The Not-So-Gay-90's - Interlude One: Maps, Maps, and More Maps

The Erasmus Miller Owen Family, part 19

I love maps.  Land survey maps, topographical maps, railroad and highway maps, satellite maps - I love them all.  Maps can tell you so many things!  For example, they can tell you whether an ancestor's land was hilly or forested or had a stream running through it, and how close to a particular relative or town their farm was.  Maps can really help a researcher form a better picture of an ancestor's life.  

I spent a lot of time looking at maps over the past few weeks, and I discovered some pretty interesting things that I'd like to share.  Let's start with the Brown County land survey map that I color coded and showed you before:

And now here is a detail of the 1910 version of the map:

Brown County, Texas
1910 Survey Map Detail

I color coded this the same way as the other one.  You can see that there is a name written in every colored box, and if you were to go to the FamilySearch Texas County Tax Rolls and find Erasmus in the records of Brown County each year from 1883 to 1895, these are the names you will find for the original grantee of his land.  You'll  notice that this map actually has the name of the town of May written on it, whereas the earlier map did not.  (And in case anyone is wondering why I didn't just use this one from the beginning, it's because I wanted to show all of precinct 2 the first time and if I cropped that whole portion of this map, the words were small enough that they became blurry when I zoomed in.  (Now that I am proofreading this, though, I went back to the link I provided and can't seem to zoom in this much and still have it be readable, but I did just find another old survey map that was  updated in 1944 on the Texas GLO website that will not let you download the map without paying, but you can zoom waaaaay in to read all of the names, and it is actually better quality than this one.  I'd color code and put up that one instead, but I've already re-done three other maps while proofreading this post and I've been working on this for more than a week, so I think it's better if I don't.)

We are actually pretty lucky that Erasmus owned land in and around the Jesse Dickinson grant, because it makes it so much easier for us to find the correct spot on other maps.  Like this 1876 survey map that also shows the geology of the county along with other features:

1876 Survey Map
Brown County, Texas

The map title has a link to the Library of Congress website where you can zoom in on the whole map, but you can see the same color coded sections from this small portion.  This shows that the area around the town of May (which didn't yet exist in 1876) was timber in the north and fertile plains in the south.  At least I think that is what it is showing.  Here is the key:

It's not really worth much, because the only images I really recognize are some trees and buildings, the latter of which could be post offices or farms, and the major rivers are shown as the same lines that the key calls roads.  I'm not quite sure what that "Boundary of Timber and Prairie" is, because I didn't really find it on the map anywhere.  But we can see (with no help from the key) that Erasmus lived quite near the Salt Mountain Range, close to Rattlesnake Gap (his land would have been anywhere from the foothills to about four miles from the mountains).  

Here is a topo map showing the area today:

Brown County, Texas
Salt Mountain Topo Map

This shows the elevation of the mountains in this area to be between 1700 and 1800 feet, but if you zoom in it actually shows some peaks at an elevation of 1850; to put that in perspective, the level land of Laveen, Arizona sits at about 1000 feet above sea level.  Carver Hill has an elevation of 1200 feet, the section of mountain that the new 202 freeway cuts through by the casino sits at 1400 feet, and Dobbins Lookout in South Mountain Park is 2200 feet above sea level.  The townsite of May sits at just over 1600 feet, so the "mountains" at that point were really just high hills.  

Way back when I was making my first color-coded version of Erasmus' land, I found this 1940 highway map that was used to record the census precincts:

Here is the key for the map:

I really like this map because it has all of those little squares (farm units and dwellings, both in use and vacant), which  shows how rural the area was in 1940.  It also shows churches and cemeteries, which is often very helpful in our research.  The section in the circle is the town of May.  In order to see where Erasmus' land was in comparison to the features on this map, I overlaid it with the first map I showed you:

See?  This is actually how I confirmed exactly where to stick the star in my first map, because it neither said "May" nor showed any signs of a town being in that location.  And, even though the 1910 map had the word May, I needed to confirm that was the town site, and not just a name of the original grantee.

