Newsletter No. 15-----Archaeology

Archaeology of the Area

People, who lived here long before we arrived, chose to live near water for a number of obvious reasons.  Because of this, it is important that scientific study of an area near water is completed before any evidence of prior civilization is destroyed by construction projects.  That’s true of any area, but especially true of areas near water as the likelihood of finding archaeological evidence is high in areas associated with water. 

We continue to get more skilled at the study of the area before any major construction is started.  When Falcon Dam (1960) was built, many artifacts went underwater never to be seen again.  Canyon Dam study was managed better but still missed some things. It’s amazing how much we learn about the archaeology of an area when we have to search for it because of an imminent construction project.

A tremendous amount of archaeological information lies just beneath the surface.   Here are some examples:

In 2002, a flood of the Guadalupe River caused Canyon Lake to overflow the relief area next to the dam.  This huge flow of water flowed over the spillway and washed away up to 80 feet of overburden soil at an area below the present Canyon Dam.

Channel cut by overflow

With the lower level of limestone exposed, it was found to be covered with several sets of dinosaur foot prints.

In a separate example, when a private land owner started to clear a level area for a building on Hwy 3237 in Canyon City, they discovered evidence of dinosaur footprints in the limestone.  It’s now the site of the Heritage Museum of the Hill Country, below.

There are tracks from two different dinosaurs identified at this site. Acrocanthosaurus is pictured on the left. It left the pointed tracks and was a carnivore and the Iguanodon with the rounded tracks was an herbivore.

Inside the Heritage Museum is a display of fossils and dinosaur replicas. Up a few steps to another room is an arrowhead collection from central and south Texas.

In yet a third example of archaeological discovery, when Wonder World Drive was set for extension north of Hunter Road, an organized study of the area revealed a wealth of information on habitation by Native Americans.  The local people knew it was rich in archaeological evidence because they had found artifacts on the surface near Purgatory Creek.

And as for Canyon Lake, we know of one personal collection of Indian stone artifacts that was unearthed from a depth of six feet at a point where a tributary creek bed entered the Guadalupe River.  This collecting was done when it became known that the area would be flooded by the construction of the dam.  Of course this collection was not lost by inundation, but on the other hand no scientific information was collected regarding the find.

So, the archaeological study before construction is not so much to recover artifacts as it is to learn about prior civilization.  Amateur collectors usually don’t do this part very well.

The creation of Canyon Dam provided a significant incentive to study the area, but the project itself took a long time to fruition.

Early Settlement

It’s known that ancient people lived in this area more than 12,000 years ago.  In more modern times Spain attempted to establish missions, however none survived.  In 1808 eighty people tried to settle in Gonzales, but were defeated by Indians and floods.  The first successful colony was the Martin de Leon grant to found the city of Victoria in 1824.  In 1825 Gonzales was born when  Kentuckian, Green de Witt was awarded a grant to settle 400 people.  By 1850 Seguin and New Braunfels became important centers in the Guadalupe Valley and over the next 50 years the population increased from 9,300 to over 100,000.  Cattle, cotton, timber and oil provided the economic base.

Early Hydropower Development

1912: Guadalupe Water Power Co. was formed, but its work to create dams, lakes and electricity was interrupted by WWI and the deaths of several of the principals.

1924:  Alvin J. Wirtz, a prominent local citizen secured financial backing and effected a deal with Comal Power Co. to purchase all the electricity that could be generated from water flow of the Guadalupe.

1926: Construction began on the $2 million initiative.

1927: Three dams between New Braunfels and Seguin created lakes that took up nearly all that stretch of the river.  The power plants used water wheels turning generators averaging 1,400 KW.  The Seguin Enterprise described it as one of the foremost hydro-electric enterprises ever pushed forward in the Southwest.  All that is left of these power plants are the Reservoirs; Lake Dunlap, Lake McQueeny, and Lake Placid.

Following is a copy of a postcard of the Seguin power plant as it looked in 1939.  The vestiges of this power plant are still observable today.

1929:  Flood Control Becomes A Priority

Frequent floods caused loss of life and destruction.  A more comprehensive study by the Corps of Engineers (COE) finally recommended construction of a dam that would control floods downstream, regulate stream flow and provide water conservation storage.

1935: The Texas Legislature created the Guadalupe-Blanco River Auth. (GBRA).  The initial dam site proposed, 5 mi. upstream from New Braunfels, was rejected after new studies found the honey-combed rock to be so porous that too much leakage was feared.  Construction was dropped at the time for more studies.

1936-1938: Major flooding occurred. Local leaders formed the Guadalupe-Blanco Improvement Assoc. and began to demand the Federal Government take action on flood control.

