A rare 1847 land patent for a Kerr County tract

1847 land grant from the State of Texas to Thornton F. Hollis.
Click on any image to enlarge.

In the late 1840s, when the first settlers arrived in our area, they brought with them an idea which had not been here before: land ownership.  Even though people had been in our area for around 10,000 years, this concept was new to our part of Texas.

Those earlier peoples, for the most part, had been nomadic, and never (as far as we know) built a permanent settlement. There were sites which they visited repeatedly, and over thousands of years. The idea you could own land here was new with those early settlers in the 1840s.

Before land could become property, however, another group moved through our area: surveyors. These hardy folks carved up our community, neatly placing the land within metes and bounds. The earliest surveys were taken along the river and larger creeks – because access to water had the most value.

Gov. James Pickney Henderson

I discovered something fascinating in my files last year - an original Texas land grant (or patent) from 1847. It bears the seal of the General Land Office and is signed by J. Pinckney Henderson, the first governor of Texas, after Texas joined the United States.

Henderson's term as governor was brief, lasting less than two years. During part of his tenure, he took a leave of absence to personally command troops in the Mexican War. After the war, he resumed his duties but declined to run for a second term. Later, he represented Texas in the U.S. Senate.

The land document is remarkably well-preserved for its age. Measuring 13.5 x 15.5 inches, it was printed on thick parchment. It's essentially a form where handwritten details were added to a pre-printed sheet.

The newly formed state of Texas had various reasons for offering land to citizens and others. Land grants were a key tool for encouraging settlement and development. By providing land, the government hoped to incentivize individuals and families to establish homes and businesses on the frontier, which was still largely undeveloped at the time.

Joseph A. Tivy, the deputy surveyor for the Bexar District of Texas, wrote the field notes for this particular grant on December 7, 1846. Interestingly, Tivy later became the first mayor of Kerrville and donated land to establish the town's public schools; Tivy High School is named in his honor.

Thompson Sanatorium

His notes describe the location of the site: “Said survey No. 143 in Section 2. Situated on the Guadalupe River, about 55 miles northwest of San Antonio in Bexar County.” 

“Beginning at an Elm tree 3 inches in diameter on the bank of the river….” Another corner of the tract is marked by “a Cypress tree 7 inches in diameter,” while another corner is marked by a cypress 14 inches in diameter. A cottonwood tree is also referenced in the field notes.

If these trees still exist after 177 years of floods and other potential hazards, they'd likely be considerably larger now.

The Swayzes

Governor Henderson granted the land to Thornton F. Hollis, "his heirs and assigns FOREVER" (the capitalization appears on the original document). Hollis had qualified for the land grant by certifying to the Galveston County Board of Land Commissioners that he came to Texas in 1838, was married, and had never received land before.

However, Hollis had no intention of settling on this land. He sold his grant to John S. Snyder and Alfred F. James for $50 on the very same day he received it. It's probable that Hollis was recruited to apply, as it was an easy way to earn $50. He likely never saw the land patented in his name.

The land grant program, while intended to settle the frontier, often resulted in land speculation instead. The document passed through several hands before ending up in my files. In 1872, it was recorded in Kerr County's land records, though the county didn't exist when the grant was originally issued in 1847.

Interestingly, in 1936, the State of Texas bought most of the 640 acres back from one of its subsequent owners, Dr. Sam Thompson, for $80,000. The land, which included Thompson Sanatorium, was used to establish the Kerrville State Sanatorium, a tuberculosis hospital for Black patients. Today, the facility is known as the Kerrville State Hospital.

This land grant offers a fascinating glimpse into Texas history, from its early days of statehood through various transformations. Who knows - some of the original boundary trees might still be standing, silent witnesses to nearly two centuries of change.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who collects historical items from Kerrville and Kerr County. If you have anything you'd care to share with him, it would make him very happy.  This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead July 18, 2024.

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A wonderfully named Kerrville Band

"Joe's Band" 1911, taken in front of the Charles Schreiner Store.
Click on any image to enlarge.

Today one can ask the Internet to find and play almost any piece of music, even asking for a particular artist or specific recording. It’s as if, in the dark and hidden rooms of an online palace, bands are waiting to entertain you, no matter your whim or musical tastes. Though such an archive may not serve artists, musicians, or composers very well, for the average listener it’s quite an amazing bonanza, and offers listeners a chance to discover new music.

Gentle Reader: there was a time before the Internet existed. Spoiler alert: there was even a time when recorded music did not exist.