Now take a look at this zoomed-in clip of the map:

Now, I know we've been talking about the 1890s and not the 1880s, but I've put all of the land that Erasmus owned in Brown County on here.   As I've said before, research is messy.  You don't just find things that only pertain to the specific research question at hand.  Everything comes all mixed up and you have to sort it out and hold it in your head (or notes) until you are ready to talk about that particular point in your ancestor's life.  (That's why I've had like forty tabs open on my computer for months - it's too much to hold in my head and after a point notes just become confusing!)

Let's review what the different colors mean:  Teal indicates the 160 acre tract of land that Erasmus purchased when he moved to Brown County in 1882.  Green shows the section of land where he purchased an additional 30 acres in 1886.  (I'm guessing he purchased an adjoining tract.)  The purple represents the area in which he bought 80 acres in 1888, when he sold his land in the teal and green sections.  If I'm not mistaken, those 80 acres would have amounted to one half of one of the two squares in the purple section.  The dark blue/indigo color shows the whole 160 acres that Erasmus purchased in 1891, although he only kept it for about a year or so, because he no longer owned it on the 1893 tax roll.  Instead, he paid taxes on 150 acres located somewhere in the giant yellow section.  (Maybe in the portion adjoining his purple tract, because that would just make sense.)

Let's talk about the purple section first, since that is where he was most likely living for most of the 1890s.  Let's look at a satellite map of that area:  

Now you can really see how far away from the town center of May his land was during the 1890s.  Let's zoom in a bit and focus just on the purple and blue sections:

Okay.  We can see that the area has been heavily farmed, but that some sections of timber still remain.  I've marked the map with two red x's - those are the locations where the 1940 highway map showed a farm unit or dwelling.  Of course, I do realize that the highway map would have been created about 50 years after Erasmus purchased the land and 40 years after he sold it, but there is still a house in the teal section (not shown in this image) in exactly the same spot as one marked on the 1940 map, which was created about 80 years ago so I don't think it would be crazy to assume that one of those 1940s houses could have been either the same dwelling or one that sat in the same location as one that Erasmus and his family had lived in.  (There is no sign of a building left in that spot in the blue section, but if you zoom all the way in on the map on the website you can see the remains of something in that exact location in the purple section.  If anyone wants to have a look around, you can find this section of the satellite map here. )

You'll notice that I also added a red arrow pointing to something below the Wolf Valley Cemetery.  I found this bit of information about the cemetery on a Brown County history website:

This valley was settled in the 1860's. Most of the residents left their home states (southern), and traveled together until they found this small hill, overlooking a green valley. Mr. Robert Porter, a long time resident, is of the opinion that when they were scouting the area, they found a great many wolves in the immediate vicinity. Consequently the name Wolf Valley.

The church building was constructed here in 1887 for the use of the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian congregations, as well as the local school. Ten acres was sold to the school trustees "for school, church, and graveyard, and when said lands are abandoned as school and church purposes, the whole is to be used for graveyard purposes." The Cemetery was formally set aside in 1902, when trustees A. E. Bailey, A. W. Hardy, and J. W. Spence bought the original tract from the D. M. Davidson family. Recorded in Vol. 64, page 154, Brown County Courthouse. Filed March 15 1902.

Interesting.  If you zoom in on the map, you can see that the tiny white square is indeed a building next to a cemetery.  The purple section of land, which Erasmus owned for all or most of the 1890s (the tax records only go to 1895, and random Brown County deed records on FamilySearch have been mysteriously temporarily locked - I've been told it is a software problem so I should check back often) sits three to four miles, give or take, from the town center of May.  This little church is much closer; it is only one-half to three miles away, depending on where Erasmus' house sat.  And did you notice that the church was supposedly built just the year before Erasmus purchased this piece of land?  I wonder if Erasmus was not only the pastor of the church in May, but also part-time pastor of the Baptist church that shared this building as well.  Perhaps he began to serve as the pastor there from the time the church was built in 1887, and he didn't like the four-mile commute, so he sold his property further south and bought a closer piece of property.  

