Hey everybody, this is Joshua Heston.
And I'm Lisa Martin.
And this is the Dark Ozarks on the Branson Podcast Network.
We're an exploration of everything that's dark in history, mysteries, the paranormal,
and everything else.
We explore the noir, the unknown, cryptozoology, UFOs, paranormal, and all the dark stuff that
happens in the Ozarks.
You can find Dark Ozarks on Branson Podcast Network, on Facebook under Dark Ozarks, as
well as our YouTube channel, Dark Ozarks.
We'll leave no stone unturned to bring you the dark history, mysteries, and legends of
the Ozarks.
Welcome to the Dark Ozarks.
We are diving into the mythos of the American West, starting with Texas and some of the
connections to the Ozarks.
Most historians say that the myth of the West starts at the Alamo.
What if we tell you that you have to go through the Ozarks to even get to the Alamo, much
less the West?
There's a lot more to cover than you may think.
We will get back to that in a minute.
But first, we want to remind you the Dark Ozarks podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or just about any other podcast platform.
So the Alamo, how do you get to the Alamo from the Ozarks?
There is an argument that short of events here in the Ozarks, there might never have
been an Alamo.
There might never have been an American-led colonization of Texas and consequently, the
revolution.
And of course, that's not even to mention the Texas cattle drives, another migration
during the Civil War, and a lot more.
And that's before we get to the dark stories of murder and grave robbing.
There are a lot of mostly forgotten facts behind the pop culture scenes and books and
movies, and many could see these facts as pretty dark.
I think that these facts often add depth of experience, both to American history and perhaps
even more importantly, the folklore of the American mythos.
We will discuss what came before the Alamo in a second and what you thought was the beginning
of the story of Texas that's a lot more complicated than just David Crockett and Jim Bowie at the
Alamo.
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Tell Bob and Elise that we sent you.
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Beard Engine Brewing is the only English-style brewery in Missouri and has been twice named
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They have great beer and great food in an historical building with a noir past and yes,
that building is also haunted.
Tell Nate and Tiff that we sent you.
So getting to the Alamo from the Ozarks, I think that one thing people start thinking
about the myth of Texas as well as the West in general and certain things come to mind.
First of all, cattle drives, for instance.
We've all heard the stories of the cattle drives from Texas up to Kansas and on up to
Omaha and St. Joseph, but that's not where they started.
It's not and the fact that there is an incredibly strong connection historically of driving
cattle north or driving cattle, in some cases west from the Ozarks, et cetera, is a connection
that is very easy to overlook.
It is and it really started in the early 1850s with the California Gold Rush.
Basically what happened was that fellows went out to California and started noticing that
cattle were in short supply in the mining fields.
Some came back to Arkansas and decided that they could make more money driving cattle
to California and selling them out in the mining fields rather than prospecting.
There was something to that because cattle were bringing $5 to $10 a head in Arkansas
at the time and you could sell them for $50 in California, which was a big chunk of money
at the time.
They would head out from Fort Smith.
This went on from the early 1850s and then the cattle drives from Texas didn't start
up until after the Civil War.
In some ways, Texas was the Johnny Kim lately.
There's a couple of things that really come to mind on this.
One of course that for me really stood out is that the Harrison area was actually one
of the areas that cattle was driven to California.
One of the often overlooked aspects of the Gold Rush is that much of the great wealth
that was to be had actually came in the form of selling necessities to the miners as opposed
to the precious metals that were being mined.
So just that simple reality of supply and demand is interesting in and of itself.
But then to think about the exceptionally daunting effort of driving cattle herds from
say Harrison, Arkansas to the Goldfields of California is a lot to consider.
The men who undertook that, I think it's important not to overlook just the amount of grit and
the amount of guts that it took to do that and then add on to it that in many cases these
were people who were doing it just in the hopes that they could have money to make it
through a couple of years.
Well, that's very, very true.
When you talk about being hard, they were driving cattle through Indian territory, through
unsettled territory.
There was a southern route and a northern route.
Even though it was used more, it was longer.
But in the end, it was an easier route for the cattle and it would go through Utah and
actually during one of those cattle drives from Arkansas led to the infamous massacre
in Utah of the Fancher party.
It's not clear whether the Fanchers knew that they were walking into hostilities because
basically the Mormons and their allies had just announced that they were not inviting
to other people coming through.
There's some circumstantial evidence that they might have been targeted because a prominent
Mormon had come back to Arkansas and been murdered just a few months earlier.
They probably didn't know about it, but word was along the line that a party from Arkansas
was coming through and that may have been part of the motive.
It actually led to, at that time, an international incident.
These cattle drives were inherently dangerous.
They were.
If memory serves, the Fancher party actually went through Beaver, Arkansas.
I think they may have.
I think they did.
It seems like I remember a side note.
Not that they were from Beaver, Arkansas, but they went through Beaver, Arkansas.
For people who are going, why are you talking about Beaver, Arkansas?
Where's that?
It's just north of Eureka Springs, the small Victorian resort city of Eureka Springs.
It is known for the Golden Gate Bridge of the Ozarks, which is a beautiful suspension
bridge actually built approximately mid-20th century, but it's a beautiful suspension bridge
that crosses the river there.
So the train is there as well.
So it's a very, very beautiful location, but it was a crossroads and crossing, or it has
been an important state way station on the old road for a very, very long time.
Some of the original buildings are still there.
That's really neat.
It's ironic how just more connections are made all the time as we go through these different
subjects.
Another aspect of the image of Texas is, of course, the cowboy boot.
Yes.
My favorite.
Which came to tell people it didn't come from Texas.
The cowboy boot, as we know it, did not come from Texas.
It came from Southeast Kansas, just on the edge of the Ozarks actually.
And actually, when we think of cow drives from Texas, even when you get to the point
of cow drives from Texas, you think of Abilene, et cetera, but Abilene was not the first cow
town.
It was Baster Springs, Kansas, which is in the Ozarks.
Yes, it is.
With some really, really fascinating Civil War history as well, Baster Springs, and an
immediate pre-Civil War history in terms of bleeding Kansas.
Exactly.
And not too far from there is Coffeeville, Kansas, which has its own interesting history,
but it was also pretty much the second cow town.
And also right after the Civil War, they were pumping oil with oil rids in the streets.
And lots of cowboys coming through.
It was a rail hub.
And so the cowboys that did come up from Texas started getting customized boots.
And basically, what we think of as a cowboy boot today is actually called the Coffeeville
boot.
Interesting.
That was basically designed initially by John Kubine in his boot shop in Coffeeville, Kansas.
I'm eternally grateful.
Cowboy boots are my footwear of choice in almost all situations, not in the gym, but
pretty much everywhere else.
And I can vouch for that.
Yes, yes, I know you can.
Recent investigation that I did receive a very helpful reminder text.
This is not trained to be wearing cowboy boots.
I do try to take care of you.
I know you do.
And I appreciate that.
And you are absolutely correct.
It would not have been good terrain for cowboy boots.
No, it would not have been fun.
At least not unless I was on a horse.
That's true.
But we weren't.
We were not.
But that's a good example of how the image of Texas was not necessarily born in Texas.
And I think something that is important is that many individuals who over, particularly
over the 19th century, helped to create the culture of Texas and in some cases the mythos
of Texas were closely tied with the Ozarks.
Yes, very much so.
Including the grandfather of Texas.
Yes.
And Mr. Moses Austin.
And I find Moses to be an extraordinarily interesting individual.
One that in all fairness, history has for the most part overlooked.
Really?
I have to say the same and no slight to a sense.
Even who is known as the father of Texas, but just as far as everything he did and went
through, Moses is a very intriguing individual.
He really is.
And very contributive to early Missouri history.
And an individual who really went up against enormous odds to accomplish what he did.
And was just an interesting and very human character.
And I think one of the things I like about the Moses Austin story is that much of his
experiences and his exploits have not been either colored or discolored by American myth
or folkloric embellishment.
Because he has been largely overlooked.
We're going to be discussing some characters who were very much impacted posthumously and
sometimes not so posthumously by their press.
