick lost most of his fortune.

In 1905 the Albert Maverick family moved from 218 Avenue E to a new home at Sunshine Ranch just outside of San Antonio, where their hospitality continued to the extent of entertaining as many as 3,000 persons on their fiftieth anniversary. Albert continued his work in the Maverick Land Office, where he helped to manage the estates of his brothers and their families until he retired at age 87. He died at 92, a beloved patriarch.

A Maverick Abroad

For a People's Peace

Each day we see new signs of the approach of peace. In all points essential for armistice the terms may even now be agreed upon in secret by the chief belligerents. The world will hardly be notified when the actual quit signal is given. At any rate this intimate affair, so purely diplomatic, will be out of reach of the popular will.

But later on in the long open peace conference where all things must be determined that are essential for the future peace of the world the people want control. And if we are ready for full democracy the people will have control. After the immense catastrophe of war is ended, terms may seem of slight importance to the exhausted proletariat. When an armistice is called the joy of all will be so great that we may temporarily forget to guard our interests against the reactionary and military forces already organized in every nation and eager to dictate terms that will insure their own future power. Let us take steps to guard against this mistake. If we want influence then, let us organize for control now because we must be ready to guide into democratic channels all the deliberations of that deeply significant peace commission which can and will alter forever our whole international situation.

The growth of the people's movements in all nations would have a direct influence towards ending the war if unhampered international relations were possible. We are not permitted free communication with the English, French, Russian or Italian people's movements. Separated as we are then—each nation to itself—the people must take national action to gain control of our international relations in the future.

Peace as the public is to know of it cannot come until Germany reforms. In his public utterances President Wilson has maintained a consistent argument. He will remain consistent. We know not what they are, but certain proofs of reform Germany will have to furnish. "It is so nominated in the bond." Therefore the people of the world anxiously await President Wilson's next word defining his requirements. Perhaps he is not yet sure himself what to require. Perhaps he wishes to leave this point undefined until the British government is ready for peace.

The German cabinet has fallen with the loss of the Reichstag majority—a degree of responsibility impossible to our own cabinet—But this is not enough. Must the kaiser go? Must Germany become a republic? President Wilson has not said so. Meanwhile many minds are searching for the most desirable guarantee American can possibly ask of Germany for its promises at the peace table. When can we feel sure that the German people will force the German government to keep its word? And is there any fair demand we can make that they can grant quickly? Complete changes in the form of government take time and the world cannot wait.

Some of us want peace more than we want democracy in Germany. We feel so sure that democratization will everywhere follow upon peace! But the sufficiency of Germany's reform is a vital and a timely speculation. America's prompt clearing up of this point would be a valuable contribution toward the renewal of sanity in the world.

In order to have the greatest faith in will and power of the German people to hold their government in line in the future can we do better than to let the German people have a direct voice in the naming of their peace commissioners? Can we perhaps cause the German government to grant its citizens the right to vote for the German delegates to the commission that will draw up the terms of peace? Then we could be sure that the decisions arrived at by their own elected representatives would be enforced by the people. And if the German government passed this supreme test of democracy could we not predict its ultimate reform?

Already a Russian faction has demanded an elected peace commission—startling experiment in democracy! What questions it will give us all to solve! Can the whole people of any nation be trusted to vote for the persons best fitted to represent the interests of that nation? The popular electorate may not secure the most expert or best informed persons—experts can be hired when needed and information bought—but the people will surely chose those whom they can trust to represent them. And if peace commissioners represent the people of any nation they will represent the interests of all humanity. Consequently the permanent just peace for which we all struggle will be safer in their hands than with any conceivable choice of representatives our rulers can make for us.

Let us urge our government to set a new precedent and hold an election to choose representatives for the approaching conference. Surely our government with its census list and its post offices can quickly take an advisory referendum. Let us have ready chosen and fully prepared five of our best citizens to contribute to that potent group to be chosen soon by someone.

If such an official vote is taken and its results faithfully followed by President Wilson and by Congress in their appointments of the American peace commissioners our example will help liberate the world from that old autocratic internationalism under which we suffer equally with monarchies. Between nations democracy has not been developed. This advance in our democracy used as a lever to raise the people's power in Germany would be indeed efficient psychology! Such political methods of conquering the world for democracy need not be abandoned because our country is at war. On the contrary a referendum would give the nation more faith in its own democracy and a higher patriotism.

Suppose we officially invite the German people to elect peace commissioners to meet elected commissioners from the United States. If the German government allows its citizens to vote, peace conferences can begin at once. If not, the German people will at least have a definite goal in their present efforts to liberalize Germany. Their struggle can be sharp and clear, not destroyed by wildness and anarchy. Now they know not what to seek.

Let us join with Russia and ask all the allied governments to elect their peace commissioners. If they will not all consent at least Russia and the United States can agree to elect their representatives and set the other nations a good example.

We need no bloody revolutions in any country. The world has shed blood enough. But the people have an unshakable determination sooner or later to have their kind of peace. Therefore let the government take warning in time and cut the Gordian knot of tangled and impossible national ambitions by giving the choice of peacemakers directly into the people's hands. A commission chosen any other way will stand on shaky ground. But the people will abide by the decisions of a representative Peace Commission because from it alone can we get what we want—the People's Peace.

Jim Maverick Interview

Bexar County Historical Commission
Oral History Program
Interview with: James S. Maverick
Interviewer: Clyde Ellis
Date: June 28, 1977
Place: Sunshine Ranch Road, Residence of Mr. Maverick