About 1945: The Corps of Engineers issued a favorable report and Congress authorized construction of the dam in the Rivers and Harbor Act of 1945.

1951: The COE recommended the dam site be moved 16 miles upstream and postponed power generation because leakage losses were still projected to be 25% of total storage.  Later they would have more data.

1954: Flood Control Act gave final approval.

1955: The TX Board of Water Engineers reaffirmed the GBRA’s role as the state agency with which the COE should negotiate and coordinate the details and operation of Canyon Reservoir.

1964: The construction was essentially complete at a cost of $20.2 million.

1972 and 1998:  Intense rains below the dam resulted in devastating floods in New Braunfels.

2002:  A low pressure system over the area upstream of the dam in July dumped almost a year’s rainfall in less than a week.  Full to capacity, lake waters rushed over the spillway and more than 8oo homes were damaged or destroyed. The raging spillway waters created a scenic 64 acre gorge exposing early Cretaceous limestone formations deposited about 110 million years ago, dinosaur footprints and aquifer waters that course through the gorge as springs, channels and waterfalls.

The 3 hour tour looks really interesting for the able-bodied, but unfortunately too strenuous for us.  So if anyone goes, please take plenty of pictures to share.

The archaeological survey above the dam site in the area slated for inundation revealed many Native American camps and worksites, but no sites of such historic value to do any extensive study before inundation. 

There were several ranch homes that were left intact as the waters rose when the filling of the reservoir began.

More significantly, two old towns went underwater. They were Hancock and Cranes Mill.  The only reminders of these towns are the names of the roads around the reservoir that were cut off by the rising waters.

See an informative short video at https://www.ksat.com/new/under-canyon-lake.

Sightings

This is definitely the year of the Huisache (acacia minuta). The Honey Ball tree is loved by bees for its nectar and you can see them in fields all over town. This is an invasive tree, but it sure makes a good looking single specimen.  From our roadways here, one is on the Vinson property and the other is directly across the road to the south.  If you want to see a lot of them, look to both sides of RR 12 by the San Marcos Academy.  Last year, we waited for the blooms, but saw none.  Later we learned that Huisache blooming is highly dependent on spring cold weather.  This is probably the reason why their territory does not extend much farther north.  The inset picture shows the blooms of the Huisache.

The Antelope Horns milkweed is blooming again, so this is a reminder to not mow them down.  They are a major source of food and an egg laying site for the Monarchs.

 

Years ago, touring the backroads of Texas we spotted a stand of Red Buckeye plants and then have not seen one since----until we spotted a single plant just below Canyon Dam.  It is located on the east side of the South Access Road right where the Gorge was cut.

The Red Buckeye (Aesculus Pavia) has a rather limited range of only 5 or so counties in this area.  It has a yellow flowering cousin with a limited range.

If this is the year of the Huisache, it’s also the year of the Herbertia (Alophia drummondii). You may remember this flower from last year’s newsletter, but last year they were scarce. 

This year, they seem to be everywhere showing as large colonies of misty blue in the fields.  It is not listed in Marshall Endquist’s book Wildflowers of the Texas Hill Country , but this little member of the Iris Family can be found in Geyata Ajilvsgi’s book Wildflowers of Texas.  Ms. Ajilvsgi points out that “Herbertia is endemic to the southern portion of Texas but is usually abundant where found, forming large areas of almost solid blue.”

R & D Tusch

Newsletter No. 14 ----Petrified Wood

Petrified wood caught our attention this month due to an old “cedar” fence post that we have stored here.  Now, how many of you have an old fence post that you have had stashed away for years?  More on that later, but for now, what the heck is petrified wood?  The word comes from the Greek language, where petro means stone or rock.  In fact, variations of the word petro show up in place names and even the names of people.  We know a person in San Marcos whose first name is Petra, of Dutch origin.

So, petrified wood is where the organic material is replaced with inorganic material over long periods of time.  The process is called permineralization.  This process occurs when mineral laden water slowly  replaces organic material as it decays.  It must occur slowly because if the wood decomposes rapidly---let’s say to rot or to be eaten by termites, there is no time for the slow process of permineralization to replace the organic cell structure. This replacement process must therefore occur underground where there is no oxygen to facilitate the rapid decay of wood cells. 

The “recipe” for petrifaction then is (a) an environment with very little oxygen—probably not zero oxygen, but close to it (b) mineral laden water, and (c) time, lots of time.