Moses did not, Moses Austin did not undergo that experience.
But things that he did were right up there.
And something that was very, I feel like, and I'm just curious to see your thoughts on
this, but many of these characters that we're going to be dealing with, we'll start with
Moses Austin.
In case you're wondering, his son Stephen Austin is for whom Austin, Texas is named
after.
So give the idea, give people the idea of the enormity really of impact in terms of
American culture and history.
But that in many ways the efforts of settlement, we'll use Moses as a primary example, the
efforts of settlement of entrepreneurship that we associate with civilian life, we associate
with peacetime, we associate with just going about your day to day and doing business.
The level of endeavor that these men were undertaking was far beyond just doing business
or just making money.
Their lives, they were putting their lives on the line.
They were putting the lives of their families on the line.
In many ways, it resembles a military campaign.
I think that's a good analogy.
It really is.
Our ability to look at the, like our way that we think of business or doing business or
expanding a business is so far removed from the efforts that it's difficult for us to
really wrap our heads around just what these men actually accomplished.
That's true.
For one thing, it would be impossible to do a lot of these things today because it would
be viewed as unethical business practices or monopolies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Take that for what you will, good, bad, indifferent.
There's good and bad in everything, as they say.
One thing I like about Moses' story is there are people further back in the family tree
that also were influential, but he did not start out with a lot of money.
Some of these characters that we talk about were wealthy to start with.
He really wasn't.
Started out in the dry goods business with his brother in Philadelphia, but then went
into mining in Pennsylvania in the 1700s.
There is some key strategy that it is clear that Moses Austin employed.
There's a decent indication that some of that strategy was his marriage initially.
Yes.
He married Maria Brown on September 28th, 1785, and her parents were wealthy and were
in mining at that time.
It's certainly suggested that that gave the brothers, Moses Austin and his brother, important
to note, he named his son after his brother, so there's two Stevens.
Brother Steven.
The impetus.
That point.
Again, take it for what anybody will, but there is a very exciting American dream quality
to this idea that you start out working a dry goods store in Philadelphia, then you
transition to a dry goods store in a branch office, if you will, in Richmond, and then
go and get married, go into mining, and then go into mining.
In a comparatively short amount of time, you're contracting a league of land with the Spanish
government in what would become the Upper Louisiana Territory, modern day Missouri.
Yes.
And getting attacked by the U.S. sage.
When you think about it, a pretty bold action on this part to seek it and obtain it.
So basically came to Missouri to area of Bretton mine, which he promptly renamed as Potosi,
in homage to the mining center in Bolivia, I think.
Isn't it Bolivia?
Yes.
And, you know, and I also think that it's, you know, some notable points.
Moses was originally from Durham, Connecticut, and his father was, among other things, a
tavern owner and a tailor, a small town businessman.
And something that is noted in a number of historical accounts is that Moses didn't get
a lot of schooling, but he fell in love with reading.
And it is very easy to think of American settlers, American colonists, the colonies, et cetera,
as being old-timey, old-fashioned, backwards, so on and so forth.
In so many cases, that was not the case.
These were, it was a young nation.
It was being expanded by very young, very ambitious men.
And in so many cases, they were extraordinarily literate and surprisingly well-versed on what
was going on around the world.
Yes.
And he certainly was.
And basically, you know, jump-started the mining industry in the Ozarks single-handedly.
He did.
Something that it's easy to look at, particularly in the Austin family, a number of financial
setbacks took place throughout their history.
And it is easy to dismiss those setbacks.
But I think it also speaks to the, if you look at it from almost a military lens, that,
and I suspect they largely were approaching these projects similarly, that this was a
war, this was a fight.
They were going to, and they were going against great odds.
There were a number of reasons why any of these endeavors could potentially fail.
Yes.
But they kept going.
And I think, of course, that's the key is that several times things happen that you
would think, okay, most people would have just given up at that point.
They would.
As a testament to sort of this overarching ambition, the Austen's did seem to have a
penchant for naming places after themselves.
That's true.
And their mining town slash colony, so to speak, in Wythe County, Virginia was named
Austinville.
They were actually contracted to provide the materials for the Virginia State Capitol Building,
which was designed by Thomas Jefferson.
And their project failed.
And the larger mining project of Austinville largely failed with it, led to a falling out
between Moses and his brother Stephen and precipitated Moses' transition through to
Missouri, wasn't Missouri then, but to start this mining operation slash land grant under
the King of Spain by my way of an incredibly arduous journey through Kentucky, mostly in
several feet of snow.
Yes.
A pill both ways.
Yes.
And that there's a very interesting and it should also be noted that, well, not to get
too far ahead of ourselves, but his son Stephen seemed to be a bit more pragmatic and definitely
more diplomatic than Moses.
Moses was renowned for his temper and his fiery responses that were not always thought
through, which were noted in letters with his wife, among others.
And he managed, it's funny because I really get the feeling that Stephen, based on some
of his son's writings, it is pretty evident that his son held his father in enormous regard.
Yeah.
And I believe in great love, but I think that growing up around Moses, that it's pretty
evident that Stephen learned how to do diplomacy by watching his father and not doing that.
Right.
I mean, Stephen credit, I think he was able to look at a situation and say, love my dad,
love what he's doing.
Here's what it could have done differently that might have worked better and take a note.
And not a lot of people can do that.
So, I mean, that says a lot for Stephen.
But coming through after the war of 1812, economy started changing and it brought on
problems again, as the economy was weakening and there was a dip in demand for lead during
that time, Moses and Stephen decided to get into finance and they founded the Bank of
St. Louis.
Yes.
Which had a couple of consequences.
One was that it actually helped solidify St. Louis as a major commercial financial center,
particularly on the Mississippi, which really has had a lot to do in the last 200 years
with it continuing to be a major city.
The other is that unfortunately in the economic panic of 1819, which was basically the first
Great Depression that America endured, that they lost most of their money again.
Yes.
But I find it ironic though that part of the problem or part of the cause of the panic
of 1819 was land speculation out west, here out west, and the fact that the government
was selling land to farmers on credit.
Yes.
And then after the war, as the economy slowed down, they couldn't pay those notes and that's
partly what fueled it, it's kind of ironic because Moses through his life makes these
schemes or these ventures based on land speculation.
Yes.
Yes, it is.
Vicious dog chasing his tail in a larger sense in that regard.
There was something that a couple of, for me just an interesting side note in terms
of history, Moses Austin to a degree took Schoolcraft, the mineralogist and journaler
of the Ozarks, to a degree under his wing and seems to have become a very close colleague
in the sense that he wrote a number of key letters to Schoolcraft at various times, in
some cases giving him direction, but in other cases really opening up his heart in terms
of his despair, his lowest moments, and this was during that, particularly during that
post-1819 panic.
And perhaps a little really, it's a bit sad because we're also looking at this documentation
not very long before Moses would die.
Very true, very true.
Because he died in 1821, I believe.
And it was, he really expended everything in his, really I think in his existence.
It's reading the account and reading some of his letters, it really speaks to me in
unique ways when you realize how much of a toll these projects had taken on him.
Yeah, and I think that's one thing that sometimes we don't think about.
It's easy, you see it I think you say in the faces of a president as they age very quickly
in office, and certainly Abraham Lincoln is a good example of that, but a lot of these
figures just went through a lot of stress and agony going through everything they did,
and it's easy to forget.
And what they did in going through that actually benefited the entire area.
It did, because it's, and again, these exploits, these expansions have to be understood within
context because it's very easy to look at various aspects, a contextually, and deride
these individuals for a variety of contemporary reasons.
Oh yeah.
But at the same time, in many cases, were it not for the work of these folks, we're
enjoying the infrastructure that they created.
Very much so, and this is certainly an example because while he's at this low point and
really taking a toll on his health and his mental outlook, he endeavored for another
large venture which was the coup de grace.
It was, it was.
And in what is again, to me, quite frankly, emotional, an endeavor.
Moses Austin's greatest success was something that he ultimately would give his life to
and never see it occur.
Exactly.