E: Mr. Maverick, I want to ask you a question about your early family. When did they first come to Texas? Do you remember?
M: My grandfather, Samuel Augustus Maverick, came to San Antonio in September, 1835.
E: He really was an early arrival. Just a little bit after the Canary Islanders. They were here in the 18th Century, weren't they?
M: When he arrived in San Antonio, the Texans had just about decided to revolt against Santa Ana, who was taking over all their civil rights.
E: I wanted to ask you a little about him. What was his ancestry? Where did he come from?
M: He came from Pendleton, South Carolina, up in the mountains of western South Carolina.
E: How was he related to the relative from Charlottesville?
M: Now you are on the other side of the fence. He was not related to them. That was my mother's family.
E: O.K. Well, we'll have to keep that separate. But I do want to go into that. So, what's the history then of Samuel Augustus Maverick?
M: His father was Samuel Maverick (and there have been a number of Samuel Mavericks) in Charleston. He was raised in Charleston and left there because of the yellow fever epidemics that they had there.
E: Now what did the family do in Charleston?
M: They were ship builders, and my great grandfather owned 17 ships ... 17 seagoing ships. They were all taken by the English in the Revolutionary War.
E: Well, now, the family were English to begin with, weren't they ... the Maverick family?
M: The Maverick family came from England. And at quite an early date, just a few years after the arrival of the Mayflower.
E: Yes. And then this particular branch was in Charleston.
M: One of the Mavericks sold his holdings in Massachusetts and moved to Barbados where he was quite a large land owner and plantation owner. And then his son moved to Charleston and his name was Samuel Maverick and there was another, his uncle, named Samuel Maverick, too. And he moved there. One of them became the first Governor of the Colony of Charles Town (later Charleston), of the State of South Carolina.
E: That's interesting. And that's a recurring name in the family, isn't it?
M: Yes, there were so many Samuel Mavericks when they moved to Charleston, that's where we lost track. We don't know whether it was the young Samuel or his uncle Samuel whom we are descended from.
E: That does make that research difficult when there are that many of them. And this particular forebearer left Charleston because of the yellow fever.
M: Yes, several children in the family died.
E: And so did he come then to Texas?
M: No. He was my great grandfather. He moved to northwest South Carolina, up in the mountains near Pendleton. And his son, my grandfather (Samuel Augustus Maverick) was tired of the politics in South Carolina, because they were talking about seceding from the Union, and he didn't believe in that and he wanted to be where he would be out free, like in Texas.
E: So then when he went to the mountains, did he have sort of a ranch?
M: The Samuel Maverick who moved to Pendleton was my great grandfather. He never came to Texas. He had a big plantation there which is still there ... the home is still there. We visited it and it's one of the show places of the town.
E: Is it still owned in the family or ...
M: No. A rather poor farm family bought the place, but they were so much interested in it that they spent all the money they could get hold of in repairing and putting it in first class order. And it's one of the tourist places to be visited in Pendleton.
E: Well, that's interesting. So then the ancestor who came to Texas ...
M: ... was Samuel Augustus Maverick.
E: He was a son of the ship builder in Pendleton. Okay. I wonder what motivated him to come to Texas? How do you suppose Texas came to his notice?
M: He had read and heard about Texas, as everybody had in the United States at that time. It was the "land of opportunity" and ...
E: Was it being promoted as a real estate thing?
M: No, except that it was known that you could buy land very cheaply at that time, at a very low price. He bought some land from the government which was then Mexico. The head of the State was in Coahuila. The capital of the State of Coahuila, Texas, was Monclova, nearly 300 miles from San Antonio ... "Coahuilan Texans". He bought some land from the State and then he bought, after Texas became independent, why he bought scrip, so many acres of scrip, and he was, besides being a lawyer (he graduated from Princeton) he had studied law and also was a surveyor. He would buy the scrip at 6¢ an acre and then go out and locate land that he had bought, and survey and claim it.
E: That's interesting. So he came here when it was still property of Mexico, that State of Coahuila, and then Texas shortly thereafter, it became an independent Republic.
M: Yes, just three months after he was in San Antonio.
E: Did he come directly to San Antonio or did he settle first in another area?
M: No, he didn't settle anywhere else. But he came in with a good deal of money, and he bought land as he came along. He bought a good deal of land in Texas before he arrived in San Antonio. And when he arrived here he went and stayed at the home of John W. Smith, who later was the first Mayor of San Antonio.
E: Had they had an association prior to his coming here?
M: No.
E: Now, this is your great, great grandfather?
M: No, that's my grandfather. Samuel Augustus Maverick is my grandfather.
E: All right. Did he have any active part in the legal part of organizing the Republic of Texas?
M: He did. Now three months after he arrived here, the town was encircled by the Texian army, and there was a good deal of dissension among them. They were all volunteers and they encircled the town for about three months or longer. And there was no one willing to take command and come into town against the fortified army of maybe a thousand or so trained soldiers. So Maverick and Smith were finally put under house arrest, but they got out and joined the Texian army. By that time, Ben Milam was there and they entreated the Texians to attack the city at once, because the soldiers in town were in a demoralized condition and they were afraid. And so Ben Milam then shouted: "Who'll follow Ben Milam into San Antonio?" And Sam Maverick acted as his guide into San Antonio. Milam was killed on the second day, but Col. Francis W. Johnson took over command immediately, and the battle went fiercely forward. Four days later, Gen. Cos ran up the white flag of surrender. Mr. Maverick was present when the Articles of Capitulation were signed in the "Cos House" on Villita Street.
E: To have been such a new arrival he found himself deeply involved in the affairs of this area.
M: He certainly did. And then John W. Smith, after this surrender, sent his family East ... all the females in the family ... and there was no place for them to stay so they moved into the Alamo. And they were considered a part of the garrison of the Alamo, but there was an election held there when Texas decided to have a "Convention of the People of Texas" at Washington-on-the-Brazos. And Sam Maverick was elected, almost unanimously, they said, by the men in the Alamo to represent them ... he and Jesse B. Badgett. And the two of them left there a few days later and, while they were in Washington-on-the-Brazos, signing the Texas Declaration of Independence, they heard that Santa Ana had attacked San Antonio and that the Alamo had fallen.
E: Goodness. Well, were the women ... what had happened to the women in the family who had been sent to the Alamo? Had they, you know, John W. Smith and ...
M: No, he sent his family East.
E: Oh, I see. Okay. Then what course did he take after that?
M: John W. Smith?
E: No, your grandfather.
M: He stayed there for awhile ... he was a lawyer ... one of the very few lawyers present and he helped write the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. Then when Santa Ana's army came, it's obscure exactly what he did-­whether he took part in the Battle of San Jacinto or not. But the diaries say that right after the Battle of San Jacinto he went East, and met a young lady.
E: Was this in Alabama?
M: Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Waited there and then married her there.
E: How did it happen? Do you remember her name?
M: Mary Ann Adams. She was a descendent of the same family as the two Adams, Presidents of the United States.
E: Well, it was rather interesting. How did you tell me he met her ... they just happened ....
M: She was riding. As he approached this town of Tuscaloosa, he saw this blond young lady of 18 years old riding a horse through the country, and he made it a point to meet her soon after and he stayed there until they were married. And then he took her to visit his father.
E: Now she is distinguished in San Antonio annals as having written her memoirs. And she's called San Antonio's First American Woman.
