A Tale of a River and Its Village
Editor’s Note: While this series highlights the first mayors of San Marcos, parts 1 and 2 will give background on the city’s beginnings.
The European exploration of the Americas began on Oct. 12, 1492 when Christopher Columbus landed on an island in the Bahamas. The natives called it Guanahani. Columbus, a devout Catholic, sailing for Spain, promptly renamed it San Salvador, which translates to Holy Savior.
Another popular saint was San Marcos el Evangelista, which translates to Saint Mark the Evangelist. It was inevitable, as Spanish exploration shifted to the mainland, that a San Marcos River and a village of San Marcos would eventually appear.
Eventually. Tshaonline.org says that, in 1689, members of Alonso De León’s expedition gave the name San Marcos to the first substantial river east of the Guadalupe, which scholars now believe to have been either the Colorado River or the Navidad River.
Not our river? Not according to Wikipedia, which gives pride of naming to De Leon who reached our river on April 25, 1689, St. Mark’s feast day, and named our river San Marcos.
It appears that Domingo Terán de los Ríos, in 1691, called the San Marcos the San Augustín, and the Marqués de Aguayo, in 1719, seems to have called it Los Inocentes.
Later Spanish explorers applied the name San Marcos to the first notable river beyond the Guadalupe to the north and west; the present San Marcos River. That name entered popular usage. It was mentioned by both Fray Isidro Félix de Espinosa and Fray Antonio de San Buenaventura Olivares in 1709 and by Domingo Ramón in 1716.
The birth of the village of San Marcos is similarly complicated. In 1803, after the Louisiana Purchase, the Spanish government in Mexico became concerned about the migration of American citizens moving to Texas. The governor of Coahuila y Tejas, Manuel Antonio Cordero y Bustamante, sent his friend, Felipe Roque de la Portilla, to Texas to secure a Spanish presence. Portilla arrived at the headwaters of the San Marcos River on Jan. 6, 1808.
The headwaters were already occupied by the Tonkawa, so the Spanish moved slightly downriver and established San Marcos de Neve to honor both San Marcos el Evangelista and Felipe Neve—governor of the Californias and a founder of Los Angeles.
It was neither the right time nor place. Drought caused crop failure. Native American attacks put humans and cattle in danger. Finally, a flood destroyed the settlement. The settlers attempted to rebuild, but they finally gave up and abandoned the settlement in 1812.
Then, in November 1846, Anglo-American settlers moved in. The Comanches and Apaches had been driven out, and the Tonkawa were relocated, first to Young Co., then to Indian Territory where they remain today.
On March 1, 1848, the Texas legislature chopped off the southwestern part of Travis County, named it Hays for legendary Texas Ranger Captain John “Jack” Coffee Hays and designated San Marcos as the county seat.
That’s when the trouble really began. When people gather together to form a government, they must have rules.
The 1836, the Texas Constitution had six articles containing a total of 65 sections and 3 other articles containing 36 more sections. Among them, in Art. IV Secs. 10 and 12, it stated that there shall be, in each county, a county court, and such justices’ courts as the Congress may from time to time establish.
It also stated there shall be appointed, for each county, a convenient number of justices of the peace, one sheriff, one coroner and a sufficient number of constables, who shall hold their offices for two years, to be elected by the qualified voters of the district or county, as Congress may direct. Justices of the peace and sheriffs shall be commissioned by the President.
All constitutions are amended, as was ours. The duties of coroner were handed off to justices of the peace and the office of county coroner was abolished. The title Chief Justice was changed to County Judge by the 1866 Constitution.
County Clerk and District Clerk were present from the beginning of the Republic.
Hunter’s Frontier Times magazine of February 1941 says, “On Aug. 7, 1848, the first election was held and the following officers elected: John Kirby, sheriff; E. Erherd, county clerk; W. E. Owens, district clerk; Henry Cheatham, chief justice; N. F. Owens, tax assessor. In the same election, Sheppard Colbath, C. R. Johns, A. E. McDonald and U. A. Young were elected county commissioners.”
The Findagrave website memorial for Judge Henry Cheatham enlarges and corrects that list of election winners. Henry Cheatham was elected chief justice, the office now known as county judge, and Caton Erhard became county clerk. The first county commissioners were Clement R. Johns, Shephard Colbath, Ulysses A. Young and A. B. McDonald.
The other newly elected officials were District Clerk William A. Owen, Sheriff John Kirby, Treasurer Michael D. Faylor, Tax Assessor-Collector Nelson F. Owen, Justice of the Peace Winthrop Colbath, Coroner H.S. Harvey and Constable William W. Moon.
Kirby immediately assumed his duties and served until October 1848.
Erhard later admitted a mild form of buying votes. “When election day came, I had not much whiskey left. I had neither the means nor the time to replenish, and being well aware that my Texas friends as well as the Arkansas settlers, who emigrated from the poor piny hills to Texas, expected treats from the candidate.
