December 14, 1834 - May 16, 1894
Louisiana
Texas Graham was born in Fayette County, Texas, shortly after her parents had
come to Texas with the Stephen F. Austin colony in settlement of the Lone
Star. The fifth child of Andrew and
Sibbie Kenner Graham, Louisiana Texas was believed named because her parents
had immigrated to Texas through Louisiana.
However, it should be noted that her mother had sisters named Indiana
Kenner and Louisiana Kenner and our Louisiana was probably named after the
latter. It seems most of the Graham
children were named after some of their mother's, Sibbie's, family. It is expected that Louisiana Texas'
childhood was much the same as many early Texas settlers. There was probably time for play, along with
a good dose of home schooling and chores.
The
circumstances that may have made her young life different than her older
siblings were the friendly and hostile Indians throughout the area, notorious
for taking settlers children with them on their raids. Then, too, when Louisiana Texas was only two
years old, on March 2, 1836, a group of Texans convened at
Washington-on-the-Brazos, just to the north and east of the Graham farm, where
they wrote the Texas Declaration of Independence. The Mexican Army under the leadership of Santa Anna was already
deep within the Texas borders having defeated and killed volunteer Texas forces
at Goliad. The Alamo fell to Santa Anna
March 6, 1836. Texas men hurried from
all parts of the colonies toward Gonzales to join the volunteer Texas Army
under the leadership of General Sam Houston and Edward Burleson. General Houston ordered the Texas Army to
retreat back east through the colonies to gain time for more volunteers to join
and to devise a battle plan in dealing with the Mexican Army. In the Texas army retreat, the army camped
several days on the Colorado River in Fayette County. As a matter in fact, the army camped just across the river from
the Graham farm near La Grange. There
is no evidence that Andrew Graham was active in the Texas fight for
Independence.
With
most of the Texas women and children left at home while the men were
volunteering to fight with General Houston, the Mexicans began their march in
chase of Houston and his Texans, looting and burning everything belonging to
the settlers. The women and children
took what they could carry and left their homes headed for the Texas
border. Thus began the first Texas
"Runaway Scrape". With the Texas and Mexican armies so close to the
Graham home, there is high certainty that Andrew, Sibbie and children were also
forced from their home during this time.
Rain was abundant in the spring of 1836 and roads soon became deep
trenches of gumbo mush. The families, shloshing and plodding, covered with mud
from head to toe, leaving behind what was too heavy to carry, had many of the
very young and very old die in the escape exposed, as they were, to the
elements. The Grahams and two-year-old
Louisiana Texas made it through this ordeal and within weeks they were citizens
of a new country - The Republic of Texas. Moreover, within a few years, when
Louisiana Texas was just a teenager, still living at the same residence, the
Grahams would again find themselves citizens of another new nation, the United
States.
Although
it is probable that Louisiana Texas was home schooled, it is also possible that
she attended Ruttersville College within a few miles of their home. Her mother, Sibbie, was an active member of
the Methodist Episcopal Church in Ruttersville. Louisiana Texas was only
seventeen when her mother died in 1851, but their home had a new baby, Andrew
Kenner Graham, to care for and enjoy which brought comfort to the family. Further, a new family had just moved across
the river. Louisiana Texas liked the
family and she especially favored the older son.
Thomas
Slack, his wife, Julia, and their six children had moved to the Jessie Burnham
river bottom to raise cotton. George
Jefferson Slack was their oldest son born January 15, 1831 in Wilkes County,
Georgia. George Slack and Louisiana
Texas straightway enjoyed visiting and spending time with each other. The two young people may have spent long
summer days sitting under the cypress along the riverbank, talking or skipping
rocks. At any rate, by September 20,
1855, George Slack and Louisiana Texas Graham were married in Fayette
County. The couple apparently made
their home on the Slack farm because the 1860 Fayette County census shows
Thomas Slack and another son, Thomas Slack, Jr., living in a household with a
net worth of about $20,000-$10,000; then George, Louisiana, Julia and George,
Jr. in the household next to them with a net worth of about $4000 to
$2000. Except for the deaths of their
mothers, this must have been a happy time for the couple because many of their
siblings were married and living near with their young families. There may have been many extended family
holiday dinners for Thanksgiving or Christmas, family picnics in the spring,
and maybe family swimming in the river during the long, hot Texas summers. This all would change dramatically in the
coming years, although the family had no way of knowing that then.