The environment of very little oxygen usually exists several feet underground.  Wood occurring underground usually happens due to sedimentation where soil is deposited on top of forests materials.  For example, Exxon plastics plant contracted with a gas well driller to place a well on company property at Mont Belvieu, northeast of Houston years ago.  The site was about a mile away from Cedar Bayou.  I often would go to the drillers control room and chat about the process of drilling and one day he said that he found something interesting.  At about 40 feet down, soon after the start of drilling, he came upon a cypress log or stump because his drill bit kept bringing up bits of wood.  Thousands of years ago, this was probably a tree growing on the banks of Cedar Bayou, now a mile way.  So over many years, the bayou changed course and lots of sediment overfilled the area.  You can bet this wood was on its way to becoming petrified wood. All that it lacked was time, lots of time.

The minerals in this process of permineralization are mainly silicates and for the most part are not colorful.  But some petrified wood is colorful and it is due to trace impurities in the mineral water—impurities, mainly metals such as chromium, copper, zinc, manganese, etc.  The petrification process provides paleontologists with a lot of information because the process of petrifaction reproduces the cell structure of organic materials in great detail.   Thus when we see a petrified log, we can tell what kind of tree existed in the area from just examining the cell structure. From these studies, we know that palm trees grew in Texas thousands of years ago and we know from the petrified dung of dinosaurs what they had for lunch.

Petrified wood can be found nearly everywhere in the world. In some localities it is so abundant and undisturbed that governments have protected these artifacts by creating preserves.  One such preserve in the United States is in Arizona, the Petrified Forest National Park.  Here, whole logs in sizeable lengths can be easily viewed on the surface. Here is one such example from the National Forest:

Arizona petrified wood is especially colorful and so it was a good move to create this National Park as these specimens were rapidly disappearing due to their value in polishing the surface to show the beauty of the stone and selling them as bookends, etc. A search of the internet would suggest that a five pound chunk of this colorful wood might cost up to a thousand dollars today.  Forty years ago, when we did most of our collecting, we bought really colorful petrified wood for no more than a dollar per pound.  Here is one piece still hanging around.

Petrified wood can be found in nearly every part of Texas, some places easier than others.  In some areas, it can be found on the surface, but only in small pieces.  In other areas, such as in east Texas, it occurs in larger pieces, but usually one has to either dig for it, or search along the sides of riverbanks, road cuts or any excavations that reveal pieces of stone.  Here is a photo of a nice piece of palm wood that we found in the Lake Livingston area of our state when the excavation for the reservoir was underway.

Below is a photo of another chunk, not very colorful, from the same area, and from an unknown wood.  Both these chunks of wood each weigh about five pounds.

Although petrified wood can be found in nearly every part of Texas, it is more commonly found in a band that courses  through east Texas then curves southward to the Rio Grande.  Pulling up the surface geology map we used in the geology discussion, it’s where the rocks from the Cenozoic era are on the surface or near the surface.  These are the rocks that are from 40 to 60 million years old.

The petrified wood zone of most interest is the dark- brown band that courses from the Sabine to the Rio Grande.[1]

If the Permian Highway Gas Pipeline ever gets through this area, it will surely be interesting to see what the trenching machine unearths as it progresses through the region to the east of here.  A nine foot deep trench should provide some good prospecting.

Now back to the fencepost.  As I was replacing fence posts in Medina years ago, I noted that some that were being pulled out of the ground were heavy for their size.  I put one aside and saved it.  The posts were in the ground for at least the last 80 years.  They were not rotting, nor termite chewed, just weathered.  This one calculates to have a specific gravity of about 1.14 which means the wood will not float in water.  Why is this wood so heavy? Most likely, water from the ground saturated with silica was pulled up by capillary action into the post.  The water evaporated and left the silica in the pores of the wood.  This post must be a small fraction of the way to being a petrified log.  But it would never make it for the million year trip because just weathering would make it disappear long before petrifaction could occur.

 Interesting, nevertheless.

History of the Area (continued)

In an earlier edition, roads in the area were one of the subjects and now we have some more specific information.

Roads in the time when Hays County was first settled were trails more than they were roads as we now might define a road.  When the state first became organized to the extent that it had a road department, the road department issued standards for new roads.  One standard was that when the roadbed was cleared, the trees that were cleared had to be cut so that the stumps that remained were not more than 6 inches high.

Here is a copy of the map (Map No. 16848 from Texas GLO) of our area.   The map is dated 1880, long before the advent of cars, so these roads are trails for wagons, cattle herds, and horses. 

