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Hey everybody, this is Joshua Heston.

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And I'm Lisa Martin.

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And this is the Dark Ozarks on the Branson Podcast Network.

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We're an exploration of everything that's dark in history, mysteries, the paranormal,

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and everything else.

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We explore the noir, the unknown, cryptozoology, UFOs, paranormal, and all the dark stuff that

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happens in the Ozarks.

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You can find Dark Ozarks on Branson Podcast Network, on Facebook under Dark Ozarks, as

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well as our YouTube channel, Dark Ozarks.

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We'll leave no stone unturned to bring you the dark history, mysteries, and legends of

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the Ozarks.

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Welcome to the Dark Ozarks.

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We are diving into the mythos of the American West, starting with Texas and some of the

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connections to the Ozarks.

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Most historians say that the myth of the West starts at the Alamo.

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What if we tell you that you have to go through the Ozarks to even get to the Alamo, much

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less the West?

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There's a lot more to cover than you may think.

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We will get back to that in a minute.

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But first, we want to remind you the Dark Ozarks podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts,

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Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or just about any other podcast platform.

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So the Alamo, how do you get to the Alamo from the Ozarks?

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There is an argument that short of events here in the Ozarks, there might never have

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been an Alamo.

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There might never have been an American-led colonization of Texas and consequently, the

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revolution.

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And of course, that's not even to mention the Texas cattle drives, another migration

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during the Civil War, and a lot more.

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And that's before we get to the dark stories of murder and grave robbing.

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There are a lot of mostly forgotten facts behind the pop culture scenes and books and

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movies, and many could see these facts as pretty dark.

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I think that these facts often add depth of experience, both to American history and perhaps

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even more importantly, the folklore of the American mythos.

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We will discuss what came before the Alamo in a second and what you thought was the beginning

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of the story of Texas that's a lot more complicated than just David Crockett and Jim Bowie at the

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Alamo.

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But first, we want to invite everyone to like, follow, et cetera, Dark Ozarks on Facebook,

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Instagram, YouTube.

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Plus, we encourage you to follow the podcast.

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We would like to invite you to become a Dark Ozarks subscriber on Facebook.

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On the Dark Ozarks Facebook page, click subscribe.

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You'll have to have your login information ready and join Dark Ozarks behind the scenes

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for only $4.99 per month.

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So come with us on investigations, deep dive research, and topics that sometimes are too

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controversial for public view.

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The next 100 Facebook subscribers for Dark Ozarks will be entered in a drawing for a

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free Dark Ozarks t-shirt and an exclusive signed first run copy of Dark Ozarks, The

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Spook Light.

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Join today to be entered in the drawing.

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Why else should you subscribe to the private Dark Ozarks subscriber group?

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Yes, it does have a small subscription fee, but you receive exclusive content and behind

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the scenes info that's nowhere else.

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It also helps us bring more original content to Dark Ozarks and we appreciate everyone.

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Now you can get Dark Ozarks t-shirts for sale at DarkOzarks.com and ParanormalScienceLab.com.

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We encourage everyone to check out Always Buying Boots in Joplin, Missouri in person

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and online on Facebook and their website, AlwaysBuyingBoots.com for all of your reading

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needs, including a large section on the paranormal history and more, not to mention it's haunted.

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Tell Bob and Elise that we sent you.

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We also want to thank Beard Engine Brewing Company in Alba, Missouri.

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Beard Engine Brewing is the only English-style brewery in Missouri and has been twice named

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Missouri's best brewery by the Missouri Brewers Association.

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They have great beer and great food in an historical building with a noir past and yes,

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that building is also haunted.

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Tell Nate and Tiff that we sent you.

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So getting to the Alamo from the Ozarks, I think that one thing people start thinking

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about the myth of Texas as well as the West in general and certain things come to mind.

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First of all, cattle drives, for instance.

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We've all heard the stories of the cattle drives from Texas up to Kansas and on up to

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Omaha and St. Joseph, but that's not where they started.

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It's not and the fact that there is an incredibly strong connection historically of driving

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cattle north or driving cattle, in some cases west from the Ozarks, et cetera, is a connection

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that is very easy to overlook.

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It is and it really started in the early 1850s with the California Gold Rush.

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Basically what happened was that fellows went out to California and started noticing that

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cattle were in short supply in the mining fields.

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Some came back to Arkansas and decided that they could make more money driving cattle

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to California and selling them out in the mining fields rather than prospecting.

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There was something to that because cattle were bringing $5 to $10 a head in Arkansas

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at the time and you could sell them for $50 in California, which was a big chunk of money

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at the time.

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They would head out from Fort Smith.

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This went on from the early 1850s and then the cattle drives from Texas didn't start

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up until after the Civil War.

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In some ways, Texas was the Johnny Kim lately.

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There's a couple of things that really come to mind on this.

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One of course that for me really stood out is that the Harrison area was actually one

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of the areas that cattle was driven to California.

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One of the often overlooked aspects of the Gold Rush is that much of the great wealth

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that was to be had actually came in the form of selling necessities to the miners as opposed

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to the precious metals that were being mined.

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So just that simple reality of supply and demand is interesting in and of itself.

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But then to think about the exceptionally daunting effort of driving cattle herds from

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say Harrison, Arkansas to the Goldfields of California is a lot to consider.

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The men who undertook that, I think it's important not to overlook just the amount of grit and

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the amount of guts that it took to do that and then add on to it that in many cases these

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were people who were doing it just in the hopes that they could have money to make it

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through a couple of years.

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Well, that's very, very true.

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When you talk about being hard, they were driving cattle through Indian territory, through

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unsettled territory.

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There was a southern route and a northern route.

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Even though it was used more, it was longer.

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But in the end, it was an easier route for the cattle and it would go through Utah and

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actually during one of those cattle drives from Arkansas led to the infamous massacre

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in Utah of the Fancher party.

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It's not clear whether the Fanchers knew that they were walking into hostilities because

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basically the Mormons and their allies had just announced that they were not inviting

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to other people coming through.

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There's some circumstantial evidence that they might have been targeted because a prominent

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Mormon had come back to Arkansas and been murdered just a few months earlier.

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They probably didn't know about it, but word was along the line that a party from Arkansas

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was coming through and that may have been part of the motive.

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It actually led to, at that time, an international incident.

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These cattle drives were inherently dangerous.

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They were.

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If memory serves, the Fancher party actually went through Beaver, Arkansas.

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I think they may have.

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I think they did.

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It seems like I remember a side note.

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Not that they were from Beaver, Arkansas, but they went through Beaver, Arkansas.

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For people who are going, why are you talking about Beaver, Arkansas?

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Where's that?

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It's just north of Eureka Springs, the small Victorian resort city of Eureka Springs.

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It is known for the Golden Gate Bridge of the Ozarks, which is a beautiful suspension

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bridge actually built approximately mid-20th century, but it's a beautiful suspension bridge

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that crosses the river there.

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So the train is there as well.

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So it's a very, very beautiful location, but it was a crossroads and crossing, or it has

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been an important state way station on the old road for a very, very long time.

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Some of the original buildings are still there.

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That's really neat.

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It's ironic how just more connections are made all the time as we go through these different

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subjects.

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Another aspect of the image of Texas is, of course, the cowboy boot.

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Yes.

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My favorite.

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Which came to tell people it didn't come from Texas.

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The cowboy boot, as we know it, did not come from Texas.

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It came from Southeast Kansas, just on the edge of the Ozarks actually.

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And actually, when we think of cow drives from Texas, even when you get to the point

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of cow drives from Texas, you think of Abilene, et cetera, but Abilene was not the first cow

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town.

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It was Baster Springs, Kansas, which is in the Ozarks.

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Yes, it is.

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With some really, really fascinating Civil War history as well, Baster Springs, and an

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immediate pre-Civil War history in terms of bleeding Kansas.

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Exactly.

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And not too far from there is Coffeeville, Kansas, which has its own interesting history,

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but it was also pretty much the second cow town.

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And also right after the Civil War, they were pumping oil with oil rids in the streets.

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And lots of cowboys coming through.

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It was a rail hub.

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And so the cowboys that did come up from Texas started getting customized boots.

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And basically, what we think of as a cowboy boot today is actually called the Coffeeville

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boot.

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Interesting.

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That was basically designed initially by John Kubine in his boot shop in Coffeeville, Kansas.

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I'm eternally grateful.

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Cowboy boots are my footwear of choice in almost all situations, not in the gym, but

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pretty much everywhere else.

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And I can vouch for that.

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Yes, yes, I know you can.

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Recent investigation that I did receive a very helpful reminder text.

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This is not trained to be wearing cowboy boots.

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I do try to take care of you.

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I know you do.

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And I appreciate that.

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And you are absolutely correct.

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It would not have been good terrain for cowboy boots.

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No, it would not have been fun.

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At least not unless I was on a horse.

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That's true.

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But we weren't.

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We were not.

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But that's a good example of how the image of Texas was not necessarily born in Texas.

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And I think something that is important is that many individuals who over, particularly

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over the 19th century, helped to create the culture of Texas and in some cases the mythos

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of Texas were closely tied with the Ozarks.

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Yes, very much so.

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Including the grandfather of Texas.

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Yes.

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And Mr. Moses Austin.

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And I find Moses to be an extraordinarily interesting individual.

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One that in all fairness, history has for the most part overlooked.

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Really?

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I have to say the same and no slight to a sense.

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Even who is known as the father of Texas, but just as far as everything he did and went

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through, Moses is a very intriguing individual.

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He really is.

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And very contributive to early Missouri history.

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And an individual who really went up against enormous odds to accomplish what he did.

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And was just an interesting and very human character.

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And I think one of the things I like about the Moses Austin story is that much of his

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experiences and his exploits have not been either colored or discolored by American myth

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or folkloric embellishment.

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Because he has been largely overlooked.

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We're going to be discussing some characters who were very much impacted posthumously and

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sometimes not so posthumously by their press.

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Moses did not, Moses Austin did not undergo that experience.

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But things that he did were right up there.

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And something that was very, I feel like, and I'm just curious to see your thoughts on

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this, but many of these characters that we're going to be dealing with, we'll start with

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Moses Austin.

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In case you're wondering, his son Stephen Austin is for whom Austin, Texas is named

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after.

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So give the idea, give people the idea of the enormity really of impact in terms of

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American culture and history.

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But that in many ways the efforts of settlement, we'll use Moses as a primary example, the

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efforts of settlement of entrepreneurship that we associate with civilian life, we associate

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with peacetime, we associate with just going about your day to day and doing business.

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The level of endeavor that these men were undertaking was far beyond just doing business

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or just making money.

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Their lives, they were putting their lives on the line.

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They were putting the lives of their families on the line.

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In many ways, it resembles a military campaign.

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I think that's a good analogy.

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It really is.

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Our ability to look at the, like our way that we think of business or doing business or

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expanding a business is so far removed from the efforts that it's difficult for us to

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really wrap our heads around just what these men actually accomplished.

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That's true.

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For one thing, it would be impossible to do a lot of these things today because it would

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be viewed as unethical business practices or monopolies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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Take that for what you will, good, bad, indifferent.

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There's good and bad in everything, as they say.

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One thing I like about Moses' story is there are people further back in the family tree

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that also were influential, but he did not start out with a lot of money.

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Some of these characters that we talk about were wealthy to start with.

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He really wasn't.

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Started out in the dry goods business with his brother in Philadelphia, but then went

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into mining in Pennsylvania in the 1700s.

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There is some key strategy that it is clear that Moses Austin employed.

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There's a decent indication that some of that strategy was his marriage initially.

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Yes.

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He married Maria Brown on September 28th, 1785, and her parents were wealthy and were

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00:20:49,360 --> 00:20:52,600
in mining at that time.

237
00:20:52,600 --> 00:21:02,880
It's certainly suggested that that gave the brothers, Moses Austin and his brother, important

238
00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:07,960
to note, he named his son after his brother, so there's two Stevens.

239
00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:09,840
Brother Steven.

240
00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:11,880
The impetus.

241
00:21:11,880 --> 00:21:12,880
That point.

242
00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:26,080
Again, take it for what anybody will, but there is a very exciting American dream quality

243
00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:32,880
to this idea that you start out working a dry goods store in Philadelphia, then you

244
00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:40,480
transition to a dry goods store in a branch office, if you will, in Richmond, and then

245
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:46,880
go and get married, go into mining, and then go into mining.

246
00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:54,800
In a comparatively short amount of time, you're contracting a league of land with the Spanish

247
00:21:54,800 --> 00:22:06,400
government in what would become the Upper Louisiana Territory, modern day Missouri.

248
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:07,400
Yes.

249
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:12,960
And getting attacked by the U.S. sage.

250
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:20,440
When you think about it, a pretty bold action on this part to seek it and obtain it.

251
00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:37,600
So basically came to Missouri to area of Bretton mine, which he promptly renamed as Potosi,

252
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,760
in homage to the mining center in Bolivia, I think.

253
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:44,280
Isn't it Bolivia?

254
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:45,280
Yes.

255
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:53,280
And, you know, and I also think that it's, you know, some notable points.

256
00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:59,920
Moses was originally from Durham, Connecticut, and his father was, among other things, a

257
00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:05,520
tavern owner and a tailor, a small town businessman.

258
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:12,400
And something that is noted in a number of historical accounts is that Moses didn't get

259
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:16,880
a lot of schooling, but he fell in love with reading.

260
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:27,160
And it is very easy to think of American settlers, American colonists, the colonies, et cetera,

261
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:32,240
as being old-timey, old-fashioned, backwards, so on and so forth.

262
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:34,720
In so many cases, that was not the case.

263
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:37,560
These were, it was a young nation.

264
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:45,480
It was being expanded by very young, very ambitious men.

265
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:56,040
And in so many cases, they were extraordinarily literate and surprisingly well-versed on what

266
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:58,200
was going on around the world.

267
00:23:58,200 --> 00:23:59,200
Yes.

268
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:03,400
And he certainly was.

269
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:16,520
And basically, you know, jump-started the mining industry in the Ozarks single-handedly.

270
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:19,400
He did.

271
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:26,760
Something that it's easy to look at, particularly in the Austin family, a number of financial

272
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:33,520
setbacks took place throughout their history.

273
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:38,740
And it is easy to dismiss those setbacks.

274
00:24:38,740 --> 00:24:50,160
But I think it also speaks to the, if you look at it from almost a military lens, that,

275
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:57,160
and I suspect they largely were approaching these projects similarly, that this was a

276
00:24:57,160 --> 00:24:58,360
war, this was a fight.

277
00:24:58,360 --> 00:25:02,840
They were going to, and they were going against great odds.

278
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:09,200
There were a number of reasons why any of these endeavors could potentially fail.

279
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:10,200
Yes.

280
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:12,800
But they kept going.