The
Civil War broke out in 1861, but George Slack wouldn't volunteer his services
for another two years. It is believed
that George and Louisiana tried to continue life as usual during the first
years of the war, staying home, planting and ginning cotton for sale. But, the ugly episode had a way of dragging
all southerners into the mire. By the
end of 1861, the northern Union had a naval blockade all around the southern
states so that cotton could not be exported; therefore cotton couldn't be sold,
as there were no cotton mills in the south.
Then too, extreme drought enveloped Texas for most of 1862 making poor
crops. Of added concern, fewer men were
volunteering to fight and the human losses were adding up for the Confederates
soldiers by 1862. In order to have more
forces, the Confederate government passed a conscription law. Local friends and neighbors were having sons
and fathers killed or maimed in the grizzly fighting so that those left at home
were often looked on as cowards or, worse, as traitors. And, at every turn, there seemed threats
for local landowners. An example, a
Connecticut group of cloth mill owners were concocting a plan to take over
Texas, put their own governor in office, take the land away from owners and
place their own colonist in the Texas land owners place to grow cotton for the
northern mills. Furthermore, the Union
army was helping implement this plan for Texas. And, as the Federal armies were seizing southern towns and
farms, word was spreading of the Yankee savageness in burning, looting of
homes, seizure of property and oppression to the citizens. The South had lost many battles, along with
much land, by the fall of 1862 and the Slacks must have known prospects were
poor for a Confederates victory. The
other complex set of circumstances, nevertheless, may have convinced George and
Louisiana that there was little choice except for George to volunteer and to
fight with the South in order to keep things from getting worse.
On
October 1, 1862, George J. Slack volunteered to serve with his brothers, Sewell
and Thomas, Jr., by joining Company A of Colonel Tom Green's division, Texas 5th
Mounted Volunteer Cavalry. Tom Green
was a long time Fayette County resident who played a significant part in the
Texas Revolution and in the early Texas government. By January 1, 1863, Colonel Green and the Texas 5th,
along with commander John Magruder, played a substantial part in driving the
Union forces from Galveston Island, and with that, from Texas soil. Thereafter, Green and his troops were
assigned to Louisiana with the Confederate forces of Richard Taylor, son of
Zachary Taylor. In Louisiana their
object was threefold: To keep the Federal forces from completely capturing the
Mississippi River, to keep the Yankees from invading Texas and, if possible, to
recapture the "First City of the South" - New Orleans- from Union
occupation. In attempting to regain
control of a prominent defensive position on the mouth of the Mississippi, at
Donaldsonville, Louisiana, George Slack was captured but later released in New
Orleans. Most of skirmishes and battles
for the Texas 5th were in the swamps and bayous of the Teche region
of Louisiana or along the Red River in defense of Fort Hudson and Vicksburg,
important Confederate strongholds along the Mississippi.
In
December 1862, George Slack was captured again in Phillips County, Arkansas,
and was sentenced to Alton Federal Prison in Illinois for the duration of the
war. Alton was an old Illinois state
prison that had been closed and had been designed for about 300 prisoners. The Union army reopened the prison and used
it for thousands more prisoners than had been intended with the result being
overcrowding and extremely poor sanitary conditions. Combined with poor diet for the prisoners and a shortage of
winter clothes or blankets, sickness and disease was rampant. Episodes of yellow fever and small pox
killed many, but on February 6, 1864, George Slack died of erysipelas, which is
a streptococcus infection of the skin; open lesions caused from squalid
hygienic circumstances. He is buried on
the State Grounds in Alton, Illinois.
The untimely death for George Slack at age thirty three years is
especially haunting in view of a letter he wrote home from Huntsville, Texas in
February 1862: "I went to Huntsville yesterday and went all through the
Penitentiary…I saw one poor man dead, laying on his bunk. I ask the superintendent when did he bury
the dead. He said when he last saw the
man, he wasn't dead. But I know he was. I saw the green flies around him. I thought to myself I would die before I
would go into that place, if I was to do anything to be punished for. They
might as well kill me at once."
The
Civil War must have been a heartbreaking undertaking for Louisiana Texas. Left with three small children, by now James
Thomas Slack had been born, day to day living conditions continued to worsen in
Texas. With most of the men gone, very
little was being produced on the Texas farms and what was available was priced
so high as to be unaffordable.
Interesting to note, also, that on George Slack's war papers from muster
rolls, one question asked is "Last paid?
By whom?" George Slack's
muster says: "Pay due since
enlistment." Obviously fighting
without pay, his letter instructions to Louisiana said simply, "Do the
best you can until I get back."