He never got to make that final trip or see what happened.
And that was to get another land grant from the Spanish.
And his work, of course, the Louisiana territory had been shifting back and forth underneath
French and Spanish rule.
In the meantime, Mexico was fomenting rebellion and independence.
But before that, something that had happened, and it's important to understand that Moses
Austin had really had subtle roots and become a Missourian.
Although Missouri wasn't actually a state yet, but in terms of the location, because
he had been in present day Missouri, having founded Potosi, was at this point largely
handed a lot of the management of the lead mines over to his son, Stephen.
In theory, had it not been for the economic panic of 1819, could have been enjoying his
retirement at this point.
The economic panic was wiped out.
Their finances made it impossible for him to do that.
And at one point, there's even an account a bit earlier that his wife Maria, who never,
it seems, ever really adapted to life on the frontier, had returned to Philadelphia, temporarily
taking the kids with her to ostensibly enroll them in school back east so they could get
a proper education.
And she finds herself stranded for something to the tune of two years because they don't
have enough money for her to afford transit back home.
Right.
Yes.
So, you know, there were many ups and downs.
And then Moses makes the, probably the mistake of writing, letting her know that there had
been a poisoning assassination attempt on his wife at Durham Hall while all this is
going on.
And meanwhile, the aristocratic, quote unquote, friends back home in Philadelphia have no
idea that they're out of money.
Yes.
Or, or to mention it that, you know, at various times that he was under attack by those sage
Indians.
Yeah.
He had to defend the mines.
It of course the the opening of the of the Potosi led mines was indirect affront to the
U.S. age.
Well it was and then most of the residents of the area were French, and they declined
to come to his aid.
Yes, a fact that Moses Austin did not forget.
No, no, he, Moses did have a long memory at St. James.
Which I can't blame him.
But there's also some pretty strong indicators that his incredibly strong personality did
not necessarily make diplomacy with a number of these people easy.
Yes.
I think he was viewed by some of the settlers as a, you know, upstart, you know, who had
just arrived and they've been there at this point for, you know, 100, 150 years.
So a certain amount of, you know, looking at looking at some of this potentially as
a liability rather than a benefit.
And it's believed that he actually borrowed a cannon or obtained a cannon from the Spanish
in order to to respond to the threat of approximately 30 Osage warriors.
Yes, sad to me there there are 19th century photos of Durham Hall.
And it is admittedly magnificent and very unique, architecturally unique structure.
Yes, an outbuilding apparently does still remain.
The Durham Hall itself is no more.
That makes me sad because it looks like an incredible building.
It does.
It looks like it was a fantastic building.
But kind of larger than life like its owner, I think.
I would agree.
And then coming to this this final, final endeavor is that Austin travels and travel
is such an interesting word.
I mean, we're we're at this point.
He's in his early 50s considering what he's gone through, the sort of the state of the
rate that individuals during that era aged.
He is in essence an elderly man.
Yes.
And taking on the you know, the equivalent of essentially hiking in many cases from the
essentially from St. Louis to San Antonio.
Yes.
With the intent of hiking all the way down and all the way back through a variety of
conditions in order to plead his case and obtain a land grant.
And the the process was fraught with difficulty.
Had he not run into actually a Dutch diplomat by the name of Baron Bas de Bastrop.
He would have been turned down.
Yes.
But they had dealings in the past, if I recall correctly.
Yes, yes.
They were their business associates.
He was in New Orleans.
And I also found this very interesting because, you know, despite the the economic issues
that of course that Moses Austin, his contemporaries went through, they were high rollers.
You know, they were they were they were big time capitalists of early of the early United
States.
And, you know, they they had a lot of business dealings in New Orleans.
And just just interesting because I think we have a very narrow view of the population
from the early days of the United States.
It's easy to it's easy to do that.
And, you know, just to, you know, unconsciously create certain stereotypes.
Simple farmers hewing out the wilderness, hoping that they could possibly have a log
cabin, those sorts of things.
And those stories are real.
But you know, these individuals who are extremely well traveled have contacts, but considerable
distance, et cetera, and have the ambition that you're going to hike from St. Louis to
San Antonio with the intent of getting a land grant from Spain.
Maybe.
Yes.
I really going over Moses's life, I just I keep coming getting this feeling that once
he said his his sights on an endeavor, he really didn't think that it wasn't going to
happen.
I well, I think you he had he had to take that view in order to have done these things.
These were not, you know, modest or conservative steps that he took.
And so if you doubted it, you know, you would have shot yourself in the foot.
Yes.
And but by the same token, I imagine even if we don't have it letters that he had a plan
B, if that didn't work, you know.
And this is also on the heels of the long expedition, which was basically an unauthorized
military campaign into Spanish territory.
True.
So there was a considerable amount of suspicion when he reaches San Antonio.
Right.
With good cause.
Very, very much so.
The the his ultimately thanks to Bastrop.
He is successful or believes himself to be strongly successful.
Begin making plans to settle 300 families in Texas with his land grant and then returns
home via the old Spanish military road, which in essence was San Antonio to Nogadoshis and
then from Nogadoshis to Natchitoches, Louisiana, and then on up right into the Ozarks and across
the Ozarks and to present day St. Louis.
It was done during the winter.
Heavy rains, very cold.
At one point, one of his traveling companion, he becomes aware that one of his traveling
companions is stealing livestock.
In the process of this, this this man basically robs them and leaves them to die in the wilderness.
And despite that, despite the fact that you have an elderly man in poor health in the
winter swimming rivers to get home in the hope that all of this is going to come about,
he does arrive home.
He makes it back to Hazel Run, which is essentially the this home of his daughter.
And he has pneumonia.
Yeah.
I mean, really, if you recount that, you would think you were talking about David Crockett
or Jim Bowie.
Yes, these these and there's a to me, there's a lasting sadness, a sense of melancholy within
this expansive ambition.
It's it's 1820.
It becomes 1821.
He's coming back in winter of 1821.
And in the in the process, something and something that he becomes aware of as he's attempting
to recover at Hazel Run is that he's not going to.
He knows that he's dying.
Yeah.
And that's, you know, that's, you know, so close, but yet so far away to his goal.
Yes.
And I can't help but think how much he would have wanted to resist that because it is clearly
evident that he wanted to make this happen.
Well, he lingered about six months.
So I think that's, you know, an indication of how much he resisted.
Yes.
And when it when it finally becomes evident in it and we know this because of his letters,
he pens a letter to his son who is actually and at this point, they are largely financially
destitute to panic.
Everything is writing on this land grant with the possibility of this land grant.
His son pretty at one point earlier before the trip to Texas, Moses was arrested for
failing to pay his debts, which I think is something that we often overlook about this
this era in American history, that debtors prison was a real thing.
It was.
And I can speak to that being an attorney.
Ironically, people fear that now often will come to court in a suit where they're being
sued for money and be afraid they're going to jail.
And we haven't had debtors prisons for a very long time.
But in 1820, we did.
Yes.
And it's something that in the historical note that the in in many cases appears to
have been driving, particularly the poorer classes of Americans into new territory with
an attempt to either escape debt or the hope that this new endeavor would somehow give
them enough money to pay off debt.
Yes.
You know, I think.
It is quite a motivator in all ages, but in in that time, it motivated Westward expansion
in many cases.
It's in that.
At this point, the all of the equipment, the lead mine, the Patossian lead mines, etc. had
been sold off to cover debts.
Another thing that is interesting, we're like, well, why, why, why they borrowed so much
money or why have they taken on so much credit?
Money was not necessarily readily available or even existent and much of in the new expansion.
And so going into debt or obtaining credit on a large scale, in many cases, the only
way that they could do these projects.
Very true.
I mean, that's I mean, it's very true.
And you were.
You know, you were still a territory here.
This is in the infancy of the national banking system.
Yes, you often had currency issued by various state banks.
And this is also.
During the time that I think the first US bank had had been dissolved and they hadn't
quite started the second one, which then Andrew Jackson.
Bought against again.
And Jackson has a lot of connections to a lot of the people involved in this story from
those arts to the Alamo, ironically.