“I, for the first time in my life, watered my whiskey. I saw that I was compelled to stand treat all day, and as I got no pay, my conscience was easy in regard to watered whiskey. Fortunately, my watered whiskey held out to the close of the election, and when I was announced the successful candidate [by 1 vote], I hauled out a demijohn of good brandy and treated all of my friends,” Erhard said.
Tshaonline’s bio of William Washington Moon says “Moon was among the signers of a petition to establish Hays County. In the first county election on Aug. 7, 1848, he was elected constable. He had a hotel in 1849, which became a stage stop in 1850. He was elected sheriff of Hays County on Aug. 29, 1851.” He is buried in Wimberley.
So, the county was organized, but San Marcos was a mess. Streets were not paved. Sidewalks were mere paths where the passage of many feet had trodden the grass and weeds down to the dirt. Same goes for most any path from street to house, although some of the upper crust may have laid limestone blocks to their front doors.
Livestock roamed at will, perhaps keeping grass, if there was any, trimmed around the courthouse. Rural vs. Urban? Doesn’t look like there was much difference except, in town, the houses were closer together.
What little street maintenance there was was done by the county commissioners, each occasionally grading those streets that happened to fall in their precincts.
The first attempt at incorporation occurred on March 2, 1874. It failed 59-41, or maybe something else could account for the reported 17 vote margin. Whatever the margin, it failed.
There was, it must be admitted, some concern over the fact that Black people had been allowed to vote and might have influenced the outcome. Further investigation revealed that only nine had voted and could not have overwhelmed that 18, or 17, vote margin, so that bug-a-bear was laid to rest.
San Marcans had, of course, been long opposed to incorporation. They felt it would inevitably lead to ... taxes ... laws ... taxes. It was good enough for granddaddy, so it’s good enough for me.
There were voices raised in protest. E.g., the San Marcos Free Press, in the person of editor Isaac Hoover Julian, who wrote this in the Dec. 19, 1875 Free Press: “I think San Marcos will compare favorably — for mud — with any town in Western Texas. Apropos of this, I hear incorporation discussed more frequently than heretofore, which is occasioned, I opine, by the difficulty pedestrians have in wading through the ‘prepared glue’ that covers the surfaces of the streets. We cannot see why any property holder should oppose incorporation, for it would evidently enhance the value of all property much more than the taxes will ever amount to. Besides our citizens could pay the amount of the tax by the saving in boots and shoes, not to speak of the wear and tear on their Christianity.”
The Free Press was determined, and it consumed quite a lot of newsprint and ink.
Eventually, July 7, 1877, another vote was scheduled. Everybody showed up. No doubt there were speeches for and against. When election officials finally slogged through the ballots, incorporation had passed—70-45. I’m just guessing, but maybe the vote was a division into groups and heads were counted.
Well, not everybody, of course. In 1870, the census counted 741 folks in SM. So, who could vote? Article VI of the 1876 TX constitution spelled it out in grim and gory detail. Those details essentially granted the franchise to white males 21 and older, although they were forced to allow some Black males 21 and older to vote. If they dared, and some probably did.
Now, San Marcos had to organize. It needed officials and ordinances.
Officers are easy — mount an election, which they did on July 21, 1877. The winners were Mayor A.B.F. Kerr; Aldermen W.O. Hutchison, L.W. Mitchell, W.B. Fry, P.R. Turner and D.P. Hopkins; and Marshal A.B. Dailey. See any street names in that list?
Julian was pleased and said, “The above will constitute a very safe, conservative board of offices, under whose charge all fears of the financial wreck and ruin of San Marcos, consequent upon incorporation, we think may be safely dismissed.”
Ordinances are harder; they require time, discussion and sober reflection or to copy from a similar-sized town nearby. Whatever the process, the ordinances— 140 of them—appeared in short order. On Sept. 1, 1877, the Free Press printed the lot. Demand must have been brisk. When Julian ran out of copies of the newspaper, he offered, on Sept. 22, 1877, copies of the ordinances for sale for five cents each.
That set of ordinances must have been fragile or unsatisfactory in some way. On March 27, 1880, continued on April 3, 1880, Julian again published the San Marcos ordinances, which had expanded from 140 to 174. It appears that the second version employed a different organization.
In the 1877 version, Article 66 prohibited “exhibiting, offering for sale or selling any indecent or lewd book, picture, play, representation or other lewd or indecent article.” In the 1880 version, Article 66 prohibited “leaving any horse, or other beast of burden without the same, being securely tied, or turning any such animal loose in any public place.”
My mathematical skills were unequal to the task of determining the number of city ordinances that exist today. It’s more than 174.
More history, tied to the first ten mayors will appear in ten future articles in this series.