If you can expand the view, you will see that there are two roads that leave San Marcos and travel west.  One, the lower one, is labeled Purgatory Road; the upper one is labeled Wimberley Road.   These two roads are one as they leave San Marcos, but split soon after leaving San Marcos.  It appears that they may have parted where the Fulton Ranch Road branches off from RR 12 today.  The Road to Purgatory then continues on what is now Hugo Road.  So why did the early settlers choose the Hugo Road track instead of the RR12 (of today) to get to Purgatory Springs?  For at least two reasons:  (1) trail blazers always followed stream beds to have the best chance at water supplies for themselves  and their horses and (2) following stream beds usually gives a path with a more or less constant grade.  If you drive to Purgatory Springs area (the intersection of current Purgatory Road and RR 32) via Hugo Road, there are fewer steep grades and reversals than if you drive to Purgatory via today’s RR 12/RR 32.

We are still looking for original source information on the origin of the name Hugo.  We do know that the original name for the area was Purgatory Springs, then it became Hugo.  Our focus at the moment is the USPS records where we learned that the Purgatory Springs P.O. was in operation from June 1890 to August 1895 when it closed and all mail was directed to Fischer Store.  Only a year later, November 1896 the Hugo Post office was opened, probably in the same store where the Purgatory Springs P.O. was a year earlier.  What we are trying to determine is what caused the renaming of the reopened post office.  One reason could be traced to Postmaster General Order114 issued in 1849 that  . . . “from this date only short names or names of one word will be accepted.”  Many other additions such as “. . . store, station, springs, etc. were considered objectionable”. Purgatory by itself could have been objected to by the USPS and the community itself.  Local oral history says that it was named Hugo after a family ancestry of the 1300’s but we need to substantiate this if possible. Incidentally, this newly opened post office only lasted 12 years.  When it closed, all mail was directed out of San Marcos.

Sightings

The wild plum trees are blooming this week.  Here is ours; it is this tree’s first ever bloom being only 6 years old. It was started from a plum that had fallen to the ground.

There are two other wild plum trees blooming, one just to the west of the Upshaw property and another on the Miller property. They are easy to spot because of the abundance of white blooms when nothing else is showing.

R & D Tusch

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[1] Do an internet search for rock hounding Texas San Jacinto River for petrified wood and several videos will come up.

Newsletter No. 13-----Ashe Juniper and Some History

Ashe Juniper (juniperus ashei)
This evergreen is commonly called Mountain Cedar, but of course it is not a cedar. The question persists about whether the benefits outweigh the harm it causes or vice versa.

Susan Wilkinson alerted us to a Central Texas Gardener show she saw recently featuring Elizabeth McGreevy, (the cedar lady) talking about the benefits of Mountain Cedar and the mistaken information that still seems to persist.[1] McGreevy has been interested in the junipers for many years and has been taking informed notes, which will be part of her book being published and available for sale in August of this year.
It is a known fact that Ashe junipers are native to this area and they have been since the Ice Age. [2] And 174 years ago Ferdinand Lindheimer wrote to George Engelmann “The cedars form wide strips of forest along the river banks.”[3] This is followed by a description of land 20-40 miles north of the Comal and includes, ”The peaks of the hills are bare. By the banks of the little rivers there are still a few sorts of trees, mostly elms; otherwise cedars on the slopes of the hills and in low-lying places.” Oct. 10, 1846 he wrote about collecting the #20 Geranium. “It grows in the hills, you see, on the plateau, which is here 200’ high, full of ravines that are densely covered with cedars and underbrush, and to which one has few ways of access along the slopes.”[4]