281
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:22,120
And I think, of course, that's the key is that several times things happen that you

282
00:25:22,120 --> 00:25:27,280
would think, okay, most people would have just given up at that point.

283
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:30,000
They would.

284
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:36,160
As a testament to sort of this overarching ambition, the Austen's did seem to have a

285
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:40,200
penchant for naming places after themselves.

286
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:41,200
That's true.

287
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:52,000
And their mining town slash colony, so to speak, in Wythe County, Virginia was named

288
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:56,440
Austinville.

289
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:04,840
They were actually contracted to provide the materials for the Virginia State Capitol Building,

290
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:08,000
which was designed by Thomas Jefferson.

291
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,840
And their project failed.

292
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:19,440
And the larger mining project of Austinville largely failed with it, led to a falling out

293
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:27,720
between Moses and his brother Stephen and precipitated Moses' transition through to

294
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:37,080
Missouri, wasn't Missouri then, but to start this mining operation slash land grant under

295
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:46,920
the King of Spain by my way of an incredibly arduous journey through Kentucky, mostly in

296
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,920
several feet of snow.

297
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:50,920
Yes.

298
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:53,920
A pill both ways.

299
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:54,920
Yes.

300
00:26:54,920 --> 00:27:07,200
And that there's a very interesting and it should also be noted that, well, not to get

301
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:13,040
too far ahead of ourselves, but his son Stephen seemed to be a bit more pragmatic and definitely

302
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,120
more diplomatic than Moses.

303
00:27:16,120 --> 00:27:24,400
Moses was renowned for his temper and his fiery responses that were not always thought

304
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:33,080
through, which were noted in letters with his wife, among others.

305
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:40,440
And he managed, it's funny because I really get the feeling that Stephen, based on some

306
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:48,120
of his son's writings, it is pretty evident that his son held his father in enormous regard.

307
00:27:48,120 --> 00:27:49,440
Yeah.

308
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:55,560
And I believe in great love, but I think that growing up around Moses, that it's pretty

309
00:27:55,560 --> 00:28:05,560
evident that Stephen learned how to do diplomacy by watching his father and not doing that.

310
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:06,560
Right.

311
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:15,800
I mean, Stephen credit, I think he was able to look at a situation and say, love my dad,

312
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:17,400
love what he's doing.

313
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:22,800
Here's what it could have done differently that might have worked better and take a note.

314
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,040
And not a lot of people can do that.

315
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:31,440
So, I mean, that says a lot for Stephen.

316
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:46,680
But coming through after the war of 1812, economy started changing and it brought on

317
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:59,360
problems again, as the economy was weakening and there was a dip in demand for lead during

318
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:05,840
that time, Moses and Stephen decided to get into finance and they founded the Bank of

319
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:07,640
St. Louis.

320
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:09,120
Yes.

321
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,200
Which had a couple of consequences.

322
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:20,760
One was that it actually helped solidify St. Louis as a major commercial financial center,

323
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:28,640
particularly on the Mississippi, which really has had a lot to do in the last 200 years

324
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:34,880
with it continuing to be a major city.

325
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:41,120
The other is that unfortunately in the economic panic of 1819, which was basically the first

326
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:49,480
Great Depression that America endured, that they lost most of their money again.

327
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:50,480
Yes.

328
00:29:50,480 --> 00:30:01,120
But I find it ironic though that part of the problem or part of the cause of the panic

329
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:11,880
of 1819 was land speculation out west, here out west, and the fact that the government

330
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:16,880
was selling land to farmers on credit.

331
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:18,280
Yes.

332
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:26,240
And then after the war, as the economy slowed down, they couldn't pay those notes and that's

333
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:35,160
partly what fueled it, it's kind of ironic because Moses through his life makes these

334
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:41,880
schemes or these ventures based on land speculation.

335
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:42,880
Yes.

336
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,880
Yes, it is.

337
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:53,000
Vicious dog chasing his tail in a larger sense in that regard.

338
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:59,640
There was something that a couple of, for me just an interesting side note in terms

339
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:11,640
of history, Moses Austin to a degree took Schoolcraft, the mineralogist and journaler

340
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:17,560
of the Ozarks, to a degree under his wing and seems to have become a very close colleague

341
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:23,360
in the sense that he wrote a number of key letters to Schoolcraft at various times, in

342
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:31,740
some cases giving him direction, but in other cases really opening up his heart in terms

343
00:31:31,740 --> 00:31:38,200
of his despair, his lowest moments, and this was during that, particularly during that

344
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:42,200
post-1819 panic.

345
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:56,120
And perhaps a little really, it's a bit sad because we're also looking at this documentation

346
00:31:56,120 --> 00:32:01,960
not very long before Moses would die.

347
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:03,960
Very true, very true.

348
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:09,840
Because he died in 1821, I believe.

349
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:23,640
And it was, he really expended everything in his, really I think in his existence.

350
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:33,680
It's reading the account and reading some of his letters, it really speaks to me in

351
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:45,280
unique ways when you realize how much of a toll these projects had taken on him.

352
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:51,560
Yeah, and I think that's one thing that sometimes we don't think about.

353
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:56,800
It's easy, you see it I think you say in the faces of a president as they age very quickly

354
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:02,720
in office, and certainly Abraham Lincoln is a good example of that, but a lot of these

355
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:14,680
figures just went through a lot of stress and agony going through everything they did,

356
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,280
and it's easy to forget.

357
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:27,800
And what they did in going through that actually benefited the entire area.

358
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:41,280
It did, because it's, and again, these exploits, these expansions have to be understood within

359
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:50,400
context because it's very easy to look at various aspects, a contextually, and deride

360
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,280
these individuals for a variety of contemporary reasons.

361
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:55,280
Oh yeah.

362
00:33:55,280 --> 00:34:08,880
But at the same time, in many cases, were it not for the work of these folks, we're

363
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:14,240
enjoying the infrastructure that they created.

364
00:34:14,240 --> 00:34:25,240
Very much so, and this is certainly an example because while he's at this low point and

365
00:34:25,240 --> 00:34:39,640
really taking a toll on his health and his mental outlook, he endeavored for another

366
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,360
large venture which was the coup de grace.

367
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:45,040
It was, it was.

368
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:58,480
And in what is again, to me, quite frankly, emotional, an endeavor.

369
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:07,120
Moses Austin's greatest success was something that he ultimately would give his life to

370
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:10,040
and never see it occur.

371
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:11,440
Exactly.

372
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:19,400
He never got to make that final trip or see what happened.

373
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:28,360
And that was to get another land grant from the Spanish.

374
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:37,240
And his work, of course, the Louisiana territory had been shifting back and forth underneath

375
00:35:37,240 --> 00:35:40,160
French and Spanish rule.

376
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:46,120
In the meantime, Mexico was fomenting rebellion and independence.

377
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:55,680
But before that, something that had happened, and it's important to understand that Moses

378
00:35:55,680 --> 00:36:01,640
Austin had really had subtle roots and become a Missourian.

379
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:08,320
Although Missouri wasn't actually a state yet, but in terms of the location, because

380
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:17,800
he had been in present day Missouri, having founded Potosi, was at this point largely

381
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:26,040
handed a lot of the management of the lead mines over to his son, Stephen.

382
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:37,640
In theory, had it not been for the economic panic of 1819, could have been enjoying his

383
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:40,880
retirement at this point.

384
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,480
The economic panic was wiped out.

385
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:48,440
Their finances made it impossible for him to do that.

386
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:56,720
And at one point, there's even an account a bit earlier that his wife Maria, who never,

387
00:36:56,720 --> 00:37:04,120
it seems, ever really adapted to life on the frontier, had returned to Philadelphia, temporarily

388
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:11,360
taking the kids with her to ostensibly enroll them in school back east so they could get

389
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,200
a proper education.

390
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:22,880
And she finds herself stranded for something to the tune of two years because they don't

391
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:27,360
have enough money for her to afford transit back home.

392
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:28,360
Right.

393
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:29,360
Yes.

394
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:36,280
So, you know, there were many ups and downs.

395
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:42,560
And then Moses makes the, probably the mistake of writing, letting her know that there had

396
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:48,920
been a poisoning assassination attempt on his wife at Durham Hall while all this is

397
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:49,920
going on.

398
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:56,220
And meanwhile, the aristocratic, quote unquote, friends back home in Philadelphia have no

399
00:37:56,220 --> 00:37:58,520
idea that they're out of money.

400
00:37:58,520 --> 00:37:59,520
Yes.

401
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:07,200
Or, or to mention it that, you know, at various times that he was under attack by those sage

402
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:08,200
Indians.

403
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:09,200
Yeah.

404
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:17,800
He had to defend the mines.

405
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:27,320
It of course the the opening of the of the Potosi led mines was indirect affront to the

406
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:29,800
U.S. age.

407
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:38,360
Well it was and then most of the residents of the area were French, and they declined

408
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:40,480
to come to his aid.

409
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:44,640
Yes, a fact that Moses Austin did not forget.

410
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:50,040
No, no, he, Moses did have a long memory at St. James.

411
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:52,440
Which I can't blame him.

412
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:58,600
But there's also some pretty strong indicators that his incredibly strong personality did

413
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:04,840
not necessarily make diplomacy with a number of these people easy.

414
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:07,400
Yes.

415
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:16,000
I think he was viewed by some of the settlers as a, you know, upstart, you know, who had

416
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:21,680
just arrived and they've been there at this point for, you know, 100, 150 years.

417
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:29,200
So a certain amount of, you know, looking at looking at some of this potentially as

418
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,640
a liability rather than a benefit.

419
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:41,480
And it's believed that he actually borrowed a cannon or obtained a cannon from the Spanish

420
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:48,440
in order to to respond to the threat of approximately 30 Osage warriors.

421
00:39:48,440 --> 00:40:01,640
Yes, sad to me there there are 19th century photos of Durham Hall.

422
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:09,600
And it is admittedly magnificent and very unique, architecturally unique structure.

423
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:14,040
Yes, an outbuilding apparently does still remain.

424
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:18,400
The Durham Hall itself is no more.

425
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:22,280
That makes me sad because it looks like an incredible building.

426
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:23,280
It does.

427
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:26,240
It looks like it was a fantastic building.

428
00:40:26,240 --> 00:40:32,920
But kind of larger than life like its owner, I think.

429
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:34,840
I would agree.

430
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:50,440
And then coming to this this final, final endeavor is that Austin travels and travel

431
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,440
is such an interesting word.

432
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:55,680
I mean, we're we're at this point.

433
00:40:55,680 --> 00:41:02,720
He's in his early 50s considering what he's gone through, the sort of the state of the

434
00:41:02,720 --> 00:41:06,600
rate that individuals during that era aged.

435
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,320
He is in essence an elderly man.

436
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:11,440
Yes.

437
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:26,920
And taking on the you know, the equivalent of essentially hiking in many cases from the

438
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:30,320
essentially from St. Louis to San Antonio.

439
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:31,520
Yes.

440
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:36,440
With the intent of hiking all the way down and all the way back through a variety of

441
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:46,360
conditions in order to plead his case and obtain a land grant.

442
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:53,080
And the the process was fraught with difficulty.

443
00:41:53,080 --> 00:42:01,320
Had he not run into actually a Dutch diplomat by the name of Baron Bas de Bastrop.

444
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,720
He would have been turned down.

445
00:42:03,720 --> 00:42:04,720
Yes.

446
00:42:04,720 --> 00:42:09,120
But they had dealings in the past, if I recall correctly.

447
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:10,120
Yes, yes.

448
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:11,600
They were their business associates.

449
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:13,840
He was in New Orleans.

450
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:19,440
And I also found this very interesting because, you know, despite the the economic issues

451
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:28,240
that of course that Moses Austin, his contemporaries went through, they were high rollers.

452
00:42:28,240 --> 00:42:34,320
You know, they were they were they were big time capitalists of early of the early United

453
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:35,320
States.

454
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:40,360
And, you know, they they had a lot of business dealings in New Orleans.

455
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:49,880
And just just interesting because I think we have a very narrow view of the population

456
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:54,920
from the early days of the United States.

457
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,320
It's easy to it's easy to do that.

458
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:08,040
And, you know, just to, you know, unconsciously create certain stereotypes.

459
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:13,320
Simple farmers hewing out the wilderness, hoping that they could possibly have a log

460
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:14,480
cabin, those sorts of things.

461
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:16,720
And those stories are real.

462
00:43:16,720 --> 00:43:24,560
But you know, these individuals who are extremely well traveled have contacts, but considerable

463
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:31,960
distance, et cetera, and have the ambition that you're going to hike from St. Louis to

464
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:39,480
San Antonio with the intent of getting a land grant from Spain.

465
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:40,480
Maybe.

466
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:41,480
Yes.

467
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:51,040
I really going over Moses's life, I just I keep coming getting this feeling that once

468
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:57,480
he said his his sights on an endeavor, he really didn't think that it wasn't going to

469
00:43:57,480 --> 00:43:58,480
happen.

470
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:06,280
I well, I think you he had he had to take that view in order to have done these things.

471
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:14,360
These were not, you know, modest or conservative steps that he took.

472
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:20,200
And so if you doubted it, you know, you would have shot yourself in the foot.

473
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:21,200
Yes.

474
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:28,880
And but by the same token, I imagine even if we don't have it letters that he had a plan

475
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:35,480
B, if that didn't work, you know.

476
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:46,320
And this is also on the heels of the long expedition, which was basically an unauthorized

477
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:50,360
military campaign into Spanish territory.

478
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:51,800
True.

479
00:44:51,800 --> 00:45:00,400
So there was a considerable amount of suspicion when he reaches San Antonio.

480
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:01,400
Right.

481
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:03,400
With good cause.

482
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:07,280
Very, very much so.

483
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:17,640
The the his ultimately thanks to Bastrop.

484
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:23,800
He is successful or believes himself to be strongly successful.

485
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:31,960
Begin making plans to settle 300 families in Texas with his land grant and then returns

486
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:38,640
home via the old Spanish military road, which in essence was San Antonio to Nogadoshis and

487
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:46,760
then from Nogadoshis to Natchitoches, Louisiana, and then on up right into the Ozarks and across

488
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:50,840
the Ozarks and to present day St. Louis.

489
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:53,400
It was done during the winter.

490
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,640
Heavy rains, very cold.

491
00:45:56,640 --> 00:46:01,680
At one point, one of his traveling companion, he becomes aware that one of his traveling

492
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:06,760
companions is stealing livestock.

493
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:19,680
In the process of this, this this man basically robs them and leaves them to die in the wilderness.

494
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:25,400
And despite that, despite the fact that you have an elderly man in poor health in the

495
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:34,520
winter swimming rivers to get home in the hope that all of this is going to come about,

496
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:36,040
he does arrive home.

497
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:44,040
He makes it back to Hazel Run, which is essentially the this home of his daughter.

498
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:46,040
And he has pneumonia.

