The Road to Hudson Bend, 1896

In Elaine Perkins book (see references) she tells a wonderful story. Back between 1870 and 1940, she explains, cedar was in big demand, for building, heating; it even played a role in producing tin for construction of the Texas State Capitol, and in building railroads. The transport of cedar and cedar coal to Austin to sell was a big business.

The Milams were early settlers in the Hudson Bend area. Perkins relates a story of a time when Brice Milan and son Ed brought a load of cedar into Austin for sale (Perkins, p.128):

When Bryce (sic) Milam's son Ed was very young, his father sent him home alone after selling a load of wood [in Austin]. It was a scary time for a boy so young .. On the way home, young Ed crossed the river at McGill Ford and somehow got off the road. He saw a large house near Barton Springs and drove up to it. A man came out of the house and, seeing  the boy crying, asked, "Young man, where do you want to go?" Ed tearfully replied, "Well, I want to go to the Hudson Bend up on the Colorado River by old Bee Cave." The old-timer comforted the boy and replied, "You turn down there and take that road." Young Ed was finally able to find his way home.

When I first read this story I had recently finished a blog about the McGill Ford so was intrigued to find an anecdotal story putting McGill Ford on the route from Austin to Hudson Bend. So this blog will explore the route young Ed Milam probably took on his way home.

To tell what route Ed might have taken, it would be good to know when this took place in order to find the right map of what roads were in existence at the time. While Perkins story doesn't provide a year, Find A Grave can get us in the ballpark. Bartley Burris Milam (1820-1903) came to Travis County in 1859; he had a son James Brice Milam (1850-1937); and Brice had a son Edward Thurman Milam (1875-1968). It is "Ed Milam" that made the trip from McGill Ford to Hudson Bend when he was "very young", so let's say he was about 10 for round numbers. Born 1875 +10 = 1885.

USGS 1896 Austin Quadrangle Map

As luck would have it, the USGS surveyed Austin and Travis County in 1895-1896 producing an excellent snap shot of that period in time. In that survey the USGS found that in Travis County, “nine-tenths of its inhabitants are found … east of the Balcones scarp, the Edwards Plateau country to the west being but sparsely populated." In 1896 Austin was but 57 years old; and for several of those years between 1842 - 1845 virtually deserted when Mexico invaded San Antonio and the seat of government was moved back to Washington on the Brazos. All to say, in Western Travis County, if in 1896 there were "roads", they may have been following older Indian trails. With Hudson Bend being in close proximity to Defeat Hollow and Comanche Peak, the route young Ed Milam took to get back to Hudson Bend from Austin may have been a route that say Penateka Comanches coming down the Colorado River could have used to enter Austin at Barton Springs, which Gunnar Brune’s Springs of Texas says was a gathering place for the Caddo, Tonkawa, Apache, and Comanche Indians.

The map shown here is a snippet from that USGS 1896 Austin Quadrangle map, marked with "points of interest" 1 through 7. In this blog I'll walk through the route young Ed Milam likely took on his way from Austin to Hudson Bend, expanding upon each of these points of interest.

Ed Milam's Journey

Ed Milam's journey would have started in down town Austin. When his father told him to head back home on Hudson Bend, he would likely have traveled down West Pecan; today's 6th street on his way to McGill Ford. As I've written about in another blog, McGill Ford appears to have crossed the Colorado River about where today's MoPac bridge crosses. This is point #1 on our map.

Perkins says there were two roads that ran from Austin to Bee Caves, the more popular being "the so-called Mountain Road" (p.136). That road started at Barton Springs so it's safe to assume that was the road taken by Ed Milam. Travel between Austin and Bee Caves was often an all day trip; "roads" were primitive, often "no more than paths cut through the trees". The road from Austin to Bee Caves is shown on the map as the segment from #1 to #3.