M: Yes, I believe that was right, because young John W. Smith married a girl of Spanish descent.
E: Well, so they went to visit his family.
M: In Pendleton, and there their first child was born: Sam Maverick, my uncle.
E: And they stayed there awhile. Did they come back to San Antonio then?
M: They left Pendleton, South Carolina, the day the baby was 5 months old. A carriage and two Negro slave families and a wagon. My grandfather rode on a horse and they came back to Texas then. Reached here in 1838.
E: Had he gotten a house by then?
M: No, he bought a house after they reached San Antonio. It was where the old Kampmann building was at the Northeast corner of Main Plaza where the Bern's Department Store is now.
E: Do you have any idea when that was torn down? Have you ever seen pictures of it?
M: No, I never have seen any pictures of it. It was an adobe and stone house with a flat roof with a parapet around it ... around the top. And that was where the Texans tried to defend themselves later, when the city was invaded in 1842 by 1800 Mexican soldiers under General Adrian Woll.
E: Was he administering this land he had been buying over the years ... of the period when he came to San Antonio and ...
M: He never was a rancher at any time. Later, when he came back to San Antonio, it was after the Republic of Texas, he was owed a debt from land he had sold and he took in trade ... the man said he could pay him in cattle but he could not pay him in cash. So he took 400 head of cattle at $3.00 each, making $1200.00 and he put them on a place that he owned, an island at that time in Matagorda Bay. There came a drought and the cattle began to swim ashore so he moved them up to a place along the river south of San Antonio ... about 40 miles south of San Antonio. Land he had there. He had a Negro family living there and this family failed to brand the calves so people would see a calf running around without any brand on him or maybe a grown animal, and they would say: "That's Maverick's." So that is the way the word "maverick" originated.
E: So a maverick cow, at that time, was one which was not branded.
M: If the calf was young enough to be suckling its mother, it was illegal for you to put your brand on it, but if they were big enough to be out on their own and grazing on the land, anywhere, there were no fences then, you could take that animal ... perfectly legally ... and put your brand on it. And so when he sold his cattle a number of years later to Mr. Beauregard, the brother of the well known General Beauregard, the deed ran "400 head as they run" and they sold them for $6.00 apiece. So he doubled his money (laugh) in only 10 years.
E: How many children did he have?
M: He had ten children but there was a great deal of .... San Antonio was quite an unhealthy place in those days and they had several children die in the epidemics.
E: Was it cholera?
M: Cholera. They had one epidemic of cholera and then one or more, and they had other epidemics. I believe it was yellow fever and they lost three of their children then. And that made them believe that the place they were living in was a very unhealthy spot. So they moved over to the corner of Alamo Plaza and built a house at the corner of what is now Houston and North Alamo Streets, where the Gibb's Building now stands. It was a two-story wood house and it was there that my father was born. He was the youngest one of the ten.
E: Do you have pictures of the house anywhere or do you have any ...
M: There are some pictures. I don't know whether I can find one or not. I think I could. It's a very poor picture and it shows some oxcarts on the Plaza in front of the house.
E: Was he very involved in San Antonio or Texas affairs at this time ... by the time they had moved over on the Plaza and had such a large family?
M: He was always very much interested in the government of Texas and he served almost all the time in some public office. It was said of him that he never ran for office in his life and that he often accepted the job with protest.
E: What was he doing? Did he have a legal practice, or what did he do for an income?
M: He was just a landowner and dealer. It was said that he was the largest landowner in Texas. Some even said he was the largest landowner in the world, which was pretty hard to estimate. He had a great deal of business. He was gone from home a great deal. He served as a Congress­man in the Republic of Texas. He was twice Mayor of San Antonio. Then during the Civil War, he was Chief Justice of Bexar County during the entire war.
E: What about his children? What sort of things did they do here in San Antonio? I'm sure you must have heard tales about where they went to school and what life the family had.
M: Nearly all of the children ... I think everyone of them went off to College in the East. Uncle Sam, the oldest one, went to College in Scotland, and also in the East someplace. Uncle Willie and Uncle George went to College in Massachusetts. I believe Yale. And my father went one year only to the University of Virginia.
E: Did you know any of these people? These were your uncles. I'm sure ...
M: Yes, I knew all of them except Uncle Lewis. Uncle Lewis was said to be the first American child born and reared in San Antonio. The first American boy, I meant.
E: What about the girls?
M: There was only one girl that survived those early days. She was next older than my father. And she married Mr. Edward Holland Terrell, who was made Ambassador to Belgium. And she died over there, and was buried there. Mr. Terrell brought his five children back to San Antonio and built a Belgian castle on Grayson Street, across from the Fort Sam Infantry Post, where it stands today.
E: Do you remember any anecdotes about the family life? Did they like to entertain and have parties or get into scrapes and things?
M: Not get into scrapes. I think they were unusually honest and a law-abiding family. I don't know of anyone ... they must have been very well raised by their father and their mother. Uncle Sam, the oldest one, had the Maverick Bank, which was built at the corner, right across from the old family home on the corner of Houston where Woolworth's stands now, Houston and Alamo Plaza. It was only a four story building, but it had a French Mansard roof and each floor was 15 to 25 feet in height. I think the lower floor ceiling was about 25 feet high and the others were 15 feet high, to keep them cool. It was the tallest building in Texas, when built.
E: Did any of the children follow in the father's footsteps, with regard to the land holding?
M: They inherited so much land, all of them. I don't know of anyone that bought land except my father. There was a big boom in San Antonio--building and land boom--in 1890, the year that I was born. In '91 there came a Great Depression, called the Panic of 1891. They didn't call it a depression. When there was no money and the United States, the government, didn't finance banks if they got a run on them or anything. And there was just no money in circulation in Texas. My father had just bought land and was developing it in what is now the Woodlawn District. Used to be West End, they called it originally. And they had laid off streets and built West End Lake, which is now Woodlawn Lake.
E: Your father did that?
M: Yes. He went bankrupt the year after I was born. I was born in December, 1890, and in 1891 they had this panic. It was a lot worse than a depression.
E: At that time he was very deeply involved in the real estate development?
M: Yes. His older brothers, except Uncle Sam, whose bank went bankrupt at that time. The others were in the North enjoying themselves and they didn't take part in the land development. They just hung on to what they had and they became quite rich a few years later.
E: Because of the rise in price of everything?
M: Yes. And when the value of lands came back ....
E: Are the descendants of that family still landholders? Have they held onto their land all this time?
M: Some of them do. There's one of my cousins once removed, a younger generation than I, who lives in Greece, and she has a big building on Houston Street, which is now managed by some bank. It's in bad shape. The top part of it has been condemned and she doesn't get as much income out of it now as she did 25 years ago.
E: Maybe she should come back from Greece and fix it up. Now let's talk about your father. What stories have you heard about him as a young boy? How did he meet your mother and all that sort of thing?