And so.
The entire financial system of the time is a lot different than what we're used to.
Yes, it is.
And by this point, son, Stephen had traveled to New Orleans to begin the process of becoming
a practicing lawyer.
And Austin, Moses Austin, and on his deathbed, writes to his son.
Making his official last request that Stephen dedicate his life to, quote, prosecuting the
enterprise he has commenced.
Yes.
And Stephen was not necessarily enthusiastic about doing so.
No, it's it's pretty evident initially.
And and I think that.
And probably for the betterment of the Texas Revolution.
That Stephen does not seem Stephen Austin does not seem to have the fiery bombastic
over the top personality of his father.
Right.
And it's it's pretty evident that because of that.
Stephen was able to navigate Mexican politics and Anglo Texan relations in ways that it's
it's pretty evident that if Moses had lived and decided to take that on.
He probably would have been a revolution unto himself.
The revolution was started sooner.
And it would have just been Moses, you know, pushing a cannon.
And it's anybody's guess at whom it would have been aimed.
There there.
So as it happens, you know, he passes right about the time that Missouri became a became
a state.
Yes, yes.
But then, you know, sadly, that that is not the end of Moses's story.
No, no, it is not.
Texas came back to haunt him in a way.
In a rather literal way.
Moses Austin was initially interred at Hazel Run, his his his daughter's estate.
He was later the the remains were were later moved to the old Presbyterian cemetery in
Patosi, where spoiler alert, they still remain.
Well, despite the best efforts of Texas.
Yes, or certainly.
So some individuals associated with the with the state cemetery of Texas, which the state
cemetery of Texas was founded in 1851 as the the the the burying ground for notable Texans.
And it's interesting in this aspect because there seems to have been a point of pride
after the establishment of the cemetery to begin working hard to collect those notable
Texans rather than simply receive them as they passed.
Yes.
Whether their family agreed to it or not.
Or in some cases, simply waiting out the next of kin.
If if the next of kin did not consent and having their their family members remains
dug up and moved to to the Texas state state cemetery.
So what we what we have.
Is in in in essence, a local businessman by the name of Lewis Camp, who began leading
the effort to collect notable personalities posthumously and one.
They can't complain.
And rather, you know, bear in mind, this is the early 20th century at this point.
The camp was Kimphead was was ambitious because he ultimately had about 70 graves, 70 notable
dead dug up and moved to the Texas State Cemetery.
One that was on his list to be collected was Moses Austin in who was lying at rest in Potosi,
Missouri.
And as the story seems to be pretty verified, individuals on a reminds me of the Blues Brothers
on a mission from God.
Have nearly the same thing and have arrived, according to one record on the on the morning
of April 21st, 1938, in the cemetery in Potosi to pick up Moses and take him to his new home.
But nobody bothered to.
Check with Potosi as to how they felt about this.
Yeah.
So literally, you know, someone comes across three men with crowbars shipping away.
His grave at his vault.
Yes.
The the the individual overseeing the work was apparently Thorlow B. Weed, an undertaker
from Texas, who claimed to be on official business, which was not technically untrue.
Right.
Just whether or not it was valid, you know, as far as the state of Missouri goes.
And I think that to me, it's very interesting.
Chris, this is 1938.
This is we're we're well within the quote unquote modern age at this point.
But we're really seeing this is only one year before World War, beginning of World War Two.
We're really seeing some of these intense state rivalries and, you know, states existing
as sovereign nations sort of and with with the appropriate state pride, something that
I do find fascinating, I have a lot of respect for is it.
Whereas much of the rest of the of the nation, especially after following the Civil War,
was in some cases quickly and in some cases very slowly adapted to the idea that our patriotism
and our allegiance is to the nation, not to our state.
And I can say having grown up in a clearly Yankee state, you can you can have an appreciation
for being from Illinois, but beyond that, it's just kind of a existent place within
the nation that Texas has obviously resisted.
Well, as as as the myth of Texas tells you, they have.
Yes.
And it's just and as we as we continue, as we get into some of these other characters
who are of crucial importance to not only the Ozarks, Missouri, Arkansas, both, and
then also Texas.
There is, of course, great folkloric momentum that is built around these personalities,
but digging into their their actual exploits, their real personalities, you can see why
their lives became fodder for the mythos.
That's true.
Have a bigger than life personality lends itself to the mythos and pop culture.
But suffice it to say that the Texas invaders were repelled.
Yes, not once, but twice.
And no, no grave robbing occurred.
No successful grave robbing occurred.
And Moses Austin not only remains at rest, but now encased in cement.
Yes.
But I find it interesting not only not only camp and the undertaker went through this,
but then the governor of Texas interceded trying to bluff.
Basically bluff is what they had to turn over the body.
Yes.
And there were lawsuits over it and he did not prevail.
And that's when they encased the cement.
So rather tongue in cheek, Potosi has someone I've read that they joke that Potosi is the
one city that has repelled attack from the state of Texas.
I think that's I think that's reasonable.
I really do.
And interestingly enough, all over an individual that the American mythos completely overlooked.
Ironically, yes.
Texas wanted to change that apparently.
But at that point, at the point of Moses's death, the story really shifts to Stephen
who had spent the bulk of his life as a technically as a Missourian.
Yes.
And including a stint as an elected lawmaker.
As well as having worked hard with his father to obtain the charter process for the Bank
of St. Louis.
Yes.
And then basically, you know, and then he had pivoted, like you said, to go to New Orleans
to practice law in the aftermath of the economic panic and pivots to then recruit 300 families.
And they leave from south, you know, southern Missouri.
One of the departure points was West Plains.
And ultimately, before it was all over with, he had a colony of over 900 families.
Yes.
And dealing with massive tracts of land.
Yes.
Just enormous amounts of land.
And he was basically the Empress area.
He was the emperor basically of this area.
Yes.
And his father would have loved the title, I think.
I think so.
I really I can see in Presario Moses Austin having a very nice ring to it for Moses.
And from a San Antonio region plantation.
And the majority of those families, the original 300, the old 300, which is a key and crucial
part of the reality of making Texas, were from southern states.
The latitude, the land, the etc.
Ultimately, and to a large degree under Stephen Austin's guidance, became plantations and
farms.
It was an agrarian society.
And you guys know where I'm going with this.
It was an economy that was dependent upon slavery as well during that time.
Stephen Austin had an uneasy relationship with slavery, it appears, from his writings
that he hoped for its abolition in time.
Yes.
Which might have surprised a lot of Texans.
And we see something very similar.
We'll get to him in a moment, but we definitely see something similar with Sam Houston.
Yes.
And that, you know, this is a difficult subject, no matter what way you attempt to look at
it.
But a great deal of individuals were forced to view these types of issues from a pragmatic
and economic standpoint, while at the same time, they were ethically opposed.
Yes.
You know, and it's always easy to condemn from the distance of time.
And one always hopes that, you know, you would make choices that are in line with how you
feel today.
And that's hard when you look at history, because you were dealing with a different
time period.
Does it make it any more right?
No, no, it does not.
But it does help to, it is crucially important to understand these situations from within
the context of the decade or the era or the time.
And contextualize that process across the board.
Now, Austin proved to be extremely diplomatic in terms of interacting with Mexican government,
up to a point.
Until he was arrested.
And I think it's ironic from everything in regards to his writings, to his actions leading
up to this point right before the revolution in the mid 1830s, that Stephen Austin did
everything within his power to moderate the Anglo Texans to prevent revolution and that
his goal was to see a successful colony of Americans, a colony of former US citizens
existing successfully under Mexican rule in the present day Texas.
And that it's clear even to the point that many of the Texas settlers were angry at Stephen
Austin for his diplomacy, for his insistence on peace, on negotiation, on working with
the Mexican government rather than going to war against them.
All the way up until he is arrested and held for a considerable amount of time without
trial.
And I just, I'm curious as to the individuals who made the diplomatic misstep of arresting
probably the one guy who could have prevented revolution in this case.
Well, you know, hindsight is 2020.
