Sam Houston: A Legacy of Lost Loves

Maybe there was a good reason why Sam looked so sad...

Sam Houston was a son of fortune on the battlefield. But he may have been the most unlucky of men in relationships. He fought bravely and was wounded for life for his beloved mentor General Andrew Jackson against the Creek Indians, only to become a political pariah in Washington. He was married to a beautiful young woman named Eliza Allen in Tennessee whom he unexplainably divorced soon after. He had been elected Governor of Tennessee only to resign in awkward controversy and with threats on his life... by his in-laws! And his trail of tears did not end there.

Houston fled to the Indian Territory, where he took up with the Cherokees. The Cherokees were part of a loose network of Native Americans, known to us as the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes.” There in modern day Arkansas he drank his troubles away and hid for awhile from civilization. As a young man he had lived with the Indians and learned their ways, and had been adopted into the tribe. He adapted quickly to life in the wilderness. About an eighth Cherokee, tall and statuesque Tiana (Talihina) Rodgers Gentry was the half-sister of two Cherokee chiefs, and niece to Cherokee Principal Chief John Jolly and related to the famous founder of Cherokee alphabet, Sequoyah. She became Tiana Houston in 1830. It is thought by many that Tiana was Houston's romantic interest before the Cherokee removal from Tennessee. Near Fort Gibson She ran his trading post known as Wigwam Neosho, and oversaw his interests while he drank hard- and occasionally fought in Washington D.C. for her people. 

 Sam Houston loved the arabesque attire worn by the Cherokees, and drove his detractors crazy with his Indian garb while in Washington D.C.....

Houston's earliest biographers chose to skim over this period in General Sam's life. In fact they often somehow forgot to mention Tiana, his legendary "Cherokee" wife. What could have been so bad about Houston finding love in his darkest hour? In fact those writers probably discovered and tried to avoid a scandalous harem left in the Arkansas Territory, of Native American wives that Texans even today will squirm at.

It was during these years in obscurity when Sam Houston may have woven his most intricate if not tangled web of influence. Houston was a very tall, commanding figure, and known as a powerful warrior from his days of fighting under Jackson against their sometime adversaries, the Creeks. Many historians still contend that Houston may have been assembling an Indian army as a U.S. Agent, intending to invade and secure Texas from Mexico using Native American mercenaries. Either way, Sam Houston became the great white hope for the civilized tribes. Houston refused to speak English, dressed and survived like an Indian. And he still had powerful medicine, especially able to fight in Washington for Native American causes and win the undying devotion of the Cherokees, and perhaps other tribes in their alliance.

 

Bye and bye, and certainly on schedule according to conspiracy theorists, Sam Houston left his idyllic life with the Indians, and followed his star into Texas, where his associations with the Indians would pay off later. He last saw Tiana, (actually Talahina) or Diana Houston at Fort Towson, when he left his adopted Cherokee homeland on a mysterious mission; The liberation of Texas. At the time he supposedly planned for his Cherokee spouse to join him, but she never did... and there may have been good reasons.

Incredibly, he would never mention Tiana or even bother to obtain a legal divorce from her. They had been married and separated according to Indian law. As far as what has been written about them for over a century, there was no issue out of this relationship. Whatever it meant to General Sam, it was in the past. Records show that she later remarried, so it may not be true that she waited faithfully and died of a a broken heart, as the legend goes...

 

But certain clues have emerged over the decades that shed light on Sam Houston's lost Indian loves. It is very possible, maybe even probable that he had other Native American “wives” during that time, from other tribes, as was Native American custom. This is nothing that the Houston family ever publicly acknowledged, but some Native Americans did, and did so discreetly, as they found the reality of it less useful than their white kinsmen. Here are the intriguing facts, and stubborn conclusions about Sam Houston's “lost” loves...

Texans take so much about the amazing Sam Houston for granted. He was the Governor of two states in the United States, a president of Texas, a hero of the War of 1812 and the commanding general in Texas Revolution. At the pinnacle of his illustrious career, he was impeached as the Texas Governor because he refused to join the madness of secession, the Confederacy and war against his beloved mother country. He died rejected and hated by many Texans. His legacy of lost loves is almost impossible to comprehend. That may be why so few have asked some obvious questions...

Like: Who was Talahina Rodgers? Who were the Alabama and Coushatta Indians, and why were they somehow overlooked when Texans routed and expunged all other Native Americans under President Lamar? All Indians but the Alabamas and the Coushattas, their kinsmen, relative newcomers to Texas themselves, were completely removed from Texas. But the Alabamas and Coushattas were eventually given a reservation and promises that were sort of kept. What kind of deal had they made? Who made it? Why and how was it enforced to this very day? Why did all of the Indian tribes trust Sam Houston so much, and why could he secure peace with them when nobody else could?

I believe that these and other questions that spring from these questions can be answered by Houston's Indian alliances and possible clandestine marriages while in Indian Territory. There are some intriguing possibilities. Prominent Indians from at least two different tribes have passed on traditions that they were “blood brothers” of Sam Houston. Indians either gave or took his name out of admiration, such as Sam Houston Benge, Houston Shaw, Samuel Houston Smith and Samuel Houston Mayes. Houston may have been the most admired and loved white man to ever mingle among the Five Civilized Tribes.