M: He was sent off to Virginia, and he went to high school there. But there is nothing much on the record of that except that he got very good grades .... high school, I believe. Graduated with honors and then he went to the University of Virginia and he was so busy in all kind of pranks and having fun that he didn't do very well in his classes. But he met my mother there. She lived only about 2 miles from the University. He wanted to marry my mother right away at the end of the school year, but her mother objected, said: "You're both too young to be married. You must go away and stay away for one year and then come back." So he visited his parents who happened to be in Missouri at that time and then went to Europe. He stopped on the way at the World's Fair in Philadelphia and stayed there for about four or five days. Then he went to New York for a week, then he sailed for Europe. He landed at Liverpool and got off there and after having some shoes made, English shoes which pretty near ruined his feet, he walked across England----- to London and then on down to the Coast at Dover. Then took a ferry across to France. He stayed in London about 2 months, I believe. Then he walked from the Coast to Paris and stayed there I don't know how many months. His diary ends about that time. Then he left there. I think he stayed there about 6 months probably.
E: Just sort of touring and observing and?
M: Yes. And he was very much shocked and surprised at the behavior of the dancing girls in Paris, and he thought it was just very immoral and very bad. (laughing)
E: Far removed from Charlottesville and San Antonio, I guess.
M: (laughing) He then came back to the United States and went first to Charlottesville where he told his sweetheart's mother that he was going to stay there until Jane Lewis Maury married him. So they were married in 1877. I forget the date and they came to San Antonio on, it was said to be, the first regularly scheduled train to reach this city (from New Orleans. What is now the Southern Pacific).
E: I wonder where the depot was then located.
M: I think it was about where it is now, but I don't know. I don't think it was ever moved.
E: Have you ever heard it said what her impressions were of San Antonio? Did she like it here?
M: No. She didn't complain as far as I know. And she went to live first with my father's mother and family at the corner of North Alamo and Houston. Then about a year later, they decided to go into the ranching business. And so they bought a big ranch up near Bandera, about 8 or 10 miles from Bandera. They went there to live. They already had one child at that time, I believe. My mother had gone home to Charlottesville to have her first baby, on the train. And then the second child was born up on the ranch near Bandera. There then occurred in this part of Texas, one of those terrible droughts that come once in awhile, like we had in San Antonio in 1921, and everything dried up on the ranch, and my mother was very much dissatisfied with everything up there. She was used to having a lot of company all of her life and loved people, and they were way out in the country and she didn't see anybody--intelligent people--to communicate with. She wanted to come back. So they moved back to San Antonio and moved into a house, a big two story stone house at 218 Avenue E. This house had been built by my Uncle William Maverick.
E: Do you remember it?
M: I remember it quite well. I have pictures of it. I lived there until I was 15 years old. The first floor was up about 4 feet; then we had a large cellar underneath. Then each floor ... the ceiling was about 15 feet high on the first floor and the second floor about 12 feet high. There was a cupola up on top. And that cupola has been shown in some of Mr. Jose Arpa's pictures.
E: Well, what finally happened to that house?
M: It was torn down, after my father had sold it, to run Travis Street through there. Travis Street, when we were there, began at what is now North Alamo ... used to be Avenue D ... so they cut it through. Then after we had sold the home, they cut it through to Avenue E and then from Avenue E on to East Houston Street. It ran right through the middle of our home.
E: Why did you all decide to sell it?
M: One of my brothers became unhealthy; he was sick. One of my older brothers ... he got tuberculosis. The doctors prescribed he move to the country and stay out in the open, you know. Get plenty of sunshine. Uncle Willie gave my mother the Sunshine Ranch. She named it "Sunshine Ranch."
E: That is located where we are now.
M: Where we are now. This land we own right now has never belonged to anybody except Spain. Spain gave this land to the City of San Antonio and my grandfather bought it from San Antonio.
E: It was actually the first private family. Your family is the only one who has ever owned this land.
M: Yes.
E: Do you know how many acres there were at the time your mother moved out here?
M: There were 315 acres when we moved here on this place, and I bought some more to make it somewhat larger than that.
E: Did you inherit it from your mother?
M: I inherited part of it and bought part of it. Then, after her death, the remaining land was sold and the money was divided amongst her children.
E: What about the house that you all moved to at that time? Out here ... it's no longer standing?
M: No. It was torn down after my mother died. The house got to be in pretty bad shape. It was not good for modern living. It was a very large, two story house. It was torn down and the land sold to the Christian Church who still own it and operate it. They haven't built a large building, but they operate a Church and Sunday School there and Day School.
E: Now after all these children began to grow and all that kind of thing ... by then what had happened to your grandfather?
M: My grandfather died before I was born. He became very depressed when he returned from a long surveying trip in 1848 and found that his little daughter, Agatha, whom he adored, had died of some mysterious unknown fever while he was away. Somehow he felt that her death was partly his own fault, and he went into a decline which nearly ended his career. At that time (1848) the Texas Congress had just commissioned Col. Jack Hays to survey and open up a road to El Paso. This was Comanche country, and nobody dared go there. Maverick had been one of Hays' Minute Men and Hays insisted that he go on the trip. "If you stay here you will be dead within a year," said Hays. Maverick went on the expedition, which encountered many hardships and difficulties. Several of the member starved to death, but the expedition was a success. It claimed the Rio Grande as the Western boundary of Texas, and Samuel Maverick came back healthy and strong. He lived an active life for 22 years more and died in 1870.
E: Well, then did his heirs continue to deal in this land which he had acquired?
M: Yes. They ran the Maverick Land Office, which was about where the old home had been, on North Alamo, across from the Post Office. When the old home was torn down, an accumulation of about 20 large cannon was found beneath it. Most of them were of iron and were eventually given to the Alamo and to Villita, where you will see them mounted today. One large cannon was of brass. It was sent to Philadelphia by my grandmother Maverick, and cast into the bell that now rings in the tower of St. Mark's Episcopal Church.
E: Those at the entrance to Villita there?
M: Yes, my mother gave them.
E: Is that house where Babcock turns, a Maverick house? That big farm house there with all the vines?
M: Yes, that was my oldest sister's home, Mrs. Jim McNeel. That was the corner of Sunshine Ranch.
E: Is that still in the family?
M: No.
E: It's an interesting house. So then they operated the Maverick Land Office. Oh, the cannon--I wanted to finish that.
M: Then I inherited the one that was on Lewis Maverick's place over where the Maverick School now is, on Babcock Road. I gave that to the Alamo. It stands ... it's mounted in front of the Alamo Museum. It's shown in the picture, because it has one of the caissons broken off of one side. They can see it's the same one that's in the picture when the house was torn down ... the old home. They have done some research work and they say it was made in Spain, something over 320 years ago. It's quite a cannon. It's made to shoot rocks, pieces of metal or anything like that, that you could ram into it.
E: Let's talk about your father for awhile. After he married and they moved in from the ranch at Bandera because of the drought ... then what did they do after that?
M: My father went into the--he had been bankrupt, as I said, I know it was after that.
E: That had occurred at the time he was developing the Woodlawn Lake area.
M: That was a good deal later. I should have mentioned, when we were talking about the Wood Lake area, that they drilled three wells up here within a 100 yards of our ranch. Those were flowing wells up there on the hill and they ran down the hill and formed the Woodlawn Lake ... filled it with water. The water level has fallen so much now that you'd have to lift that water about 200 feet, I believe.
E: Do artesian wells still flow, or has the water table fallen so low? You don't hear about artesian wells anymore.
M: There are some. Oh, yes. In fact, just up to a few years ago, maybe it's still the case, in San Antonio in a rainy year, the water would flow out slowly, very slowly there. Maybe stand 6 feet high, in the pipe.