499
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:47,040
Yeah.

500
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:51,920
I mean, really, if you recount that, you would think you were talking about David Crockett

501
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:53,520
or Jim Bowie.

502
00:46:53,520 --> 00:47:05,960
Yes, these these and there's a to me, there's a lasting sadness, a sense of melancholy within

503
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:10,480
this expansive ambition.

504
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:12,840
It's it's 1820.

505
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:13,840
It becomes 1821.

506
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:16,680
He's coming back in winter of 1821.

507
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:24,120
And in the in the process, something and something that he becomes aware of as he's attempting

508
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:29,280
to recover at Hazel Run is that he's not going to.

509
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,680
He knows that he's dying.

510
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:35,200
Yeah.

511
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:43,680
And that's, you know, that's, you know, so close, but yet so far away to his goal.

512
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:44,680
Yes.

513
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:53,320
And I can't help but think how much he would have wanted to resist that because it is clearly

514
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:57,560
evident that he wanted to make this happen.

515
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:00,440
Well, he lingered about six months.

516
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:06,280
So I think that's, you know, an indication of how much he resisted.

517
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:08,000
Yes.

518
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:15,160
And when it when it finally becomes evident in it and we know this because of his letters,

519
00:48:15,160 --> 00:48:21,960
he pens a letter to his son who is actually and at this point, they are largely financially

520
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:26,000
destitute to panic.

521
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:34,000
Everything is writing on this land grant with the possibility of this land grant.

522
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:42,440
His son pretty at one point earlier before the trip to Texas, Moses was arrested for

523
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:48,640
failing to pay his debts, which I think is something that we often overlook about this

524
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:54,680
this era in American history, that debtors prison was a real thing.

525
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:55,680
It was.

526
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:59,560
And I can speak to that being an attorney.

527
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:06,760
Ironically, people fear that now often will come to court in a suit where they're being

528
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:13,440
sued for money and be afraid they're going to jail.

529
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,880
And we haven't had debtors prisons for a very long time.

530
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,560
But in 1820, we did.

531
00:49:19,560 --> 00:49:20,920
Yes.

532
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:29,040
And it's something that in the historical note that the in in many cases appears to

533
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:35,240
have been driving, particularly the poorer classes of Americans into new territory with

534
00:49:35,240 --> 00:49:40,880
an attempt to either escape debt or the hope that this new endeavor would somehow give

535
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:44,320
them enough money to pay off debt.

536
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:46,320
Yes.

537
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:50,120
You know, I think.

538
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:59,320
It is quite a motivator in all ages, but in in that time, it motivated Westward expansion

539
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:01,760
in many cases.

540
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:08,160
It's in that.

541
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:13,080
At this point, the all of the equipment, the lead mine, the Patossian lead mines, etc. had

542
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:17,800
been sold off to cover debts.

543
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:23,000
Another thing that is interesting, we're like, well, why, why, why they borrowed so much

544
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:27,160
money or why have they taken on so much credit?

545
00:50:27,160 --> 00:50:33,720
Money was not necessarily readily available or even existent and much of in the new expansion.

546
00:50:33,720 --> 00:50:40,640
And so going into debt or obtaining credit on a large scale, in many cases, the only

547
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:44,960
way that they could do these projects.

548
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:45,960
Very true.

549
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:48,800
I mean, that's I mean, it's very true.

550
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:53,760
And you were.

551
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:59,240
You know, you were still a territory here.

552
00:50:59,240 --> 00:51:05,080
This is in the infancy of the national banking system.

553
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:12,880
Yes, you often had currency issued by various state banks.

554
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:16,120
And this is also.

555
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:21,960
During the time that I think the first US bank had had been dissolved and they hadn't

556
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:29,600
quite started the second one, which then Andrew Jackson.

557
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:32,280
Bought against again.

558
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:39,080
And Jackson has a lot of connections to a lot of the people involved in this story from

559
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:44,000
those arts to the Alamo, ironically.

560
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:47,180
And so.

561
00:51:47,180 --> 00:51:55,320
The entire financial system of the time is a lot different than what we're used to.

562
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:57,320
Yes, it is.

563
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:07,160
And by this point, son, Stephen had traveled to New Orleans to begin the process of becoming

564
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:11,160
a practicing lawyer.

565
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:21,960
And Austin, Moses Austin, and on his deathbed, writes to his son.

566
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:28,280
Making his official last request that Stephen dedicate his life to, quote, prosecuting the

567
00:52:28,280 --> 00:52:31,440
enterprise he has commenced.

568
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:33,200
Yes.

569
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:36,880
And Stephen was not necessarily enthusiastic about doing so.

570
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:40,600
No, it's it's pretty evident initially.

571
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:44,120
And and I think that.

572
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:49,600
And probably for the betterment of the Texas Revolution.

573
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:56,480
That Stephen does not seem Stephen Austin does not seem to have the fiery bombastic

574
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:59,600
over the top personality of his father.

575
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:01,360
Right.

576
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:08,720
And it's it's pretty evident that because of that.

577
00:53:08,720 --> 00:53:18,240
Stephen was able to navigate Mexican politics and Anglo Texan relations in ways that it's

578
00:53:18,240 --> 00:53:23,400
it's pretty evident that if Moses had lived and decided to take that on.

579
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:26,440
He probably would have been a revolution unto himself.

580
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:31,880
The revolution was started sooner.

581
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:39,120
And it would have just been Moses, you know, pushing a cannon.

582
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:45,560
And it's anybody's guess at whom it would have been aimed.

583
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:49,880
There there.

584
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:55,480
So as it happens, you know, he passes right about the time that Missouri became a became

585
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:56,480
a state.

586
00:53:56,480 --> 00:53:57,480
Yes, yes.

587
00:53:57,480 --> 00:54:04,520
But then, you know, sadly, that that is not the end of Moses's story.

588
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:07,280
No, no, it is not.

589
00:54:07,280 --> 00:54:11,520
Texas came back to haunt him in a way.

590
00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:15,320
In a rather literal way.

591
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:21,480
Moses Austin was initially interred at Hazel Run, his his his daughter's estate.

592
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:25,920
He was later the the remains were were later moved to the old Presbyterian cemetery in

593
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:31,400
Patosi, where spoiler alert, they still remain.

594
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:36,120
Well, despite the best efforts of Texas.

595
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:38,520
Yes, or certainly.

596
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:47,320
So some individuals associated with the with the state cemetery of Texas, which the state

597
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:57,200
cemetery of Texas was founded in 1851 as the the the the burying ground for notable Texans.

598
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:04,000
And it's interesting in this aspect because there seems to have been a point of pride

599
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:11,760
after the establishment of the cemetery to begin working hard to collect those notable

600
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:17,760
Texans rather than simply receive them as they passed.

601
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:21,480
Yes.

602
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:27,560
Whether their family agreed to it or not.

603
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:34,320
Or in some cases, simply waiting out the next of kin.

604
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:42,720
If if the next of kin did not consent and having their their family members remains

605
00:55:42,720 --> 00:55:50,200
dug up and moved to to the Texas state state cemetery.

606
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:55,440
So what we what we have.

607
00:55:55,440 --> 00:56:03,560
Is in in in essence, a local businessman by the name of Lewis Camp, who began leading

608
00:56:03,560 --> 00:56:13,080
the effort to collect notable personalities posthumously and one.

609
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:16,960
They can't complain.

610
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:26,680
And rather, you know, bear in mind, this is the early 20th century at this point.

611
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:39,040
The camp was Kimphead was was ambitious because he ultimately had about 70 graves, 70 notable

612
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:45,520
dead dug up and moved to the Texas State Cemetery.

613
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:55,200
One that was on his list to be collected was Moses Austin in who was lying at rest in Potosi,

614
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:56,200
Missouri.

615
00:56:56,200 --> 00:57:06,480
And as the story seems to be pretty verified, individuals on a reminds me of the Blues Brothers

616
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:12,280
on a mission from God.

617
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:21,560
Have nearly the same thing and have arrived, according to one record on the on the morning

618
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:31,440
of April 21st, 1938, in the cemetery in Potosi to pick up Moses and take him to his new home.

619
00:57:31,440 --> 00:57:35,240
But nobody bothered to.

620
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:38,760
Check with Potosi as to how they felt about this.

621
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:39,760
Yeah.

622
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:48,760
So literally, you know, someone comes across three men with crowbars shipping away.

623
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:53,280
His grave at his vault.

624
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:54,280
Yes.

625
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:59,840
The the the individual overseeing the work was apparently Thorlow B. Weed, an undertaker

626
00:57:59,840 --> 00:58:06,960
from Texas, who claimed to be on official business, which was not technically untrue.

627
00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:08,680
Right.

628
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:19,040
Just whether or not it was valid, you know, as far as the state of Missouri goes.

629
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:21,880
And I think that to me, it's very interesting.

630
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:23,520
Chris, this is 1938.

631
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:27,400
This is we're we're well within the quote unquote modern age at this point.

632
00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:34,880
But we're really seeing this is only one year before World War, beginning of World War Two.

633
00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:45,600
We're really seeing some of these intense state rivalries and, you know, states existing

634
00:58:45,600 --> 00:58:54,240
as sovereign nations sort of and with with the appropriate state pride, something that

635
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:58,840
I do find fascinating, I have a lot of respect for is it.

636
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:07,360
Whereas much of the rest of the of the nation, especially after following the Civil War,

637
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:14,280
was in some cases quickly and in some cases very slowly adapted to the idea that our patriotism

638
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:18,240
and our allegiance is to the nation, not to our state.

639
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:24,720
And I can say having grown up in a clearly Yankee state, you can you can have an appreciation

640
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:32,080
for being from Illinois, but beyond that, it's just kind of a existent place within

641
00:59:32,080 --> 00:59:37,600
the nation that Texas has obviously resisted.

642
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:43,720
Well, as as as the myth of Texas tells you, they have.

643
00:59:43,720 --> 00:59:44,720
Yes.

644
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:53,360
And it's just and as we as we continue, as we get into some of these other characters

645
00:59:53,360 --> 01:00:01,200
who are of crucial importance to not only the Ozarks, Missouri, Arkansas, both, and

646
01:00:01,200 --> 01:00:03,440
then also Texas.

647
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:11,140
There is, of course, great folkloric momentum that is built around these personalities,

648
01:00:11,140 --> 01:00:20,880
but digging into their their actual exploits, their real personalities, you can see why

649
01:00:20,880 --> 01:00:27,040
their lives became fodder for the mythos.

650
01:00:27,040 --> 01:00:28,040
That's true.

651
01:00:28,040 --> 01:00:29,040
That's true.

652
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:39,360
Have a bigger than life personality lends itself to the mythos and pop culture.

653
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:45,120
But suffice it to say that the Texas invaders were repelled.

654
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:49,360
Yes, not once, but twice.

655
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:56,240
And no, no grave robbing occurred.

656
01:00:56,240 --> 01:00:59,880
No successful grave robbing occurred.

657
01:00:59,880 --> 01:01:06,880
And Moses Austin not only remains at rest, but now encased in cement.

658
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:07,880
Yes.

659
01:01:07,880 --> 01:01:17,440
But I find it interesting not only not only camp and the undertaker went through this,

660
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:25,800
but then the governor of Texas interceded trying to bluff.

661
01:01:25,800 --> 01:01:30,000
Basically bluff is what they had to turn over the body.

662
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:31,000
Yes.

663
01:01:31,000 --> 01:01:36,760
And there were lawsuits over it and he did not prevail.

664
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:44,280
And that's when they encased the cement.

665
01:01:44,280 --> 01:01:52,040
So rather tongue in cheek, Potosi has someone I've read that they joke that Potosi is the

666
01:01:52,040 --> 01:02:02,240
one city that has repelled attack from the state of Texas.

667
01:02:02,240 --> 01:02:04,760
I think that's I think that's reasonable.

668
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:08,120
I really do.

669
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:14,920
And interestingly enough, all over an individual that the American mythos completely overlooked.

670
01:02:14,920 --> 01:02:16,920
Ironically, yes.

671
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:25,040
Texas wanted to change that apparently.

672
01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:33,360
But at that point, at the point of Moses's death, the story really shifts to Stephen

673
01:02:33,360 --> 01:02:40,760
who had spent the bulk of his life as a technically as a Missourian.

674
01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:42,640
Yes.

675
01:02:42,640 --> 01:02:49,260
And including a stint as an elected lawmaker.

676
01:02:49,260 --> 01:02:55,200
As well as having worked hard with his father to obtain the charter process for the Bank

677
01:02:55,200 --> 01:02:57,200
of St. Louis.

678
01:02:57,200 --> 01:02:58,400
Yes.

679
01:02:58,400 --> 01:03:03,500
And then basically, you know, and then he had pivoted, like you said, to go to New Orleans

680
01:03:03,500 --> 01:03:19,680
to practice law in the aftermath of the economic panic and pivots to then recruit 300 families.

681
01:03:19,680 --> 01:03:23,680
And they leave from south, you know, southern Missouri.

682
01:03:23,680 --> 01:03:28,600
One of the departure points was West Plains.

683
01:03:28,600 --> 01:03:35,360
And ultimately, before it was all over with, he had a colony of over 900 families.

684
01:03:35,360 --> 01:03:36,360
Yes.

685
01:03:36,360 --> 01:03:42,280
And dealing with massive tracts of land.

686
01:03:42,280 --> 01:03:44,320
Yes.

687
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:47,280
Just enormous amounts of land.

688
01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:49,440
And he was basically the Empress area.

689
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:52,680
He was the emperor basically of this area.

690
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:53,680
Yes.

691
01:03:53,680 --> 01:04:00,240
And his father would have loved the title, I think.

692
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:01,240
I think so.

693
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:14,480
I really I can see in Presario Moses Austin having a very nice ring to it for Moses.

694
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:22,080
And from a San Antonio region plantation.

695
01:04:22,080 --> 01:04:28,680
And the majority of those families, the original 300, the old 300, which is a key and crucial

696
01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:42,040
part of the reality of making Texas, were from southern states.

697
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:47,680
The latitude, the land, the etc.

698
01:04:47,680 --> 01:04:56,560
Ultimately, and to a large degree under Stephen Austin's guidance, became plantations and

699
01:04:56,560 --> 01:04:58,960
farms.

700
01:04:58,960 --> 01:05:01,440
It was an agrarian society.

701
01:05:01,440 --> 01:05:03,040
And you guys know where I'm going with this.

702
01:05:03,040 --> 01:05:11,160
It was an economy that was dependent upon slavery as well during that time.

703
01:05:11,160 --> 01:05:21,360
Stephen Austin had an uneasy relationship with slavery, it appears, from his writings

704
01:05:21,360 --> 01:05:25,960
that he hoped for its abolition in time.

705
01:05:25,960 --> 01:05:27,640
Yes.