However, Lindheimer’s writings are not sufficiently descriptive to determine if there are more or less junipers on the area land today than there were a couple hundred years ago.
What we do know is that two significant enemies of the juniper have disappeared. One is the grassland fire and the other is the so called cedar cutter. Grass fires are not allowed to run out of control anymore and cedar cutters for fence posts have been replaced by steel posts. This shift occurred 40 or 50 years ago. Only recently has equipment appeared that will destroy junipers and everything in its path. Its only limitation is the cost of their operation.
As an aside, here is Ferdinand Roemer’s description of a prairie fire in July, 1846 seen with Mr. John Torrey on their way from New Braunfels to Torrey’s Trading Post N.W. of Bryan-College Station. They were camped for the night and”[5]….were entertained before going to sleep by the beautiful spectacle of a prairie fire. Like a sparkling diamond necklace, the strip of flame, a mile long, raced along over hill and dale, now moving slowly, now faster, now flickering brightly, now growing dim. We could more enjoy this spectacle undisturbed since the direction of the wind kept it from approaching us. My companion was of the opinion that Indians had without doubt started the fire, since they do this often to drive the game in a certain direction, and also to expedite the growth of the grass by burning off the dry grass.”
Ashe Junipers although called cedars by some are not cedars but are coniferous trees of the cypress family Cupessaceae. Not very far to the east of us the Juniper ceases to exist and the similar tree is the Eastern Red Cedar. Unlike the juniper it always has a singular trunk and its wood is often used for paneling because the grain is attractive and the wood is aromatic. This eastern red cedar is not part of the cypress family.
Female Ashe Juniper trees produce berries and the males produce pollen. And this has been an especially productive year for the males because of the rain we have had. Supposedly, this has been the worst year in 21 years for cedar related allergies. Hence, the problems many of us have had with “cedar fever”. The season started earlier and is expected to last a bit longer than usual. According to Ms. McGreevy its effects are increased by wind activity, pollution and the consumption of sugary foods.
Like everything in nature, the Ashe juniper is connected to many other systems. One interesting bit of information is the symbiotic relationship the juniper has with the Texas Madrone. If you have never seen a Texas Madrone, make point to do so. It’s a small tree that has smooth bark resembling a crape myrtle. On our place in Bandera County we found that Madrone seeds would only germinate underneath a Juniper. A Bandera County horticulturalist was studying this a few years ago. We are bringing some seeds from the area and will plant them under some Junipers here to continue our experimentation.
Because all things in nature are interconnected, this creates a rather long list of benefits and detriments—some diametrically opposite the other. Therefore without fact based study, this creates a lively discussion among hand-me-down experts regarding what is important in the decision to clear out the junipers. To mention just a few, the juniper provides food for wildlife, nest making material for the Golden Cheeked Warbler, humus for soil building, erosion control, wind breaks, privacy screens, mature tree shade and several others. But, they do block the growth of native grasses; prevent brief rains from reaching the ground, etc. The most significant controversy with Ashe junipers is the accusation that they are water guzzlers. The Native Plant Society of Texas [6] explores this in a question “Mountain cedar- water guzzler or not”? Junipers may not consume a lot of water as much as they prevent brief rains from reaching the ground to soak in.
So, size up your own situation with regard to the juniper population. Have you so many that grass can’t become established, then selectively cut the smaller ones. No junipers at all? Probably should not plant any as they do that pretty well on their own.
Navel Oranges