E: So what did he do after that Panic of about 1891?
M: He went to work for his brothers in the office there. He was in charge of the Maverick Land Office and the bookkeeping and everything like that ... in the collections of rents. They owned a good many houses around San Antonio, buildings on Houston Street.
E: They had not moved out here at that time, had they? When did they move out here?
M: They moved out here in 1905. That was about 15 years later.
E: How many children did he and your mother have?
M: Eleven children. There are now just four left: my older brother, Phillip, is 90 years old; I'm 86. Then I have a younger sister, Mary, and a younger brother, George.
E: Do they ... do all four of you live in San Antonio?
M: No, one brother, brother George, four years younger than I, he was a professor at the University of Virginia.
E: They keep their ties with Virginia, don't they ... where your mother was from.
M: Yes, and he lived in Charlottesville.
E: Where is your sister?
M: My sister lives here on Broadway.
E: What is her name?
M: Mrs. Mary Maverick McGarraugh. She's named after her grandmother, Mary Adams Maverick. Oh, by the way, talking about whom people were named after: my father was named after Queen Victoria's Prince Consort, Albert, the most popular man in the world at that time.
E: Where did your name come from?
M: I was named after my Uncle James L. Slayden. He was Congressman from this district of Texas, which included Corpus Christi at that time. To the Congress of the United States for something over 25 years.
E: Was he married to your father's sister?
M: My mother's sister, Ellen Maury, author of the book, Washington Wife.
E: Oh. Well, your mother being from Charlottesville, did some of her family come to Texas, also?
M: Yes. That was the only one who came to Texas.
E: After they moved back into town from Bandera, they moved to where did you say?
M: It was 218 Avenue E.
E: And they lived there until you were about 15?
M: Yes.
E: What did you do as a young man? And what did your brothers and sisters do for fun? And who were some of your friends? And the names of people then that you knew. The Kampmanns lived down in that area, didn't they?
M: Yes. The Kampmanns lived there when we were in town. I don't know if this is interesting or not, but I was at the Third Ward School at the corner of 4th Street and Avenue E, just a block and a half from my home. And right across the street was the Kampmann home where the Masonic Temple is now. And they were building an addition to their home and they were slaking some lime, and I went over there with some other boys when I was in about the second grade. One of the boys as a joke threw a big rock into this slaking and boiling lime and splashed it into my eyes and just about ruined both of them. One eye got all right and the other one never did.
E: Did you happen to know Walter McAllister at that time?
M: No, I didn't. I didn't know him but he was always a friend of the family. He was a friend of some of my sisters.
E: Well, where did you all go to school and what was life like in San Antonio at that time? What do you remember about it?
M: Avenue E was lighted quite well in front of our house. They had old time carbon lights and they would have to come and adjust these carbon points so they would fit just right.
E: What generated the power for them?
M: They had electric power. When the two carbons touched each other they made a very bright light. We used to play there. We had a very large yard. We had all kinds of pet animals. We had lots of cousins in town. The George Maverick family lived at the corner of Broadway and Third. The William Maverick family lived off about 5 blocks from us. Uncle Sam, one thing that we used to do ... Uncle Sam would come every Saturday night with all of his small children and the others of the family. There'd be about 15 of us altogether, and we would walk down Alamo Plaza and up Commerce Street to Soledad and across Soledad and come back down Houston. That was a regular ...
E: Sort of ritual that you all had.
M: Yes.
E: Do you remember how any of the buildings looked then? ... that we know today, the Alamo, or ...
M: Well, the Alamo, as I remember it, looked about the same as it does now.
E: It had been restored?
M: It had been restored. The long barracks was not a part of the Alamo. That was--it belonged, I believed, to the Hugo Schmeltzer Company, Wholesale Grocery.
E: Was that the one you said smelled good when you ... ?
M: Yes. It was two story. The top part was made out of wood. The bottom part was the original stone, I believe ... maybe the top part went out over the sidewalk. It was a flagstone sidewalk and we'd go along there and it was always cool under there. And it always smelled good, like fresh groceries (laughter).
E: Do you remember any outstanding people of the period then in San Antonio? Who were some of the well known people of that time or any political characters that might have stood out in your mind?
M: I'm very bad about names. We had so many friends in the family ... the different cousins ....
E: Were you all great about having parties?
M: My mother always had parties, big parties. One of her annual events was to have eggnog on New Year's Day. All the prominent people that she knew in town were invited to that. They came in large numbers.
E: What did you all enjoy doing as children? I know you said that your Saturday night was to take a sojourn around that area. What were some of the other things that you all liked to do?
M: We had in our backyard ... my father had built a turning pole and swings and trapeze and a ladder that slanted up from the ground about 10, 12 feet high. Then it went level for another 15 feet and we did lots of stunts on the trapeze and so on. I think we had probably the first privately owned developing room for pictures. In the back­yard we had a little house that was lined with black paper and a red light for a window and developing tables and so on in there.
E: Whose interest was that?
M: The only one I can remember really ... I started taking pictures before that or about that time ... but one of my brothers-in-law who was a good deal older than I, developed pictures in there. I remember that quite well.
E: Where did you all go to school?
M: We went to the Third Ward School. My older brothers and sisters ... and I'm more than half way down the list ... at least 6 older brothers and sisters went to German English School on South Alamo Street. When I started to school, I believe the whole family then changed over to the public schools.
E: By the way, all this very large family of 11 children, did they all survive?
M: Yes, they all survived except a brother, Ruben, 21, died.
E: That's unusual for a large family.
M: It was very unusual. My mother said it could not have been possible in those days had it not been for Dr. Ferdinand Herff.
E: Is that right?
M: He was the first of the family to come to San Antonio. He lived on Houston Street where North Presa now comes through at the corner, right about there, where Presa Street is. His yard ran down to the river in back. He had a carriage and he wore a gray shawl always ... I don't know about the middle of the summer. But he visited homes and he was a wonderful doctor. My mother said she always gave him credit for making it possible for her to raise the whole family.
E: I guess you don't remember him yourself?
M: Yes, I do.
E: Oh, you do? What sort of a person was he?
M: He was a little stooped, when I knew him, and he was very thin with white hair.
E: A very outgoing sort of a person?
M: Well, yes. He didn't talk loud or anything like that, but he was just a very serious person with a wonderful intellect and a wonderful education. He came from Germany.
E: He has some descendents here in town now, doesn't he?
M: Yes. He has a number of them. August Herff has just given up practice about a year ago. Then his son, August Herff, II, is a very fine doctor in San Antonio.
E: Did you happen to know Stella Herff?
M: Yes.
E: She married Dr. Ferdinand Herff, I believe.
M: Yes.
E: She was an interesting old family. Who was she? Kalteyer? She was Cook ...
M: Oh, yeah. I don't know whether that was her maiden name or whether Kalteyer was.
E: I remember Kalteyer was in there somewhere. I think they were affiliated with a drug company, weren't they? Or Alamo Cement, or one of those?
M: The Kalteyer's Drugstore was at the corner of Houston and South Broadway, where Pincus is now. It was a very famous place. We could go to Kalteyer's and get ice cream sodas (laughter) ... wonderful.
E: Did that become the San Antonio Drug Company?
M: Yes, I believe so.
E: I thought that I remembered that. So then you all went to public school after ...
M: Yes. The primary school was the Third Ward School on Avenue E, and High School on Main Avenue.