And ironically they arrested because they were afraid that he was planning a revolution
and the activist was trying to avoid it ironically.
And so yeah, they were crossed wires somewhere that led to all of that.
I guess a nice bit of trivia too when we're talking about the Texas myth is that Stephen
Austin himself actually did pretty much establish what became the Texas Rangers.
Yes, he did.
And that was in 1823, a command of quote, Rangers for the common defense of the colony.
And there's an unbroken line between that establishment and then the Texas Rangers themselves.
So definitely a large slice of Texas myth there in pop culture.
Very much so.
And of course the work of the Rangers would heavily extend into just the realities of
the old west, the realities of the of the western mythos, but then the realities of
things like Indian territory, which would later become Oklahoma.
Indian territory.
Really onward.
I mean, it was the Texas Rangers that took out Bonnie and Clyde.
Yes.
So yeah, it's.
But again, his ultimate faith is very similar to his father.
He, you know, he lives through the revolution, just long enough to know that they're independent.
He survived three months beyond the Alamo.
And basically on his deathbed of pneumonia.
Yes.
At his sister's.
Yes.
The same sister is, I think it's the same sister, is it?
It is quite likely.
That that their father died at her home, but I think she had gone to Texas and and, you
know, on his deathbed, you know, basically makes a statement that, you know, you know,
these Texas is now independent.
Yes.
And so and along with that, the these quotes, I think something that can be said for.
You know, it's is easy, particularly from the overarching and exploitive branding, so
to speak, of manifest destiny.
It's easy to paint.
This portion of American history with with very broad brushstrokes, but.
Something that we see with Moses, something that we see with Stephen is even by their
own letters.
A.
Perhaps even you would normally say an almost religious zeal, but I would say a.
A beyond religious zeal.
That they seem to have been compelled.
To create these things.
Driven is.
Driven is a mild word for it.
It just was going to be so to speak.
Just this this sheer force of will that proved indomitable, but also ultimately destroyed
them physically.
Physically, yes.
And in in such similar ways, it's real eerie.
Yes.
For father.
Yes.
1821 and 1836.
Well, I think that's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
very specific, pu menstrual cycle.
What is that up to, which is
13 add a six?
Well, even there was only in his I think mid 40s when he passed, correct.
He had suffered from malaria and his his long stand in the Mexican prison system had
not helped.
I do too. I believe that as well. And then I guess that brings us to Sam Houston.
I love the history of Sam Houston.
Yes.
I really, really do. What I'll throw out a couple of things that to me were huge standouts about Sam and I think really created this larger than life.
persona that that I think is very warranted. And the first now, we're going to deal with a couple of big characters here Sam Houston day one, Davy Crockett being another that really, I think, embody the, the teenage ideals of so many young men.
They basically want to run off and do their own thing.
Well, that's very true.
And, and that they did.
Yes, yes.
Definitely.
At 16 he ran away.
And not, not, not held her a sculptor ran away.
Sam essentially went and joined the Cherokee.
He did with Chief John Jolly.
And it's very interesting because he seemed to have a very genuine love of the Cherokee people and understanding of them, which comes into play with some of the things in his life.
And, but by the same token, you know, he, he did that, and then he went, he went home although he never lived with his family again and taught school for a year.
Just all kinds of things like this are very interesting and served in the War of 1812 under Thomas Hart Benton.
Yeah, yes, I saw that.
Just a little connection to the Ozarks.
I know, and, and we'll get to this but Sam's brother developed a very strong connection with the Ozarks.
Yes. And certainly as his brother has a little darker side in, you know, to, to his story, at least one chapter that I found interesting.
I guess we could throw that out. It's interesting.
Sam Houston.
Ultimately, as an adult had very little to do with this family.
Correct.
His parents, his siblings, including his brother john they they had dealings, but later on felt kind of fell out and Sam felt like his family would use him.
Right.
But he was very interested in caring for his nieces and nephews ironically.
And,
again, just coming back to something that you've already noted but his association with the Cherokee is essentially becoming as much as someone someone of Scott's Irish descent can become Cherokee, he did.
Yeah.
And, you know, it played a role throughout his life really, you know, after the, after the War of 1812.
He became a sub Indian agent under Andrew Jackson.
And he actually helped resettle Indians into Arkansas.
And actually then he had a falling out with Jackson.
Because the government didn't provide supplies for the relocation as promised, and so
that that soured him and on Jackson.
It did. Now, is something that, you know, serving, he did serve in the, in the Creek Indian War.
And that really speaks to.
If you're unfamiliar with the diplomatic or lack of diplomatic ties that existed at that time.
Essentially going, becoming Cherokee, and serving in the US Army against the creeks made sense, because long standing hostility between the Cherokee and the creek tribes.
Right.
Although some people might find that confusing, but at the time that would have made sense. What it would have absolutely made sense. And
then,
you know these, he was elected to the sixth governor of Tennessee was later elected as the seventh governor of Texas.
He was quite comparatively quite young, comparatively speaking, when he became sixth governor of Tennessee, and I believe he resigned his governorship. After his very short lived marriage collapse.
I believe I believe that's when that happened. Yes.
And that it that it that his is very short. First marriage was a great social and political embarrassment to him.
And it wasn't, you know, comparatively much longer that that Houston then leaves Tennessee, and goes to Arkansas, and is simply following his Cherokee family.
Yes, yeah.
And
and is ultimately joined by his brother john. Yes.
Now, interestingly, john had an interesting story on the way to Arkansas, because he was in Tennessee, married with four children and he had an interesting twist on the old. We left for cigarettes never came back.
He faced his death.
He faces death by drowning, no less than the Mississippi at Memphis. Yeah.
What was buried in a pauper's grave and now I'm not sure if anyone was buried in that if someone was buried in that grave I wonder who it was that.
Right.
In Norfolk, Arkansas.
Without wife or children.
Correct.
And then, obviously this type of thing happened today, even now but certainly at this era in American history.
It was a lot easier to disappear and reinvent yourself.
It was, it was.
And, and we see that happening.
Comparatively regularly.
It we do it we do in this series.
This is one of the more dramatic ways of doing it, I have to admit. I agree. I agree. And it's, of course, ultimately, Sam Houston's associations with the Cherokee and their transition to Arkansas and then in the Indian Territory modern day Oklahoma
is what puts him into proximity with Texas.
Yes, yes.
And then as they kind of say that the rest of his history.
It's an end.
You know these individuals.
Again something that I found very fascinating that the crossover between
between dry goods and military service.
The crossover between what to us looks like very perhaps mundane, even just everyday business type of life.
And then a rapid pivots into things like military service, combat, and then rapid pivots into for example, law, or, or politics and in the case, the early years of the nation, oftentimes, very high level politics.
Yes, yes.
And, you know, some people talk about social mobility being limited more limited now and in some senses it is, I think, in part just because of the larger amount of population, but
the sort of accommodative nominators you had that before is this force of nature personality.
I think that that, and I think that in perhaps having, we can assume that many of these individuals grew up with, with stories with family histories, even with perhaps in a certain ancestral memory is simply an unknowing that their
family backgrounds from from whence they had come in Europe.
That no matter how much ambition you had. It wasn't going to move you out of the feudalist system, or it wasn't going to transition you from a commoner to an aristocrat that that in the in those previous eras, it simply wouldn't have been an option.
That I mean that's true and I think I think that that sense, you know, certainly seems to have lingered for a number of generations and these in some of these families.
That sense of urgency.
It does it that sense of urgency is it is an excellent turn of phrase for the intensity that that these men pursued destiny.
That they pursued the idea that they there really was a sense they were, they were creating something grand.
And they, and they did.
Yes, and I, you know, turning back the page for a moment.
Someone who's larger than life personality who's peripheral to this story but keeps popping up and various aspects is Andy Jackson. And yeah, you know, huge, you know, get much bigger personality.
No, no, and you and you walk in the four year at the, at the hermitage and the first thing that you are met with is the, the entire telling of Telemachus, the the the Odyssey of Telemachus the story of Telemachus from from Greek lit myth in the French
imported wallpaper that is floor to ceiling, and no two panels are alike.