For those of you who don’t get The Daily Record, Joe Urbach has been having some interesting Sunday columns on fruits. Urbach, a 30 year resident of Central Texas is a Hays, Co. Master Gardener who is affiliated with the Master Gardener Program. On January 20 he wrote about navel oranges.

He receives many questions about seeds to grow navels and has to tell interested parties that they don’t exist. There are no seeds and when pulled apart the orange has a little mini orange inside. He consulted orange historian Vince Moses for the answer to this conundrum. Turns out it is a mutation which forms another undeveloped orange at the opposite end from the stem that looks like a human navel. The mutation was found on a single stem of a sour orange tree in a monastery garden in Brazil.

Next it was discovered by a missionary in the mid 1800s. He recognized it as unique; it was juicy, sweet and seedless. He made a cutting, propagated some trees and sent them to William Saunders at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture in Washington. Moses says that all the navels we see today are genetically the same as the original mutated orange. The only way to grow navels is to graft a bud onto a compatible fruit tree’s trunk or root, such as grapefruit, lemon or lime.
Mr. Saunders (not the Saunders that follows) had a neighbor Eliza Tibbets. She and her husband had suffered a financial loss and decided to head for California. Saunders gifted her with three little starter trees and she cared for them faithfully on the trip and in her yard in Riverside, CA. That was in 1872 and they responded well to the mild climate and two of them rewarded her at first with a few oranges and later with bushels of navels.
And this was the beginning of the navel orange industry as other growers decided to take buds from Eliza’s trees. By 1882 500,000 navel orange trees were growing in California, many of them Tibbets’ grafts. This variety of navel was first called Riverside Orange, but it was changed later to Washington Navel Orange and now it’s the most popular type of navel in the world.
If you are interested in trying to grow a navel orange tree, please check with the library or the newspaper and read his whole article.
The history of the Williamson-Saunders family of Purgatory Springs continues in Wimberley, Texas.[7]
The Saunders had five girls when the 6^th was born, a boy, to carry on the family name. When John Henry Jr. was 5 months old the family moved about 2 miles down the road from Purgatory Springs to a place they called “over in the Hollow” where the hunting was better and they could raise mohair goats, cattle, corn, cotton and cane. They sold the cane sorghum by the barrel and mohair twice a year when they sheared the goats. They also added three more children to the family: William Edgar, Rosie Mabel and Thomas Joseph.
John Henry Sr. still taught school in Wimberley, sold horses and also quarried and dressed stone for the home they planned to build near San Marcos.
They had saved all the money they could over the years in a special fund so they could move to San Marcos and send their children to the Coronal Institute. This plan, however, did not work out as John Henry Sr., to help out a friend, co-signed a note with Pleasant Wimberley and ended up having to pay it off with the special education fund.
Pleasant was an honest man and deeded his land over to the Saunders which consisted of a house, store and field. And on February 26, 1888 the family moved to Wimberley to farm the land and run the store. The Saunders only stayed in the house a few months before buying and moving into the J.P. Laney house where Louis Yell was born in August. This property across The Square from Pleasant’s store came with a wood frame store that Saunders tore down when he built the rock store in 1890. He used the wood to build rooms between the house and rock store. They were rented or used for the homeless or aged and later as bedrooms for the boys. The rock store carried both general merchandise and dry goods and as soon as it was finished, all of the merchandise was moved across The Square from P. Wimberley’s old store to it. A U.S. Post Office was located in the S.E. corner of the building and John Henry Sr. was appointed postmaster twice (1890-1892 and 1902-1907). When the girls were older, Virginia and Lillie had day jobs as postal clerks.
John Henry Sr. did not teach school any longer. He focused on running the store, ranching, farming, selling horses and working for the betterment of Wimberley especially in education. He gave the land for the school and cemetery and also served as County Commissioner Precinct 3. The family settled into Wimberley, the children went to school there, roamed the creek and river and played games on The Square. The Saunders had 13 children and reared a family orphan as well. As they sat down at the table Dad and Mother were at the head and foot with girls on one side, boys on the other.
This is the Saunders’ old home in Wimberley. As one approaches the Square on 12 just past the cutoff road on the right this building can be noticed. Note the Historical Marker on the left that tells about the Saunders house. As one passes it and goes over Cypress Creek it’s possible to see how its backyard slopes down to the creek.

One of John Henry’s many betterment projects was to install the first water system by using a “hydraulic ram” system to lift water uphill from Cypress Creek to a huge holding tank. The tank’s platform was high enough to provide gravity flow to a hydrant in the kitchen and one on the porch. He offered to help anyone else who wanted to copy his system.
In 1906 the office of County Superintendent of Hays County was created. John Henry Saunders Sr. was appointed to the office and at the next election was elected to the office for as long as he wished to hold it. The family moved to San Marcos and traded their home in Wimberley to The Oldham family for their home on N. Comanche. A short time later he bought a home at 1109 W. San Antonio Street. He served as the County Superintendent for about 10 years and died on November 3, 1919. Much beloved, the schools were closed the day of his funeral and flags were flown at half staff. He was buried in the San Marcos Cemetery where Callie Saunders was interred beside him in 1930.
Callie and John Henry Saunders:

Sightings
On several occasions this week, a flock of some twenty Yellow Warblers all together were spotted in a short bush. They must be on their way north to their nesting grounds.
The American Kestrals are back. The kestral is a falcon, it is most commonly spotted on the telephone wires in BWR this time of the year searching for its next meal which would consist of large insects to small birds, whichever it may find tasty. This bird was commonly called a sparrow hawk or chicken hawk. The kestral doesn’t seem to nest here although the range map shows that the year around area covers central Texas. Later in the spring, we think they leave and go further north to nest.
R & D Tusch

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[1] That show can be seen at htts://youtube.com/watch?v=Aeet3of)A5w.
[2] Thirty years of research by Robert P. Adams of Baylor University. Juniperus ashei has existed in The Hill Country for thousands of years; a conclusion based on carbon dating pollen.
[3] The lower part of the Comal River. Aug.,1845
[4] These quotes are from A Life Among the Texas Flora by Minetta Altgelt Goyne.
[5] Roemer’s Texas 1845-1849 by Dr. Ferdinand Roemer.
[6] Posted on August 15, 2010 by Bill Ward.
[7] Many thanks to David Williamson for his family history of the Williamsons. And Dorothy Wimberley Kerbow for “The John Saunders House Wimberley, Texas”

Newsletter No.12----- Birds and History

A Day for the Birds
On December 16 we joined 8 of our BWR neighbors in giving Bryan Tarbox of TSUs Biology Dept. and his group of birders access to our property for the San Marcos Christmas Bird Count. Bryan had scouted the area the week before with our permission so he knew our area well. After counting another area near the university in the morning, his group of four arrived here around 1pm and worked until dark.
According to Bryan, the Sage Thrasher (below) was the highlight of the day.

