Newsletter No. 16-----Ranch Land History-Part 1

Ranch Land History—Part 1.  Nearly five years ago, we started the project of detailing the history of the land that made up the ranch that became our community.  We did not make much progress then, but now we have returned to the task to make another pass at it.

Tracing the history of land can be accomplished by starting with the first deed (Land Patent) and working forward in time or by starting with the last deed (current owners) and working back in time. We decided to start with the Land Patents because that would give us the names of the surveys which would be helpful in the search back in time from current owners to previous owners. New surveys almost always reference the Land Patent survey name.

The Spanish Government granted a huge amount of land to Impresarios to encourage settlement of the area which was to become Texas.  However, none of the individual grants  existed in Hays County.  Furthermore, if there was individual ownership in the area of Texas, most of those claims were erased following the revolutionarywar with Mexico.   So, we started with the Republic of Texas, the government formed by Texans following the revolutionary war with Mexico ca. 1836. 

Texas, not unique in this regard, adopted the principle of a capitalistic democracy in that useable land was best in the hands of people and not held by the government.  Soon after the Republic was formed land became available as a donation, as a homestead, or as a purchase. Donations of land in the amounts of 1280 or 640 acres were made to veterans for their effort in the war with Mexico. Interestingly enough, land grants were not offered to Confederate veterans of the Civil War.  However, those Texans that fought on the Union side in the Civil War were offered land grants in Texas, but none took up the offer. 

In addition to grants to individuals, much land went into the school funding system and to railroad companies as an inducement to build rail lines into the state.  This granting process occurred over many years as the state government passed various laws granting land.  All of that is a separate topic.  As a sidelight, Texas is the only state admitted to the Union that was allowed to keep its public lands rather than relinquish the public lands to the Federal Government.   Thus, all granted land was issued from the Republic or the State of Texas.

When land ownership is officially transferred from the government to a public or private entity, the new owner is issued a Land Patent. A land patent can be viewed as a “first deed”.  Land could be acquired by three methods: A donation to an individual for military service, by preemption (homesteading) or by purchase. When a person is given land for service to the country, it starts with a Certificate which can then be used to claim a tract of land. The Certificate was like cash.  It could be sold, donated, transferred to heirs, just like cash if the land is not wanted by the recipient.

Claiming the land resulted in the issue of a Patent on that land. The basic record of a land patent is the survey to establish the location of the land.   Thus, every land patent has an attendant survey in the name of the grantee.  One can understand that in the early days of a newly formed government, this was the easiest way to reward public service, because cash was in short supply. Printing paper money was tried in the new Republic, but the paper money soon lost much of its issue value.

Typically, veterans of the Texas Revolutionary War received Certificates for up to 1280 acres (a section of land is 640 acres).  The amount of land varied between 640 and 1280 dependent on the class of the reward.  The class of the grant depended on when the person arrived in Texas.  Early settlers and service in the military received the greater number of acres.  Figure 1 shows a copy of the Certificate given to Gideon Bowditch for 1280 acres of land some of which makes up BWR.

 

Figure 1 Gideon Bowditch Certificate

The land that makes up our community came from six land patents.  Five of them were grants to veterans from the War with Mexico and one was for homesteading. 

They six tracts are as follows:

  §  Jesse Huffman--  640 acres in 1841

  §  Reuben Pierce-- 160 acres in 1871

  §  Willis Moore--  114.5 acres in 1875

  §  Gideon Bowditch--1280 acres in 1841

  §  M. Andrews-- 1280 acres in 1875

  §  G. W. A. Colton--491.37 acres in 1875

Following are some notes about each of these holders of land patents:

§      Huffman and Bowditch were the first to claim their rewards.  The record indicates that heirs of Huffman held the land for some time (unknown at the present) and Bowditch sold his grant soon after receiving it.

§     Pierce was the only person who homesteaded his property.  It is not certain that he actually lived on his land, but he did convince the government that he satisfied the requirement of improving the land within the required three years.  The Pierce family sold the land they acquired in 1871 to Hayford in 1877 who then sold it to Cross soon after.

§      Moore’s heirs claimed his 640 acres, but only 114.5 acres was part of the six grants that make up our community.  The location of the balance to make up 640 acres is documented but we have not pursued that acquisition.  It could have been in another county. Willis Moore’s heirs claimed the property because he had perished in the fight at the Alamo.[1]

§      Colton was awarded 1280 acres and only 491 acres are located here.   It is interesting that the documentation of his award was in square varas, totaling 2,774,011, which works out that a vara is equal to 33 inches. Varas can vary in length and this causes some confusion in the record.

