Most people would agree
that the repulse of an invasion fleet in 1863 and the oil eruption at
Spindletop in 1901 were the two outstanding
historical events in Jefferson County’s history. Each event has spawned
volumes of history. In a sense, each occurrence marked the decline of an old
order. The outcome of the Civil War ended slavery and witnessed the
regression of the cattle industry. Gradually, the new lumber and sawmill
barons replaced the stockmen as Jefferson County’s economic backbone. As the
virgin forests vanished and petroleum was discovered, the process of
economic transition began anew.
In this first of two
planned volumes to terminate in the year 1901, the writer has purposely
delayed his Master of Arts degree in order to seek for every possible source
of Jefferson County’s antebellum history. There were men such as George A.
Pattillo, Henry Millard, Stephen H. Everett, Dr. Frederick W. Ogden, and
James R. Armstrong who were equally at home in the capitol at Austin as they
were in Jefferson County, and whose lives are recorded in the ensuing
chapters. The writer, however, has endeavored to chronicle the “little
people” as well, for it was they who collectively laid the foundations for
our metropolis, nearing one-quarter million persons, of today.
In the past, myth and
legend have often prevailed, and a single, forty-minute battle has become
synonymous with four years of the county’s Civil War history. It is the
writer’s hope that this volume will remove much of the shroud of mystery and
uncertainty which heretofore has surrounded those years prior to 1865.
The book
was written before WT had access to a computer so there are no original
computer files to use as a resource to recreate the book. To republished the
book, I scanned the book and published it as a "Print Replica"
in Amazon terms.
NOTE:
Print replicas are not fully functional as Kindle eBooks:
-
Not compatible with
Kindle e-reader (requires PC, Android, or iOS application to view).
-
Print Replica
versions are scanned images and the font size cannot be changed. Text in
these books can still be selected and searched on like the fully functional
Kindle versions.
The
following images represent the beginning of the book in order to see what
the scanned book looks like inside.
--William T. Block III (WT's son)