A kind reader gave me a photograph recently which shows a wonderfully-named Kerrville music group: “Joe’s Band.” The image, taken in 1911, shows 18 men with their instruments, posing in front of the Charles Schreiner Company, on Water Street near the Earl Garrett Street intersection.

The old photograph has been published locally many times. My favorite cutline for the image comes from the September 16, 1948 edition of the Kerrville Mountain Sun.

Joe Gardner Sr.
Note the hat.

“One of the favorite modes of entertainment for the summer seasons of 1910 to 1912 was the band, and in particular ‘Joe’s Band.’ They played for all occasions of note when visitors were entertained, for the baseball games and for the Kerr County Fair.

“The band was named for the late Joe Gardner, Sr., who was one of the business managers. Most of the men who were members of this organization have either moved away or passed on [in 1948].

“The woman, wearing the ‘new look’ in the long dress and hat with the veil, is in the doorway of the Charles Schreiner Bank. At the right is the entrance to the dry goods department, now the door for the hardware department, and in the show window can be seen a display of men’s wearing apparel. It seems that men wore hats in those days, possibly due to the musical atmosphere. Bandsmen also wore suits of Navy blue serge trimmed with black braid, and the square caps were of the blue, with the black trim.

“Top row, left to right are Gerald Walther, who died of burns resulting from an explosion in a drug store; Howard Davis, who lives in El Paso; Ralph Rogers, whose whereabouts are unknown; Louis Pfeuffer, Sr; Emil Saenger; Payne Williamson, who now lives in San Antonio; Florin Sanchez, barber by trade and musician by birth, who has organized many musical groups of the community: he was director of the band; standing back of Florin, and not in uniform, is his brother, Joe Sanchez.

“Others in the top row are Louis Moore, a resident of Galveston for many years; Jake Michon, who died a few years ago; Pall Bessan; Ervin Mittanck, who lives in San Antonio; and Joe Gardner.

“In the lower row are Ed Allen, Junction; George Doyle, district clerk; Ollie Mittanck, resident of Kerrville; Bob Horne of Plainview; and Rudy Mosel of San Antonio.”

Aside from the two drums and two clarinets, the rest of the band is made up of brass instruments. I’m thinking loudness was not a problem. I have not found a report of the band’s repertoire, but I would guess they played plenty of marches.

This is a wonderful photograph, and I particularly like the Mountain Sun’s description of Florin Sanchez: “barber by trade, musician by birth.”

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native whose mother, Pat Herring, is a gifted musician. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead July 11, 2024.

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A new look at an old Kerrville photograph

Kerrville train depot, possibly 1910.
Click on any image to enlarge.

Though I have published a photograph of Kerrville’s first train depot several times, the image I used was a copy of a copy, and so most of the details were lost in the photograph I shared. When you make a copy of a copy of an image, it’s like looking at the photograph through fogged-up eyeglasses.

The ladies

A few weeks ago, however, I was given an original print of the photograph, meaning the photograph was made from the original negative. Suddenly fine details of the photograph were much clearer.

You would think having a finer image at which to look would answer a lot of questions, but this new photograph just brought new questions, and more than a few.

The men

I count seven people in the photograph, though one person has their back to the photographer and is a blur. I also see one dog in the photo, on the front seat of the carriage, next to the driver.

There are two signs – one for Wells Fargo Express, and the other for Western Union Telegraph. An advertisement for “Old Virginia Cheroots” can also be seen, offering three cigars for a nickel.

The railroad came to Kerrville in 1887, with financial assistance from of local leaders, including Capt. Charles Schreiner. Kerrville was the end of the line for the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad. Having a rail line to Kerrville meant products produced here, such as wool, mohair, and agricultural products, could be conveniently shipped to markets. Livestock, including cattle, could also be transported to distant markets without the need for expensive (and dangerous) cattle drives. 

There was also another benefit: passengers could travel to and from Kerrville, and our first tourist seasons coincided with the arrival of the trains here.

I know the photograph was taken before September, 1913, because this depot burned that month.

"An alarm was turned in shortly after 11 o'clock, but by the time the first company was on the ground the entire building, which had evidently taken fire from within, was a mass of flames. In the freight warehouse were a number of barrels of oils of different kinds, which together with lard bacon and other inflammable merchandise made a terrific fire. On a siding near the depot were two cars of merchandise. These were also completely destroyed."