Memories of Jim

I was born December 27, 1890 at our home at 218 Ave. E and it is said that I rode in San Antonio's first Battle of Flowers Parade. I don't remember these two events, as I was only 5 months old when that First Parade took place. But I can still remember that big Victoria carriage and the team of fine Kentucky carriage horses we still had in later years. My mother - Mama, sat in the forward-facing seat with me in her lap. Next to her sat her sister, Mrs. James L. Slayden, who had inspired the society ladies of San Antonio to have the parade, honoring the battle of San Jacinto - like a flower-battle parade she had seen in Valencia, Spain. High up front rode black Mr. Billups in the driver's seat.

For a number of years the Parade always started from in front of our home, and it was confined to Alamo Plaza with half of the participants going one way and half in the opposite direction and throwing flowers at each other as they passed.

Our home stood on Avenue E next door to where the Medical Arts Landmark Building now stands. It was torn down by the city about 1909 when Travis St. was run thru from N. Alamo to Avenue E, and then on east thru our house to E. Houston St.

PANIC

No sooner had the Battle of Flowers Festival ended when the Great Panic of 1891 reached Texas and San Antonio. The U.S. Treasury had no plan at that time to rush in emergency funds if "a run" was started - and banks by the thousands had to close because they could not pay all their depositors in cash.

Uncle Sam Maverick's bank had to close its doors, and he never was a wealthy man again. His bank was at the corner of Alamo Plaza and Houston St. where the Woolworth store is now. It was the tallest building in Texas.

A few years later the Maverick brothers and their mother, Mrs. Mary Adams Maverick advertised in the San Antonio papers that they would pay off any loss suffered by any depositer when the bank closed, and they paid every legitimate claim in full.

My father also went bankrupt during the Great Panic of 1891. He was engaged in developing West End (now Woodlawn), and building what is now Woodlawn Lake, and drilling 3 artesian wells to keep the lake full. His credit was extended and when the banks closed he turned in all his property except the homestead, and declared bankruptcy. Two or three years later the property lost was worth 3 times what the debts had been. Father was never again the wealthy person he had always been, but he was faithful and true, and The Best Man Who Ever Lived.

THE CHILI QUEENS

Every evening about dusk, tables and benches would come into being on Alamo Plaza, and lanterns would be lit and soon a crowd of hungry people would appear ready for supper. Each table would be presided over by two or three highly decorated Mexican girls. A good big meal served to the music of guitars and singers could be had for 15¢.

And the Medicine Shows that came to town were wonderful. The corner now occupied by the Medical Arts Building was in the 1890's a monument works yard where tombstones were made. It was often rented out at night to Medicine Men to hold their nighttime shows. I remember wonderful shows there. All of these shows had a group of chorus girls in scanty skirts and tights. When the speaker had gotten his audience up to fever heat over the medicine that was guaranteed to cure anything from diabetes to toothache, the girls would run down amongst the crowd with big baskets of big bottles of pink medicine at the bargain price of $1.00. There was a hypnotist and a comedy team, and the girls sang and danced.

THE CARNIVALS

Every year the Carnival took place in April. Alamo Plaza was covered with side shows and games of skill and chance. I remember a 40-foot ladder standing in front of the Alamo with a small platform at the top. A man would climb the ladder and dive into a 5-foot tub of water.

On the 1st block of N. Alamo Street there was a hotel about where the Post Office trucks now drive in and under. Next to that, going north stood Volmer's Livery Stable. In the street in front of these were 2 of the best carnival attractions: a high narrow wooden stairway, 53 steps, with a platform at the top. On the platform sat a man on a heavy bicycle, and there was another platform.

At intervals an announcer would step out on the lower platform with this to say: "Ladies & Gentlemen: I will now introduce you to Mr. Charles G. Kilpatrick, originator of the loop-the-loop. He will now give you a reproduction of his famous ride down the West Steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. - Mr. Kilpatrick are you ready? - "I am ready"! "Well then GO!," and Mr. Kilpatrick would come thundering down the stairs and on thru a roped-off land almost to Houston Street before he could stop.

Next to the stairway stood a large metal loop-the-loop, and at regular intervals Mr. Kilpatrick would mount a very heavy bicycle at the top of high steep incline and come down and around the loop. This was a very dangerous feat as there were no nets to catch the rider or protect the onlookers in case of an accident. The crowd always gaver thunderous applause.

EARLY DAYS

Our fine big home at 218 Avenue E was 2-story made of cut stone with basement below and cupalo on top, and I think my earliest remembrance is of a scene in an upstairs front room. I stood with my back to the window, facing my mother. She was sewing on a machine and there was a "sewing woman" at another Singer machine nearby. I said in a plaintive voice, "Mama, I want some pants." She promptly replied, "All right, we'll make you some pants." I assume from this conversation that I had been wearing dresses until that time. Mama and the sewing woman made all of the clothes for the younger children.