Cherokee Chief Bowles gave one of his daughters to Houston. This marriage was actually witnessed and recorded by Samuel Maverick. A Wichita woman named Melissa Houston claimed to be Sam Houston's wife as well.

Some of the research that brought these “native sons” to light was done by Dr. Joseph B. Mahan. A vastly pedigreed academic, Dr. Mahan wrote a fascinating book called North American Sun Kings, which fleshed out the complex inter-tribal alliances between the Civilized Tribes, and the religious and cultural core of their kinships. In his book Dr. Mahan reveals the mysteries of the ancient Shawano belief system, as understood by the Yuchi tribe, which included priest-kings and royal families and some mysteries very akin to that of the Masonic Order.

Like the Levites of old, the Yuchi Kings had priests who knew their genealogies going back many, many generations. The Yuchi were the priest class of the civilized tribes, embodied by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek and Chickasaw tribes. Yuchi shamans were the official keepers of the eternal sacred fire for all the woodland tribes.

When Sam Houston met with these people, he no doubt would have recognized their significance and the similarity of their beliefs to ancient Judaism. He was perceived by them as a noble among nobles, and as he fraternized with many chiefs in the region, he no doubt was honored in many ways that would have been lost on the average Nineteenth Century person. And he may have been inducted into a secret Indian society known as the “Great Medicine Society,” and sealed these relationships through extra marriages. Dr. Mahan interviewed at length one such Yuchi chief, Samuel W. Brown Jr, who had no doubt that he was a grandson of Sam Houston.

Samuel W. Brown Sr., Chief of the Yuchi, always claimed Sam Houston as his real father.

Chief Brown unveiled to Dr. Mahan an elaborate network of spiritual tradition and practice, carried for centuries through many related tribes, from the Great Lakes region to the Smoky Mountains and later to Texas and Oklahoma. Dr. Mahan wrote everything down that Chief Brown said, and then spent the rest of his life trying to understand it all. In the midst of all of the mystic language and complicated tribal relationships, stood the unapologetic fact that Chief Brown was descended from General Sam Houston.

His father, Sam Brown Sr., had been born in Van Buren, Arkansas, in 1833, the son of a Yuchi princess from Alabama, named Suttah. Also known as Polly, she was a direct descendant of the famous Emperor Brim; the daughter of the Yuchi Sun King Timpoochee Barnard. Suttah was also the sister of two prominent Yuchi subchiefs, Tisoso and Fushudgee, both “Birdtail Kings.” All of them were grandchildren of "Cusseta" (Koasati/Coushatta) Birdtail Kings. They were royalty, at the top of their social order.

A fierce Yuchi partisan and statesman, Tisoso was hung by whites in Girard, Alabama in 1836, after Sam Houston had gone to Texas. He and his brothers had petitioned the Secretary of War, attempting to stop “the fraud being practiced upon our people.” These were the purportedly short-lived Indian brother's-in-law of Sam Houston and the uncles of Sam Brown Sr., who was of noble Yuchi blood and served as Yuchi principal chief for almost 50 years. His mother, Princess Suttah was murdered in 1861 by some of Quantrell's Raiders in Oklahoma during the Civil War. Fushudgee was killed the next year fighting under Creek Chief Opethleyoholo at Pea Ridge.

The fact that Sam Houston was the Senior Brown's father was a mere fact, nothing to be proud of, in fact it was rarely mentioned. In Creek and Yuchi tradition, royalty was passed down through the females, as in ancient Hebrew custom. Other Creek customs were unusual if not quite liberal to our Western, Victorian standards. Creek girls were expected to be sexually active before marriage. These were matrilocal societies, where polygamy was common, and chiefs encouraged favored candidates to bed with their daughters. Mixed-blood was actually desired. To add to the genetic pool of confusion, the Creeks were also exogamous, forbidding the marriage of individuals within the clan. Sam Houston would have been almost incidental to Sam Brown Jr.'s story, since his power and authority came through his grandmother Suttah. Still, Brown Sr. had admitted to his son that “...My father Sam Houston made two crops- and I rode on the horse's back...”

 Samuel W. "Billy" Brown Jr.

Billy Brown looked more like Sam Houston than his father did.

Old Chief Brown's contention that he was somehow spawned by General Sam Houston has its problems. It is doubtful that Houston made “two crops”... unless this was a euphemism for two conjugal visits, or even two children. Perhaps he might have once met Sam Houston later and “rode the horse's back,” the “horse” better translating into English as sire. Sam Brown was born in June of 1833, after Sam Houston abandoned his “Cherokee” wife Tiana and bought over 4000 acres on Karankawa Bay in Texas. In October, Nine months before, was exactly when Houston had settled his accounts and given the trading post and slaves to Tiana, and left forever. Intriguingly, Chief Brown would have to have been conceived during this last return to the Indian Territory and right before Sam Houston's legendary departure to Texas. So even though this relationship seems sketchy and improbable, it could have happened.

Houston filed his claim at San Felipe as a married man. If he had multiple wives in the Indian territory, he faced a real cultural dilemma. Which wife would he bring to Texas?

 Several Native American women insisted to their deaths that they were once wives of the famous Texan, and bore him children. This was nothing to brag about, as Texans were generally despised by Indians. Later the confusion led skeptics to allege that even youngest son Temple was one of the Indian offspring.