Old Virginia Cheroot

A new depot was built for Kerrville, but not until 1915. That building still stands, and today it is the home of Rails, a Café at the Depot.

The late Forrest Salter, whose family owned the Kerrville Mountain Sun, published the photograph with this cutline:

"Remember When? Kerrville was the railhead for the entire area in 1910 when this picture was made, and daily passenger service to San Antonio was the main mode of travel. D. H. Comparette located this rare picture, made by the late Col. J. E. Grinstead, and said it was made before a fire destroyed part of the station. Comparette could identify the team of horses, which he said belonged to E. E. Galbraith, but is unable to recognize any of the people."

Wells Fargo Express

Edward E. Galbraith was a dentist, and also a businessman. He helped organize the First State Bank, which later became First National Bank, and served as its president from 1918 until 1957.

Based on Mr. Salter’s cutline, I’d guess the photograph was taken in 1910, though by then there were quite a few automobiles in town, and I would not be surprised if the photograph was older.

Western Union

I’ve included two scans of the people in the photograph – hoping a reader might recognize an ancestor among the six people in the image.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who collects old Kerrville and Kerr County historical items.  If you have something you'd care to share with him, it would make him happy. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead June 27, 2024.

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Kerr History 101: What’s the link between Kerrville and Hummingbird Feeders?

W. R. (Robert) Sullivan, a patient at 
Kerrville's Veterans Administration Hospital in the 1930s.

Many of us have hummingbird feeders hanging somewhere on our houses – ours is above the little slab ‘patio’ in our backyard, hanging under an eave of the roof, where it’s protected from sun and rain. Whenever someone posts on social media the arrival of hummingbirds locally, I concoct the mixture of sugar and water as recommended, and hang our feeder out, and within a few days we have our first customer.

Unlike others, we only get a few hummingbirds each year. I’ve seen photos of swarms of hummingbirds on others’ feeders, but ours are never crowded. Even though we only have a few visitors, they often disagree with each other, fighting and fussing over an ample supply of sweetened water – enough to feed a much larger charm of hummingbirds.

Here’s something you might not know: In 1932, W. R. (Robert) Sullivan invented an early hummingbird feeder, made from vinegar bottles, or I. V. bottles, along with Scotch tape tins, right here in Kerrville. 

Here’s a summary of the Wikipedia entry on Sullivan:

Our feeder, back when we used
red food coloring, long ago.

By 1936, Sullivan had installed a hummingbird feeder outside his patient room at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Legion, Texas, near Kerrville. Over time, he placed approximately 25 feeders around the hospital grounds. In 1939, Sullivan observed that hummingbirds consumed one US quart (950 ml) of the sweetened water solution in his feeder daily. His feeder design was adopted by fellow patients at the hospital and residents of Kerrville. His design prevented other birds or insects from drinking from the feeder.

Sullivan was a patient at the VA Hospital, recovering from tuberculosis. His interest in hummingbirds was more than just as a hobbyist – he wanted to band the birds for study, though at the time bands designed for birds were much too heavy for the little hummingbirds to support. He also shipped hummingbirds to several zoos around the country, with mixed success.

The Kerrville Times published a brief story about Sullivan on July 23, 1936:

“Legion Hospital Is Humming-Bird Sanctuary Without Equal in State,” declared the headline.

“Among summer visitors here are none so distinguished as the estimated group of 500 hummingbirds who come to Veterans Administration Hospital at Legion each season. There are probably few, if any, other places in Texas where so many of the birds gather.

“Patients there have placed 25 feeders about the grounds; everything is done to provide for the welfare of the birds. The little visitors come all the way from the south part of Mexico, below Mexico City. Males begin arriving about March 15 and the females tag along about three days later. Last stragglers have left for their home by the middle of September.

“Lying in his bed in a second story room of Ward 2, W. R. Sullivan, a patient there, has been observing the birds for several seasons. He has a feeder, containing sugar-saturated water, outside his window, and at times opens the window, places the feeder inside, and tempts the birds to the interior.

“They dart in, not shyly, but with an assurance that bespeaks ownership. Sometimes as many as 40 come into the room at one time. Wings whirring and humming, they make as much noise as 40 small electric fans. Perching for a moment on a light cord or tie rack, inspecting a curtain sash or zooming around the ceiling, they are everywhere at the same time.

“The humming-birds are not as afraid of human beings as they are of each other. They will alight on Sullivan's hand but are continually quarreling among themselves.