Santa Monica Springs ca. 1890s

Point #2 on the map is a point on Bee Caves Road that intersects with a the road running down from a ford on the Colorado River that is today part of Commons Ford Ranch Park. This road corresponds to today's Commons Ford Road. As I've written about in another blog, "Commons" appears to be a corruption of the name of the man that originally patented that land, a Mr. P.H. Cammans. As the map shows, just across the river was Santa Monica Springs, now under Lake Austin, but was back in the day a watering hole for the Comanche and other Indians. For more on these see previous blogs; Texas Ranger Dick Preece's Comanche Trail; Commons Ford Ranch Park.

Point #3 on the map corresponds to the point on Bee Caves Road that intersects with Ranch Road 620. Perkins says that in the vicinity of Bee Caves was a large Indian encampment (p.1). Near here too are a couple of flint "quarries": Flint Knob and Chalk Knob. So again, the roads are likely following the same trails Native Americans traveled. From here young Ed Milam would have turned off Bee Caves Road taking what is now RR 620.

Traveling northwest on RR 620 Ed Milam would have come to point #4, the intersection of a road that ran to Lohman's Ford or Crossing, some configuration of today's Lohmans Crossing Road in Lakeway, TX. Along that stretch of road is Flintrock Hill, named for the abundance of flint in the area. Like Flint Knob and Chalk Knob, Flintrock Hill was likely a place Native Americans went to procure flint; archeology of the Lakeway area shows Native Americans lived in this area since prehistoric times.

Continuing along today's RR 620 Ed Milan would have come to his home on Hudson Bend, point #5 on the map. Point #6 shows the location of today's Mansfield Dam, and point #7 is that part of the lake over which Comanche Peak (next to today's Oasis Restaurant) looks. This used to be known as Horseshoe Bend, and Marshall Ford crossed the Colorado here, remnants of which are reflected in today's Marshall Ford Road.

It was here along the Colorado River near Horseshoe Bend that Joel A. Harris, resident of Hudson Bend, my 3rd great-grandfather, had his run in with Indians (probably Comanche) giving today's Defeat Hollow, and probably Comanche Peak, its name. This story too is told in Perkin's book (p.70). And it was here on Hudson Bend that my great grandmother, Mintie Stanford, used to tell my mother that when she was a baby, her parents A.J. Stanford and Eliza Cherry (Harris) Stanford (daughter of Joel A. Harris) used to hide her under a washtub when the Indians would come.

Another reason for my interest in the route taken of young Ed Milam: my ancestors probably traveled this route a time or two themselves.

Travis County Clerk Records: Road Book

Below is a map from the Travis County Clerk Records: Road Book for Precinct 3, page 514. It shows the road from McGill ford hooking up with the road which runs to Oak Hill, but also to Burnet, Texas. Yes, there were multiple routes to Burnet, TX.

Map from 1898-1902 Travis County Clerk Records: Road Book Precinct 3

Footnotes, Reference

1896 Austin Quadrangle, USGS, copy available http://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/2893

Perkins, Elaine. A Hill Country Paradise? Travis County and Its Early Settlers, iUniverse publishing, 2012 Perkins, p.30 covers the Milam family.

Bartley Burris Milam (1820 - 1903) - Find A Grave Memorial, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=43144714

James Brice Milam (1850 - 1937) - Find A Grave Memorial, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=28566723

Edward Thurman Milam (1875 - 1968) - Find A Grave Memorial, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=39322419

Santa Monica Springs of the Colorado River, photograph, 1890; (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth124007/: accessed February 3, 2017), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.


Travis County Clerk Records: Road Book Precinct 3
http://bit.ly/2uTnRd1
 

 

Lohman's Crossing

River fords are a great way to identify old trails: where there's a ford there was a trail or trails converging to that point on either side of the ford. Today's post, Lohman's Ford AKA Lohman's Crossing [1]

Historical Marker

The historical marker for Lohmans Crossing is located in the City of Lakeway (click here for additional details on marker location) and reads: A native of Hanover, Germany, John Henry Lohmans emigrated to Texas in 1842. He settled in Austin where he opened a large dairy farm. In 1867 he moved into this area west of Austin and cleared a farm out of the abundant timberland. Lohmans worked on several road construction projects in the area and privately financed the building of Lohmans Ford Road. Lohmans Crossing Road (.5 mi. W) follows the general path of the early route. Lohmans Ford Road, along with others in the area, was significant in the formation of an early Colorado River crossing network.