Houston did go back and forth in the early months of his adventure, offering opportunity for a tryst while reporting on his progress with the Comanches to American authorities. The Comanches were considered by the Americans as a possible natural military barrier to the Mexicans if they would cooperate, and Houston effectively placated them. If Houston had so many neglected and jealous lovers awaiting him back in the Indian Territory, no wonder dealing with Comanches seemed like a reasonable if not safer endeavor!

Sam Brown Sr. seemed to suggest that Sam Houston lived with his mother Suttah for at least two years, since “he made two crops.” He also suggests that he rode on the plow horse used on their farm, when just a toddler. It is not absurd to imagine this scenario, when we consider Houston's chronic alcoholism and escapism, and his popularity with the Cherokees. But a farmer he wasn't. Whatever strange fiefdom Houston had created, he could not sustain it.

 This portrait of Sam Houston reveals the similarity between Billy Brown and his alleged grandfather. Even Brown's daughter has Houston's eyes.

And there may have been a second, older son from this union, or a cousin or "half brother" out of an aunt of Brown's. No dates are known for a brother of Sam Brown's, but in the 1840's Brown's so-called “half brother” was kidnapped by the Osages, to be raised as one of their future chiefs! Houston had been instrumental in negotiating a successful and effective Treaty between the Osages and Creeks in 1831. This child may have been stolen when that treaty went sour. The stolen Yuchi boy was called Tsa pah ki ah, and became a major chief of the Osages. He was never rejoined to his Yuchi family. 

 Sam and Osage Chief Tsa Pah Ki Ah

The stealing of Indian children of royal blood was considered an intelligent thing to do! Is it possible that even a child of Sam Houston was considered powerful medicine? Or more likely, a great prospect for a huge ransom. There is no way to know what the Osages saw in the little Yuchi boy, but one look at him as a man and there is the instant impression of Sam Houston. Skeptics argued that Sam Brown Sr. did not look anything like Sam Houston, but then neither did Temple Houston, the last off-spring from Houston's most famous marriage... and yet Sam Brown Sr. could easily have been believed to have been Temple's brother.

The elder Brown took the name Brown from an Indian educator he admired. S. C. Brown took him under his wing and shared his love for education, which led to the founding of several Indian schools. If Sam Houston was his blood father, S. C. Brown was Brown's intellectual mentor. Still the acorn does not fall far from the tree. Sam Brown Sr was an original member of the Creek House of Kings, the Treasurer of the Creek Nation, a 32nd Degree Mason, and ultimately the last surviving Union Officer in Oklahoma. His integrity was unquestioned. Upon his death, Sam Brown Jr obtained a death certificate from the State Department of Health (Bureau of Vital Statistics) which verified that his father was indeed General Sam Houston.

According to Chief Sam Brown Jr., the Yuchis maintained close ties to many Indian brethren throughout the southeast United States, including those living in Polk County, Texas. These would be what we know as the Alabama-Coushatta Indians, once neighbors in Alabama over a century ago. Brown said that the “Cussettas” were the only tribe outside of the Yuchis who had ever been given all of the secrets of their elite religious order. The Cussettas (Koasati/Coushatta) were descendants of the Muscogee and Natchez tribes of the lower Mississippi Valley, and closely kin to the Creeks. They came to Texas around 1810. They brought the secrets and the alliances of the Birdtail Kings with them to the new land. Perhaps this ancient religious society was the nucleus of an blood covenant between General Sam Houston and his Indian kinsmen, which spanned from the Indian Territory to east Texas, and somehow protected these Native Americans from expulsion.

Whatever the reasons for it, kinsmen of Chief Sam Brown's seemed to enjoy the proverbial “king's X” in Texas. All other tribes were driven or burned out from east Texas before 1850. But even President Lamar, a veritable Indian exterminator, and the Texas Legislature passed laws and set aside large tracts of land for the Alabamas in Polk County, and they shared their good fortune with the Coushattas, and both live in peace in Texas to this very day.

Lanier Lectures: On the cutting edge of Eternity

Lanier Theological Library

 At a time when many serious Biblical scholars are announcing the decline of Western Christianity, and the rise of secular humanism, not to mention the visible groundwork for Armageddon, it was a striking detour to be ushered into the depths of theological debate thriving at the Stone Chapel in North Houston, sponsored by the Lanier Theological Library. To add to my already overloaded senses, was the sudden revival of memories which had flooded my mind, as the Lanier Library compound lies in the same place, once a forest wilderness, where my brother and I rode horseback as redneck teenagers. I actually courted my first sweetheart under the virgin pine canopy near there. I shook off those thoughts as I came into an Old World village complete with cobblestone walkways and a 6^th Century Byzantine chapel, executed with Thomas Kinkadesque beauty and perfection. 

 Like a kid in a candy store... my brother Reynolds insisted that I come see this amazing facility... 

My brother had insisted that I come with him and showed me around the Lanier Theological Library, host of some 86,000 volumes... and sundry Holy Land artifacts. There was a panel discussion going on in the Chapel, on slavery of all things... I was still thinking about the unlikelihood of this kind of thing being tucked back in this wooded neighborhood.... as we took seats in the chapel and caught the end of the discussion...