There was little he, or anyone, could do different, caught in the vacuum
of current events as this family was.
Months grew to years, and still the war went on. Louisiana Texas, a daughter-in-law probably
living on land belonging to Thomas Slack, finally requested financial help for
"Confederate Indigent Families" as the Texas Legislature in 1863 had
pledged support of soldier's families during their absence from home. But, as worrisome as food, clothing and
shelter for her family must have been to Louisiana, the emotional toll must
have also been immense as a clipping from the March 29, 1865 Galveston Weekly
News attest:
"Having seen a statement in the
Tri-Weekly Telegraph, of the 20th inst., of the arrival of Mr. John
Tucker, of the Terry Rangers, who had made his escape from Rock Island, etc;
and having heard that G. J. Slack, of Fayette County, Co. A, 5th
T.M.V., is there; and as he had been missing for the last fourteen or fifteen
months, without any reliable information of his whereabouts, I think perhaps
that Mr. Tucker can give us some information.
Will you request him, through your Tri-Weekly paper, to give the names
of all the Texians who are in Rock Island prison, and, more particularly, if he
knows anything of the said George J. Slack?
By request of the wife and friends of Geo. J. Slack.
Yours,
C.J.E.G."
Louisiana's older brother,
C.J.E., was helping to find meaningful information on George Slack. George Slack had been dead over a year when
this request for information went out, though C.J.E. and Louisiana had no way
of knowing.
The
undue austerity for families in the south changed little when the Civil War came
to an end. With the war over,
"Reconstruction" began and life for all Texans took yet another turn
in depravation. First, many sons and
husbands would never return home and those that did might be sick or missing
limbs. Also, Texans, along with their governments, were left without any money
having exchanged their money long ago for Confederate dollars. There would be a shortage of labor in the
agrarian culture for many years absent the causalities of war and the freeing
of the slaves. With so many Texas
families consisting of widows with young children, the farms, homes, businesses
and institutions were run down, broke and in need of care. Horses, cows, seed stock and even food was
still short having been depleted by the war.
Meanwhile, any person or family having shown support in any way for the
Confederacy was stripped of the right to vote.
Officials were first appointed from those having no ties to the
Confederate States, then voted into office by the same minority of citizens
plus new arrivals from the north, the "Carpetbaggers." The future must have looked bleak for a
widow with children. Thomas Slack was
now old and sickly with little hope for immediate cotton production, perhaps
therefore livelihood. Louisiana Texas
may have felt a new marriage might help resolve some of her problems; as on
February 13, 1867 she married one James Anderson in Fayette County. In this union, one child was born February
6, 1868, a daughter, Persia Anderson.
It might be concluded that Louisiana and family left the Thomas Slack
farm about the time of her new marriage.
For whatever reason, however, this marriage didn't take. Records show, in just a few years, she had
taken the Slack name back.
All
this time, through all the disappointments and heartaches of the last years,
Louisiana Texas kept thinking back on the one thing she did have, her ace in
the hole, so to speak. It probably goes
without saying, both Andrew and Sibbie Graham came to Texas with the Austin
Colony so many years ago primarily for one thing - land. Land, with all its' opportunities and
securities, not only for the Grahams, but also for their children and
children's children if desired. And, in
the Grahams coming to Texas for settlement, Andrew was granted a league of
land, 4432 acres, on the Bastrop - Fayette County lines by Stephen F. Austin
and the Mexican government. Although
the family couldn't, at first, settle on the granted league due to the great
threat from Indians, Andrew must have been mindful of his original objective
because he began deeding land from the league to his children in the
1850's. Likewise, just a few years
after George Slack and Louisiana married, Andrew had deeded Louisiana land in
the Andrew Graham League of Bastrop County.
"Know
all men...that I, Andrew Graham of Fayette County, do bequeath to Louisiana T.
Slack, my daughter, for the love and affection I have for her, Three Hundred
Acres of land, more or less, situated on the lower half of my league and on the
waters of Barton's Creek and joins the dividing line of said league west: the
land is situated in Bastrop County…I do hereby relinquish all my interest and
claims to the said Land to the Said Louisiana T. Slack and her heirs
forever. Given under My hand this the
Nineteenth day of March A.D. One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty Seven.
Andrew Graham
Witness:
C.J.E. Graham
James T. Ross"
Consequently, Louisiana
began thinking about a to move with her family to Bastrop County and settling
on the land that her father had given her.
The boys, George and Jim, were getting older so as to be helpful in
getting a farm started. Persia would
have a safe place to grow up. The
decision made; the family moved.