706
01:05:27,640 --> 01:05:32,520
Which might have surprised a lot of Texans.

707
01:05:32,520 --> 01:05:34,760
And we see something very similar.

708
01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:39,160
We'll get to him in a moment, but we definitely see something similar with Sam Houston.

709
01:05:39,160 --> 01:05:40,640
Yes.

710
01:05:40,640 --> 01:05:50,240
And that, you know, this is a difficult subject, no matter what way you attempt to look at

711
01:05:50,240 --> 01:05:51,240
it.

712
01:05:51,240 --> 01:06:02,480
But a great deal of individuals were forced to view these types of issues from a pragmatic

713
01:06:02,480 --> 01:06:09,360
and economic standpoint, while at the same time, they were ethically opposed.

714
01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:12,680
Yes.

715
01:06:12,680 --> 01:06:23,520
You know, and it's always easy to condemn from the distance of time.

716
01:06:23,520 --> 01:06:32,560
And one always hopes that, you know, you would make choices that are in line with how you

717
01:06:32,560 --> 01:06:34,120
feel today.

718
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:43,680
And that's hard when you look at history, because you were dealing with a different

719
01:06:43,680 --> 01:06:44,680
time period.

720
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:47,400
Does it make it any more right?

721
01:06:47,400 --> 01:06:50,440
No, no, it does not.

722
01:06:50,440 --> 01:06:57,400
But it does help to, it is crucially important to understand these situations from within

723
01:06:57,400 --> 01:07:03,240
the context of the decade or the era or the time.

724
01:07:03,240 --> 01:07:09,920
And contextualize that process across the board.

725
01:07:09,920 --> 01:07:20,280
Now, Austin proved to be extremely diplomatic in terms of interacting with Mexican government,

726
01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:21,960
up to a point.

727
01:07:21,960 --> 01:07:22,960
Until he was arrested.

728
01:07:22,960 --> 01:07:25,600
Until he was arrested.

729
01:07:25,600 --> 01:07:35,120
And I think it's ironic from everything in regards to his writings, to his actions leading

730
01:07:35,120 --> 01:07:46,040
up to this point right before the revolution in the mid 1830s, that Stephen Austin did

731
01:07:46,040 --> 01:07:53,840
everything within his power to moderate the Anglo Texans to prevent revolution and that

732
01:07:53,840 --> 01:08:06,040
his goal was to see a successful colony of Americans, a colony of former US citizens

733
01:08:06,040 --> 01:08:12,640
existing successfully under Mexican rule in the present day Texas.

734
01:08:12,640 --> 01:08:23,800
And that it's clear even to the point that many of the Texas settlers were angry at Stephen

735
01:08:23,800 --> 01:08:34,200
Austin for his diplomacy, for his insistence on peace, on negotiation, on working with

736
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:39,080
the Mexican government rather than going to war against them.

737
01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:44,960
All the way up until he is arrested and held for a considerable amount of time without

738
01:08:44,960 --> 01:08:47,000
trial.

739
01:08:47,000 --> 01:08:53,200
And I just, I'm curious as to the individuals who made the diplomatic misstep of arresting

740
01:08:53,200 --> 01:08:57,240
probably the one guy who could have prevented revolution in this case.

741
01:08:57,240 --> 01:09:02,680
Well, you know, hindsight is 2020.

742
01:09:02,680 --> 01:09:10,360
And ironically they arrested because they were afraid that he was planning a revolution

743
01:09:10,360 --> 01:09:15,800
and the activist was trying to avoid it ironically.

744
01:09:15,800 --> 01:09:20,560
And so yeah, they were crossed wires somewhere that led to all of that.

745
01:09:20,560 --> 01:09:27,920
I guess a nice bit of trivia too when we're talking about the Texas myth is that Stephen

746
01:09:27,920 --> 01:09:36,960
Austin himself actually did pretty much establish what became the Texas Rangers.

747
01:09:36,960 --> 01:09:39,520
Yes, he did.

748
01:09:39,520 --> 01:09:50,120
And that was in 1823, a command of quote, Rangers for the common defense of the colony.

749
01:09:50,120 --> 01:09:59,760
And there's an unbroken line between that establishment and then the Texas Rangers themselves.

750
01:09:59,760 --> 01:10:11,560
So definitely a large slice of Texas myth there in pop culture.

751
01:10:11,560 --> 01:10:13,360
Very much so.

752
01:10:13,360 --> 01:10:22,480
And of course the work of the Rangers would heavily extend into just the realities of

753
01:10:22,480 --> 01:10:27,360
the old west, the realities of the of the western mythos, but then the realities of

754
01:10:27,360 --> 01:10:31,400
things like Indian territory, which would later become Oklahoma.

755
01:10:31,400 --> 01:10:34,680
Indian territory.

756
01:10:34,680 --> 01:10:35,680
Really onward.

757
01:10:35,680 --> 01:10:41,000
I mean, it was the Texas Rangers that took out Bonnie and Clyde.

758
01:10:41,000 --> 01:10:42,000
Yes.

759
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:46,000
So yeah, it's.

760
01:10:46,000 --> 01:10:57,920
But again, his ultimate faith is very similar to his father.

761
01:10:57,920 --> 01:11:05,920
He, you know, he lives through the revolution, just long enough to know that they're independent.

762
01:11:05,920 --> 01:11:09,880
He survived three months beyond the Alamo.

763
01:11:09,880 --> 01:11:14,160
And basically on his deathbed of pneumonia.

764
01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:15,160
Yes.

765
01:11:15,160 --> 01:11:18,160
At his sister's.

766
01:11:18,160 --> 01:11:19,640
Yes.

767
01:11:19,640 --> 01:11:24,680
The same sister is, I think it's the same sister, is it?

768
01:11:24,680 --> 01:11:27,160
It is quite likely.

769
01:11:27,160 --> 01:11:33,960
That that their father died at her home, but I think she had gone to Texas and and, you

770
01:11:33,960 --> 01:11:39,920
know, on his deathbed, you know, basically makes a statement that, you know, you know,

771
01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:42,480
these Texas is now independent.

772
01:11:42,480 --> 01:11:43,480
Yes.

773
01:11:43,480 --> 01:11:53,480
And so and along with that, the these quotes, I think something that can be said for.

774
01:11:53,480 --> 01:12:01,480
You know, it's is easy, particularly from the overarching and exploitive branding, so

775
01:12:01,480 --> 01:12:04,760
to speak, of manifest destiny.

776
01:12:04,760 --> 01:12:08,840
It's easy to paint.

777
01:12:08,840 --> 01:12:15,920
This portion of American history with with very broad brushstrokes, but.

778
01:12:15,920 --> 01:12:21,560
Something that we see with Moses, something that we see with Stephen is even by their

779
01:12:21,560 --> 01:12:24,760
own letters.

780
01:12:24,760 --> 01:12:28,120
A.

781
01:12:28,120 --> 01:12:36,040
Perhaps even you would normally say an almost religious zeal, but I would say a.

782
01:12:36,040 --> 01:12:39,800
A beyond religious zeal.

783
01:12:39,800 --> 01:12:45,120
That they seem to have been compelled.

784
01:12:45,120 --> 01:12:49,280
To create these things.

785
01:12:49,280 --> 01:12:51,720
Driven is.

786
01:12:51,720 --> 01:12:55,480
Driven is a mild word for it.

787
01:12:55,480 --> 01:12:59,880
It just was going to be so to speak.

788
01:12:59,880 --> 01:13:09,000
Just this this sheer force of will that proved indomitable, but also ultimately destroyed

789
01:13:09,000 --> 01:13:10,000
them physically.

790
01:13:10,000 --> 01:13:11,000
Physically, yes.

791
01:13:11,000 --> 01:13:16,880
And in in such similar ways, it's real eerie.

792
01:13:16,880 --> 01:13:17,880
Yes.

793
01:13:17,880 --> 01:13:18,880
For father.

794
01:13:18,880 --> 01:13:19,880
Yes.

795
01:13:19,880 --> 01:13:20,880
1821 and 1836.

796
01:13:20,880 --> 01:13:23,880
Well, I think that's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,

797
01:13:23,880 --> 01:13:26,240
very specific, pu menstrual cycle.

798
01:13:26,240 --> 01:13:30,640
What is that up to, which is

799
01:13:30,640 --> 01:13:33,760
13 add a six?

800
01:13:33,760 --> 01:13:42,100
Well, even there was only in his I think mid 40s when he passed, correct.

801
01:13:42,100 --> 01:13:50,800
He had suffered from malaria and his his long stand in the Mexican prison system had

802
01:13:50,800 --> 01:13:53,080
not helped.

803
01:13:53,080 --> 01:14:01,080
I do too. I believe that as well. And then I guess that brings us to Sam Houston.

804
01:14:01,080 --> 01:14:04,080
I love the history of Sam Houston.

805
01:14:04,080 --> 01:14:05,080
Yes.

806
01:14:05,080 --> 01:14:22,080
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.

807
01:14:22,080 --> 01:14:47,080
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.

808
01:14:47,080 --> 01:14:55,080
They basically want to run off and do their own thing.

809
01:14:55,080 --> 01:14:58,080
Well, that's very true.

810
01:14:58,080 --> 01:15:01,080
And, and that they did.

811
01:15:01,080 --> 01:15:03,080
Yes, yes.

812
01:15:03,080 --> 01:15:06,080
Definitely.

813
01:15:06,080 --> 01:15:10,080
At 16 he ran away.

814
01:15:10,080 --> 01:15:18,080
And not, not, not held her a sculptor ran away.

815
01:15:18,080 --> 01:15:23,080
Sam essentially went and joined the Cherokee.

816
01:15:23,080 --> 01:15:29,080
He did with Chief John Jolly.

817
01:15:29,080 --> 01:15:53,080
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.

818
01:15:53,080 --> 01:16:08,080
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.

819
01:16:08,080 --> 01:16:19,080
Just all kinds of things like this are very interesting and served in the War of 1812 under Thomas Hart Benton.

820
01:16:19,080 --> 01:16:23,080
Yeah, yes, I saw that.

821
01:16:23,080 --> 01:16:28,080
Just a little connection to the Ozarks.

822
01:16:28,080 --> 01:16:38,080
I know, and, and we'll get to this but Sam's brother developed a very strong connection with the Ozarks.

823
01:16:38,080 --> 01:16:52,080
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.

824
01:16:52,080 --> 01:16:55,080
I guess we could throw that out. It's interesting.

825
01:16:55,080 --> 01:16:59,080
Sam Houston.

826
01:16:59,080 --> 01:17:05,080
Ultimately, as an adult had very little to do with this family.

827
01:17:05,080 --> 01:17:06,080
Correct.

828
01:17:06,080 --> 01:17:22,080
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.

829
01:17:22,080 --> 01:17:24,080
Right.

830
01:17:24,080 --> 01:17:34,080
But he was very interested in caring for his nieces and nephews ironically.

831
01:17:34,080 --> 01:17:38,080
And,

832
01:17:38,080 --> 01:17:54,080
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.

833
01:17:54,080 --> 01:17:56,080
Yeah.

834
01:17:56,080 --> 01:18:07,080
And, you know, it played a role throughout his life really, you know, after the, after the War of 1812.

835
01:18:07,080 --> 01:18:13,080
He became a sub Indian agent under Andrew Jackson.

836
01:18:13,080 --> 01:18:26,080
And he actually helped resettle Indians into Arkansas.

837
01:18:26,080 --> 01:18:34,080
And actually then he had a falling out with Jackson.

838
01:18:34,080 --> 01:18:48,080
Because the government didn't provide supplies for the relocation as promised, and so

839
01:18:48,080 --> 01:18:53,080
that that soured him and on Jackson.

840
01:18:53,080 --> 01:19:03,080
It did. Now, is something that, you know, serving, he did serve in the, in the Creek Indian War.

841
01:19:03,080 --> 01:19:08,080
And that really speaks to.

842
01:19:08,080 --> 01:19:17,080
If you're unfamiliar with the diplomatic or lack of diplomatic ties that existed at that time.

843
01:19:17,080 --> 01:19:33,080
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.

844
01:19:33,080 --> 01:19:35,080
Right.

845
01:19:35,080 --> 01:19:37,080
Right.

846
01:19:37,080 --> 01:19:46,080
Although some people might find that confusing, but at the time that would have made sense. What it would have absolutely made sense. And

847
01:19:46,080 --> 01:19:50,080
then,

848
01:19:50,080 --> 01:20:01,080
you know these, he was elected to the sixth governor of Tennessee was later elected as the seventh governor of Texas.

849
01:20:01,080 --> 01:20:16,080
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.

850
01:20:16,080 --> 01:20:20,080
I believe I believe that's when that happened. Yes.

851
01:20:20,080 --> 01:20:38,080
And that it that it that his is very short. First marriage was a great social and political embarrassment to him.

852
01:20:38,080 --> 01:20:55,080
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.

853
01:20:55,080 --> 01:20:58,080
Yes, yeah.

854
01:20:58,080 --> 01:21:02,080
And

855
01:21:02,080 --> 01:21:09,080
and is ultimately joined by his brother john. Yes.

856
01:21:09,080 --> 01:21:29,080
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.

857
01:21:29,080 --> 01:21:34,080
He faced his death.

858
01:21:34,080 --> 01:21:41,080
He faces death by drowning, no less than the Mississippi at Memphis. Yeah.

859
01:21:41,080 --> 01:21:51,080
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.

860
01:21:51,080 --> 01:21:53,080
Right.

861
01:21:53,080 --> 01:22:01,080
In Norfolk, Arkansas.

862
01:22:01,080 --> 01:22:05,080
Without wife or children.

863
01:22:05,080 --> 01:22:07,080
Correct.

864
01:22:07,080 --> 01:22:17,080
And then, obviously this type of thing happened today, even now but certainly at this era in American history.

865
01:22:17,080 --> 01:22:21,080
It was a lot easier to disappear and reinvent yourself.

866
01:22:21,080 --> 01:22:25,080
It was, it was.

867
01:22:25,080 --> 01:22:29,080
And, and we see that happening.

868
01:22:29,080 --> 01:22:32,080
Comparatively regularly.

869
01:22:32,080 --> 01:22:39,080
It we do it we do in this series.

870
01:22:39,080 --> 01:22:56,080
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

871
01:22:56,080 --> 01:22:59,080
is what puts him into proximity with Texas.

872
01:22:59,080 --> 01:23:03,080
Yes, yes.

873
01:23:03,080 --> 01:23:12,080
And then as they kind of say that the rest of his history.

874
01:23:12,080 --> 01:23:15,080
It's an end.

875
01:23:15,080 --> 01:23:21,080
You know these individuals.

876
01:23:21,080 --> 01:23:28,080
Again something that I found very fascinating that the crossover between

877
01:23:28,080 --> 01:23:33,080
between dry goods and military service.