The marker is located in the back of the historic Liebelt log cabin (which was relocated to this location); the marker pole is visible in the sidebar photo of the cabin.

In front of the cabin are two graves; more information available on Find A Grave entry for the Strahle cemetery.

 

John Henry Lohman

A good read on J.H. Lohman is Elaine Perkins' book, A Hill Country Paradise? Travis County and Its Early Settlers; it fills in some of the story left untold on the history marker. While the marker says he was born in Germany, there apparently is family disagreement on this point, some stating he was born in Holland. Perkins says that "During the rule of Napoleon the Dutch fell under the rule of France. In 1814 [he] found himself marching with Napoleon's Army on the March to Moscow". He rose to the rank of captain and was with Napoleon at the defeat of the Battle of Waterloo. In 1842, Lohman, his wife and four children, immigrated to America and entered Texas through Galveston, then made their way to Hornsby Bend, here in Travis County, then on to Austin where he established a dairy farm. As to why he left Austin to settle again on the Colorado River near today's Lakeway? A run-in with Indians in Austin left Lohman fearing retribution on him and his family, so he sold the farm and moved. Perkins says that "Although Henry was now over sixty, he personally undertook the building of his new home, which was a large two-story structure of native stone [and that] the house stood for eighty years before being demolished when the Mansfield Dam flooded the Colorado River."

The story about his house being demolished due to the creation of Mansfield Dam is a little puzzling; as we'll see on maps, his patent of land was not affected by the creation of Lake Travis. But as I've written about in another post about the Preece family, there apparently were misconceptions -- some taken advantage of by land speculators -- as to what was going to be inundated by building of the dam. 

 

The Route of Lohman's Ford Road

Notice the marker says "Lohmans Crossing Road (.5 mi. W) follows the general path of the early route". The keyword here I think being "general path". Comparing modern maps vs. old maps the old road appears to be a bit west of the current road.

This Travis County Appraisal District (TCAD) map shows the old land patents around today's Lakeway, including Lohman's patent, as well as today's "Lohmans Crossing Road". Note the current road's placement with respect to the land patents of Lohman and Reinke.

(As an aside also notice the Liebelt patent which is presumably the original location of the Liebelt log cabin).

 

Now compare the above TCAD map with this map snippet from an 1880 map of Travis County [2]. In the 1880 map Lohman's road runs through his property and squarely through Reinke's. So the old road may have been a bit west of today's Lohmans Crossing Road.

Where did it cross the Colorado? By the 1880 map the old road appears to have crossed through the C.A. Haley property, then across the  Colorado River on the property of Wm. Davenport whose patent is also visible on the modern TCAD map.

North of the river the road resumes as today's Lohman Ford Road.

 

Prehistoric Utilization of the Ford?

Prehistoric mortar and pestel unearthed in Lakeway

As noted on the History of Lakeway web pages, Native Americans called this area home before it was settled by the pioneers: "Relics [dating to] about 3,000 BC are inconspicuous to the untrained eye, but plentiful nevertheless. These are rocks charred from campfires, flint weapons, and tools, bones, and the opened shells of mollusks. They are vestiges of the people who occupied the Hill Country and Lakeway from early times until white settlers arrived here in the 1800s.

There are apparently a number of "Indian mounds" in Lakeway. I assume by this they mean burned rock middens. The Lakeway Heritage Trail mentioned on their website will take you by one of these mounds, now in someone's front yard.