Meanwhile, daughter, Julia, was in love, and would soon marry Josiah
Jones. Until then, Julia would live with Grandpa Thomas Slack and take care of
him in his old age. The 1880 Bastrop County, Smithville, Texas census shows the
family: "Louisiana T. Slack, Mother, Female, 40 years old, Keeping House. George J. Slack, Son, Male, 20 years old,
Working on Farm. James T. Slack, Son, Male, 18 years old, Working on Farm, and
Persia, Daughter, Female, 11 years old, (snakebite)." Even if Louisiana
fudged her age a little, everything seemed settled and the family close-knit.
The family worked hard
to make the farm successful. The boys
never missed an opportunity to add land to their mother's acreage if
circumstances permitted. In time,
Louisiana would deed a portion of the land Andrew gave her, in like manner, to
her children. The descendants, seeing
easier money in trading, began buying and selling cattle, horses, land and most
anything of value. James T. Slack,
especially became an agile trader. It
wouldn't be long, either, before others of the Graham family would move from
Fayette to Bastrop County, once again putting the Grahams in close proximity.
C.J.E. Graham with his wife, Marion Washington Burleson, and family would
purchase the Aaron Burleson farm just a short distance from the Andrew Graham
League in Bastrop County. Further,
Andrew Kenner Graham, would move to Bastrop County where he would marry Leah
Lavonia Machen. Julia Slack would marry
Josiah Jones January 24th, 1874 in Smithville and, although Julia
inherited the Thomas Slack homestead and twenty acres in Fayette County for
taking care of her grandfather, the Bastrop County records show Louisiana Texas
giving Julia a hundred acres and a home in the Andrew Graham league in
1879.
Next door neighbors to
the Slacks were John Baptist and Martha Robbins Burleson with their young
family. John Baptist Burleson was the
son of Aaron Burleson of Texas Revolution and San Jancinto fame. To distinguish John Baptist's father, Aaron
Burleson, from other historical Aaron Burlesons, it should be noted that our
Aaron married Marilda Hallmark, was the son of Joseph Burleson and Nancy Gage,
first cousin to General Edward Burleson and an uncle to Marion Washington
Burleson, who married C. J. E. Graham.
John Baptist Burleson was himself a survivor of the Civil War having
served with Company B, 17th Texas Infantry. Before long, the Slack
brothers would fall for two of the Burleson sisters. George Jefferson Slack,
Jr. would marry Sarah N. (Sallie) Burleson and James Thomas Slack would marry
Susan Taylor (Susie) Burleson. Both boys
built homes near Louisiana and continued their farming and ranching business.
Persia Anderson, sometimes called Persia Slack,
was buying and selling Bastrop County land and Smithville lots at an early age
also. By 1884, she would marry Daniel
Alex (D.A.) Priest whose family lived a few miles from the Slack farm near
Jeddo, Texas. Persia and D.A. Priest
were one of the early families to move into what would become Smithville,
Texas. They had children: Anderson
Priest, Cecil Priest (m. C. A. Stiteler), Maude Priest, Persia Ann Priest, and
Etta Priest. One of the earliest
Smithville newspapers, The Smithville Times in 1894, showed an advertisement
for the "D. A. Priest's Tonsorial Parlor." By 1894, the railroad had
come through Smithville and the community was booming. Then, May 11, 1894, Persia Anderson
died. At only 26 years of age and with
five young children, her death must have stunned the family, but compounding
the shock was the death of Louisiana Texas Graham Slack on either the same day
or a few days later. The circumstances
of their death is not known, yet the mother and daughter share a tombstone at
Rector Cemetery, south of Smithville in Fayette County, which shows the same
date of death. A Smithville lady, Mrs. Maney, who kept a daily journal
said:
"May 11, 1894...Again the Death Angel has
been among us and carried from the home mother and wife, Mrs. Priest. She has been taken from her five little
ones. It seems hard that she was called
away from her little ones; but God knows best.
We must all submit to his will, and may we be ready when the summons
comes to us.
The Angel of Death has
been among us again, and has taken one ready for the harvest. Mrs. Slack was called to her long home this
morning, May 19. She was ready, and
anxious to go. She did not long survive
her daughter, Mrs. Priest."
The disconcerted events
of two family deaths so close together must have dazed the remaining family
members.