In 1897 I started to public school - at 3rd Ward School at the corner of Avenue E and 4th Street just two blocks from home. Other members of the family also started to public school that year - they had been attending German-English private school on S. Alamo St.

Born at the beginning of the Great Panic year, and continually in some kind of an accident - no wonder that some of the family members sometimes called me "Calamity Jim."

When I was 8 years old, I suffered the greatest accident injury of my life. I was across Avenue E from 3rd Ward School in the yard of the Kampman home where some construction was taking place. Several of us 2nd graders were looking at a big vat of boiling raw lime being slaked. One little boy threw a big rock into the vat, and the lime splashed right into my big wide-open eyes. The workmen came running, and might have avoided most of the damage, had they doused me good with water - but no, one of them picked me up and carried me all the way home. I was totally blind for a month. After that my left eye regained almost normal sight, and my right eye about 1/3 normal vision. When I reached 80 years, the right eye became totally blind. At 91 my left eye has about 1/3 vision.

In 1895 to 1900 San Antonio became quite an unhealthful place to live in. All of the old irrigation ditches of canals still ran thru the city and they were a menace, and not properly cared for by the Health Dept. The Alamo Ditch formed the back line of our lot, and it was a source of mosquitos and flies. My mother circulated a petition and was successful in having it closed. There were no screens in San Antonio, and of course no air conditioning.

Mother tried to take her children to some cooler more healthful spot for a long vacation in July or August. There were a number of outbreaks of Malaria and even Yellow Fever. I remember mother taking us and putting us on the last train to Kerrville one night when it was reported that Yellow Fever was in San Antonio. There was 4 of us smaller fry in charge of our older sister, and we stayed at the Kerrville Hotel.

When money was available, mother took us back in the summer to her home in Charlottesville, Virginia.

CHARLOTTESVILLE

In July 1901 Mama & Papa and several of us children went back to Charlottesville. I stayed in Virginia with Grandma & Grandpa Maury, while the rest of the family went on to Washington. Aunt Ellen Slayden (later, author of the book "Washington Wife") and her husband, Congressman James L. Slayden would be their hosts, so they expected to be favored visitors, and to meet President McKinley.

When my family came back to Charlottesville, on their way home, I begged to remain with my grandparents. A family of my 1st cousins lived nearby the ancient plantation of my grandparents, and there were cottages with negro employees - where I often took advantage of a good meal.

Hardly had my family left for home, however, when I was sorry I was not home with my brothers and sisters and parents, instead of my grandparents and the negro cook's 2 little girls. Grandpa, Jesse Lewis Maury was 93 years old, and very mild of manner - I never knew him to be impatient or disagreeable, although his wife, Lucy Price Maury, who was some 16 years younger than he, sometimes gave him a hard time.

I was encouraged to plant a garden, and I remembered the peanuts I planted. Every morning early the plants would be full of blossoms. The negro man told me that you had to go out early before the sun hit the blossoms and cover them with earth or you would get no peanuts. I did my best to follow their instructions - which of course was a play on my own ignorance.

Grandma gave me a beautiful Damson Plum Tree, from which I picked nearly a bushel of delicious plums which I took to town and sold to a grocery store.

I bought a nice new 2 3/4 pound axe and became quite a good woodcutter. It took lots of wood to keep the fireplaces and the big kitchen stove going during much of the year. I went with the men up the mountain to cut wood and haul it back home.

My playmates most of the time were Madge and Tiney - 2 little negro girls, the daughters of the cook. Madge was about 9 years old and Tiney, a little cripple, about 8. Both of them were very bright although neither had ever gone to school.

The cook lived in a 2-story house separate from the main house, but connected by a "covered way" some 50 or 60 feet long. Food was prepared in the big kitchen and then carried up the covered way to the big dining room. The cook's salary was room and board for herself and 2 daughters and $5.00 cash a month.

Although Grandpa was 93 years old, he went horseback riding every day if weather permitted. He would climb the smoke house steps to a little platform about 3 steps high. A negro man would lean forward his fine gaited mare, and he would step astride and ride through the beautiful grounds of the yard and the nearby orchard.

Grandpa's plantation was named Piedmont and it had evidently changed only slightly since the Confederacy. Although in Grandfather's name, other members of the family recognized "Brother" Reuben's right to hold and care for and live on the property. He was my mother's oldest brother. He seemed always in a good humor and was a bachelor. He had 1 glass eye which he kept in a glass of water at night.

The Price Maury family were my 1st cousins. Uncle Price was an architect and builder and he had a mill that ground corn or wheat and took part of the corn meal or flour in payment. The mill looked like it was 100 years old. There was a dam in the creek. From this a stream of water ran down the bank to a big water wheel, which turned a big 3 ton millstone inside the mill. I don't think Uncle Price was much of a moneymaker, but his wife, Aunt Lizzie (Stribling) was from San Antonio, Texas and she had money to buy thoroughbred race horses, which were so different from Grandpa's gaited riding horses.

There were 4 girls (I think) in the Price Maury family and one boy and they were all very handsome. Louis was about my age, and Fontaine a year older than I. I liked Louis and I loved Fontaine. She and I would go riding together bareback on the same horse.

School started about September 1st and I was enrolled in the Charlottesville Public School. I went to the 3rd grade first but cousin Judith Maury went to see the teachers and insisted that I be put in the 4th grade. I can't remember to save my neck how I got to school and back every day, but I think the Price Maury's took me, and brought me home. It was about a 2 1/2 mile trip.

I saw my first automobile in Charlottesville in 1901. It was on the main street and everyone rushed out from the stores to see it pass. It was pulling uphill and cloud of steam was shooting out the back; it was a steamer. I think it was a year before I saw another automobile.

The Horse Show was the big event of the year in Charlottesville and my cousin Eleanor Maury was one of the best and most beautiful riders to take part in it.

BACK HOME

At last the Congress closed its sessions and Aunt Ellen and Uncle Slayden came to Piedmont and got me and took me home. It was a long trip on the Southern Railway to New Orleans, then on the Southern Pacific to San Antonio - about 3 days on the Pullman cars. Home was like heaven to me.

Next day I got on a bicycle (which I had never learned to ride in Virginia) and rode 2 blocks up the street where I was run into by an American Express wagon. I managed to pick myself and the bicycle up, and get home with no broken bones.