878
01:23:33,080 --> 01:23:43,080
The crossover between what to us looks like very perhaps mundane, even just everyday business type of life.

879
01:23:43,080 --> 01:24:07,080
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.

880
01:24:07,080 --> 01:24:11,080
Yes, yes.

881
01:24:11,080 --> 01:24:28,080
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

882
01:24:28,080 --> 01:24:35,080
the sort of accommodative nominators you had that before is this force of nature personality.

883
01:24:35,080 --> 01:24:57,080
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

884
01:24:57,080 --> 01:25:03,080
family backgrounds from from whence they had come in Europe.

885
01:25:03,080 --> 01:25:23,080
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.

886
01:25:23,080 --> 01:25:35,080
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.

887
01:25:35,080 --> 01:25:37,080
That sense of urgency.

888
01:25:37,080 --> 01:25:50,080
It does it that sense of urgency is it is an excellent turn of phrase for the intensity that that these men pursued destiny.

889
01:25:50,080 --> 01:26:00,080
That they pursued the idea that they there really was a sense they were, they were creating something grand.

890
01:26:00,080 --> 01:26:02,080
And they, and they did.

891
01:26:02,080 --> 01:26:06,080
Yes, and I, you know, turning back the page for a moment.

892
01:26:06,080 --> 01:26:25,080
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.

893
01:26:25,080 --> 01:26:42,080
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

894
01:26:42,080 --> 01:26:49,080
imported wallpaper that is floor to ceiling, and no two panels are alike.

895
01:26:49,080 --> 01:26:55,080
Just a bit of a statement.

896
01:26:55,080 --> 01:27:23,080
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.

897
01:27:23,080 --> 01:27:30,080
I still think that he had to play some of that just for effect.

898
01:27:30,080 --> 01:27:40,080
Well, he did that's what got him elected and certainly was not the only president to ever have done that so.

899
01:27:40,080 --> 01:28:01,080
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

900
01:28:01,080 --> 01:28:05,080
that somehow is

901
01:28:05,080 --> 01:28:10,080
stuck under a floorboard somewhere.

902
01:28:10,080 --> 01:28:15,080
Well, perhaps until it, perhaps until they basically get it.

903
01:28:15,080 --> 01:28:20,080
And it really did it in the Truman administration.

904
01:28:20,080 --> 01:28:26,080
Maybe they scraped it off.

905
01:28:26,080 --> 01:28:33,080
It's a, it's a hope. It's speaking of mythos, and is that's that's my mythos.

906
01:28:33,080 --> 01:28:39,080
Andy Jackson, Andy Jackson's cheese is still part of anyway.

907
01:28:39,080 --> 01:28:49,080
I've seen 1000 pound block of cheese it's impressive.

908
01:28:49,080 --> 01:29:17,080
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.

909
01:29:17,080 --> 01:29:20,080
Yes he did.

910
01:29:20,080 --> 01:29:26,080
Strong ties of course to Texas but also strong ties

911
01:29:26,080 --> 01:29:28,080
to Arkansas.

912
01:29:28,080 --> 01:29:34,080
Yes, of course he was, you know,

913
01:29:34,080 --> 01:29:54,080
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.

914
01:29:54,080 --> 01:29:57,080
That is interesting.

915
01:29:57,080 --> 01:30:08,080
I think that is extremely interesting. And I love the sort of pre 1950s records of what we would today called cryptids.

916
01:30:08,080 --> 01:30:10,080
Yes.

917
01:30:10,080 --> 01:30:20,080
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.

918
01:30:20,080 --> 01:30:22,080
I think that's very fair.

919
01:30:22,080 --> 01:30:44,080
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

920
01:30:44,080 --> 01:30:56,080
breed, such as grow nowhere else in the face of the universal earth, but just around the backbone of North America.

921
01:30:56,080 --> 01:31:04,080
Boy, you almost thought he was talking about Texas there.

922
01:31:04,080 --> 01:31:16,080
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.

923
01:31:16,080 --> 01:31:18,080
There's gumption.

924
01:31:18,080 --> 01:31:21,080
It is. It is.

925
01:31:21,080 --> 01:31:28,080
He enlisted as a volunteer in the Indian Wars from 1813 to 1815 and he saw action in Alabama and Florida.

926
01:31:28,080 --> 01:31:36,080
And moved around quite a bit in Tennessee, with his family.

927
01:31:36,080 --> 01:31:44,080
And what was initially quite close with, as you mentioned, Andy Jackson.

928
01:31:44,080 --> 01:31:50,080
Yes, I actually

929
01:31:50,080 --> 01:31:55,080
served under Jackson, he was also in the Creek Ward, as Houston was as well.

930
01:31:55,080 --> 01:31:58,080
Yes.

931
01:31:58,080 --> 01:32:10,080
You know, he was in Congress from Tennessee in the late 1820s, and

932
01:32:10,080 --> 01:32:19,080
he fell out with Jackson, in part over the Indian issues.

933
01:32:19,080 --> 01:32:39,080
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.

934
01:32:39,080 --> 01:33:03,080
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.

935
01:33:03,080 --> 01:33:13,080
And David Crockett helped stop the assassination so right, and, you know, they knew each other. They're both from Tennessee.

936
01:33:13,080 --> 01:33:22,080
Right. There's now the legend of Davy Crockett has gone through a number of iterations.

937
01:33:22,080 --> 01:33:27,080
But it started.

938
01:33:27,080 --> 01:33:32,080
Really, it appears to have started during Procket's political career.

939
01:33:32,080 --> 01:33:43,080
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.

940
01:33:43,080 --> 01:33:55,080
But he did wear the coons skin cap in Washington, fitting the bill, as you said, kind of just same way that Jackson did.

941
01:33:55,080 --> 01:34:10,080
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.

942
01:34:10,080 --> 01:34:32,080
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.

943
01:34:32,080 --> 01:34:41,080
And he was savvy enough to, again, he had lots of ups and downs with money.

944
01:34:41,080 --> 01:34:44,080
Right, as some of these other folks did.

945
01:34:44,080 --> 01:35:04,080
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.

946
01:35:04,080 --> 01:35:09,080
And again, there's, there's this sense of,

947
01:35:09,080 --> 01:35:13,080
oh, living big and living fast.

948
01:35:13,080 --> 01:35:24,080
Yes. And, and that certainly kind of kind of fit David Crockett but he.

949
01:35:24,080 --> 01:35:34,080
Ultimately, when you decide to go to Texas. He made his way from Tennessee via Arkansas.

950
01:35:34,080 --> 01:35:47,080
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.

951
01:35:47,080 --> 01:35:59,080
Ironically, some of his family is his children and grandchildren stayed in Arkansas, and Crockett's bluff is actually named after his grandson.

952
01:35:59,080 --> 01:36:05,080
Yes. And, and it's on the White River.

953
01:36:05,080 --> 01:36:12,080
It is. Yeah, it's it's southeast of Little Rock, but it's on the White River.

954
01:36:12,080 --> 01:36:21,080
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.

955
01:36:21,080 --> 01:36:24,080
Oh my gosh yes.

956
01:36:24,080 --> 01:36:27,080
I figured I'd let you talk about Disney.

957
01:36:27,080 --> 01:36:33,080
I think that's very fair. Well, you know, that's Parker, all the way.

958
01:36:33,080 --> 01:36:36,080
And Jed clamp it a much younger Jed clamp it.

959
01:36:36,080 --> 01:36:38,080
Yeah.

960
01:36:38,080 --> 01:36:44,080
But I think that is something that I think is important.

961
01:36:44,080 --> 01:36:58,080
It is, it is easy to dismiss the stories because in so many cases from the late 1820s, all the way into the 1960s.

962
01:36:58,080 --> 01:37:02,080
So many of these stories are historically inaccurate.

963
01:37:02,080 --> 01:37:05,080
They are.

964
01:37:05,080 --> 01:37:20,080
But said, I think that the, the myths surrounding the individual, or inspired by the individual resonated with a variety of generations.

965
01:37:20,080 --> 01:37:25,080
I mean, 140 years worth of generations for real reasons.

966
01:37:29,840 --> 01:37:34,840
I think that it embodied a number of important archetypes

967
01:37:36,560 --> 01:37:41,560
and that that embodiment, while the myth might be fiction,

968
01:37:41,860 --> 01:37:46,860
I think the resonation, the resonance of the story

969
01:37:46,860 --> 01:37:51,860
was real, the idea of larger than life characters.

970
01:37:55,560 --> 01:37:56,760
Oh, I agree.

971
01:37:56,760 --> 01:38:01,020
And Crockett definitely was and was very outspoken.

972
01:38:03,280 --> 01:38:06,720
Ironically, sort of the myth that he didn't write himself

973
01:38:06,720 --> 01:38:09,740
in his autobiography came from the Alamo.

974
01:38:11,720 --> 01:38:14,920
And ironically, he was only in Texas three months

975
01:38:14,920 --> 01:38:16,180
before the Alamo.

976
01:38:16,180 --> 01:38:18,600
So he really wasn't there that long.

977
01:38:20,120 --> 01:38:22,440
And for those that aren't familiar,

978
01:38:23,280 --> 01:38:27,200
really the reason that the Alamo happened

979
01:38:27,200 --> 01:38:32,200
is basically a division of opinion

980
01:38:34,500 --> 01:38:39,500
that a commander at the Alamo, the American commander,

981
01:38:39,920 --> 01:38:43,920
didn't wanna listen to orders from Sam Houston.

982
01:38:43,920 --> 01:38:46,600
Yeah, Sam Houston, and again,

983
01:38:46,600 --> 01:38:48,480
I think this goes back to the military career.

984
01:38:48,480 --> 01:38:53,300
He realized this isn't going to work.

985
01:38:53,300 --> 01:38:58,300
He told him not to engage and to retreat

986
01:38:59,480 --> 01:39:02,600
and they ignored orders.

987
01:39:02,600 --> 01:39:05,040
Yes, yes.

988
01:39:05,040 --> 01:39:14,040
And so of course the legend comes down through time,

989
01:39:16,320 --> 01:39:20,920
perpetrated in part by Disney that David Crockett

990
01:39:20,920 --> 01:39:24,640
and Jim Bowie die in basically a hail of bullets

991
01:39:24,640 --> 01:39:28,400
taking out as many Mexicans as they can,

992
01:39:28,400 --> 01:39:30,240
hold up in a little room.

993
01:39:30,240 --> 01:39:35,240
And it doesn't appear that it really went that way,

994
01:39:38,200 --> 01:39:39,440
particularly with Crockett,

995
01:39:39,440 --> 01:39:41,780
although to be perfectly honest,

996
01:39:43,120 --> 01:39:46,680
as far as a large personality and everything,

997
01:39:46,680 --> 01:39:48,520
going out in the hail of bullets

998
01:39:48,520 --> 01:39:52,540
in a suicidal mission is one thing.

999
01:39:52,540 --> 01:39:57,520
But I think the account that we have

1000
01:39:57,520 --> 01:40:00,440
that's probably the most accurate in some ways

1001
01:40:00,440 --> 01:40:02,480
is more larger than life.

1002
01:40:02,480 --> 01:40:06,640
And that comes from, there's two actually.

1003
01:40:06,640 --> 01:40:11,640
There's one man that survived from the American side

1004
01:40:11,880 --> 01:40:14,160
who told his tale later.

1005
01:40:14,160 --> 01:40:19,160
And then the diary of one of the Spanish officers' wives,

1006
01:40:21,040 --> 01:40:25,440
and it came up for public auction in 1975.

1007
01:40:25,440 --> 01:40:28,080
That was the first time it was revealed.

1008
01:40:28,080 --> 01:40:32,360
And she was there, she was on site,

1009
01:40:32,360 --> 01:40:34,840
and she tells what happened.

1010
01:40:34,840 --> 01:40:39,680
And basically that at the end of the fighting,

1011
01:40:39,680 --> 01:40:44,620
the survivors, the American survivors are taken

1012
01:40:44,620 --> 01:40:46,680
to the Lieutenant of Santana's.

1013
01:40:48,840 --> 01:40:51,520
And that there's several of my,

1014
01:40:51,520 --> 01:40:56,520
there's like around 10 left, and Santana specifically

1015
01:40:58,200 --> 01:41:01,240
is looking for Davy Crockett because he is well-known,

1016
01:41:01,240 --> 01:41:02,800
sad truck.

1017
01:41:02,800 --> 01:41:07,800
And the account is that the officer, the Lieutenant,

1018
01:41:11,040 --> 01:41:16,040
inquires if one of them is Davy Crockett,

1019
01:41:16,040 --> 01:41:21,040
and that he says, I'm Crockett.

1020
01:41:22,120 --> 01:41:25,280
And he tells him to get on his knees

1021
01:41:25,280 --> 01:41:27,600
because they're going to execute them.

1022
01:41:27,600 --> 01:41:30,840
And that Crockett just refuses to kneel

1023
01:41:30,840 --> 01:41:31,880
and they shoot him.

1024
01:41:34,320 --> 01:41:36,760
Which to be perfectly honest,

1025
01:41:36,760 --> 01:41:39,840
I think that fits the larger than life personality

1026
01:41:39,840 --> 01:41:41,200
even better.

1027
01:41:41,200 --> 01:41:43,440
It does, it does.

1028
01:41:43,440 --> 01:41:48,440
And I think that there's an interesting point

1029
01:41:50,920 --> 01:41:55,480
of internal introspection and analysis

1030
01:41:56,880 --> 01:42:01,880
that these men who became myth in the American story

1031
01:42:07,800 --> 01:42:08,840
were men.

1032
01:42:08,840 --> 01:42:13,840
They had plenty of issues as is evidenced by everything.

1033
01:42:16,440 --> 01:42:18,960
In some cases, their trail of creditors

1034
01:42:20,080 --> 01:42:25,080
to unhappy family members,

1035
01:42:25,600 --> 01:42:27,620
misplaced spouses,

1036
01:42:30,360 --> 01:42:32,120
wide variety of issues.

1037
01:42:34,440 --> 01:42:37,720
I think that it's crucially important

1038
01:42:37,720 --> 01:42:42,000
to consider and accept the mythos

1039
01:42:43,880 --> 01:42:46,320
as its own weather system, so to speak,

1040
01:42:46,320 --> 01:42:48,520
as its own cultural weather system

1041
01:42:48,520 --> 01:42:52,160
that these things spoke to individuals

1042
01:42:52,160 --> 01:42:54,240
and perhaps even continue to speak to individuals

1043
01:42:54,240 --> 01:42:56,000
in powerful and important ways.

1044
01:42:57,240 --> 01:42:58,360
Yes.

1045
01:42:58,360 --> 01:43:03,120
That it's important that you have to look at the myth

1046
01:43:04,480 --> 01:43:07,000
separately from the men,

1047
01:43:07,000 --> 01:43:12,000
but it is, I think, very beneficial to see the myth

1048
01:43:13,320 --> 01:43:18,320
for the importance of it, not to just readily dismiss it.