Just a bit of a statement.
They were often well versed in Greek in classical literature of Greece, they were familiar with the ideas they were following these ideals of great her herism and grandeur in what they were doing.
I still think that he had to play some of that just for effect.
Well, he did that's what got him elected and certainly was not the only president to ever have done that so.
There's a little bit of hope in the back of my mind I know it's not possible, but that that somewhere in the, the, the open entertaining quarters of the, of the White House there's still a little bit of Andy Jackson's inaugural 1000 pound wheel of cheese
that somehow is
stuck under a floorboard somewhere.
Well, perhaps until it, perhaps until they basically get it.
And it really did it in the Truman administration.
Maybe they scraped it off.
It's a, it's a hope. It's speaking of mythos, and is that's that's my mythos.
Andy Jackson, Andy Jackson's cheese is still part of anyway.
I've seen 1000 pound block of cheese it's impressive.
But speaking of Andy Jackson, and the net the next character in this march from the Ozarks to Texas is David Crockett, who certainly had his ins and outs with Jackson.
Yes he did.
Strong ties of course to Texas but also strong ties
to Arkansas.
Yes, of course he was, you know,
he was from Tennessee and Kentucky basically spent time in Louisiana as well. Actually there's a story that he relates ironically of encountering a wild man or Sasquatch around Shreveport.
That is interesting.
I think that is extremely interesting. And I love the sort of pre 1950s records of what we would today called cryptids.
Yes.
And of course he spent a lot of his life actually making a living bear hunting so my guess is, he probably knew it wasn't a bear.
I think that's very fair.
That's very fair indeed. There's a great quote from David Crockett, reportedly, that he was stated at a banquet a Little Rock banquet, in which he said, If I could rest anywhere it would be in Arkansas, where the men are of the real half horse half alligator
breed, such as grow nowhere else in the face of the universal earth, but just around the backbone of North America.
Boy, you almost thought he was talking about Texas there.
He was born in in 1786, and at the age of 13, he ran away from home and didn't come back for 30 months.
There's gumption.
It is. It is.
He enlisted as a volunteer in the Indian Wars from 1813 to 1815 and he saw action in Alabama and Florida.
And moved around quite a bit in Tennessee, with his family.
And what was initially quite close with, as you mentioned, Andy Jackson.
Yes, I actually
served under Jackson, he was also in the Creek Ward, as Houston was as well.
Yes.
You know, he was in Congress from Tennessee in the late 1820s, and
he fell out with Jackson, in part over the Indian issues.
But they bet it has done quite a few things, ironically, but the famous assassination attempt on Andrew Jackson, where it's at the Capitol, and man comes out and tries to shoot him and Jackson famously beats him with his cane.
And David Crockett actually was one of the couple of men who wrestled the man to the floor, saving Jackson as well so he was pinned down to the floor when that's been with the king, but, but even though they were political foes.
And David Crockett helped stop the assassination so right, and, you know, they knew each other. They're both from Tennessee.
Right. There's now the legend of Davy Crockett has gone through a number of iterations.
But it started.
Really, it appears to have started during Procket's political career.
He did, and, you know, and he was really made out to be a you know sort of this folksy backwoodsman which he really wasn't.
But he did wear the coons skin cap in Washington, fitting the bill, as you said, kind of just same way that Jackson did.
But, ironically, it hit his rise to full status kind of makes me think of wild Bill Hickok, and how he became the first legend of the old west because of Harper's Weekly.
And then in 1831 a play was written, the Lion of the West, which later on there's there's a book and I can't remember who wrote it, named the Lion of the West about Crockett, the play never names him specifically but most people watching it, thought it was him.
And he was savvy enough to, again, he had lots of ups and downs with money.
Right, as some of these other folks did.
And he saw opportunity with this play and then wrote a biography and may and actually helped his family out in that regard, although it was only a couple years before he died, but that happened.
And again, there's, there's this sense of,
oh, living big and living fast.
Yes. And, and that certainly kind of kind of fit David Crockett but he.
Ultimately, when you decide to go to Texas. He made his way from Tennessee via Arkansas.
And, you know, never places and was there for a while and, and, and as you mentioned, one of his speeches or one of his statements there about Arkansas.
Ironically, some of his family is his children and grandchildren stayed in Arkansas, and Crockett's bluff is actually named after his grandson.
Yes. And, and it's on the White River.
It is. Yeah, it's it's southeast of Little Rock, but it's on the White River.
And, and then you mentioned you know his, his methods has gone through different incarnations and this is another one that we have to really credit Disney with.
Oh my gosh yes.
I figured I'd let you talk about Disney.
I think that's very fair. Well, you know, that's Parker, all the way.
And Jed clamp it a much younger Jed clamp it.
Yeah.
But I think that is something that I think is important.
It is, it is easy to dismiss the stories because in so many cases from the late 1820s, all the way into the 1960s.
So many of these stories are historically inaccurate.
They are.
But said, I think that the, the myths surrounding the individual, or inspired by the individual resonated with a variety of generations.
I mean, 140 years worth of generations for real reasons.
I think that it embodied a number of important archetypes
and that that embodiment, while the myth might be fiction,
I think the resonation, the resonance of the story
was real, the idea of larger than life characters.
Oh, I agree.
And Crockett definitely was and was very outspoken.
Ironically, sort of the myth that he didn't write himself
in his autobiography came from the Alamo.
And ironically, he was only in Texas three months
before the Alamo.
So he really wasn't there that long.
And for those that aren't familiar,
really the reason that the Alamo happened
is basically a division of opinion
that a commander at the Alamo, the American commander,
didn't wanna listen to orders from Sam Houston.
Yeah, Sam Houston, and again,
I think this goes back to the military career.
He realized this isn't going to work.
He told him not to engage and to retreat
and they ignored orders.
Yes, yes.
And so of course the legend comes down through time,
perpetrated in part by Disney that David Crockett
and Jim Bowie die in basically a hail of bullets
taking out as many Mexicans as they can,
hold up in a little room.
And it doesn't appear that it really went that way,
particularly with Crockett,
although to be perfectly honest,
as far as a large personality and everything,
going out in the hail of bullets
in a suicidal mission is one thing.
But I think the account that we have
that's probably the most accurate in some ways
is more larger than life.
And that comes from, there's two actually.
There's one man that survived from the American side
who told his tale later.
And then the diary of one of the Spanish officers' wives,
and it came up for public auction in 1975.
That was the first time it was revealed.
And she was there, she was on site,
and she tells what happened.
And basically that at the end of the fighting,
the survivors, the American survivors are taken
to the Lieutenant of Santana's.
And that there's several of my,
there's like around 10 left, and Santana specifically
is looking for Davy Crockett because he is well-known,
sad truck.
And the account is that the officer, the Lieutenant,
inquires if one of them is Davy Crockett,
and that he says, I'm Crockett.
And he tells him to get on his knees
because they're going to execute them.
And that Crockett just refuses to kneel
and they shoot him.
Which to be perfectly honest,
I think that fits the larger than life personality
even better.
It does, it does.
And I think that there's an interesting point
of internal introspection and analysis
that these men who became myth in the American story
were men.
They had plenty of issues as is evidenced by everything.
In some cases, their trail of creditors
to unhappy family members,
misplaced spouses,
wide variety of issues.
I think that it's crucially important
to consider and accept the mythos
as its own weather system, so to speak,
as its own cultural weather system
that these things spoke to individuals
and perhaps even continue to speak to individuals
in powerful and important ways.
Yes.
That it's important that you have to look at the myth
separately from the men,
but it is, I think, very beneficial to see the myth
for the importance of it, not to just readily dismiss it.
Oh, that's not historically accurate.
We throw it away.
Exactly, exactly.
But as already noted,
as you've already noted very eloquently,
in so many cases, the real life accounts
surrounding, not just surrounding these men,
but what these men did are at times
more impactful than the folklore.
That's true.
And you're right too.
Both are important, I think,
in our larger narrative of our history.
Now, I guess, one of those big myths is Jim Bowie.