(Funny thing, though, that the 1940 map did not show a church or cemetery in the location where the satellite map shows the one at the Wolf Valley Cemetery, even though they should have been there in 1940, since they are both still there today!  It does show one a bit further south, where there isn't one today, so maybe whomever made the map made a mistake.)

Now, let's zoom out on these sections and the surrounding acreage a bit more:

What is that white stuff up above the purple section?  The website where I got the topo map lets you change the layers.  Here is a different form of topo map of the same area:

Hmmm.  Those white areas are apparently gravel pits.  I guess they are strip mining the hills.  This map does a better job of showing just how close Erasmus' land was to the hills, too.  (If you were to zoom in on this map on the actual website, you would see that the peak to the northeast of the purple section was 1943 feet in elevation, so a bit higher than what I told you before.)  If his tract was in the northern or eastern part of the purple section, his land would have been on a steady rise, which means not so good for farming.  And if his land was in the north-eastern section, he probably wouldn't have been able to farm much at all.  

But guess what I just noticed?  If you look back up at the overlay map, it shows a major creek running through the purple tract of land in a generally north/south direction.  I went back and looked at the key for this map (It is really, really long so I won't include it, but you can look at it here.)  I know this map that I put up is pretty small, but it does show a solid-and-dashed line that means an intermittent stream, so I guess the creek has mostly dried up in modern times.  I guess having a creek on your land would be very helpful for a variety of reasons, including raising livestock, which one could still do on hilly terrain.

This version of the topo map also shows a detail in the blue section that couldn't be seen in the other topo map nor in the satellite maps - there is also an intermittent stream running through the property from the southwest corner to the center of the northern boundary line.  Once again, I would assume that the stream might have run more regularly one hundred and forty years ago.  The little lake, or cow pond as I like to call them, that had formed along the creek in the tract north of the blue section can still be seen in the satellite images, as can the multitude of other ponds that are shown on this map.  Also great  for people raising livestock, I guess.

Now, let's go back to that satellite photo and zoom in on the blue section:

This is the whole 160 acre section as it looks today.  Now, here is the north-eastern corner section:

Do you see all of those brown speckles near the bottom left?  

Those are cows . . . and I think a couple of horses up at the top.  I counted twenty-two cows in the main group, and the largest amount of livestock that Erasmus ever reported on his taxes was a combined total of 29 cattle and horses/mules, along with a combined total of 39 sheep and hogs.  I'm estimating that top-right section of this 160 acre tract as being about 30 acres, so I would think that even 80 acres, the least amount of land that he possessed in Brown County at any given time, would have been more than enough for grazing and growing some crops.

Well, that was fun, but it's time to get back to the historical document research.  We'll look at the teal and green sections of the map later, when we talk about the 1880s.  Next time, we'll get back to the troubles of the 1890s, and keep our eyes open for anything else that might shed some more light on the possibility that Erasmus was pastoring more than one church during that decade.

                                                                                                                                                 - Therese

The Not-So-Gay 90's - Act One: Setting the Stage

The Erasmus Miller Owen Family, part 18

Ah, the Gay 90's.  

A time of gaslights, Gibson Girls, and gramophones; Coca-Cola, fountain pens, and toilet paper; puffy sleeves, puffy hairdos, and puffy-bloomered cycling suits.  

But what about sickness, death, runaway sons, and . . . lice?

Although the 1890s is remembered as an idyllic period of transition from the stuffy Victorian era to the carefree new century, full of advances in technology and the promise of great things to come, for Erasmus Miller Owen, it wasn't all fun and games. 

From the very first day of the decade, he was faced with one challenge after another.  But to understand some of those difficulties, we need to backtrack a bit into the later 1880s.

SCENE 1: In which Uncle Ras Sustains a Traumatic Head Injury

The start of the decade found Erasmus and his family living in the town of May, in Brown County, Texas.  The Baptist records show him there beginning in 1887, and then, after a break in the records of four years, pick him up there again in 1892.  The tax records confirm this to be correct; they show that he both sold and purchased land in that area in 1888:

Detail of Brown County, Texas Survey Map

This map shows the northeastern portion of Brown County, and although it is dated 1888, it was actually originally created in 1884.  This is important, because this version has no name in the teal box, but by the 1910 version it shows the original grantee, which is how I was able to identify it as a section in which Erasmus owned land. (I had to use this version of the map because it was the only one that allowed me to blow it up big enough to read the names as I color-coded it.)  