1049
01:43:18,600 --> 01:43:20,600
Oh, that's not historically accurate.

1050
01:43:20,600 --> 01:43:21,520
We throw it away.

1051
01:43:23,000 --> 01:43:25,440
Exactly, exactly.

1052
01:43:25,440 --> 01:43:27,880
But as already noted,

1053
01:43:27,880 --> 01:43:30,000
as you've already noted very eloquently,

1054
01:43:30,000 --> 01:43:34,040
in so many cases, the real life accounts

1055
01:43:34,040 --> 01:43:38,880
surrounding, not just surrounding these men,

1056
01:43:38,880 --> 01:43:43,880
but what these men did are at times

1057
01:43:45,720 --> 01:43:50,720
more impactful than the folklore.

1058
01:43:52,520 --> 01:43:53,640
That's true.

1059
01:43:55,480 --> 01:44:00,080
And you're right too.

1060
01:44:00,080 --> 01:44:02,200
Both are important, I think,

1061
01:44:02,200 --> 01:44:06,440
in our larger narrative of our history.

1062
01:44:07,640 --> 01:44:12,640
Now, I guess, one of those big myths is Jim Bowie.

1063
01:44:14,640 --> 01:44:17,680
It is, it is, and his knife.

1064
01:44:17,680 --> 01:44:21,760
And his knife, which has a story

1065
01:44:21,760 --> 01:44:23,680
all its own tied to those arts.

1066
01:44:24,760 --> 01:44:25,680
That it does.

1067
01:44:25,680 --> 01:44:27,840
One that is continuing to this day,

1068
01:44:27,840 --> 01:44:30,840
which I find really, really quite beautiful,

1069
01:44:30,840 --> 01:44:33,880
especially from an artisanship standpoint,

1070
01:44:35,240 --> 01:44:38,440
that Jim Bowie, James Bowie,

1071
01:44:40,160 --> 01:44:43,960
was perhaps one of the most colorful

1072
01:44:43,960 --> 01:44:47,800
and perhaps less egalitarian characters

1073
01:44:49,320 --> 01:44:54,320
in comparison to a man like Stephen Austin or Sam Houston.

1074
01:44:55,920 --> 01:44:57,840
No, in a very real sense,

1075
01:44:57,840 --> 01:45:00,240
he would have spent in the Rogue Gallery.

1076
01:45:00,240 --> 01:45:01,640
Yes, in-

1077
01:45:01,640 --> 01:45:03,440
Despite his myth.

1078
01:45:03,440 --> 01:45:08,440
Yes, and probably lives above and beyond

1079
01:45:09,640 --> 01:45:12,600
the myths associated with him.

1080
01:45:14,680 --> 01:45:19,480
He was born in 1796 in Kentucky.

1081
01:45:19,480 --> 01:45:23,360
Of course, he died on March 6th, 1836

1082
01:45:23,360 --> 01:45:25,680
at the Alamo, spoiler alert.

1083
01:45:25,680 --> 01:45:30,680
But just his initial introduction,

1084
01:45:31,840 --> 01:45:36,840
American pioneer, slave smuggler, trader, and soldier.

1085
01:45:39,680 --> 01:45:43,680
Not to mention partners with the pirate Jean Lafitte.

1086
01:45:44,920 --> 01:45:47,160
Yes, I'm particularly interested.

1087
01:45:49,160 --> 01:45:54,160
Which of course is another connection to Andy Jatson.

1088
01:45:54,160 --> 01:45:59,160
Because Lafitte basically saved Jatson's bacon

1089
01:45:59,880 --> 01:46:01,000
in New Orleans.

1090
01:46:01,000 --> 01:46:01,840
Oh, New Orleans.

1091
01:46:01,840 --> 01:46:02,840
Yes, yes he did.

1092
01:46:06,880 --> 01:46:09,880
And again, we talk about that we see this

1093
01:46:13,480 --> 01:46:15,320
immediate six degrees of separation

1094
01:46:15,320 --> 01:46:18,360
in the old west of Missouri

1095
01:46:18,360 --> 01:46:21,400
around and immediately following the Civil War.

1096
01:46:21,400 --> 01:46:23,160
And we're going to talk about that

1097
01:46:23,160 --> 01:46:26,080
in the next four, in regards to the Texas Revolution

1098
01:46:26,080 --> 01:46:30,240
and things like from essentially the War of 1812

1099
01:46:30,240 --> 01:46:33,880
to the Texas Revolution, we see this all over again.

1100
01:46:33,880 --> 01:46:37,640
Oh look, everybody seems to know everybody.

1101
01:46:37,640 --> 01:46:41,520
Yes, there's a connection pretty much everywhere.

1102
01:46:41,520 --> 01:46:46,520
You know, now Jim Bowie's father was involved with a raid

1103
01:46:55,480 --> 01:47:00,480
into Texas in the early 1800s.

1104
01:47:02,000 --> 01:47:07,000
And then the father dies around 1820

1105
01:47:07,000 --> 01:47:12,000
and leaves slaves, horses and cattle

1106
01:47:12,320 --> 01:47:14,240
to James and his brother Resin.

1107
01:47:15,280 --> 01:47:20,280
And they're building an estate down in Louisiana.

1108
01:47:21,360 --> 01:47:24,640
And that's when they get into land speculation,

1109
01:47:24,640 --> 01:47:27,320
which gets them into Arkansas.

1110
01:47:27,320 --> 01:47:30,360
Yes, they start speculating land in Arkansas.

1111
01:47:32,120 --> 01:47:36,600
And as you mentioned earlier, finances being

1112
01:47:36,600 --> 01:47:39,120
what they were at the time and not always having money

1113
01:47:39,120 --> 01:47:44,120
to do these things, they were creative at getting credit.

1114
01:47:44,840 --> 01:47:49,080
And how they did that was partnering with Lafitte.

1115
01:47:49,080 --> 01:47:54,080
Correct, when in doubt, partner with a French pirate.

1116
01:47:54,080 --> 01:47:55,400
Exactly.

1117
01:47:55,400 --> 01:47:59,240
And so, and of course Lafitte has, you know,

1118
01:47:59,240 --> 01:48:04,240
sort of anti-hero folk status in Texas now,

1119
01:48:08,600 --> 01:48:10,360
particularly in the Galveston area.

1120
01:48:12,320 --> 01:48:15,920
And, you know, people are still trying to find

1121
01:48:15,920 --> 01:48:19,760
exactly where his hideout was on which island,

1122
01:48:19,760 --> 01:48:24,760
et cetera, and his supposed treasure that's buried.

1123
01:48:24,760 --> 01:48:29,760
Well, so Jim Bowie would go to Galveston,

1124
01:48:31,560 --> 01:48:36,560
make trips to Lafitte's compound

1125
01:48:37,880 --> 01:48:41,840
and where Lafitte was bringing in slaves.

1126
01:48:41,840 --> 01:48:46,840
And basically they would then take them to the custom house

1127
01:48:47,000 --> 01:48:49,840
where they would be sold and then they would buy them back.

1128
01:48:49,840 --> 01:48:54,680
And this is how they would get their money

1129
01:48:54,680 --> 01:48:57,680
and this is how they collected money.

1130
01:48:57,680 --> 01:49:02,680
And they say in the 1820s amounted to about $65,000

1131
01:49:06,800 --> 01:49:10,560
that they acquired to buy land.

1132
01:49:11,400 --> 01:49:14,400
And they did a lot of that in Arkansas,

1133
01:49:15,480 --> 01:49:17,920
but that didn't really go too well for them.

1134
01:49:18,880 --> 01:49:19,720
Right.

1135
01:49:19,720 --> 01:49:24,200
Because again, they were purchasing land from the Spanish.

1136
01:49:24,200 --> 01:49:27,000
Here we go again, another thing.

1137
01:49:28,640 --> 01:49:31,720
And then they were reselling it to people.

1138
01:49:31,720 --> 01:49:36,720
And so by the time you get into the later 1820s,

1139
01:49:38,520 --> 01:49:42,320
there were a lot of people who were figuring out

1140
01:49:42,320 --> 01:49:44,040
they can't prove they own the land.

1141
01:49:44,040 --> 01:49:49,040
And so finally, the federal government

1142
01:49:49,040 --> 01:49:54,040
had finally said the state courts could decide

1143
01:49:55,520 --> 01:49:59,320
these land claims that were in the Louisiana Purchase.

1144
01:49:59,320 --> 01:50:04,320
So there were over 120 claims that were filed against

1145
01:50:04,320 --> 01:50:06,200
Jim Bowie and his brother Rezin.

1146
01:50:09,920 --> 01:50:14,920
Let's see, 126 actually from people who had purchased land

1147
01:50:14,920 --> 01:50:19,920
of the former Spanish grants from the Bowie brothers.

1148
01:50:22,560 --> 01:50:27,560
And a lower court had initially confirmed most of the claims.

1149
01:50:29,920 --> 01:50:34,920
They were reversed in 1831 after further research showed

1150
01:50:35,360 --> 01:50:39,200
that the land had never belonged to the Bowies

1151
01:50:39,200 --> 01:50:43,480
and that the original documentation had been forged.

1152
01:50:43,480 --> 01:50:44,880
Yes.

1153
01:50:44,880 --> 01:50:47,680
And the US Supreme Court upheld the decision.

1154
01:50:47,680 --> 01:50:48,520
Yes.

1155
01:50:51,520 --> 01:50:54,080
It is a little bit ugly right there.

1156
01:50:54,080 --> 01:50:55,520
I will.

1157
01:50:55,520 --> 01:51:00,520
And then, but then, and maybe having associated with pirates

1158
01:51:00,960 --> 01:51:04,000
might've lent to all of this.

1159
01:51:04,000 --> 01:51:08,560
So when the purchasers decided that they would try

1160
01:51:08,560 --> 01:51:13,040
to sue the Bowies directly for re-accomplices,

1161
01:51:13,040 --> 01:51:16,880
they discovered that all of the court documents were missing.

1162
01:51:16,880 --> 01:51:18,120
Yes.

1163
01:51:18,120 --> 01:51:19,160
So they couldn't sue.

1164
01:51:20,320 --> 01:51:21,160
Right.

1165
01:51:22,160 --> 01:51:27,160
So, a chapter that often is overlooked in the myth.

1166
01:51:31,520 --> 01:51:34,600
It is, which I think is unfortunate

1167
01:51:34,600 --> 01:51:36,040
because it's fascinating.

1168
01:51:36,040 --> 01:51:39,760
I think there's certainly great cautionary tales in that,

1169
01:51:39,760 --> 01:51:44,160
but I think it also speaks to the just the wildness

1170
01:51:44,160 --> 01:51:49,160
of this frontier and the fact that to a certain degree

1171
01:51:49,720 --> 01:51:52,840
that it was creating this environment

1172
01:51:52,840 --> 01:51:57,840
that if you could get by with it, it went, it was gonna go.

1173
01:51:58,040 --> 01:51:58,880
Right.

1174
01:51:58,880 --> 01:52:03,880
And actually it's at that same time period in 1827

1175
01:52:04,040 --> 01:52:07,960
that Jim Bowie became famous as a knife fighter.

1176
01:52:07,960 --> 01:52:08,960
Right.

1177
01:52:08,960 --> 01:52:13,240
And by killing, he killed the sheriff.

1178
01:52:13,240 --> 01:52:14,240
Yes.

1179
01:52:14,240 --> 01:52:15,320
But not the deputy.

1180
01:52:18,440 --> 01:52:23,440
With a very special and suddenly very marketable knife style.

1181
01:52:23,440 --> 01:52:24,800
Style, yes.

1182
01:52:26,440 --> 01:52:30,040
And from all accounts, it appears that he was lucky

1183
01:52:30,040 --> 01:52:39,040
that he lived through it because the sheriff had run him through

1184
01:52:40,600 --> 01:52:43,400
with his sword through the chest.

1185
01:52:43,400 --> 01:52:44,240
Yes.

1186
01:52:45,640 --> 01:52:47,480
And shot him.

1187
01:52:47,480 --> 01:52:48,320
Yeah.

1188
01:52:48,320 --> 01:52:52,040
And this is 1827, the sandbar fight.

1189
01:52:52,040 --> 01:52:54,640
And from, if memory serves,

1190
01:52:54,640 --> 01:52:59,640
Bowie and the sheriff were actually essentially witnesses

1191
01:53:02,600 --> 01:53:05,040
to an existent duel.

1192
01:53:06,880 --> 01:53:09,800
That's my, I believe so.

1193
01:53:10,720 --> 01:53:15,720
I believe again on an unclaimed island slash sandbar

1194
01:53:18,600 --> 01:53:21,160
near Natchez in the Mississippi.

1195
01:53:21,160 --> 01:53:22,000
Right.

1196
01:53:22,000 --> 01:53:24,720
Well, that's true, that had happened,

1197
01:53:24,720 --> 01:53:26,800
but they had their own argument

1198
01:53:26,800 --> 01:53:30,760
because Bowie had supported the sheriff's opponent

1199
01:53:30,760 --> 01:53:32,040
in the election.

1200
01:53:34,920 --> 01:53:38,760
Who was a banker who then turned down

1201
01:53:39,680 --> 01:53:42,920
a loan application of Bowie.

1202
01:53:42,920 --> 01:53:44,840
Probably for land speculation.

1203
01:53:44,840 --> 01:53:52,160
Or I'm sure it was to repay the good folks in Arkansas.

1204
01:53:52,160 --> 01:53:57,160
But so they had an argument

1205
01:54:01,080 --> 01:54:03,120
and the sheriff fired a shot at Bowie.

1206
01:54:03,120 --> 01:54:08,120
And then that's when Bowie decided

1207
01:54:09,160 --> 01:54:10,640
to start carrying a knife.

1208
01:54:10,640 --> 01:54:15,640
And then they ended up attending a duel.

1209
01:54:18,120 --> 01:54:22,200
Bowie was, I guess, second to someone else, to Wells.

1210
01:54:22,200 --> 01:54:25,200
And Wright was a supporter of the opponent.

1211
01:54:27,600 --> 01:54:29,400
I love the fact that-

1212
01:54:29,400 --> 01:54:31,280
I ended up with a handshake.

1213
01:54:31,280 --> 01:54:34,560
The duelists, each fire shot,

1214
01:54:34,560 --> 01:54:39,560
both missed, both resolved their duel with a handshake.

1215
01:54:39,560 --> 01:54:43,560
And then a massacre takes place immediately following.

1216
01:54:44,960 --> 01:54:45,800
Yes.

1217
01:54:47,680 --> 01:54:50,400
They began fighting, Bowie was shot in the hip

1218
01:54:50,400 --> 01:54:55,400
and he drew a knife and charged his attacker

1219
01:54:56,160 --> 01:54:58,640
who hit him over the head with an empty pistol,

1220
01:54:58,640 --> 01:55:01,160
breaking the pistol, knocking Bowie to the ground.

