Growing pains for a railroad town
Ossian Tignor Brown was born in December 1836 in Meriwether Co., GA. Apparently, Brown wanted to be a lawyer. The practice of the day was not law school but an apprenticeship with an experienced practitioner. The apprentice would “read law” — studying classic legal texts and learning legal reasoning — while also performing clerical tasks such as drawing up routine contracts and wills. After “reading law” for a few years, a prospective lawyer would be admitted to the local bar to practice law.
I don’t know what he was called by friends and family; I’ll call him Ossie.
By 1850, when Ossie was 13, the Brown family had relocated to Russell Co., AL. It must have been in the 1850s when Ossie “read law” because, now in Tallapoosa Co., AL, he is listed as a lawyer on the 1860 census.
The Civil War soon ensued. Ossie enlisted in the Confederate Army in Memphis, TN, on 9 Sep 1861. Probably as a result of his legal training, he was assigned to the Adjutant Corps as a lieutenant and was sent to Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River. That was the tenth island south of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi River. Located in a tight double bend, it was a strategic location because it could easily repel Union forces attempting to push south into Confederate territory via the Mississippi River. But it was not impregnable.
On 7 April 1862, Union forces overcame Island No. 10’s defenses and the Confederate garrison surrendered; its members became prisoners of war. This was a significant victory for Union forces. The loss of Memphis further weakened the Confederate position along the river.
Ossie’s time as a POW was brief. On 10 Nov 1862, he was part of a group of Confederate POWs, also lieutenants, who were exchanged for a similar group of Union POWs. At this point, surviving records go silent. Perhaps Ossie stayed in the army until Lee’s surrender. That seems most probable to me because Ossie’s next appearance in official records is on a tax statement in Rockford, Coosa Co., AL, where he was a lawyer. We’ll return to this story a bit later.
In 1873, Ossie was in a legal partnership with S. W. Yoe in San Marcos. In 1875, Ossie ran, unsuccessfully, for County Judge.
On 13 Nov 1877, Ossie and Miss Lizzie Belvin married in Hays Co. That was Pauline Elizabeth Belvin whose parents were Robert Hixon and Caroline V. L. (Mitchell) Belvin.
They had four children: Caroline “Carrie” in August 1878, Mary in September 1881, Charlotte in September 1883, and Lillian in November 1888. All save Mary eventually married.
Also in 1877, the legal musical chairs continued. In January, Ossie and Yoe dissolved their partnership and Ossie practiced law by himself until May, when Ossie and William H. Burgess formed a partnership. In November, Ossie’s ad in the newspaper made no mention of Burgess. In June 1879, Ossie risked another legal partnership; with F. J. Manlove. In August, Ossie was again advertising with neither Burgess nor Manlove as partner.
Perhaps Ossie was too busy electioneering. He was elected county attorney, a position which he held until the 1880 election which was held on Tuesday 2 November. Ossie was San Marcos’ new mayor. He inherited the railroad hullabaloo. And saw it to completion.
With the railroad operating in San Marcos, other matters took precedence. Harrie W. Speer, reporting from Blanco, was alternately complimentary and impatient. On 28 August 1880 he wrote, “The liberality and enterprise of the San Marcos people, in working and opening the road to our town, is the talk of our citizens. If that road is ever opened and made good, San Marcos will find her apron poured so full of the treasures of the frontier that she will be unable to hold the corners. ... Merchants expect to do a heavy business this fall and winter, and would like to get freight through San Marcos.”
One week later, Speer wrote, “San Marcos people better hurry up their wagon road. If our people have to start their first cotton to Austin instead of San Marcos, it will require more, even, than a short road to turn them out of the old ruts.”
In November, articles in the Blanco Star, turned their complaints in the opposite direction.
“San Marcos is getting impatient over Blanco’s tardiness in fulfilling her promises in regard to turning the trade to that point. The people of San Marcos went to work with a will, and in good faith raised the necessary funds to make a good road to the Blanco county line. The road has been worked to the county line, and although, if not completed, it is no doubt in better condition than the road from here to Austin.” And “Why is it that our merchants and other business men do not turn their trade to San Marcos, as was promised before the railroad got there? The San Marcos people have expended money in making a good road, between their town and this, and we do think it our duty to reciprocate by sending our business to them.”
It is not necessarily true that “If you build it, he will come.” Advertising helps. Perhaps newspaper articles such as this served as advertising. The Star Vindicator in Kyle complained of the wretched condition of the roads between Blanco and Kyle, and advised shoppers to try the San Marcos route.