The
Graham-Slacks clan, with families of their own by now, began making changes after
Louisiana's death. Jim Slack and Susie
Burleson Slack moved into a new home in Smithville about 1903, although they
continued to farm and ranch near Barton's Creek in Bastrop County. George Slack and Sallie Burleson Slack lived
on the farm until George had a stroke, and then they also moved into Smithville
and were living in a new Smithville home on the Colorado River by the
1920's. The Graham brothers, C.J.E. and
Andrew Kenner, moved to Limestone County and Gatesville respectively.
Jim
and Susie Slack moved again about 1906 to Childress, Texas. The couple had ten children, with eight
living to adulthood. Their children
were: Carl Slack (m. Audrey Johnson), Pearl Slack (m. Jack Williams), Ruby
Slack (m. L.A. Reese), Walter Slack (died early), Bessie Slack (m. Monroe
Howard), Carrie Lou Slack (m. Mabrey Cook), Creth Slack (died in infancy), Fred
Slack (m. Ruth Warren) and Ruth Slack (m. Howard Richards). Jim Slack was very successful in business
and "always on the go."
Unfortunately, he died in Childress County in 1909 and is buried at
Childress. He left a large estate with
land in Bastrop County, Gatesville, and Childress County. In fact, he had assets enough to leave
wedding gifts for his children:
"Each of his children was given 320 acres and a house when they
married." Susie Burleson Slack
remarried in Childress and raised her family there. Much of the Jim & Susie Slack family have stayed and made
their homes in the Childress and Denton, Texas area.
Julia
Slack Jones and her husband, Josiah Jones, first moved to Gatesville in the
early 1900's, then moved to Childress in 1908, where they lived for about two
years before going back to Gatesville.
Joe Jones may have been helping Jim Slack with some of his business
interest. The family moved back to
Childress in 1913 where Julia and Joe Jones died in the late 1920's. Joe and Julia Jones are buried at
Childress. They also had a large family
- fourteen children. The names of the
children from a news article February 1929 are: Gladys Jones (m. Dick Barkley),
Ada Jones (m. W. A. Pancake), Ethel Jones (m. J. D. Barkley), Jewel Jones
(m. R. D. Pardue), Ruth Jones (m. A. J.
Carter), Grace Jones (m. J. B. Carlton), Don Jones, and Wallace Jones, all of
Childress; Mary Jones (m. Thad Buster) of Carey; Johnnie Jones (m. Bill Owen)
of Dakador, and Nora Jones (m. J. T. McDavid) of Waco; and Charlie Jones, E. W.
Jones and R. L. Jones of Gatesville.
The
George J. Slack, Jr. and Sallie Burleson Slack family remained in the Bastrop
County area. They had a large family on
the Barton's Creek farm and most of their children later made their homes in
Smithville locale. Their children were:
Myrtle Slack (m. Olin Fite), James Slack (m. Lula Emma Evans), Ollie M. Slack
(m. George L. Woodress), Lucy Lane Slack (died young), Willie B. Slack (m.
George Vachon), Ernest George Slack (m. Willie Thelma Scott), and Irene Slack
(m. Ed Harbich). George Slack, Jr.
continued to farm and ranch until about 1920 when he suffered a stroke. His stroke left paralysis of the legs and
vocal cards. He was cared for in his
Smithville home by his wife and family until his death in death in 1935. At the time of George Slack, Jr.'s death, he
had added 772 1/2 acres to the 100 acres given him by his mother, Louisiana
Texas, which gave the family a nice farm on Barton's Creek in and near the
Andrew Graham league. Both George
Slack, Jr. and Sallie Slack are buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Smithville. There are still many members of this family
living in the Smithville, Austin and San Antonio region of Texas today.
It
is hoped that Louisiana, along with Andrew and Sibbie, would be proud as many
in their family contributed to the founding and establishment of churches,
schools, business, government and civic organizations in both Smithville and
Bastrop County, Texas. The First
Christian Church of Smithville was organized with the Slack family as founding
members. C. J. E. Graham helped establish
the first Masonic Lodge in Smithville, first built at Pea Ridge. Franklin Smith, son-in-law of C.J.E. Graham,
was one of the first business owners in Smithville and, indeed, the town was
named after his family. John Baptist
Burleson was also an early businessman in the community. Murray Burleson purchased land and laid out
the town of Smithville and was the first Mayor. The entire family supported the first vote taken in the
community, which was a special tax to continue a public free education for all
local children. Several Slacks owned
meat markets through the years and later the Woodress family owned a grocery
store and radio shop. Many family
members have served their country in the military and more than a few have
given their lives. And, the tradition goes on, thanks to hardships, heartaches,
hard work and determination of the Andrew Graham family, our founders.