You might, like me, wonder what slavery has to do with the price of beans. But there have been arguments made against the trustworthiness of the Bible... and the God of the Holy Bible, since it is perceived by some readers that the Bible condones slavery... an unforgivable stance to any modern, enlightened mind. Some modern thinkers reject the God of the Bible because he obviously was prejudiced and unjust, if not racist and downright narrow-minded.

 Incredible murals bring Old World flavor to this reproduction of a 6th Century Turkish church.

The panel discussion was tough for me to follow as a layperson, as some of these leading theologians, brought in from all over the world, would often use Hebrew or Greek to make their points... which were often answering some obscure premise thrown to the experts to chew on. The pitcher was Mark Lanier, who played the role of facilitator-host... pacing and postulating under the grandly adorned dome of the chapel, a sort of Donahue goes to Cambridge... stimulating and sometimes baiting discussion from the four fairly soft-spoken theologians. One of the youngest and most animated of them was Peter Williams, Warden at Tyndale House Cambridge in England, who would be the featured speaker that evening.

 Mark Lanier has built the most impressive theological library in the region. So far he has hosted thirty lectures.

The exchange was friendly and yet earnest, and a rare glimpse for Texans into Christian intelligentsia. But for me, on face value the questions illustrated an unkind assumption I have nurtured, perhaps unfairly,  that theologians are people with huge brains and long pedigrees who focus too long on the most insignificant things.

Still, we need them, to settle those stupid questions inspired by well-meaning, almost smart folks, people who fall under the cynical influence of the Evil One. The gist of the question, and I can only assume this because I missed the introduction, was: Were the assumptions valid which claimed that the Holy Scriptures endorsed the practice of slavery, thus rendering the God of the Bible as an ancient excuse for ethnic oppression? These seemingly absurd interpretations were used all the way up until the American Civil War. Actually they survived in some southern pockets long into the 1960's.

The panel revealed that the devil was in the details; that great harm had been done with ambiguous translations of the words for servant and slave; that translators have through the centuries allowed their cultural attitudes to color their somewhat subjective translations. As time has passed, when there was an option, later translators chose to emphasize a more hostile form of bondage, (Hebrew "ebed/eved": can mean servant OR bondservant) as opposed to voluntary indenture (servanthood). Where older texts sported a limited use of the word for slavery, later translations abounded with them. And lost to all of us are the cultural realities of Ancient times. In fact people, sometimes whole nations voluntarily placed themselves in servitude, for decades, to gain protection or avoid wholesale starvation. Slaves in ancient context had rights... and protection, and limited engagement. When God gave direction through His prophets concerning slavery, it was in the same vein as His laws on divorce... not because it was His Divine Will, but because of the hardness of men's hearts. 

A great deal more could be discussed when this is considered. Even God understood that the world is imperfect, and once relationships like ancient slavery had been established since the days of Pharaoh, it was not so simple to just declare instant justice and freedom for all. The interdependence between the parties, and the consequences from sudden liberation of a servant class with no education, no assets, no homes, and most importantly inadequate acculturation, could only lead to further chaos and injustice. In God's wisdom, the best solution to men's complicated social structure was to let them work it out gradually over time, laying down the bedrock concepts of mercy and justice as the underpinnings of society.

As Peter Williams pointed out (and hard for our modern minds to comprehend), for some disadvantaged people, ancient forms of slavery were the best thing for them at the time, and they were the first to admit it. Knowing this makes the actions of some slaves in the South, when they refused to leave their plantations when set free, and tearfully begged to stay, explainable. This loyalty was not because of ignorance, but because of personal knowledge of their questionable readiness for independence. But concepts of "justice" and a bloody war overruled common sense. 

 

Peter Williams took these observations about Hebrew and Greek nuances to their plausible conclusions, but he also offered some surprises. He has been doing some deep-sea diving in the currents of many languages, forging one authentic, holistic world view of these issues. Studying Germanic, Gaelic and Latin languages, he has done yeoman's excavation of these ancient words and their translations and how various peoples made them their own. They had no axe to grind and thus suffered less cultural distortion of these words... and perhaps a more clear understanding of the nuances... sometimes lost in our English translations.

 Peter Williams of Tyndale House, reads and studies in a dozen languages.

 

But Williams' brilliant twist came from his study and observations of the supposed slavery of the Jews while in Egypt. We have all grown up being told that the Jews were brought out of Egypt from the oppression of slavery and service to Pharaoh. And we have all been ignoring the scriptures which tell of when the Egyptians themselves willingly committed themselves into slavery to Pharaoh as well... via the negotiations of Joseph, father of two tribes of Israel, the Israelite placed at Pharaoh's right hand. In fact everyone was a servant of the Pharaoh, but the Israelites enjoyed a somewhat elevated status... more as hirelings, status they won upon their arrival in Goshen hundreds of years before under the protection of Joseph. Maybe Joseph had been forgotten, and the Egyptians were cruel employers, but the Israelite's confrontation with Pharaoh was more akin to a Victorian labor dispute.

Over the years cultural bias caused more than one translator to render these servants into “slaves.” In some cases translators, bending to their own perceptions, translated the same word for servant, used twice in one paragraph, differently. This subtle bending of semantics was not without terrible results. Sadly 600,000 Americans died in a Civil War where around half the country argued that the Bible justified their use of slavery, so this sloppy scholarship had very grave consequences, as provincial minds, assuming the veracity of English translations, bet their lives and futures on them...