Later, another Kerrville man, Prentiss Swayze, who worked at the Kerrville post office, produced hummingbird feeders in Kerrville. Like Sullivan’s design, Swayze’s was made from an inverted glass bottle attached to a round metal tin.

For materials, he used Scotch tape tins and empty I.V. bottles from Kerrville's Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital. This was convenient: the hospital was in the same block as the post office in those days, with the post office where the Kerr Arts and Cultural Center is today, and the hospital on the western corner of what is now called Peterson Plaza.

According to his brother, the late Francis “Fuzzy” Swayze, producing the hummingbird feeders "started out a hobby but with intent of college funds for Jim, his adopted son. Used Scotch tape cans and bottles from Sid Peterson and later with arrangements with maintenance people at a San Antonio hospital for greater supply."

I'm sure you're familiar with the design Prentiss Swayze produced: I've seen these feeders hanging from people's porches my entire life, but I had no idea they were invented and produced here in Kerrville. Their bright red metal base, the red metal ring looping the glass bottle, seem as familiar as a bend in our Guadalupe River.

Prentiss Swayze eventually got out of the hummingbird feeder business.

"Finally sold his equipment and mailing list, 1600 names throughout U.S. to somebody around Vanderpool. Can’t think of the Ingram machinist who rigged up the setup for mass-production but it was a neat operation, strictly one man," Fuzzy told me, years ago.

Starting about a decade ago, hummingbird feeders were again being produced here in Kerrville by the Tejas Hummingbird Feeder company; their website says the brand was retired in July, 2023.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native whose sweetheart, Carolyn, calls the hummingbirds who visit our feeder “Joe’s pets.” This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead May 30, 2024.

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Kerr History 101: A group of Kerr County paintings at a prehistoric site

Pictographs in Kerr County -- at the 41KR493 site.
Access is restricted to the site.

There are faint red, black and yellow marks on a limestone bluff in the western part of Kerr County, markings which have been there, exposed to rain and sun, possibly for hundreds of years. They are at the only recorded archaeological site in Kerr County which includes pictographs, the Hatfield Pictographic Shelter, designated 41KR493. When the pictographs were drawn and painted is not known, but there is evidence from older artifacts found at the site that rock shelter was in use from the Late to Transitional Archaic period, roughly between 1,500 to 5,000 years ago. 

Pictographs are images or designs which were painted or drawn, usually on stone; petroglyphs were carved or chipped into stone. This site is called a rock shelter because a portion of the bluff above the pictographs extends slightly outward and above the pictographs, like a visor on a cap. It is at best an imperfect ‘shelter,’ but may have served as a place to escape weather and direct sun.

My friend Bryant Saner, Jr., an archeologist, showed me the site more than a decade ago. He’s also published papers on what is found there.

Other pictographs in Kerr County have been reported, most many decades ago. A. T. Jackson, in his book “Picture Writing of the Texas Indians,” first published in the 1930s, notes two sites in Kerr County. His reporting of those two sites does not include illustrations or photographs, and neither site was documented or recorded by archeologists from the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory. Today no one is completely sure where the sites Jackson mentioned might be located, or even if the images reported there over 80 years ago are even visible today. In his reports he notes the pictographs at the two sites were faded and hard to see.

Saner, in a paper published in “La Tierra,” the Journal of the Southern Texas Archaeological Association, in July 1996, suggests the Hatfield Shelter is not one of the two sites mentioned in Jackson’s book, but a third Kerr County site with pictographs. It is the only one to be documented and recorded.

The site was named for the person who discovered and reported it, Vicki Hatfield, in a site survey report on file at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, in 1992.

In the few times I’ve been to the site, I’ve noticed a fading of the images there. Some of the photographs I took on early visits show images much sharper and clearer than more recent photographs.

I’m sad to say the site has suffered from vandalism, mostly in the form of people digging for artifacts and disturbing the archeological record there. This destruction is against the law, and also robs future generations of the knowledge which could be gained from scientific study of the site.

A full-scale study has not been conducted at the Hatfield Shelter, as far as I know, with archeological investigations to determine and record more of the information hidden there. The site still holds a secret or two about life in the Texas hill country many generations ago. I’ve been told a lack of funding prevents that work.

The site itself is quite lovely, a rock shelter just above the river, hidden and protected by trees. It’s easy to imagine how it must have been, an unknown number of years ago, when a pigment, made from materials found in nature, was carefully applied to its rock walls.

Until next week, all the best. 

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who often wonders about those who lived here very long ago. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead May 23, 2024.

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