It is, it is, and his knife.
And his knife, which has a story
all its own tied to those arts.
That it does.
One that is continuing to this day,
which I find really, really quite beautiful,
especially from an artisanship standpoint,
that Jim Bowie, James Bowie,
was perhaps one of the most colorful
and perhaps less egalitarian characters
in comparison to a man like Stephen Austin or Sam Houston.
No, in a very real sense,
he would have spent in the Rogue Gallery.
Yes, in-
Despite his myth.
Yes, and probably lives above and beyond
the myths associated with him.
He was born in 1796 in Kentucky.
Of course, he died on March 6th, 1836
at the Alamo, spoiler alert.
But just his initial introduction,
American pioneer, slave smuggler, trader, and soldier.
Not to mention partners with the pirate Jean Lafitte.
Yes, I'm particularly interested.
Which of course is another connection to Andy Jatson.
Because Lafitte basically saved Jatson's bacon
in New Orleans.
Oh, New Orleans.
Yes, yes he did.
And again, we talk about that we see this
immediate six degrees of separation
in the old west of Missouri
around and immediately following the Civil War.
And we're going to talk about that
in the next four, in regards to the Texas Revolution
and things like from essentially the War of 1812
to the Texas Revolution, we see this all over again.
Oh look, everybody seems to know everybody.
Yes, there's a connection pretty much everywhere.
You know, now Jim Bowie's father was involved with a raid
into Texas in the early 1800s.
And then the father dies around 1820
and leaves slaves, horses and cattle
to James and his brother Resin.
And they're building an estate down in Louisiana.
And that's when they get into land speculation,
which gets them into Arkansas.
Yes, they start speculating land in Arkansas.
And as you mentioned earlier, finances being
what they were at the time and not always having money
to do these things, they were creative at getting credit.
And how they did that was partnering with Lafitte.
Correct, when in doubt, partner with a French pirate.
Exactly.
And so, and of course Lafitte has, you know,
sort of anti-hero folk status in Texas now,
particularly in the Galveston area.
And, you know, people are still trying to find
exactly where his hideout was on which island,
et cetera, and his supposed treasure that's buried.
Well, so Jim Bowie would go to Galveston,
make trips to Lafitte's compound
and where Lafitte was bringing in slaves.
And basically they would then take them to the custom house
where they would be sold and then they would buy them back.
And this is how they would get their money
and this is how they collected money.
And they say in the 1820s amounted to about $65,000
that they acquired to buy land.
And they did a lot of that in Arkansas,
but that didn't really go too well for them.
Right.
Because again, they were purchasing land from the Spanish.
Here we go again, another thing.
And then they were reselling it to people.
And so by the time you get into the later 1820s,
there were a lot of people who were figuring out
they can't prove they own the land.
And so finally, the federal government
had finally said the state courts could decide
these land claims that were in the Louisiana Purchase.
So there were over 120 claims that were filed against
Jim Bowie and his brother Rezin.
Let's see, 126 actually from people who had purchased land
of the former Spanish grants from the Bowie brothers.
And a lower court had initially confirmed most of the claims.
They were reversed in 1831 after further research showed
that the land had never belonged to the Bowies
and that the original documentation had been forged.
Yes.
And the US Supreme Court upheld the decision.
Yes.
It is a little bit ugly right there.
I will.
And then, but then, and maybe having associated with pirates
might've lent to all of this.
So when the purchasers decided that they would try
to sue the Bowies directly for re-accomplices,
they discovered that all of the court documents were missing.
Yes.
So they couldn't sue.
Right.
So, a chapter that often is overlooked in the myth.
It is, which I think is unfortunate
because it's fascinating.
I think there's certainly great cautionary tales in that,
but I think it also speaks to the just the wildness
of this frontier and the fact that to a certain degree
that it was creating this environment
that if you could get by with it, it went, it was gonna go.
Right.
And actually it's at that same time period in 1827
that Jim Bowie became famous as a knife fighter.
Right.
And by killing, he killed the sheriff.
Yes.
But not the deputy.
With a very special and suddenly very marketable knife style.
Style, yes.
And from all accounts, it appears that he was lucky
that he lived through it because the sheriff had run him through
with his sword through the chest.
Yes.
And shot him.
Yeah.
And this is 1827, the sandbar fight.
And from, if memory serves,
Bowie and the sheriff were actually essentially witnesses
to an existent duel.
That's my, I believe so.
I believe again on an unclaimed island slash sandbar
near Natchez in the Mississippi.
Right.
Well, that's true, that had happened,
but they had their own argument
because Bowie had supported the sheriff's opponent
in the election.
Who was a banker who then turned down
a loan application of Bowie.
Probably for land speculation.
Or I'm sure it was to repay the good folks in Arkansas.
But so they had an argument
and the sheriff fired a shot at Bowie.
And then that's when Bowie decided
to start carrying a knife.
And then they ended up attending a duel.
Bowie was, I guess, second to someone else, to Wells.
And Wright was a supporter of the opponent.
I love the fact that-
I ended up with a handshake.
The duelists, each fire shot,
both missed, both resolved their duel with a handshake.
And then a massacre takes place immediately following.
Yes.
They began fighting, Bowie was shot in the hip
and he drew a knife and charged his attacker
who hit him over the head with an empty pistol,
breaking the pistol, knocking Bowie to the ground.
Then the sheriff shot at Bowie and missed,
who returned fire and possibly hit the sheriff.
Then the sheriff-
Oh yeah, that's when he drew his sword and impaled Bowie.
And when he attempted to retreat,
Bowie was shot in the hip.
And when he attempted to retrieve his blade,
I think his foot on Bowie's chest and tagging,
pulled him down and disemboweled him with his knife.
Yes.
And we'll get into the importance of the knife shortly.
The newspapers picked up the story,
named it the Sandbar Fight,
described Bowie's fighting in detail.
And Bowie becomes considered the most dangerous man
pretty much anywhere around.
Right.
The most dangerous man in 1827.
And so then the story,
and we still call the Stile a knife, a Bowie knife.
And it's still contested exactly,
is it a separate knife than an Arkansas toothpick?
Yes.
And the suggestion is it is.
It is now anyway.
There are some that say that at that time period,
there wasn't much difference between them.
But who knows?
But the term Arkansas toothpick for the Stile a knife,
predates Bowie.
Then the question is, did Jim Bowie design it
or did the blacksmith, James Black,
who has a very interesting story.
Ironically, many of the Bowie family members
actually say it was his brother, Rezin,
who designed the knife.
Interesting.
But neither made it.
In fact, it said Rezin's grandchildren said
that Rezin only supervised his blacksmith,
who was the designer of the knife.
And that information I have doesn't specify
whether or not that would have been James Black.
But ostensibly, most people credit Black,
who has a pretty fascinating story himself.
He does.
There's one more footnote that I wanted to add to Bowie.
Sure.
Because we see him as this,
essentially, a historical record
shows him as a scoundrel, essentially, a rogue.
Yeah.
And of course, he passes from history
with his death at the Alamo,
his infamous Bowie knife,
presumably being taken as a war prize by someone.
Right.
But it's never recovered.
Right.
And Bowie moved to Texas in 1830.
In 1831, he married the daughter of the provincial vice governor.
Yeah.
Again, another thing.
Yes.
Usura Maria de Vermemende.
And in two years,
and the evidence suggests
that they're actually extremely happy together.
In two years, they're actually extremely happy together.
In two years, they have two children.
Word gets of an epidemic coming through.
He insists that his wife and his young children
essentially evacuate and move out to the country.
Despite that, the cholera epidemic in 1833
takes his wife, his children, and his in-laws.
Yeah, he eludes us to everyone.
Everyone that, you know,
presumably everyone that he cared about
dies in this single epidemic.
And in his grief, he begins drinking heavily.
His health declines and his anger
at the actions of the faltering Mexican government increase.
That these very human experiences,
very tragic human experiences, also begin to play a part,
not only the mythos that would create the man Jim Bowie,
that history or folklore would recall,
but also likely pushed him into his decisions
at the Alamo.