Anyway, up at the top you can (barely!) see the red star indicating the town of May, which is actually the location of the town center.  According to the Texas Escapes website, 

The May Community

Originally part of a Mexican land grant given to empresario John Cameron in 1827, May developed in the 1870s when several pioneer families settled here. Baptists and Methodists quickly organized churches. A one-room school known as Old Swayback provided the first formal education for the children. Nathan L. May built a trading post in 1879 and became the town's first postmaster in 1881. By 1907 the village had a blacksmith shop, general store, newspaper and bank. The early history of May climaxed in 1911 with the coming of the railroad.
(1981)

The census data shows that in 1890 the entire precinct that included all of the land around May and three other "towns" (which really just means post offices) only contained about 2,000 people altogether.  So, May wasn't really a bustling center of commercial activity.  In fact, it would have been in its infancy when Erasmus moved there in 1882, and probably hadn't grown all that much in the following six years.

The tax records show that some time in 1888, Erasmus sold his 190 acres of land located in the green and teal sections, and then purchased just 80 acres somewhere in the section that I coded purple.  Not only did he cut his acreage down by more than half, but he reduced the value of his taxable property from $1723 to only $880.  So what happened?  

Well, I'm sure you all remember this photo:

The Sons of Erasmus Miller Owen

I've estimated the date for the photo to be 1889 or 1890, primarily based on the probable ages of the two youngest boys, so this would have been taken a year or two after Erasmus sold his land.  This would have also been taken, according to my reckoning, some time after Uncle Ras sustained his injury from the kick to his head.  Here is a breakdown of my reckoning in case anyone is wondering:

Crossed eyes in photo + family story that he was a young man trying to be a preacher + family story that he broke off his engagement + census bureau data that the average/median(?) age at first marriage in 1890 was 26 for men + his birth date of 1864 + the sale of the family land = 1888 as a likely year for his accident.

Uncle Ras would have turned 24 in September of 1888, which fits all of the details of the family story.  His head injury was such that a section of bone the size of a child's fist was crushed and had to be replaced with a metal plate.  I would think that such an operation would have had to have been performed in a hospital.  As far as I could find from my Google searching, the closest hospital at the time was in the city of Austin.  

(And for the curious, that's more than 200 miles away from the town of Brownwood - twenty miles south of May but the closest train depot at the time - which would take two hours by train at a straight shot, but more like seven with all of the stops in between.  Of course, there is evidence that Uncle Ras had remained in San Saba County when his father moved to Brown County, in which case he would have faired much better, only having to travel about fifteen miles to the town of Lometa, and then about another 65 miles to Austin.)  

Such an operation combined with a hospital stay and train fare might have resulted in a pretty hefty bill, wouldn't you think?  Perhaps Uncle Ras' injury played a big part in Erasmus' decision to sell his land and downsize his holdings.

So, as the 1890s approached, Erasmus Miller Owen was left with diminished financial assets as well as the addition to his household of an adult son who was recovering from a debilitating accident.

SCENE 2: In Which Howard Payne College is Founded

In the 1889 annual of the Texas General Convention, the following was printed regarding home missions:

As discussed previously, Erasmus appears to have had a passion for missions, first as a Methodist circuit-riding preacher, and then as a Baptist Minister on the frontier.  In 1889, he and other like-minded men took this passion a step further:

The Dallas Morning News
25 February 1889

Fort Worth Daily Gazette
1 July 1889

The Pecan Valley Baptist association included churches from several different counties, including Brown.  As we will see in a few minutes, it is likely that Erasmus was a member of the executive board, and that he was present at both of the meetings mentioned in these articles.  The June meeting at Indian Creek is considered the founding of Howard Payne College.  I've already shared the page from the 1890-91 catalog of the college in an earlier post; it revealed that Erasmus Miller Owen was a member of the college board in that year.  But to get a fuller picture of just how that came about, as well as what it entailed, requires us to peruse several different versions of the college's history:

The Lasso - 1913

That gave a pretty good summary of things, but take a look at these:

Howard Payne Yellow Jacket
8 March 1934
page 1

Howard Payne Yellow Jacket
8 March 1934
page 3

Howard Payne Yellow Jacket
15 March 1934
page 3

I tried clipping out the individual article but it was too complicated to do, so instead I put a link in the title to the zoomable page on The Portal to Texas History website.  If you decided not to read them because they are so long, I would really reconsider that decision - they give a fantastic picture of what Brown County was like when Erasmus moved his family there in 1882.

Now, here is one I really like, because not only is it interesting, but it provides a clearer explanation about how Erasmus came to be on the board of the college:

Howard Payne Yellow Jacket
3 December 1938
page 4

(Of course, we are only supposed to be talking about the end of the 1880s, and these articles discuss the whole history of the school up until the 1930s, but putting up them up in their entirety seemed a much better plan than quoting all of the relevant paragraphs.)  

Most of the histories simply state that an original board was chosen, and that Erasmus was later selected as a replacement.  This article, however, makes it clear that the original board was always meant to be temporary, and in fact only lasted for a couple of months.  An excerpt from the book Something About Brown by T. R. Havins (I found this on Google Books by searching for "pecan valley."  It never showed up in any of my searches for Brown County or Texas Baptist history!) sheds even more light on how events played out:

Aha.  This says that each church elected one member to the executive board.  Since Erasmus was the pastor of the church at May, and since he was given the honor and responsibility of serving on the board of the new college, it is likely that he was the representative chosen by his church.  This also implies that the temporary board elected in June was only intended to be in place until the annual meeting in September, at which time a new board was elected.  I'm still a bit confused over whether Erasmus replaced a temporary board member who resigned and was then elected to the permanent board in September, or whether he was chosen as a replacement some time after the permanent board was established.  Whichever it was, it sounds like he was on the board well before the school ever opened.  And according to the "Old Timer" who provided the information to the reporter in the article up above, Erasmus and his fellow board members "were the real fathers of Howard Payne."  Their dedication and hard work was what made the dream a reality.

So, as the end of 1889 approached, Erasmus Miller Owen found himself on the first board of directors for a brand new college - a hefty responsibility to be sure.

SCENE 3: In Which the Family Must Face . . . Another Round of Lice?

Scroll back up to the 1889/1890 photo of Erasmus' sons.  What do you notice about the hair?  All three of the sons who we know were living in Erasmus' household at the time have very short hair; short hair like it had been shaved and was barely growing out.  Now compare this detail of Conrad with the photo of his sisters taken c. 1883:

Conrad Owen
c. 1889/1890

Minnie & Clara Owen
c. 1883

According to my grandmother, her grandmother, Clara, recounted that her hair was so short in the photo because she had had to have all of it cut off because of lice.  Ouch.  And in the first year living in Brown County no less!  It looks like Minnie faired a little better, since she got to keep her bangs, but can you imagine if they had passed it on to their father and he had needed to have his beard combed through for nits?

Erasmus Miller Owen
c. 1890

I wonder how many other times the family had to deal with such a problem.  Was it fairly often, or were the kids just unfortunate enough to have their portraits taken in the aftermath?

So.  As the family headed into the 1890s, they were trying to put the lice incident behind them, they were caring for a recovering brother/son, and Erasmus was busier than ever with the added responsibility of helping to start a college from scratch.  But, as we will discover next time, if they thought they were headed for easier times soon, they were going to be disappointed because things were going to get worse before they got better.

                                                                                                                                                 - Therese

(Disclaimer about the title of this post:  There is much debate as to whether or not an apostrophe is needed when naming a decade using numerals followed by the letter "s."  For most of my life, it was standard to include the apostrophe.  Apparently, it is now considered correct to omit the apostrophe; some of you may have noticed that I have begun to do so in my recent posts.  However, the title of this post just looked strange that way, so I decided to revert back to the old standard for the title.)