After tabulating the results, Bryan sent all of us the total count for BWR and the various birds found on each property. Also, we were invited to join the birders if we were so inclined. There is no doubt that we will sign up again in 2019. And in the meantime peruse the sparrow bird book pages as seven different sparrows were identified on our property. We missed seeing the 418 robins on our property on the day of the count, but on the morning of December 28 we were delighted by a huge flock of robins in the front yard flitting around in the trees and pecking on the ground.
If any of you would like a pdf copy of the total results of the BWR bird count and where the birds were found, let us know and we’ll send it off to you.
We found this whole endeavor so interesting that we looked into the history of the Christmas Count. It evolved from the Christmas “Side Hunt” a tradition popular prior to 1900 involving guns rather than binoculars. The groups involved chose sides and each side killed as many feathered and furred creatures as possible within a certain time limit. The side with the most casualties was proclaimed the winner.
The idea of conservation was just beginning and in 1900 ornithologist Frank M. Chapman, worried about the declining bird population, proposed a “Christmas Bird Census” that would involve counting birds rather than killing them. The first count included 27 dedicated birders who participated in 25 bird counts. Most took place in N.E. North America, but they did range west to Pacific Grove, California. And the counts have been going on ever since, providing important information on the birds’ migratory patterns, their food sources and their habitats. Just as we saw right here a few years back when we had an invasion of mice. We also had an increase in our owl population and noticed a snake coiled near the bird feeder waiting for the birds to send down some seed to attract the mice it had planned for breakfast. Then the mice left, the owls followed and the snake had to work harder for breakfast.
The Audubon Society at the following site has some very interesting 4 minute videos of dedicated birders working on their bird count lists in Pautuxet, Maryland, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Mad Island, Texas and Irruptive Species in Maine.
www.audubon.org/conservation/history-christmas-bird-count

The Nature of the Place
This month we’re going to interpret the word nature as ‘the nature of something’ and apply it to the areas of Hugo and Purgatory Roads. And that includes the history that influenced how the land was settled and how it changed over the years.
In chatting with a local rancher who has lived on Hugo Rd. for a very long time, we learned that an old one room school still exists on Purgatory Rd. although it hasn’t served as a school for many years.

That conversation intensified our interest in that general area, and we began to probe for more details. What we found was that in the late 1800s, there were sufficient residents of the area to have formed a small settlement. This small settlement was called Purgatory Springs supposedly because a young lawyer named Massey got lost here and wandered around for hours before making it home. When asked by his family where he had been, he told them he was in purgatory. It could be that Massey was exploring the area as there were only two roads leading westward from San Marcos, one called the Wimberley Road and the other was Purgatory Road. The Purgatory Road followed the same road bed as present day Hugo Road. This is all shown on a 1881 map. Keep in mind that there were no cars at that time so one can envision wagons plying their way back and forth to Purgatory right past BWR’s gate.
Purgatory Creek, the creek we know here in BWR starts way up in the hills just north of RR 32, near the intersection of Purgatory Road and RR 32. The creek, when it rains, flows down south from that point on the eastern side of Purgatory Road, crossing the road very near the intersection of Hugo Road with Purgatory Road, then back under Purgatory Road to the stock tank and on toward BWR.
Historical accounts have documented that this settlement consisted of a store, a post office, a school, a cemetery and a church. The school, the home of Joseph and Elizabeth Williamson, and the cemetery are the only physical remains of the old settlement. When the post office was established in 1896, it was thought that Purgatory Springs was not a fitting name for a post office and so the name Hugo was chosen instead. We are still working on the origin of the name Hugo; but according to one source, it may have originated from an old name in the Williamson family.[1]
Recently in talking to the owner of the old one-room school we confirmed its existence. It is painted red and sits in the woods on the right side of Purgatory Rd.[2]
As reported in Clear Springs and Limestone Ledges A History of San Marcos and Hays County, the first school was a log building followed by the red building in the same location. From various historical sources it appears that the school was established on January 9, 1877 with 17 pupils. John Henry Saunders, the first teacher, taught grades one through seven. Oscar Owen donated a one acre tract of land for the new school, three trustees were chosen and families in the community made contributions for the materials that went into the frame structure.
From the San Marcos Record, October 15, 1970, we learned that a Hugo School Reunion was held on Saturday night at Carson’s Restaurant in San Marcos. About 40 people were present, 25 prior pupils plus spouses and friends. And during the “gab session” that followed the dinner, they reminisced about the difficulty of getting to school back in their day.
The old school on Purgatory Road.