From an old trail perspective, it's probably safe to assume Native Americans used Lohman's ford long before it took Lohman's name. One of the things I find interesting about the Lohman's Ford Road on the old 1880 map is where it leads: Flintrock, Texas. The map shows it as Flint Rock P.O., that is post office. Of Flintrock, TX, the Handbook of Texas [3] says a post office was opened there in 1875 with "Paul Reinke" as postmaster. One would assume the Reinke on the 1880 map is, or is related to, the "Paul Reinke" mentioned as postmaster. But more to the point, the handbook says the community took its name from nearby Flintrock Hill "which was named for the abundance of flint in the area." And not just Flintrock Hill; less than 3 miles to the southwest of Flintrock Hill lie Flint Knob and Chalk Knob, said to have been lithic procurement sites -- "flint quarries" -- in prehistoric times. [4]

Ah .. flint. There's a good reason to cross the Colorado River! 

Photos

 View of Flintrock Hill in distance; Baylor Scott & White Medical Center to left.

 

 

 

 

 Panorama looking north from near top of Flintrock Hill. Lohman's Crossing visible in distance.

 In addition to flint, and proximity to the Colorado River, there appear here springs. One appears to start near the north side of Flintrock Hill.

 Another view of Flintrock Hill and part of Yaupon Creek into which the spring at the base of the hill appears to feed.

Part of Yaupon Creek (?) into which the spring feeds on nearby Flintrock Falls Golf Course. As you can tell from the photo, the springs appear to produce an abundance of water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Footnotes, References

[1] You will find various spellings of John Henry Lohman's name which makes the possessive spelling of his name tricky. I take his name to be John Henry Lohman which agrees with Perkins (p. 18), and is the spelling used e.g. on the 1880 map of Travis County showing original land patents. The historical marker for "Lohmans Crossing" makes it confusing as to whether they are taking his name to be "Lohmans", or whether they are intending the possessive form of "Lohman" but forgot the apostrophe. Other spellings include "Lohmann".

[2] You can find a very legible copy of the 1880 Map of Travis County here: Ford, Reuben W, and August Gast & Co. Map of Travis County, Texas. [St. Louis, Mo.: August Gast & Co, 1880] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2012592087/. (Accessed January 10, 2017.)

[3] Flintrock, TX. Handbook of Texas Online, accessed January 10, 2017, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hvf92.
 
[4] Flint Knob and Chalk Knob, Texas Beyond History, https://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/plateaus/images/ap2.html

Looking for Fords on the Colorado

On a recent Sunday, February 29, 2016, Michael Barnes of the Austin American Statesman and a bunch of Austin history buffs assembled on the banks of the Colorado River to look at the Tinnin & Stone fords of the Colorado river ... among the group, yours truly (left).

Click here for Michael Barnes' Out & About post, "Looking for Fords on the Colorado"

Click here for Michael Barnes' full article "Where did the famed Chisholm Trail cross the Colorado River?", May 1st, 2016, Austin American Statesman

From left to right Mike Miller, Bob Ward, Phoebe Allen, Greg Walker, Bob Perkins, Doug Stienstra, Richard Denney and Lanny Ottosen.

And as Michael said, other buffs who contributed to pre-hike digital chat: Kim McKnight, Steven Gonzales, Bobby Cervantes, Kevin Anderson and Ted Eubanks.

The McGill Ford: Indian Crossing on the Colorado

(Update to this story; I've written another blog describing the journey of one young Ed Milam from Austin to Hudson Bend; the journey begins at McGill Ford. See Road to Hudson Bend, 1896)

There is a Texas historic marker at the old Charles Johnson home west of where MOPAC crosses the Colorado. The marker reads:

Erected 1858 by Chas. Johnson, near the WM. McGill Ford on the Colorado River. Built by fellow Swedes, of native stone from his own quarry and lime kiln.

Walls are 18 inches thick. A stone-paved breezeway joined the two wings of the building.