 Q & A at the end of the lecture.

Peter Williams more than once wisely refused to pass judgment on participants in the American Civil War, ( known by Southerners as the War of Northern Aggression). He explained that each individual in the war, on either side, was there for his own reasons or rationale... and finally he quipped that if the audience wanted to know the proper understanding of the war, they would have to be there on Judgment Day. 

 Stairwell in the Lanier Library

Some things we do not get to grasp- on this side of Eternity. The path to perfect understanding is much like the stair rail in the Lanier Library. But for those things that can and should be grasped... the folks at Lanier can be trusted to flesh them out.

The Lanier Library is open from 9:00 to 5:00 on weekdays and until 9:00 on Tuesdays. You can learn more about it at:  www.LanierTheologicalLibrary.org.

Stop the Madness! HIGH-SPEED RAIL- TOLL ROADS- ETC

Let's propose a new paradigm, one that we can all live with: Let everyone learn to live within their own means, without expecting to encroach on the rights or property of others...

 

Bluebells, the namesake for your favorite ice cream, still survive in the rolling hills of Grimes County, but the scars of civilization are just beginning...

 

Stop the Madness!

Houston: A half-Century of unchecked expansion

Citizens of Grimes and nearby counties are once again threatened by wild government schemes and unconstitutional forfeiture of their property. FOUR major projects are planned to accommodate the needs of the Houston area while our rights and convenience are thrown under the bus, and in the exchange, toll roads will replace our Farm to Market roads, while a monumentally expensive and UNPROVEN high-speed rail system and two electricity transmission lines destroy our environment in order to serve others.

This recurring nightmare began decades ago, when reasonable citizens gradually abandoned the “concrete jungle” in Houston and sought safety, serenity and a better life. Then just a hungry little gator, Houston, Texas was already the seventh largest city in the United States, striving to be the energy capital of the world. Seeing the trend of a perpetual attack on our quality of life, my family and many others relocated to Grimes County, which was a comfortable distance from the relentless urban sprawl of Harris County.  Anointed by LBJ as “Space City,” the Houston Metropolitan Area continued to expand like a heartless lava flow all the way to the extremes of Harris County and beyond.  We fled, and found temporary refuge, but we knew this day would probably come.

Now the fourth largest city in the United States, Houston has blossomed into the Great Shop of Horrors, an insatiable overgrown parasite who, like the cute little plant in The Little Shop of Horrors, one day looked down on its keeper and demanded, “FEED ME!”

A stomach with no conscience, it lives to serve itself, and being so powerful, it does not have to explain itself. We must feed it, or it will make us sorry. The Houston Shop of Horrors must have water. Lots of it. It must have energy. Lots of it. It must have convenience… as much as it can make for itself. And like many rotten and untrainable pets, it MUST have a disgusting potty-box to deposit all of its excrement. It looks to anyone and everyone outside of its perimeters to fill these constant needs.

Unfortunately, Harris County cannot support its unmanageable shop of horrors. It looks to its weaker neighbors to supply the oceans of water, the megawatts of energy, the miles of convenient access, and the vast garbage dumps, whatever necessary for its survival.  In blind revenge it routinely takes what it wants from those who wisely fled from its clutches. And it will continue to do so until the cows can no longer come home. The high speed rails, the toll roads, and the utility lines that feed this selfish monster will continue to butcher and choke the surrounding countryside until the cows will be totally landlocked; their owner’s farms invaded, confiscated, divided and violated to serve the “greater good”; the “Greater Houston Metropolitan Area,” that is.  It is time to stop the madness.

It is time for the people, and especially the governments of the various counties who neighbor with this conscienceless leviathan to stand up and unite and work together to limit the damage Houston and its champions would do to us in the name of “progress.”

In the path of possible destruction: Beautiful high ground on HWY 90 between Anderson and Navasota- I have dubbed Holland Pass, above the bottoms of Holland Creek. Tapley Holland was one of the heroes martyred at the Alamo.

More than land at stake.

Grimes County is one of the last jewels of Texas country life, the veritable “Cradle of Texas Independence,” land purchased with blood shed at the Alamo, tragically nestled under the treacherous shadow of an expansive monster that knows no limits to its mindless appetite. It is time to fight this enemy of OUR greater good with everything we have got, and stop the tide of ugly, inefficient suburban sprawl. Houston plans to cut up Grimes County like a cheap side of beef. It does not know or care the price of the land, the irreversible damage to it, the value of our lifestyle, or the fate of our irreplaceable heritage which it would slice and pave.

Houston does not know it, but it needs us just as we are. We are an enclave of beauty and serenity, and we have inadvertently become the stewards of its forgotten soul, the keepers of the flame that has inspired the whole world since the Battle of San Jacinto, wisely masterminded by none other than Sam Houston.  

 

Jesse Grimes was an early pioneer, friend of Sam Houston and signor of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

I grew up in Houston. But I never felt and loved and relived its history until I was able to get far from it and experience the land as the pioneers did here in Grimes County. When my family came here, we were enthralled by this wonderful time-capsule that had saved the buildings, the fences, the roads and bridges, and the very lands as the early Texians had seen and worked them. It shaped my character, my life, and my art. You might label me a poet or an idealist, but few souls like me are ever spawned between the dark, dangerous fast-lanes of the city. My imagination took root and prospered as I discovered pristine woodlands and breathtaking vistas in the local landscape. So near to Houston, and yet a world away.  I feel so fortunate to have escaped the house of horrors.