§  Andrews’ award was for early service but was not claimed until 1875 when it was then claimed by his widow’s attorneys and sold immediately.

It is important to spend some time in this newsletter on surveying because the surveyor’s tools and methods have changed dramatically over the last 150 years.

During land grant times, surveying was recorded by a method commonly called metes and bounds. Metes refer to the measurement part of a survey, that is the length and compass direction of a boundary line.  Bounds refer to the markers at key points such as corners or intersections with other surveys. The starting point for a new survey was usually defined off an adjacent survey.  So, if that adjacent survey contained errors, these errors would carry over into the new survey.  The corners were usually marked with some form of quasi-permanent evidence, such as a stone mound created by the surveying crew. Our expert contact in the surveying business (and also a descendant of one of the earliest settlers of Purgatory Springs) tells us that marker mounds can be just one big stone or a pile of smaller stones.  The mound was often cited by identifying an adjacent tree and blaze marking the tree and its direction and distance from the marker mound.  The lengths of the sides were measured in varas that varied from 33 to 46 inches depending on time and place.  The lengths were measured off with chains, and the direction of the boundary lines were measured with a compass, usually mounted on top of a transit.  Even today, with modern surveying equipment, the bounds markers, if found, hold sway over the metes. That’s because the opportunity for a recording error with metes is far greater than the opportunity for error in the marking of bounds.

Today, surveyors use GPS locating equipment that is precise to the inch to identify corners and lines of a tract of land.  How the legal system and the surveyors made the transition from the inherent inaccuracies in the 1800s to the precision of today is not only remarkable but amazing.  It is evident that there are many inconsistencies, but transfer of property from one person to another has the ability over time to reconcile and remove these inconsistencies from the record.

Figure 2 is a copy of a map from the records showing the boundary lines of the original land patents.

Figure 2 Land Grant Boundaries

This map is a bit difficult to see in this size, but you should be able to expand it for better viewing. The black lines are the land grant lines and the red line is the outline of our community hand drawn on top.  The blue printing identifies the Land patentee. The two tracts between Colton and Bowditch are the Moore and Pierce tracts. (We have marked them with a P and an M on Figure 3) The boundary between the Moore and Pierce tracts falls right under the notation of Bridlewood Ranches Drive.

Note how the Huffman tract does not meet the Bowditch tract and also note the green shaded slice of land between Colton and Pierce. The black lines are drawn on the current map by the General Land Office and reveal some of the inaccuracies of the original surveys.  The green shaded area is what is commonly called a vacancy.  That means that at the time of the survey this land was owned by the state as it was not included in any one patented tract.  We are sure that none of these mismatches of boundaries were intended by the early surveyors.

Figure 3 shows the same map as Figure 2, but now the Bridlewood Ranches roads are marked in purple.

  

Figure 3 Land Patent map with BWR roads added

While still working in the distant past, there are some historic artifacts from surveys and ranch activity that we should look for and inventory with an eye toward preservation.

Here is a list that comes to mind:

·        Survey corner mounds.  Years ago, we found the south corner mound of the Jesse Huffman survey in the Purgatory Creek drainage.  More than likely, the northwest corner mound is in the stone wall on the eastern edge of the Shallenberger property.  There should be many more marker mounds which we will list later.

·        Old ranch roads.  There was one road that entered the property just north of the present gate leading off Hugo Road (the gate with the big star) and went to the windmill on the Vinson property.  There were other roads, and they should be identifiable by inspection of the surface.  During dry periods and when the grass is heavily grazed, there appears to be a vestige of an old ranch road to the south of the road on the Jankowski property.

·        Windmills and their tanks.  There are two, or one and a half, that are standing.   We have asked Kutscher for some information on these mills.

·    Stone fences.  For sure these should be preserved and inventoried as they are probably 150 years old.  It is still uncertain who built these walls, but it is almost certain they were not built by slaves as most people believe.  Any of the history books of the area state that these stone walls were built in the late 1800s. Later, we will provide some information on where these walls should still exist.  For example, the stone wall that exists between lots 31 and 30 is the same wall that runs northwest and terminates at the Shallenberger line.  It was the western boundary of the Jesse Huffman Survey.

·        Earthen Stock Tanks. Except for a few, most of our stock tanks were built by earlier ranchers.  Lake Bridlewood is the most prominent old one, but there are others.

·       Other Evidence.  Old structures, concrete watering troughs (there is one on Lot 30 that was observed years ago) wells, and stone structures. 