1221
01:55:01,160 --> 01:55:06,160
Then the sheriff shot at Bowie and missed,

1222
01:55:11,120 --> 01:55:14,120
who returned fire and possibly hit the sheriff.

1223
01:55:15,000 --> 01:55:16,160
Then the sheriff-

1224
01:55:18,440 --> 01:55:22,440
Oh yeah, that's when he drew his sword and impaled Bowie.

1225
01:55:22,440 --> 01:55:26,480
And when he attempted to retreat,

1226
01:55:26,480 --> 01:55:28,440
Bowie was shot in the hip.

1227
01:55:28,440 --> 01:55:32,480
And when he attempted to retrieve his blade,

1228
01:55:32,480 --> 01:55:36,360
I think his foot on Bowie's chest and tagging,

1229
01:55:36,360 --> 01:55:40,360
pulled him down and disemboweled him with his knife.

1230
01:55:40,360 --> 01:55:41,200
Yes.

1231
01:55:42,520 --> 01:55:47,160
And we'll get into the importance of the knife shortly.

1232
01:55:47,160 --> 01:55:49,960
The newspapers picked up the story,

1233
01:55:49,960 --> 01:55:51,960
named it the Sandbar Fight,

1234
01:55:51,960 --> 01:55:54,120
described Bowie's fighting in detail.

1235
01:55:54,120 --> 01:55:59,120
And Bowie becomes considered the most dangerous man

1236
01:56:00,120 --> 01:56:02,880
pretty much anywhere around.

1237
01:56:02,880 --> 01:56:03,720
Right.

1238
01:56:04,600 --> 01:56:08,560
The most dangerous man in 1827.

1239
01:56:10,520 --> 01:56:15,520
And so then the story,

1240
01:56:15,560 --> 01:56:20,560
and we still call the Stile a knife, a Bowie knife.

1241
01:56:20,560 --> 01:56:25,560
And it's still contested exactly,

1242
01:56:26,920 --> 01:56:31,920
is it a separate knife than an Arkansas toothpick?

1243
01:56:32,480 --> 01:56:33,320
Yes.

1244
01:56:33,320 --> 01:56:35,800
And the suggestion is it is.

1245
01:56:38,360 --> 01:56:40,360
It is now anyway.

1246
01:56:40,360 --> 01:56:45,360
There are some that say that at that time period,

1247
01:56:45,360 --> 01:56:47,360
there wasn't much difference between them.

1248
01:56:47,360 --> 01:56:52,360
But who knows?

1249
01:56:52,360 --> 01:56:57,360
But the term Arkansas toothpick for the Stile a knife,

1250
01:56:57,360 --> 01:56:58,760
predates Bowie.

1251
01:57:01,120 --> 01:57:05,080
Then the question is, did Jim Bowie design it

1252
01:57:05,080 --> 01:57:10,080
or did the blacksmith, James Black,

1253
01:57:11,040 --> 01:57:13,760
who has a very interesting story.

1254
01:57:13,760 --> 01:57:17,360
Ironically, many of the Bowie family members

1255
01:57:17,360 --> 01:57:19,120
actually say it was his brother, Rezin,

1256
01:57:19,120 --> 01:57:21,000
who designed the knife.

1257
01:57:21,000 --> 01:57:21,840
Interesting.

1258
01:57:23,600 --> 01:57:25,960
But neither made it.

1259
01:57:27,000 --> 01:57:29,200
But neither made it.

1260
01:57:29,200 --> 01:57:32,200
In fact, it said Rezin's grandchildren said

1261
01:57:32,200 --> 01:57:35,200
that Rezin only supervised his blacksmith,

1262
01:57:35,200 --> 01:57:38,200
who was the designer of the knife.

1263
01:57:38,200 --> 01:57:42,400
And that information I have doesn't specify

1264
01:57:42,400 --> 01:57:45,000
whether or not that would have been James Black.

1265
01:57:45,000 --> 01:57:50,000
But ostensibly, most people credit Black,

1266
01:57:51,480 --> 01:57:55,480
who has a pretty fascinating story himself.

1267
01:57:55,480 --> 01:57:56,320
He does.

1268
01:57:56,320 --> 01:57:59,360
There's one more footnote that I wanted to add to Bowie.

1269
01:57:59,360 --> 01:58:00,200
Sure.

1270
01:58:00,200 --> 01:58:03,880
Because we see him as this,

1271
01:58:03,880 --> 01:58:05,640
essentially, a historical record

1272
01:58:05,640 --> 01:58:08,680
shows him as a scoundrel, essentially, a rogue.

1273
01:58:08,680 --> 01:58:09,520
Yeah.

1274
01:58:09,520 --> 01:58:14,520
And of course, he passes from history

1275
01:58:15,240 --> 01:58:17,200
with his death at the Alamo,

1276
01:58:17,200 --> 01:58:20,680
his infamous Bowie knife,

1277
01:58:20,680 --> 01:58:24,160
presumably being taken as a war prize by someone.

1278
01:58:24,160 --> 01:58:25,000
Right.

1279
01:58:25,000 --> 01:58:28,360
But it's never recovered.

1280
01:58:28,360 --> 01:58:29,200
Right.

1281
01:58:30,160 --> 01:58:32,440
And Bowie moved to Texas in 1830.

1282
01:58:32,440 --> 01:58:37,440
In 1831, he married the daughter of the provincial vice governor.

1283
01:58:39,400 --> 01:58:40,240
Yeah.

1284
01:58:40,240 --> 01:58:41,840
Again, another thing.

1285
01:58:41,840 --> 01:58:42,680
Yes.

1286
01:58:43,640 --> 01:58:46,640
Usura Maria de Vermemende.

1287
01:58:48,280 --> 01:58:53,280
And in two years,

1288
01:58:53,600 --> 01:58:55,280
and the evidence suggests

1289
01:58:55,280 --> 01:58:57,720
that they're actually extremely happy together.

1290
01:58:57,720 --> 01:59:01,000
In two years, they're actually extremely happy together.

1291
01:59:01,000 --> 01:59:03,520
In two years, they have two children.

1292
01:59:05,520 --> 01:59:09,040
Word gets of an epidemic coming through.

1293
01:59:09,040 --> 01:59:11,360
He insists that his wife and his young children

1294
01:59:12,400 --> 01:59:17,400
essentially evacuate and move out to the country.

1295
01:59:18,000 --> 01:59:22,000
Despite that, the cholera epidemic in 1833

1296
01:59:23,000 --> 01:59:26,000
takes his wife, his children, and his in-laws.

1297
01:59:26,880 --> 01:59:28,920
Yeah, he eludes us to everyone.

1298
01:59:28,920 --> 01:59:31,680
Everyone that, you know,

1299
01:59:31,680 --> 01:59:34,800
presumably everyone that he cared about

1300
01:59:34,800 --> 01:59:36,840
dies in this single epidemic.

1301
01:59:36,840 --> 01:59:39,800
And in his grief, he begins drinking heavily.

1302
01:59:39,800 --> 01:59:42,840
His health declines and his anger

1303
01:59:42,840 --> 01:59:46,680
at the actions of the faltering Mexican government increase.

1304
01:59:48,160 --> 01:59:50,920
That these very human experiences,

1305
01:59:50,920 --> 01:59:53,920
very tragic human experiences, also begin to play a part,

1306
01:59:53,920 --> 01:59:57,800
not only the mythos that would create the man Jim Bowie,

1307
01:59:57,800 --> 02:00:00,960
that history or folklore would recall,

1308
02:00:00,960 --> 02:00:05,120
but also likely pushed him into his decisions

1309
02:00:06,440 --> 02:00:07,280
at the Alamo.

1310
02:00:09,200 --> 02:00:12,600
Well, that's very, very possible.

1311
02:00:12,600 --> 02:00:15,120
I mean, and he had gone, as far as renouncing,

1312
02:00:15,120 --> 02:00:18,800
his American citizenship, when he married,

1313
02:00:18,800 --> 02:00:23,800
and he then got permission from the Mexican government

1314
02:00:36,520 --> 02:00:40,520
to invade Indian territory to search for the lost

1315
02:00:43,160 --> 02:00:46,800
Amigurus mine,

1316
02:00:46,800 --> 02:00:51,040
and it did not really go well.

1317
02:00:51,040 --> 02:00:52,520
No.

1318
02:00:52,520 --> 02:00:54,040
Then his family dies.

1319
02:00:54,960 --> 02:00:59,960
And it appears, from most accounts,

1320
02:01:00,760 --> 02:01:05,760
that although, again, the myth is that, you know,

1321
02:01:06,400 --> 02:01:08,720
almost that Jim Bowie and David Crockett

1322
02:01:08,720 --> 02:01:10,040
were holed up in the same room

1323
02:01:10,040 --> 02:01:12,560
and died the last two men standing,

1324
02:01:12,560 --> 02:01:17,560
it appears that Bowie was killed outside the Alamo

1325
02:01:21,040 --> 02:01:22,600
earlier in the action,

1326
02:01:22,600 --> 02:01:27,600
and it's not real clear exactly what happened.

1327
02:01:29,560 --> 02:01:31,080
There's no clear account.

1328
02:01:33,040 --> 02:01:38,040
But again, certainly, if someone realized who he was,

1329
02:01:38,040 --> 02:01:43,040
I'm sure the Knights was taken as a prize.

1330
02:01:43,120 --> 02:01:43,960
Yes.

1331
02:01:45,000 --> 02:01:50,000
But, and so it does appear that having lost everything,

1332
02:01:58,080 --> 02:02:03,080
he became more bold in disregarding hazards and danger.

1333
02:02:05,920 --> 02:02:07,440
Agreed.

1334
02:02:07,440 --> 02:02:08,280
Unagreed.

1335
02:02:08,280 --> 02:02:11,880
And the actual origins, it has to be said

1336
02:02:11,880 --> 02:02:15,240
that the actual origins of the Bowie knife

1337
02:02:16,800 --> 02:02:20,200
are shrouded in interpretation.

1338
02:02:22,320 --> 02:02:23,280
They are.

1339
02:02:25,600 --> 02:02:30,600
But, you know, a lot of historians on the subject

1340
02:02:30,600 --> 02:02:35,600
do credit James Black for making the knife.

1341
02:02:39,920 --> 02:02:43,040
There's even some accounts that it was, you know,

1342
02:02:43,040 --> 02:02:48,040
one that he had that he rediscovered Damascus steel.

1343
02:02:51,760 --> 02:02:52,600
Yes.

1344
02:02:53,520 --> 02:02:58,520
And I guess we should say, I mean, he,

1345
02:02:58,520 --> 02:03:03,520
he has almost a, you know, certainly this backstory

1346
02:03:04,200 --> 02:03:05,680
that is amazing.

1347
02:03:05,680 --> 02:03:10,680
He ran away from home on the East Coast

1348
02:03:11,040 --> 02:03:16,040
when he was very young, said to be because of difficulties

1349
02:03:16,560 --> 02:03:18,200
with his stepmother.

1350
02:03:18,200 --> 02:03:19,040
Yes.

1351
02:03:19,040 --> 02:03:21,320
And he comes back to New Jersey

1352
02:03:21,320 --> 02:03:23,720
and he runs away from home at the age of eight.

1353
02:03:24,600 --> 02:03:26,080
Age of eight, yes.

1354
02:03:26,080 --> 02:03:31,080
And becomes an apprentice, silver metal apprentice.

1355
02:03:31,800 --> 02:03:32,640
Yes.

1356
02:03:33,520 --> 02:03:35,320
Words to the number, you know, of years.

1357
02:03:35,320 --> 02:03:37,720
And once he comes out of his apprenticeship,

1358
02:03:38,600 --> 02:03:42,600
he sees the writing on the wall with demand

1359
02:03:42,600 --> 02:03:47,600
and British availability of silver,

1360
02:03:47,600 --> 02:03:50,280
that he decides not to set up shop himself,

1361
02:03:50,280 --> 02:03:54,080
ultimately comes West, ends up in Arkansas,

1362
02:03:54,080 --> 02:03:56,080
ends up in Arkansas.

1363
02:03:56,080 --> 02:03:56,920
Yes.

1364
02:03:58,160 --> 02:04:01,520
And interestingly enough, specifically Washington, Arkansas,

1365
02:04:01,520 --> 02:04:03,160
which is now a state park.

1366
02:04:04,120 --> 02:04:04,960
Yeah.

1367
02:04:06,000 --> 02:04:06,840
Yeah.

1368
02:04:07,800 --> 02:04:11,280
And quite a few stories seem to come out of there.

1369
02:04:11,280 --> 02:04:12,120
So.

1370
02:04:15,400 --> 02:04:17,640
A more than tumultuous relationship

1371
02:04:17,640 --> 02:04:19,080
with his future father-in-law.

1372
02:04:19,080 --> 02:04:22,920
Yeah, well, he goes to work for him.

1373
02:04:24,840 --> 02:04:29,840
And is soon known as the best blacksmith in the country.

1374
02:04:31,560 --> 02:04:32,400
Yeah.

1375
02:04:32,400 --> 02:04:33,440
Anywhere around.

1376
02:04:33,440 --> 02:04:35,960
It's pretty evident that his,

1377
02:04:35,960 --> 02:04:40,960
being apprenticed as a silversmith for many years,

1378
02:04:41,360 --> 02:04:46,360
really fell into, you know, into that skillset.

1379
02:04:46,360 --> 02:04:49,280
He goes to work for a blacksmith,

1380
02:04:49,280 --> 02:04:52,440
but the last name of Shaw there in Washington,

1381
02:04:52,440 --> 02:04:53,600
Washington, Arkansas.

1382
02:04:57,000 --> 02:05:02,000
And also has the misfortune of falling in love

1383
02:05:02,200 --> 02:05:03,800
with Shaw's daughter, Ann.

1384
02:05:05,800 --> 02:05:06,640
Shaw.

1385
02:05:06,640 --> 02:05:08,240
Well, ultimately it's misfortune.

1386
02:05:08,240 --> 02:05:12,480
Although they had a happy marriage and children and,

1387
02:05:12,480 --> 02:05:16,760
but then she passes away.

1388
02:05:16,760 --> 02:05:17,600
Yes.

1389
02:05:20,560 --> 02:05:25,560
And where this, where this ultimate lands

1390
02:05:27,080 --> 02:05:31,840
in the, in summer of 1839, James Black falls ill.

1391
02:05:31,840 --> 02:05:35,440
He's helpless in bed and his very aging

1392
02:05:35,440 --> 02:05:38,400
and vindictive former father-in-law.

1393
02:05:38,400 --> 02:05:43,400
Well, and also he then also had hired his brother-in-law,

1394
02:05:43,520 --> 02:05:45,400
Ann's brother.