A winnable strategy

We all remember past struggles to kill other impositions by outside governments. We have won some and lost some. But some of us learned the game when we successfully fought Governor Rick Perry’s Spanish Imposition, the grandiose “Trans- Texas Corridor,” and will fight this battle as well. And we will do it for future Texans whom we know will need and cherish the inspiration and serenity of the Texas heartland as we do.  We will do it for the wildlife, once nearly exterminated, now flourishing. Yes, we will do it for the cows and their owners. And we will do it for those that went before, buried and resting in this soil, who faithfully farmed parched cotton land, built fieldstone villages and churches, and wrote the Texas Declaration of Independence and those famous blues songs from the Brazos Valley…  In the process, they wrote their fierce spirit into our hearts.

Joining hands with the American Stewards of Liberty Alliance, an organization experienced in these battles for land owner’s rights, we can beat the Houston overreach with public awareness and Texas Law… if we can afford the lawyers. Every community must organize to create a formidable gamut of legal red-tape, insurmountable for mercenary bureaucrats, who are required BY LAW to COOPERATE WITH EVERY LOCAL INTETY. At every turn we will shame them. This is one way we derailed the Trans Texas Corridor.

Sam Houston, the namesake of the City, would be ashamed of its present reality, so narcissistic and insulting to its neighbors. He once served as our President and lived here in our neighborhood, just across the river, in the frontier capital of the Republic of Texas. Houston was baptized in a creek over in Washington County, and that faith he attained gave him the courage to stand against the enormous tide of Secession and the subsequent War Between the States. He taught us something about fighting for right, the value of this land, its worthiness for personal sacrifice.  He won Texas for all of us, against all odds, by a military miracle, and more accurately the Grace of God.  We will fight these urban Huns for him too.

You may never before have had a chance to live and act and feel like a real, old-time TEXIAN. Here is your opportunity. In fact, this struggle is exactly like the Texas Revolution, where a powerful and ruthless government used and abused the citizens at its fringe to enjoy unjust benefits at their expense.

Houston is the Mexican Army, looting and taking at will, granting no quarter, intolerant and all-powerful. But this will be no “Runaway Scrape.” 

Please get involved and help turn the tide of injustice and the institutional violation of land owner’s rights, and join the fight for a virgin wilderness, inhabited by wild cats and eagles, and people who foster them. Join this fight or see our Texas heartland finally and forever rolled over like a stinking Chicago parking lot. Join the fight or live with the shame that you did nothing in a time of distress while good men struggled for our way of life.

Look at any map of Texas. It has already been carved and bastardized enough. Help us stop this madness, this relentless expansion with no end, which has no inspiration but greed and convenience. Texas is being changed forever by raptors who would trade our quality of life for speed, profit, and no small amount of personal gain. Remember the quaint old rice town Katy? Remember Alvin, once the garden land of Texas? Remember the stately Imperial Sugar plant Sugarland! Remember the stately trade oaks at the crossroads of Tomball! Remember the virgin forests of Conroe? Rural serenity is long gone at those hapless doormats for Houston.  We are next.

ENOUGH ALREADY!  HOUSTON IS BIG ENOUGH. Really! We must band together and force the great house of horrors in Harris County to accommodate itself; to build its own infrastructure in order to feed and sustain itself; to supply its own water, its own garbage dumps, its own energy, and to limit its impositions on its neighbors. Houston’s appetite will always be insatiable as long as others provide the sacrifice at its alter.

Besides, we are now full of people and opportunities ourselves. We all chose our beds, and now we must sleep in them.  That would be true social justice. Maybe then, if Houston has to curtail its own rapaciousness, if it is raping itself, it will begin to check its own expansion. Only then will it no longer require so much from those on its fringe, those of us wise enough not to participate in, or inhabit its hopeless system.

Remember the ALAMO!

CONTACT your elected representatives! Many assume that nobody is paying attention and have their heads in the sand… and are waiting for the political winds to blow… So BLOW! Here are your bullets:

Specifically, we are fighting:

1)    The Proposed Dallas to Houston High Speed Rail- This will be a political battle. We call it properly JAPANESE High Speed Rail, as they will be the only folks who will get any advantages out of building this… (no benefits to us, only gutting of property values, community sacrifice and transportation inconvenience) The California High Speed Rail system just went bankrupt… was 68 BILLION underfunded, will have to be taken over by the Feds… Contact Kevin Brady , 301 Cannon Building, Washington D. C. 20515!

2)    The Proposed “Brazos Valley Connection” 345 KV Transmission Line which is to stretch from Harris County through Waller County to Grimes County... Both of these lines offer only sacrifice, inconvenience and decimation of property values.

3)    The Proposed “Cross Texas Transmission” 345 KV Line which will run from Grimes County up to Limestone County… transecting Madison, Brazos, Robertson, Leon and Freestone  Counties. These two transmission lines are our biggest hurdles, both will require a legal battle costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Landowners must dig deep in their pockets or this may not be stalled in time.