Well, that's very, very possible.
I mean, and he had gone, as far as renouncing,
his American citizenship, when he married,
and he then got permission from the Mexican government
to invade Indian territory to search for the lost
Amigurus mine,
and it did not really go well.
No.
Then his family dies.
And it appears, from most accounts,
that although, again, the myth is that, you know,
almost that Jim Bowie and David Crockett
were holed up in the same room
and died the last two men standing,
it appears that Bowie was killed outside the Alamo
earlier in the action,
and it's not real clear exactly what happened.
There's no clear account.
But again, certainly, if someone realized who he was,
I'm sure the Knights was taken as a prize.
Yes.
But, and so it does appear that having lost everything,
he became more bold in disregarding hazards and danger.
Agreed.
Unagreed.
And the actual origins, it has to be said
that the actual origins of the Bowie knife
are shrouded in interpretation.
They are.
But, you know, a lot of historians on the subject
do credit James Black for making the knife.
There's even some accounts that it was, you know,
one that he had that he rediscovered Damascus steel.
Yes.
And I guess we should say, I mean, he,
he has almost a, you know, certainly this backstory
that is amazing.
He ran away from home on the East Coast
when he was very young, said to be because of difficulties
with his stepmother.
Yes.
And he comes back to New Jersey
and he runs away from home at the age of eight.
Age of eight, yes.
And becomes an apprentice, silver metal apprentice.
Yes.
Words to the number, you know, of years.
And once he comes out of his apprenticeship,
he sees the writing on the wall with demand
and British availability of silver,
that he decides not to set up shop himself,
ultimately comes West, ends up in Arkansas,
ends up in Arkansas.
Yes.
And interestingly enough, specifically Washington, Arkansas,
which is now a state park.
Yeah.
And quite a few stories seem to come out of there.
So.
A more than tumultuous relationship
with his future father-in-law.
Yeah, well, he goes to work for him.
And is soon known as the best blacksmith in the country.
Yeah.
Anywhere around.
It's pretty evident that his,
being apprenticed as a silversmith for many years,
really fell into, you know, into that skillset.
He goes to work for a blacksmith,
but the last name of Shaw there in Washington,
Washington, Arkansas.
And also has the misfortune of falling in love
with Shaw's daughter, Ann.
Shaw.
Well, ultimately it's misfortune.
Although they had a happy marriage and children and,
but then she passes away.
Yes.
And where this, where this ultimate lands
in the, in summer of 1839, James Black falls ill.
He's helpless in bed and his very aging
and vindictive former father-in-law.
Well, and also he then also had hired his brother-in-law,
Ann's brother.
So not only did he marry the man's daughter,
but he hired his son.
And so I think he was bitter for both reasons.
Yes.
For both reasons.
And later became, went out on his own as a blacksmith
and became a competitor.
Yes.
So while he's ill.
Shaw is his former father-in-law,
comes into his house and attacks him.
And beats him with a club.
And apparently the family dog attacks Shaw
and gets him to, to, to leave.
But Black's eyesight was permanently damaged.
Yes.
And that leads him on a trip back East to look for,
to find doctors who might be able to help him to no luck.
He comes back home only to find now how this happened.
I'd love to know more of this part of the story
of how he managed to do this,
but had sold Black's land off in his property
and ran away with proceeds.
Not only did he do that,
but he ran away from his own shop.
So, so now Black is destitute, ill-health,
and spent the remainder of his life
being taken care of by others.
And when he died, the secrets to his knife making
died with him.
Right.
Is he did attempt in his very later years
to share his knife making secrets,
but at this point at a very old age
and in very poor health,
he was unable to remember the processes.
Yeah.
The first attribution of the Bowie knife to Jim Black
or James Black occurs on December 8th, 1841
in an article from the Washington Arkansas Telegraph.
Mm-hmm.
And so, you know, that's, that is surprisingly
pretty solid overall,
but the primary takeaway, which really starts,
I think speaking into this folkloric mythos
is the idea that James Black's skill was unparalleled.
Mm-hmm.
And that the magic, if you will, of the craftsmanship
became, this physical item almost became a totem
of American history.
Well, and if he did indeed make the Bowie number one,
Mm-hmm.
It did.
It did, and there are tales of, you know,
him marking knives that way.
So it really does, it really does make you wonder
that, you know, just the thought
of rediscovering Damascus Steel is just amazing if you,
if for anyone that wonders, it's, you know,
it's a secret that has been found and lost multiple times.
Yes.
Which makes you wonder if we're supposed to really know it.
And it, there is, I think, a fantastical or magical quality
that's associated with the lore.
Yes.
And something that really stood out to me,
although this is Hollywood fiction,
but there's a 1956 film titled The Iron Mistress
that stars Alan Ladd in Virginia Mayo.
But in it, Black is depicted forging Jim Bowie's knife
from iron that has been extracted from a meteorite.
Yes, yes.
And now there are daggers that have been made
from meteorite, but it's extremely difficult to do
and it's extremely expensive, which, you know,
was it forged from meteorite?
Probably not.
No, very unlikely.
Was it some kind of Damascus blade or Damascus style blade?
Not impossible.
I, the thing that I think is powerful and fascinating
is the, to me, it really goes beyond just simply folklore,
but the idea that, and the fact that there are these stories
associated with the knife.
And the three, well, I suppose really four key elements
of this, the knife, from an archetypal standpoint,
the knife is a sword.
The knife is a caliber.
Yeah.
It has two possible mystical points of origin.
Is it Damascus?
Is it a meteorite?
Is there something powerful, magical resonating about this?
And then lastly, it is lost to history.
That's true.
There is quite a parallel there.
It's, I don't know.
And I think that, you know, that these things,
these things are important.
So now you can, you know, also take up the mantle
that as this legend grew, as it resonated throughout
American, contemporary American society
in the mid 19th century,
there was a huge push for bowie knives.
So much so that blacksmiths in Britain
began mass producing them and shipping them
to America for sale.
Yeah.
So, you know, it also speaks, but at the same time,
the sacred well sites of Western Europe
functioned essentially as
tourist destinations
complete with souvenir shops.
And we're talking the middle ages.
Very, very true.
So there's, you know, some, I think something that we,
I think sort of the two sides
of the inexplicable, but inescapable human psyche
is that we want to be able to touch magic.
Oh, yeah.
And touch the legend.
It touched the legend.
But we also want to be able to buy a piece of it
and take it home with us.
Always better.
Preferably one with a magnet on the back
so you can just stick it on the refrigerator.
So everyone can see it.
Absolutely.
It's what I do.
Well, all of these figures,
all these people that we've talked about,
goddess from the Ozarks to the Alamo.
Yes, they did.
And their stories in some sense end at the Alamo.
But not necessarily the end either.
But that might be it.
Oh, go ahead.
I was gonna say,
so many of these men's lives ended at the Alamo.
Their paths crossed the Ozarks in some cases
were intimately associated with the Ozarks.
And even for individuals like Stephen Austin,
who did not die at the Alamo,
but would pass shortly thereafter and pass into history.
But in terms of the impact of these men's lives
and then the beginning in many cases of their legend
actually began on March 6th, 1836.
And it continued to this day.
They continued to resonate, impact us in unique ways.
And really forged a path for a new generation of Americans
who in many cases would also have extraordinary ties
to the Ozarks and would forge new legends
in their own right in the coming years of the 19th century,
particularly as the Civil War approaches.
Very true.
And so we'll end with Alamo today,
but we'll pick up the story.
And don't forget to check out upcoming events
and merchandise at darkozarks.com
and paranormalsciencelab.com.
Thank you again to Always Buying Boots
and Beard Engine Brewing Company
for helping to bring the dark Ozarks to everyone.
And on the next episode,
we're going to be discussing the Ozarks connections again
with Texas, as well as the possibility of a variety
of paranormal encrypted connections.
And we do invite you to catch the next Dark Ozarks podcast
on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts,
and other podcast platforms.
Thank you to everyone.
And remember, there are no easy answers in the Dark Ozarks.