A long porch with six ionic columns was added, and the open breezeway closed following the purchase of the property in 1924 as permanent home of the Travis Post 76, American Legion.

Link to the Johnson Home historical marker

It is that the home was built near the McGill ford of the Colorado that is of particular interest from the perspective of old trails in Austin: a river ford marks the location where a trail crosses the river. The building is now home to the American Legion Travis Post 76 (404 Atlanta St, Austin, TX, near where MOPAC crossing the Colorado) and a history of the building included on their website includes this excerpt from The Austin Statesman, Sunday October 19,1924:

"When Charles Johnson built his home on the banks of the Colorado River in 1858, he was far out of the city of Austin. The city limits then extended only to Shoal Creek .. So wild was the country at that time it was considered risky to live so far out of town on account of the Indians in the hills across the river … Indians were frequently seen across the river and sometimes came across the ford just below the house … ”

So the history marker says the ford was near the location of where Charles Johnson built his home, but "near" is a relative measure of distance. Can we be more specific as to the location?

Location of the Ford

I have yet to find an old Austin map with the McGill ford labeled as such. But an article in a local newspaper -- the Austin Weekly Statesman, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 7, 1896 -- provides a clue. The paper that day reported "A Fatal Shooting Fracas, Dempsey Brown is Now Dead and Jim Nixon is Badly Wounded, Pistols and Guns Brought in Play .. Yesterday morning there was a tragedy enacted at McGill's ford, to the northwest of the city and opposite McDonald's brickyard..".

It was a shootout at McGill ford, AKA McGill's ford. And the ford was opposite McDonald's brickyard. Mystery solved. Well, maybe not quite yet. Where was McDonald's brickyard?!

 

 

 

John McDonald's Brickyard

Again, old newspapers come to our aid. An advertisement for John McDonald's Brickyard appeared in The Austin Statesman in August 1889 advertising their location: "Brick yard located one and a half miles west of Postoffice, at the west end of Pecan street, Austin. Good road. No crossing of the river."

Pecan street is of course the old name for what is now 6th street. An Austin city directory for that time indicates the post office was located on the northeast corner of Pecan and Colorado streets; the building is still there [1]

An article on brick making in early Austin corroborates this location saying the "McDonald Brickyard [was] located west of the present underpass of Sixth Street [2]. While the article doesn't say what underpass, this most certainly refers to the only underpass on 6th, that where 6th street passes under the MOPAC railway, about 1.5 miles west of the old post office.

So McDonald's Brickyard was on the north shore of the river, with the south side of the McGill ford on the opposite bank, probably less than 3 tenths of a mile distant from the Charles Johnson home, and the north side even closer.

Interactive map below; star marks general local of McGill ford.


---
[1] More about the old post office building is available on this historic marker
[2] Brickmaking (sic) in Early Austin, by Phocion Park, The Junior Historian, Vol. XXIII, No. 5, March 1963. Available on Portal to Texas History. 

Frank Brown's "Trail Going North" (through Austin)

Austin sits on the Camino Real de los Tejas, one of the earliest branches of the Camino Real (McGraw et.al, 1991), a prehistoric trade route – later utilized and named by the Spanish – connecting Mexico in the south with the Tejas Indians of east Texas and Louisiana. From San Antonio to Austin, El Camino Real de los Tejas is a trail that hugs the Balcones Escarpment from spring to spring: San Pedro, Comal, San Marcos, Manchaca.

Coming into Austin from the south along what is now Old San Antonio Road, the Camino Real "continued up present South Congress Avenue in Austin to Pleasant Hill School" (McGraw et.al, 1991, p. 187). At the point the trail turned east heading to east Texas and Louisiana, the home of the Tejas Indians.

But if one were not headed to east Texas (the Spanish were focused on east Texas to thwart French settlement there) but rather wanted to go north, e.g. to reach valued Georgetown flint and further north the Indian villages at Waco, a logical extension of the  El Camino Real de los Tejas would be to continue following the Balcones Escarpment northward, just as it had done from San Antonio, through New Braunfels, San Marcos, Buda and into Austin.