In 1910 or earlier, Alamo Plaza was paved with hexagon sawed blocks of mesquite wood as were also several of the principal streets. These blocks had been soaked in asphalt and were set on a layer of sand over a hard rolled base, and they made an excellent pavement, at least for a time. When the big flood came to San Antonio in September 1921, water stood in some streets for 2 days and the wood blocks came to the surface and floated away. They were never replaced or used again. During the flood, water stood 7 to 9 feet deep in the lobby of the Gunter Hotel.

In the early 1900's San Antonio somehow got the reputation of being a good place for tuberculosis patients to be cured, and people with lung disease came here from many places in the north and east. My older brother Reuben (about 21) caught the disease, and changed the lifestyle of our family. Reuben was the handsomest member of our family - with curly black hair and fine features. He was in love with a girl - Amy Herff - and wanted to marry her. Mother did everything in her power to help Reuben get well.

The doctor advised us to move to the country, and Uncle Willie helped out by deeding to mother 173 acres of fenced land just outside the old city limits to the northwest on Babcock Road. Mother named the place Sunshine Ranch.

SUNSHINE RANCH

Father had a small house built and a barn and stable and started at once to drill a deep well. At 600 feet deep we struck the Edwards Lime and a good supply of good water which rose to within 175 feet of the surface. A big windmill with a wheel 20 feet in diameter was installed, and a 12,000 gallon cypress tank. Our new home was 200 feet higher than Alamo Plaza, and we had a fine view of the city.

Reuben and I were the first members of the family to come to live on the new place. I was 15 years of age. We had a German man, Mr. Reimchisel to cook for us and take care of the mules and horses and plow the field, which was cleared of mesquite by some Mexicans who came with their families and camped on the land.

A little later Father had a big 2-story house built, and the rest of the family - except the older married members - all moved out to start a new life at Sunshine Ranch.

Things went as well at Sunshine Ranch as could be expected - except for Brother Reuben. The hot summer sun made his fever worse instead of better. Mother felt that her first duty was to care for Reuben and she took him to Cloudcroft for several months, but he continued to deteriorate so she then took him to a sanitarium at Saranac Lake, N.Y. where he died.

His body was brought back and buried in the family plot on East Commerce St. It was the first of my loved ones to die, and was the saddest day of my life.

There were no schools near Sunshine Ranch, so we drove a team of horses to the ambulance, or later just a one-horse buggy to Elmira St. Grade School and Main Avenue High. We rented a stable in town and fed the horses hay while we were in classes.

Father still worked as manager of the Maverick Land Office and he drove a horse and buggy to town for several years before getting an automobile.

We bought our first automobile about 1907 or 1908. It was a little two-passenger car with acetalene lights. I can't remember the name of the car. It had an acetalene tank on one running board. You put ground acetalene and water in the tank. If you drove at night you lit the headlights with a match.

Father bought several registered Jersey cows, and I had saved $35 with which I bought a registered heifer calf, and this was the beginning of the Sunshine Ranch Dairy Farm. A good man was employed and a home built for him. He milked the cows, cooled the milk and delivered it to Joske Bros. store 4 times a week. They had a big soda fountain and advertised home-made ice cream made from milk and cream from Sunshine Ranch.

We younger boys helped milk the cows. I got up every morning at 5 o'clock and helped milk before washing up, having breakfast and going to school. I did not feel that this was a hardship. Boys were supposed to work in those days.

I liked working with the purebred cattle and decided to be a dairy farmer. In 1908 I quit high school before graduation and went to A & M College to study Dairy Husbandry. After one year I left there for the University of Wisconsin, where, after 3 years I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Agriculture.

I then worked for a year for Certified Dairy Farm in Oglesby, Illinois, supplying Certified Milk to that town and to the city of Elgin, Illinois.

ADULT YEARS

When I finally got back home, I found mother still working with the dairy cow business to make money that would help all of her 11 children go to college. Surely nobody in the world ever had a better mother than our mother was.

Mother was very generous and very hospitable. She had many parties. For her 50th Wedding Anniversary a big dance pavillion was built in the yard and an estimated thousand guests attended. For many years she had a standing invitation for friends to drop in about 5:30 Sunday afternoons for a light supper. Sometimes there was baked Virginia ham or a cold roast, but always good homemade bread and butter and plenty of good milk were the mainstay. No liquor was served.

I decided to go into the certified milk and dairy farming business. I borrowed money and built a modern dairy barn, a milk house with refrigerating equipment and 8 small homes for employees. Dr. Dudley Jackson and Dr. P. I. Nixon organized the Bexar County Certified Milk Commission to see that Sunshine Ranch lived up to all sanitary and health standards.

Toward the end of September 1919, I met the lovely girl who was to be my wife. Three months later, on December 27, 1919 (my birthday) we were married. She was Hazel Carey Davis, who had been orphaned at 2 years of age by the death of her mother, and had been raised by her grandparents in Columbus, Texas. She was a schoolteacher in a one-teacher rural school and living with her uncle and aunt in Boerne.

We were married in St. Mark's Episcopal Church in a morning wedding and we went to New Orleans for our Honeymoon.

On our return we moved into the vacant house of sister Agatha Welsh for about a year. Then we started to build a home of our own. There must have been a depression at that time because I remember the low wages I paid the 3 carpenters. The head man was a real expert builder. He got $5.00 a day, and the other two $4.00 each. They walked over 6 miles a day to and from work.

We lived happily in our Sunshine Ranch home for nearly 60 years. We had many parties at our home, and many happy days - the happiest of these was when Hazel Dean, Ellen and Jamie were born.

Early in our married life we went on a wonderful hunting and fishing trip to Alaska, as guests of my college friend, Arnold Fitger.

Over the years I took part in a number of Little Theatre plays. I had the title role in their 2nd production: "The Queen's Husband." We showed at the Green Gate Theatre, on College Street, until the City built the Little Theatre Building in San Pedro Park. Later I took part in a number of operettas, staged by Mrs. Lewis Crams-Beck and others. I sang only short comic songs generally with a girl chorus. Mine was usually the principal comedian's part.

In later years, starting in 1954 Hazel and I did a great deal of traveling, making one trip to South American and 7 or 8 visits to Europe; we went around the world twice, visiting a total of 48 countries. It was a very enjoyable period in our senior life.

Hazel was a wonderful wife and mother, and a beautiful woman, with lovely complexion, but she was not as strong as I. About the end of 1974 she fell and crushed her shoulder, and then in another fall she broke a hip. Complications set in, with arthritis, and in spite of the best hospital care, she died on July 27, 1979.

My eyes are failing and as I bring these lines to a close I am having a hard time doing anything useful for others, but must wait as patiently as possible for my Maker to call me Home.

James Slayden Maverick, January 21, 1982