Some may ask why bother with these old features and relics of the land that we live on.  The answer to that will develop with time.

Changing gears now to the present ownership and working back in time:  Here is what we know at this time:

Some current owners bought their tract from the developer (River Chase Ventures) others bought through resale.

Thus, here is the lineage as we know it now:

Present owners---total 1676 acres

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River Chase Ventures–total 1676 acres, acquired in 2002.

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Herman and Minnie Heep Texas A&M Foundation---two tracts totaling 1676 (more or less) acquired in 1992.

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Herman and Minnie Heep (one tract) and Conroe Drilling Company (other tract) ---totalling 1676 acres---acquired in 1947.

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Maurice Ruby and wife----two tracts totaling 1676 acres. Acquired in 1943.

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 G. Boozer acquired 1934

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T. Dix acquired 1932

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Jesse Posey acquired 1916

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Frank Posey acquired ?

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Additional record searches need to be made to determine the detail of land transactions in the time period from the issuance of the Patents to 1916 when Jesse Posey acquired the land.

Throughout this time period, the only homesteader was Reuben Pierce and it is possible that he lived on the land, but not proven—and if he did, not for long. More than likely, all of the land was used for grazing.  With that assumption we are always on the lookout for more records to determine if any of the 1676 acres supported a residence. However, that is doubtful.

Throughout these years the land was known successively as the Rocking H Ranch (aka Heep Ranch), the Ruby Ranch, and the Posey Ranch. 

There were several interesting bits of information that came from reading the many pages of the deed records.  One is that Herman Heep was the President of Conroe Drilling Company thus explaining this company’s involvement in the ownership of the ranch. 

Maurice Ruby had many dealings in Woodcreek, perhaps suggesting that he had a role in the development of that tract.

There are still some nagging details about the succession of owners prior to Ruby but that (hopefully) will come later in Part 2.

Meanwhile, providing there is sufficient interest, we could make an inventory of the historic features of the Bridlewood Ranches land. The documentation of historic features may well add value to the land in addition to adding interest to each tract.   

             

----Sightings---

The Slender-Leaf Hymenoxys flowers growing close to the ground have been very showy this spring.  Figure 4 shows one especially good tract of yellow spilling down a gentle hillside beyond the pond near the intersection of Hugo and Purgatory Roads.  Everyone notices that the dominant color in wild flowers is yellow, and for the last few weeks, most of the yellow has been hymenoxys.  But that is not always the case, because last year there were far fewer hymenoxys.

              Figure 4 Hymenoxys blooms at Hugo/Purgatory Rd.

For example, some of the yellow color has been replaced by the gaillardia which has a red center giving a dense field a definitely different color.

Then we decided to look even closer at what plants are showing the yellow color now and stopped to inspect the small yellow flowers near the BWR mailbox.  Wouldn’t you know it, a new (to us) yellow flower that was masquerading in among the hymenoxys. It was a Hudson Flax (Linum hudsonioides). It is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 Hudson Flax

To top off the sightings is this shrubby plant we found growing in a wild area near our house.   It appears to be a Sumac---Rhus Aromatica. (Figure 6) It has a smooth brown bark, and a three petal leaf.

Figure 6 Aromatic Sumac

One last note on the importance of scientific naming of plants.  You may recall the Red Buckeye plant we found by Canyon Dam.  Buckeyes have rather unique leaves---five or so leaves all coming off one point of the stem.  Because we have always heard about the Mexican Buckeye, we decided to hunt for one of them.  We found one at a Master Gardeners booth at the Seguin monthly sale on the town square.  It sure didn’t have the typical buckeye leaf pattern, but we bought it anyway since we knew that it will produce a show of flowers in the spring.  

Figure 7 Mexican buckeye

Just a little bit of bookwork shows that the Mexican Buckeye is not a buckeye, but a member of the Soapberry family.  The scientific name of true buckeyes is Aesculus Pavia whereas the Mexican Buckeye’s scientific name is Ungnadia speciosa.  So, why did the Mexican Buckeye get the common name of buckeye?  Simply because the seed looks a lot like the seed of the real buckeye.

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[1] Moore, 28, a Mississippi resident was listed as a Private, marksman at the Alamo who, “May have rode in with Bowie”.  He also fought with Chenoweth’s N.O. Grey Company at the siege of Bexar.  The report of Texas Alamo victims was reported in the Telegraph and Texas Register (3-14-1836) as supplied by couriers John Smith and Gerald Navan.

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.