1395
02:05:45,400 --> 02:05:49,000
So not only did he marry the man's daughter,

1396
02:05:49,000 --> 02:05:50,600
but he hired his son.

1397
02:05:50,600 --> 02:05:53,760
And so I think he was bitter for both reasons.

1398
02:05:53,760 --> 02:05:54,600
Yes.

1399
02:05:54,600 --> 02:05:55,520
For both reasons.

1400
02:05:55,520 --> 02:05:59,400
And later became, went out on his own as a blacksmith

1401
02:05:59,400 --> 02:06:01,360
and became a competitor.

1402
02:06:01,360 --> 02:06:02,200
Yes.

1403
02:06:03,080 --> 02:06:04,480
So while he's ill.

1404
02:06:04,480 --> 02:06:09,480
Shaw is his former father-in-law,

1405
02:06:10,640 --> 02:06:12,480
comes into his house and attacks him.

1406
02:06:13,840 --> 02:06:15,800
And beats him with a club.

1407
02:06:15,800 --> 02:06:20,400
And apparently the family dog attacks Shaw

1408
02:06:20,400 --> 02:06:24,280
and gets him to, to, to leave.

1409
02:06:24,280 --> 02:06:29,280
But Black's eyesight was permanently damaged.

1410
02:06:29,920 --> 02:06:30,760
Yes.

1411
02:06:30,760 --> 02:06:35,760
And that leads him on a trip back East to look for,

1412
02:06:35,960 --> 02:06:40,960
to find doctors who might be able to help him to no luck.

1413
02:06:40,960 --> 02:06:45,400
He comes back home only to find now how this happened.

1414
02:06:45,400 --> 02:06:47,720
I'd love to know more of this part of the story

1415
02:06:47,720 --> 02:06:49,720
of how he managed to do this,

1416
02:06:49,720 --> 02:06:54,720
but had sold Black's land off in his property

1417
02:06:55,600 --> 02:06:57,600
and ran away with proceeds.

1418
02:06:57,600 --> 02:06:59,520
Not only did he do that,

1419
02:06:59,520 --> 02:07:01,600
but he ran away from his own shop.

1420
02:07:01,600 --> 02:07:06,600
So, so now Black is destitute, ill-health,

1421
02:07:07,840 --> 02:07:09,440
and spent the remainder of his life

1422
02:07:09,440 --> 02:07:11,480
being taken care of by others.

1423
02:07:11,480 --> 02:07:16,120
And when he died, the secrets to his knife making

1424
02:07:16,120 --> 02:07:17,520
died with him.

1425
02:07:17,520 --> 02:07:18,360
Right.

1426
02:07:19,240 --> 02:07:22,600
Is he did attempt in his very later years

1427
02:07:22,600 --> 02:07:25,480
to share his knife making secrets,

1428
02:07:25,480 --> 02:07:29,920
but at this point at a very old age

1429
02:07:29,920 --> 02:07:31,640
and in very poor health,

1430
02:07:31,640 --> 02:07:35,200
he was unable to remember the processes.

1431
02:07:35,200 --> 02:07:36,040
Yeah.

1432
02:07:36,920 --> 02:07:41,920
The first attribution of the Bowie knife to Jim Black

1433
02:07:42,680 --> 02:07:47,680
or James Black occurs on December 8th, 1841

1434
02:07:49,160 --> 02:07:52,240
in an article from the Washington Arkansas Telegraph.

1435
02:07:52,240 --> 02:07:53,080
Mm-hmm.

1436
02:07:54,080 --> 02:07:59,080
And so, you know, that's, that is surprisingly

1437
02:08:00,680 --> 02:08:03,680
pretty solid overall,

1438
02:08:03,680 --> 02:08:08,680
but the primary takeaway, which really starts,

1439
02:08:09,200 --> 02:08:14,200
I think speaking into this folkloric mythos

1440
02:08:14,280 --> 02:08:19,280
is the idea that James Black's skill was unparalleled.

1441
02:08:19,280 --> 02:08:21,120
Mm-hmm.

1442
02:08:21,120 --> 02:08:25,080
And that the magic, if you will, of the craftsmanship

1443
02:08:26,480 --> 02:08:30,480
became, this physical item almost became a totem

1444
02:08:30,480 --> 02:08:32,920
of American history.

1445
02:08:35,120 --> 02:08:40,120
Well, and if he did indeed make the Bowie number one,

1446
02:08:40,200 --> 02:08:41,200
Mm-hmm.

1447
02:08:41,200 --> 02:08:42,040
It did.

1448
02:08:42,040 --> 02:08:47,040
It did, and there are tales of, you know,

1449
02:08:53,200 --> 02:08:56,800
him marking knives that way.

1450
02:08:59,040 --> 02:09:03,880
So it really does, it really does make you wonder

1451
02:09:07,080 --> 02:09:08,680
that, you know, just the thought

1452
02:09:08,680 --> 02:09:13,680
of rediscovering Damascus Steel is just amazing if you,

1453
02:09:13,880 --> 02:09:18,880
if for anyone that wonders, it's, you know,

1454
02:09:19,480 --> 02:09:24,280
it's a secret that has been found and lost multiple times.

1455
02:09:24,280 --> 02:09:25,360
Yes.

1456
02:09:25,360 --> 02:09:29,160
Which makes you wonder if we're supposed to really know it.

1457
02:09:29,160 --> 02:09:34,160
And it, there is, I think, a fantastical or magical quality

1458
02:09:35,560 --> 02:09:37,800
that's associated with the lore.

1459
02:09:37,800 --> 02:09:38,640
Yes.

1460
02:09:38,640 --> 02:09:40,560
And something that really stood out to me,

1461
02:09:40,560 --> 02:09:43,840
although this is Hollywood fiction,

1462
02:09:43,840 --> 02:09:48,840
but there's a 1956 film titled The Iron Mistress

1463
02:09:50,680 --> 02:09:54,200
that stars Alan Ladd in Virginia Mayo.

1464
02:09:55,240 --> 02:09:59,600
But in it, Black is depicted forging Jim Bowie's knife

1465
02:09:59,600 --> 02:10:03,040
from iron that has been extracted from a meteorite.

1466
02:10:03,040 --> 02:10:04,600
Yes, yes.

1467
02:10:04,600 --> 02:10:09,600
And now there are daggers that have been made

1468
02:10:12,360 --> 02:10:15,240
from meteorite, but it's extremely difficult to do

1469
02:10:15,240 --> 02:10:19,240
and it's extremely expensive, which, you know,

1470
02:10:22,920 --> 02:10:25,720
was it forged from meteorite?

1471
02:10:25,720 --> 02:10:27,040
Probably not.

1472
02:10:27,040 --> 02:10:29,640
No, very unlikely.

1473
02:10:29,640 --> 02:10:34,640
Was it some kind of Damascus blade or Damascus style blade?

1474
02:10:35,600 --> 02:10:36,760
Not impossible.

1475
02:10:36,760 --> 02:10:41,760
I, the thing that I think is powerful and fascinating

1476
02:10:41,760 --> 02:10:46,760
is the, to me, it really goes beyond just simply folklore,

1477
02:10:50,880 --> 02:10:55,880
but the idea that, and the fact that there are these stories

1478
02:10:56,920 --> 02:10:58,960
associated with the knife.

1479
02:10:58,960 --> 02:11:03,960
And the three, well, I suppose really four key elements

1480
02:11:06,840 --> 02:11:10,160
of this, the knife, from an archetypal standpoint,

1481
02:11:10,160 --> 02:11:11,760
the knife is a sword.

1482
02:11:11,760 --> 02:11:14,160
The knife is a caliber.

1483
02:11:14,160 --> 02:11:15,000
Yeah.

1484
02:11:17,600 --> 02:11:22,600
It has two possible mystical points of origin.

1485
02:11:25,360 --> 02:11:26,920
Is it Damascus?

1486
02:11:26,920 --> 02:11:27,760
Is it a meteorite?

1487
02:11:27,760 --> 02:11:32,760
Is there something powerful, magical resonating about this?

1488
02:11:33,120 --> 02:11:36,000
And then lastly, it is lost to history.

1489
02:11:37,840 --> 02:11:38,680
That's true.

1490
02:11:38,680 --> 02:11:40,240
There is quite a parallel there.

1491
02:11:43,200 --> 02:11:44,960
It's, I don't know.

1492
02:11:48,080 --> 02:11:50,520
And I think that, you know, that these things,

1493
02:11:50,520 --> 02:11:52,320
these things are important.

1494
02:11:52,320 --> 02:11:57,320
So now you can, you know, also take up the mantle

1495
02:11:59,240 --> 02:12:02,920
that as this legend grew, as it resonated throughout

1496
02:12:02,920 --> 02:12:05,200
American, contemporary American society

1497
02:12:05,200 --> 02:12:06,560
in the mid 19th century,

1498
02:12:08,040 --> 02:12:12,560
there was a huge push for bowie knives.

1499
02:12:12,560 --> 02:12:15,280
So much so that blacksmiths in Britain

1500
02:12:15,280 --> 02:12:17,200
began mass producing them and shipping them

1501
02:12:17,200 --> 02:12:18,600
to America for sale.

1502
02:12:19,680 --> 02:12:20,600
Yeah.

1503
02:12:20,600 --> 02:12:25,600
So, you know, it also speaks, but at the same time,

1504
02:12:29,360 --> 02:12:33,240
the sacred well sites of Western Europe

1505
02:12:33,240 --> 02:12:35,760
functioned essentially as

1506
02:12:37,200 --> 02:12:39,480
tourist destinations

1507
02:12:40,880 --> 02:12:42,680
complete with souvenir shops.

1508
02:12:42,680 --> 02:12:45,040
And we're talking the middle ages.

1509
02:12:45,960 --> 02:12:47,160
Very, very true.

1510
02:12:48,280 --> 02:12:50,120
Very, very true.

1511
02:12:50,120 --> 02:12:55,000
So there's, you know, some, I think something that we,

1512
02:12:55,000 --> 02:12:57,280
I think sort of the two sides

1513
02:12:59,960 --> 02:13:04,960
of the inexplicable, but inescapable human psyche

1514
02:13:06,160 --> 02:13:08,640
is that we want to be able to touch magic.

1515
02:13:10,040 --> 02:13:10,880
Oh, yeah.

1516
02:13:10,880 --> 02:13:12,560
And touch the legend.

1517
02:13:12,560 --> 02:13:13,640
It touched the legend.

1518
02:13:13,640 --> 02:13:16,040
But we also want to be able to buy a piece of it

1519
02:13:16,040 --> 02:13:17,280
and take it home with us.

1520
02:13:17,280 --> 02:13:18,920
Always better.

1521
02:13:18,920 --> 02:13:22,360
Preferably one with a magnet on the back

1522
02:13:22,360 --> 02:13:24,880
so you can just stick it on the refrigerator.

1523
02:13:24,880 --> 02:13:29,880
So everyone can see it.

1524
02:13:32,880 --> 02:13:33,720
Absolutely.

1525
02:13:33,720 --> 02:13:34,560
It's what I do.

1526
02:13:38,680 --> 02:13:43,680
Well, all of these figures,

1527
02:13:43,680 --> 02:13:47,720
all these people that we've talked about,

1528
02:13:47,720 --> 02:13:50,640
goddess from the Ozarks to the Alamo.

1529
02:13:50,640 --> 02:13:51,480
Yes, they did.

1530
02:13:51,480 --> 02:13:56,480
And their stories in some sense end at the Alamo.

1531
02:13:57,280 --> 02:14:02,280
But not necessarily the end either.

1532
02:14:03,200 --> 02:14:05,120
But that might be it.

1533
02:14:06,760 --> 02:14:07,840
Oh, go ahead.

1534
02:14:07,840 --> 02:14:09,120
I was gonna say,

1535
02:14:09,120 --> 02:14:13,800
so many of these men's lives ended at the Alamo.

1536
02:14:13,800 --> 02:14:17,360
Their paths crossed the Ozarks in some cases

1537
02:14:17,360 --> 02:14:20,000
were intimately associated with the Ozarks.

1538
02:14:20,000 --> 02:14:23,400
And even for individuals like Stephen Austin,

1539
02:14:23,400 --> 02:14:27,560
who did not die at the Alamo,

1540
02:14:27,560 --> 02:14:32,360
but would pass shortly thereafter and pass into history.

1541
02:14:33,520 --> 02:14:37,400
But in terms of the impact of these men's lives

1542
02:14:37,400 --> 02:14:42,400
and then the beginning in many cases of their legend

1543
02:14:43,280 --> 02:14:46,520
actually began on March 6th, 1836.

1544
02:14:47,440 --> 02:14:49,960
And it continued to this day.

1545
02:14:49,960 --> 02:14:53,640
They continued to resonate, impact us in unique ways.

1546
02:14:53,640 --> 02:14:58,640
And really forged a path for a new generation of Americans

1547
02:15:01,960 --> 02:15:06,960
who in many cases would also have extraordinary ties

1548
02:15:06,960 --> 02:15:11,960
to the Ozarks and would forge new legends

1549
02:15:15,600 --> 02:15:18,720
in their own right in the coming years of the 19th century,

1550
02:15:18,720 --> 02:15:23,120
particularly as the Civil War approaches.

1551
02:15:24,480 --> 02:15:25,360
Very true.

1552
02:15:25,360 --> 02:15:30,360
And so we'll end with Alamo today,

1553
02:15:30,440 --> 02:15:32,760
but we'll pick up the story.

1554
02:15:32,760 --> 02:15:35,680
And don't forget to check out upcoming events

1555
02:15:35,680 --> 02:15:38,400
and merchandise at darkozarks.com

1556
02:15:38,400 --> 02:15:40,800
and paranormalsciencelab.com.

1557
02:15:40,800 --> 02:15:42,680
Thank you again to Always Buying Boots

1558
02:15:42,680 --> 02:15:44,560
and Beard Engine Brewing Company

1559
02:15:44,560 --> 02:15:48,200
for helping to bring the dark Ozarks to everyone.

1560
02:15:48,200 --> 02:15:49,400
And on the next episode,

1561
02:15:49,400 --> 02:15:53,240
we're going to be discussing the Ozarks connections again

1562
02:15:53,240 --> 02:15:56,000
with Texas, as well as the possibility of a variety

1563
02:15:56,000 --> 02:15:58,800
of paranormal encrypted connections.

1564
02:15:58,800 --> 02:16:02,680
And we do invite you to catch the next Dark Ozarks podcast

1565
02:16:02,680 --> 02:16:06,080
on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts,

1566
02:16:06,080 --> 02:16:08,560
and other podcast platforms.

1567
02:16:08,560 --> 02:16:09,600
Thank you to everyone.

1568
02:16:09,600 --> 02:16:32,600
And remember, there are no easy answers in the Dark Ozarks.