Other communities also wanted access to the rail road. “Esquire Stevenson, of Purgatory Springs, informed us the other day that he was to resume work on the road from the Backbone this way very soon with the object of making it good through to this place [San Marcos].”
Free Press editor I. H. Julian ventured a trip to Austin, his first in some fifteen months. On that previous trip “we spent the greater part of the day in the old rumbling stage coach to get there - a most horrid infliction, unfitting one for business for the day.” Traveling by train “we went and returned the same day, had some eight hours in the city, and returned invigorated rather than fatigued. Surely we think we shall never be fool enough to live off a railroad again.”
Work continued on the railroad as it drove toward New Braunfels in December. “A car load of convicts who are at work on the railroad is one of the passing features of our place not of the most agreeable nature to contemplate.”
The San Antonio Express lauded the arrival of immigrants. “They are coming by train loads and wagon loads. ... We have too much idle land and too few people. Generally the immigrants now pouring into the state are the class we most need. Farmers. Men coming her to work. We are not in particular need of any one to stand on the corners and offer instructions as to our political and religious duties. The market is already overstocked with that class. ... We want people to come here who will make our country rich and prosperous.”
Others expressed concerns closer to home. “The rank growth of weeds on our commons and vacant lots is a nuisance that ought at once to be abated. ... The town authorities should order the extermination of the weeds on all public grounds, and each citizen should have sufficient pride to do the like on his own premises, vacant lots included. There is abundant unemployed muscle, white and black, to do the work in a day or two. What will strangers and visitors think of a place, just on the event of becoming a railroad town, in which its people manifest so little regard for appearance and the decencies of civilized communities.”
I&GN reached San Marcos 30 Sep 1880, New Braunfels 23 December 1880, San Antonio 1 January 1881, and Laredo on 31 December 1881.
Ossie declined to run for another term as mayor and returned to his law practice. He was listed as a lawyer on both the 1900 and 1910 censuses. 0n 19 April 1916, in ill health for years. Ossie died and is buried in the Old Original E in the San Marcos city cemetery.
The big, old house on Belvin Street was uncharacteristically silent. Ossie and Lizzie had raised four children, all girls, there. Charlotte married Earl Barkley in 1913 Carrie married Hugh Foley in 1915. Both moved to Houston. Lillian married in 1912 and moved to Dallas. Mary never married. She and Lizzie stayed in that big, old Brown house on Belvin Street. So Lizzie began renting the top floor -- 3 room apartment, private bath, furnished or not, garage. Perhaps she needed the money; perhaps she wanted the company.
In 1899, Texas had passed the Confederate Pension law which authorized pensions for indigent and disabled Confederate soldiers and their widows. A previous measure in 1881 allocated land, and a specific system for granting pensions to Confederate veterans and their widows was established in 1889, but it was the 1899 law that authorized the systematic payment of benefits. Perhaps Lizzie was unaware of the law or had too much property to qualify as sufficiently indigent.
Finally, she was persuaded to tackle the paperwork. On 12 Apr 1926, she applied for a Confederate widow’s pension under the updated widow’s pension law that had been passed by the 33rd Texas legislature and signed into law by Gov. Oscar Branch Colquitt on 7 April 1913.
Let the paperwork begin. Lizzie was informed that 1. she must provide proof of Ossie’s Confederate service, and 2. she wasn’t poor enough. She had put a $2,000 value on her homestead and $2,000 for other property. The law limited those amounts to $2,000 and $1,000.
No problem with No. 2. The county judge said, “Oops, we made a mistake.” It should have been $2,000 for the homestead, and [blank] for other property. Instead, the tax assessor put $2,000 in both blanks.
Problem No. 1 was a little harder. S. H. Terrell, Texas Comptroller, sent a letter to the War Department in Washington requesting Ossie’s service record. Duly received. Despite clear statements that Ossie had been captured 7 April 1862 and exchanged on 10 November 1862; Lizzie continued to insist that Ossie had been a Prisoner of War for two years.
Did Ossie misrepresent his war service to Lizzie? He may have told war stories many times to Lizzie and their children. Perhaps, after numerous tales, not necessarily consistent, Lizzie may have formed her own notion of Ossie’s service.
No matter, the pension was approved and Lizzie received monthly payments until her death on 7 August 1935. Mary immediately, 13 August 1935, applied for mortuary benefits. Funeral expenses had been approved in another bit of legislation passed by the 38th legislature and approved by Gov. Pat M. Neff on 2 March 1923.
See findagrave memorial # 94074225.
Ossie called an election for 4 Apr 1882. C.S. Cock was elected Mayor. Next week.