Some came on horseback, some walked and Jessie Nowotney Metz, currently of Austin, “made her journey to school and back on a donkey.” They carried their lunches in lunch buckets and many times traded the contents. It is interesting to note that kids traded lunch then just as we did in the 1940s. They carried drinking water in buckets from a small store next door and “…trips to Hall’s Store for fresh buckets were frequent.” Their other memories included baseball games, Christmas programs and holidays. Other reunions followed, with the last being recorded in the San Marcos Daily Record of October 7, 1978.
The school was closed and the students were bused to San Marcos sometime between the years 1920 and 1940. [3] The school house was sold by the San Marcos School Board in the 1950s. The new owner says that back then there was still evidence of the foundation of Hall’s store that had contained the old Hugo Post Office which existed from 1896 to 1909 with Elizabeth Fox as the first Hugo Post Mistress. However, new owners of that property had the area bulldozed and nothing remains anymore.
One of the earliest homesteads in Purgatory Springs was built by Joseph Williamson and his wife Elizabeth. Born in Tennessee, Joseph and his wife came to San Marcos, TX in 1851 and built a house where the Methodist Church is today. After a bit of time they moved again, this time to the Hill Country to Purgatory Springs. They homesteaded 640 acres, enough land for each of their children and themselves to have farms. Their old board house has been replaced with stone but still stands on the same site on RR 32 across the road from its junction with Purgatory Road. Joseph specialized in raising pigs and there are still many outbuildings and fences to be seen as well as three old oak trees. One of which must have been the one where he hung his basket of shucked corn for the pigs and another under which his granddaughter was married.
The last remaining physical feature of old Hugo is the Hugo Cemetery. It lies south on Purgatory Rd. from RR 32 on a small hill that rises on the right side of the road. There is a place for a car to park off the road and then one can walk up to the open gate. This one acre plot was set aside as a cemetery by the Joseph Williamsons.

For at least 163 years the Joseph Williamson Sr. family and their relatives have been buried here. When the town was renamed Hugo, the cemetery followed suit. The trees you see in the picture are trimmed cedars that provide shade, but still maintain a light and airy look to the promontory.
According to a cemetery listing, members of the family continue to care for the site and it looks very nice with various beds of what look like cemetery iris. We will definitely make a point in April to check the blooms and see if they are white. An interesting fact about the fence is that the hand twisted wire used for the fence surrounding the cemetery was made by family members on the grounds in 1900. The wire fence was installed at the cemetery after WWII by Elbert and Doyle Williamson and their cousin Lester Whipple along with Bonnie Adare Williamson who paid for the fence.
There’s a story here somewhere. It seems from this gentleman’s lovely grave stone that he was “loved hard as well” and was an appreciated member or friend of the family. Read the words on the grave marker.

Before leaving Hugo, TX. we’ll go back in time to when it was Purgatory Springs and it welcomed an enterprising young man named John Henry Saunders to the town. John Henry was born, the 8^th child of 11, in Kasey, Virginia in 1850. He enlisted in the Second Virginia Cavalry when he was 13 and served to the end of the war. Back at home, he and his brothers found that brother James who had already received his inheritance at his marriage was given the home plantation and its management as well by his widowed mother. This made John Saunders and his other brothers angry and they all left home.
John Henry was then 16 years old and he went to Tennessee to live with his mother’s sister and attended school. After staying there 3 years and becoming a teacher, he left Tennessee for Indian Territory where he taught for 2 years. He was now 21 and Texas beckoned.
John Henry found what he was looking for in San Marcos, TX. He acquired a job with Colonel S.D. Jackman who had returned to farming and become a political figure in Hays County after the war. Jackman recommended Saunders for the newly created teacher’s position at Purgatory Springs School. John Henry was hired and he moved to Purgatory Springs and boarded at the home of Captain Adams.
Then the 22 year old teacher and his star pupil, Miss Calladonia(“Callie”) Modeline Williamson, granddaughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Williamson, fell in love. They were married at sundown under a big live oak tree in the front yard of her grandmother’s home in Purgatory Springs. The couple bought and moved to Captain Adams home. John Henry taught school at both Purgatory Springs and Wimberley riding his horse to school each day.
The next 16 years were busy ones for the Saunders family. Planning to build a house in San Marcos, John Henry quarried stone. He also bought horses and took them to market via the railroad to Indiana, Missouri and Virginia.
Next month we will follow John Henry, Callie and their growing family as they move from Purgatory Springs to Wimberley on February 26, 1888.
R & D Tusch

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[1] One of the earliest members of the Williamson family was Hugo Williamson of Yorkshire in 1379.
[2] From Hugo Rd. where it intersects with Purgatory, turn right and travel about an eighth of a mile and you will see it.
[3] The exact date remains debatable at this time.