4)    The State Highway 249 Toll Road (from FM 1774 to SH105, local authorities have withdrawn their support of this incursion). Once again, no benefits locally, only decimated property values, sacrifice and inconvenience. “Toll Roads are the new [Public] Utility,” said OUR FORMER State Rep., Lois Kolkhorst with regret in March of 2013 (now elected State Senator in another district) and publicly stated that this 249 Toll Road was a “boondoggle” and that she was against toll roads and anticipated that surpluses in future budgets, “rainy day funds” etc. could take up the slack in building our rural highways.

Learn more about all of this at www.communityupdate.org

If you want to get involved, contact: grimescitizenadvisorygroup@ gmail.com

If you want to get the play-by-play, then “FRIEND” GCAG on Facebook;  SEARCH FOR GRIMES CITIZEN ADVISORY GROUP.

2 Bit Palomino- Like an aged wine...

An expectant crowd of music lovers spreads out at Bernhardt Winery in Plantersville. 

I had heard Andi and Peter Renfree first as "The Renfrees" at the Corner Cafe several years ago. They came back the next year re-invented as "2 Bit Palomino," with a new guitar picker and keyboardist, and unveiled their new songs... But being in transition, I chose to reserve my judgment and wait for more input before writing about them... Then a mutual friend invited me to see them at Bernhardt Winery in Plantersville.

2 Bit Palomino is a veteran threesome of Houston-based singer-songwriters who have found an original sound and written some catchy, solid songs. These are songs that make you remember those things in your sub-conscious that have been pushed aside by the tyranny of the urgent; things we need to hold on to.  

They were named the Vocal Group of the Year in 2011 and 2013 by the Academy of Texas Music. My favorite song is an epic song they sing, made famous by Chris LeDoux, and written by Andrea C. Renfree, Willie McCullough and Clay Canfield, called The Buffalo Grass. I promise, it sounds better than... it sounds... Anyway I'll bet this song had something to do with the fact that Howlin' Dog Records just signed them to a contract. The three are quite pleased with their new situation and looking forward to cutting the new album. Persistence and excellence have paid off.

Andi Renfree strolls among her crowd at Bernhardt Winery before she performs. With casual, down to earth ease, she explains how far her faith was stretched, how far she had to step out on faith, before the band was seemingly "instantly" rewarded with milestones of success in their respective careers.  Now they are going to enjoy the coming journey with appreciation that has been fermented like a fine wine. 

Bill-       Andi-      "Ren"

Bill Ward, the songwriter- guitarist and keyboard player, explains that he just performed in front of the Alamo. Now THAT is a Texas moment. He is doing his second performance in as many days, with a grueling drive in between. And the real work is just beginning. Only talent and commitment and down-right hard-headedness would have gotten them this far. And now, almost running on empty, they generously give us, who sit casually in our lawn chairs, an evening to remember...

Peter Renfree

2-Bit Palomino sings about No cowboys in Dallas, buffalo grass... and even about a whore. Bill sings a protest song. He finds no comfort that everyone agrees with his protest, that there is no more middle class in America. So it must not be a protest song... he explains, if everybody agrees with him... Their sensitive, sincere message strikes a chord with the audience. America is changing right before our eyes. The songs hit us where we sit; regular folks seeking a measure of peace and serenity in the middle of somewhere. And for just a moment,  remembering.

As in the days of yesteryear, songsters are the voice of our social conscience- and our consciousness. And for the moment, there is music, and friends, and Grimes County wine.

It has been a perfect evening. Too perfect. Native Americans would intentionally place a random bead in their bead work, a concession that only God can make perfection, and to keep themselves humble. I looked around and found the Bernhardt's "random bead"... a little light bulb had gone out.

You probably wonder about their name... it is also the name of one of their great songs... about that mechanical rocking horse we all begged to ride for a quarter as children, in front of the grocery store... Meanwhile 2 Bit Palomino has grown and matured into a promising act, and will be away, more than ever, on the road or in Nashville or whatever, and we are fortunate to have had an evening with them. And now they can get rested up for the challenges ahead. Good luck to them, and God Bless! And thanks for refreshing my memories!

Confessions about BERNHARDT WINERY, Plantersville, Texas.

I have prided myself in covering most music venues and anything worth knowing about in my neck of the woods... but I will confess to avoiding the woods. 24 years ago when my little family left Plantersville, after calling it home for around 18 years, it was with the firm conviction that coming there had been the most serious mistake of our young lives. So it will be no surprise that going back... to cover any deserving story, is bitter sweet. Or to be more accurate, choking on crow.

It was a hard pill to swallow, that right across from the Price pasture where I used to hunt and photograph bluebonnets and run my Labrador retriever, is the sign and the road leading to one of Grimes County's prime attractions. Plantersville has enjoyed the upgrade brought by such neighbors as the Bernhardt Winery, as some of us shrugged and shook our heads. "More newcomers... they will never make it..." 

So now you and I can quit ignoring the stunning truth- that Grimes County is now the home of several excellent wineries, and Bernhardt Winery in Plantersville is the flagship of the fleet. Let me demonstrate why...

Natural Beauty.

Bernhardt Winery is situated on county road 204 in far eastern Grimes County, just north of Hwy 105. The surrounding countryside is so pretty that it explains why I moved here... and stayed here in Grimes County over forty years ago. Distant vistas and mammoth trees greet visitors to this oasis, which prides itself on being a site of peace and serenity. And the wine doesn't hurt. Bernhardt offers their award winning wines ice-cold, as you sip and listen to Texas' most celebrated musicians. Shake Russell. Ezra Charles. On this visit we were entertained by the original future hits of 2- Bit Palomino. 