That trail is what Frank Brown coined the "Trail Going North". Once in Austin, rather than veering east to Nacogdoches, that trail continued north hugging the Balcones Escarpment and its' springs: Barton, Cold, Eddy, Seiders, Spicewood, and further north Salado and Waco Springs.

Frank Brown, an early settler in Austin, records in his Annals of Travis Country and Austin (F.Brown, chapter 3, p. 3):

• “Trail Going North. From time out of mind there was a trail running north from the Rio Grande by way of the present towns of San Antonio, New Braunfels and San Marcos, crossing the Colorado at the ford near the mouth of Shoal Creek .. This trail was found here by the first white explorers that visited the site now occupied by  the capital city .. Here, also, the buffalo crossed, going south to north, according to  the season. The ford at the mouth of Shoal Creek has a rock bottom, is comparatively smooth and shallow; and could always be crossed with safety when  the river was at all fordable. This crossing is at the foot of the mountains, on a direct course north. The main line of travel from the Rio Grande to Red River, South  to north, was by this route. The old trail went up the valley of Shoal Creek, passing out above and near the residence of the late Gov. Pease; thence on the nearly level  plateau between the creek and the mountains, near the foot of the hills, almost one  north to the Indian village at Waco and beyond.”

The early history of Austin is replete with stories of Waco Indians, this trail being the logical route they would have taken to reach Austin. If indeed "Hueco Springs", four miles north of New Braunfels is named after the Waco Indians (distinct from those in Waco, Texas) that frequented there, this trail would have been the logical route to and from Waco, Texas. Comanches likewise would have used this trail to raid or trade with tribes to the north, or enroute to destinations like Torreys' trading post, site of the Tehuacana Creek councils between Comanches and the Republic of Texas.

And while Brown does not mention them explicitly, The Council Oaks, a grove of oak trees that served as a meeting place for Comanche and Tonkawa tribes, must surely have been on this trail. The Council Oaks were on the north bank of the Colorado, near the Shoal Creek crossing.

The only remaining oak of this grove is Austin’s famous Treaty Oak. Mrs. Walter H. Caldwell, Treaty Oaks's owner prior to purchase by the City of Austin, said  "The road, which is now the street in front of the Caldwell home, was in the olden days the only open road to the river and up through the hills. It was then know as Pecan Road, and it passed within a short distance of the famous tree"(The Hondo Anvil Herald, Hondo, TX, May 25, 1928)

The historical marker at the foot of Treaty Oak reads:

The Caldwell Treaty Oak Park 

Estimated to have been a majestic tree of about 100 years when Columbus first landed on

North American shores, this live oak tree has been pronounced the most perfect specimen of a tree in North America, and its picture hangs in the Hall of Fame of Forestry at Washington.

Formerly standing as the center of a group of trees called "The Council Oaks," this tree takes its name from its role in the history of the Lone Star State. Stephen F. Austin is reputed to have signed the first boundary line agreement between Indians and whites under the canopy of its branches; battles and important conferences have been planned, pacts signed, and feasts and religious ceremonies celebrated in its shade.

The Treaty Oak was purchased by the City of Austin in 1937 to stand as a living and fitting symbol of the mighty state it has watched develop.

Treaty Oak, 1941. Retrieved from Portal to Texas History.

The map below shows the general route through Austin using Brown's landmarks. Notice that the route between Pleasant Hill Elementary School and the Shoal Creek crossing of the Colorado, is essentially South Congress.



The path of the trail "passing out above and near the residence of the late Gov. Pease" may have tracked closely with today's Windsor Road. The map snippet below (Revised Map of Austin, Texas, 1885) shows Windsor as a trail passing by the Pease Mansion.

Austin map from 1885. Windsor Road (then Windsor Ave.) shown passing by the Pease Mansion