World Class Music. 

A veteran crowd of picnickers congregate on a gentle slope which stops at a gargantuan pecan tree, which protects a small outdoor stage from the sun. It might be Bob Livingston, who has performed in over 30 countries around the world for the State Department, or the best of local talent. This Autumn they plan a series of tribute bands, from the Eagles to Willie to Elvis to the Beatles to Motown. 

And the wine flows. The music fills the valley. The sun goes down... 

And Jerry Bernhardt reads some of his winsome poetry and... all is right with the world. He explains that the place is for getting back in touch with nature... and beauty. If I'm not totally accurate about what he said... I'll blame the wine...And he asks everyone to be quiet and just listen for a moment to the sounds of the country. Cicadas obligingly turn up the volume, and crickets rub their legs with enthusiasm. He makes a toast. I look around. Yes, this is Plantersville. Back when I first moved here, me and my coon hunting, skoal dipping, whiskey sipping buddies would have cracked up at such eloquence.

Delicious Wine.

As I explained to the kind lady offering me a sampling of wine, I'm a beer guy. But the wines I tasted were very rich and refreshing. We bought a blush wine that disappeared quickly. You come. You be the judge. I know music- and they have the best music in Texas, and as our entertainers for the evening joked, the more we drank the better they sounded. And probably the better the whole experience is... or seems. Whatever, Plantersville has more going for it than the Texas Renaissance Festival. Right now it has the two most impressive entertainment venues in Grimes County.

Thanks to the vision of the Bernhardts, time, good taste and financial commitment has rewarded this lovely place with a solid attraction. And hundreds of people are making it a regular part of their lives.  I sure plan to.

But thank goodness, it is still Plantersville.

If you want to more details about Bernhardt Winery, call (936) 894-9829 or go to their website:
www.bernhardtwinery.com

The finishing touch: ART makes a difference!

I went on and on about my stay out at the McMullen Ranch guest house near Whitehall... but I couldn't show you the interior of the old farmhouse where I stayed until we put the final touches on the interior... which, coincidentally happened to be my art work which covers the walls. And it looks pretty good (If I must say so myself!).

The 1900 farmhouse sits a good 150 yards off of a country road in southern Grimes County.

 

It has been completely overhauled... The exterior appears much as it did when the German farmers who lived there called it home...

 

But the inside has been freshly remodeled and beautifully decorated. Still, visitors can enjoy the old- fashioned Texas farm life, with lots of WOOD, wood floors, wood burning stove for heat in the winter, and board and batten wooden walls, just like everybody used in times past.

The spacious kitchen is well equipped, and has modern amenities such as coffee-maker and micro-wave oven.

Surrounded by quiet and the sounds of nature, the cute, intimate dining room is perfect for conversation.

The bedrooms are comfortable and yet filled with light and austere country life. There will be curtains installed here, but I enjoyed not having any, as the sun can wake you up in the morning. This bedroom sleeps three.

The east bedroom faces the rising sun, and sleeps two. One on the bed, one on the floor... just kidding. These beds are primo- very comfortable, and provide for excellent sleeping, even through a thunderstorm!

Still, my favorite part of the old place is the porch, which must have fifty foot of breezeway which wraps around three sides of the house.

Pretty cool huh? Let me know if you ever need the place, I'll try to get you a deal, my "Blogger's Discount"!

You have to just make yourself.

I needed a get-away last week and my friend Faber McMullen offered his cabin here in the boonies in Grimes County. It was just what I needed and I wanted to share my stay with you.

I rested on the porch swing, and slept, and took hikes and explored the pecan groves that wind through this working Texas ranch. Many parts of it are still pristine, seemingly untouched by human interference. Most importantly, I left behind television, Internet, even my cell phone, any source of the "tyranny of the urgent." There are no sounds there but those of nature, no neighbors but livestock and wild things. I had forgotten how much these elements, and the serenity they offer meant to me.

I got some sun and exercise, and hundreds of photographs. And eventually, the oxygen I needed. These shots can begin to tell the story...

The old farmhouse sits atop this lush hill in southern Grimes County. The good news is that it is for rent to week-enders.

 

Sunrise in Grimes County. The house has been beautifully remodelled, but its major asset is the wrap-around porch which provides 24-hour pleasure to guests. This was our ancestor's combination recreation, entertainment and stress management facility. 

 

The McMullen Ranch is home to dozens of cattle, where nature and agriculture find harmony and produce a picturesque background for guests and inhabitants. This beautiful calf exemplifies the family- friendly atmosphere, and the pride taken in managing every corner of the operation.

 

These horses are just as social as humans, and understand that although a whole herd can get on your nerves,  everybody needs someone to scratch their back...

 

As of right now, there are lots of old farm structures on the property, fairly raw, and rich with direct glimpses of the lifestyles of rural Texans, of one hundred years ago. Some folks need museums to experience the history of our ancestors... just give me a dilapidated old shack like this...

 

The spring rains have ushered in a wonderful season of prosperity. The livestock graze happily, the birds sing continuously, and each setting sun comes too soon. If you are like me, you have to make yourself take the time to come to a place like this.. and then you have to make yourself leave.