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Getting to know our distant familyHere’s the theory I’ve been writing about for the past several weeks: To understand a person, it helps to know something about his parents and even grandparents.If Renville has a parent, it’s probably Gonzales, Texas. Kerrville’s grandparents include communities in Missouri and Kentucky.Last week, I shared some items loaned to me by Ron Girard about his relative Adam Zumwalt who had a store in Gonzales in the 1830s.Something happened in that store that changed history.Jesse McCoy was sheriff in Gonzales, and a Mexican soldier beat him with his musket in Adam Zumwalt’s store. Unfortunately, we do not know what provoked this attack, but the citizens of Gonzales considered it criminal. According to one account, the citizens of Gonzales mostly were loyal to the Mexican government until that moment. After that, the community was strongly against the Mexican government.Ron Girard of Ingram, is related to Adam Zumwalt; this week’smail brought a letter from Linda Rowan, also of Ingram, telling me her late husband, J. B. Rowan Jr., was related to Jesse McCoy. Her letter included documents about the McCoy family.See what I mean, Gentle Reader? To learn about our community, it’s often important to learn about the community which fostered our own. Writing here, in a small, regional newspaper, about a very narrow subject — Kerrville’s roots in Gonzales — has brought primary documents about two important players in Gonzales’ history to my desk, from relatives of the Gonzales’ men. My thesis, that Kerrville has roots in Gonzales seems to be validated.Jesse McCoy, by the way, was one of the 32 volunteers from Gonzales who answered William Barret Travis’s call for help from the Alamo, and he died there. Adam Zumwalt also fought in the Texas Revolution.A little more then on Gonzales and its cannon.The Handbook of Texas offers this: “The Gonzales ‘come and take it’ cannon was a Spanish-made, bronze artillery piece of six-pound caliber. The gun wasthe object of contention in late September and early October 1835 between a Mexican military detachment from Bexar and Anglo-Celtic colonists. The disagreement produced the battle of Gonzales, considered to be the first battle of the Texas Revolution. On Jan. 1, 1831,Green DeWitt initiated the new year by wnting Ramon Musquiz, the political chief of Bexar, asking him to make arrangements for a cannon to be furnished to the Gonzales colonists for protection against hostile Indians. On March 10, 1831, after some delay, James Himlinson Jr., a DeWitt colonist at Bexar, received one bronze cannon to be turned over to Green DeWitt at Gonzales. The fact that the gun was not carriage mounted until about Sept. 28, 1835, suggests that in 1831, it was probably swivel mounted in one of the two blockhouses that had been constructed at Gonzales in 1827. Thus mounted, it would have served as a visual deterrent to hostile Indians.“The cannon is lost to history until Sept. 1835, when Col. Domingo de Ugartechea, the military commander at Bexar, sent Corporal Casimiro De Leon and five soldiers of the Second Flying Company of San Carlos de Parras to retneve the cannon. TheGonzales colonists notified Ugartechea they were keeping the gun and took the soldiers prisoner. The cannon was then buried in Geoige W. Davis’s peach orchard and couriers sent to the Anglo-Celtic settlements on the Colorado River to obtain armed assistance. Ugartechea responded by sending 100 troops under Lt. Francisco de Castaneda to make a more serious request for the return of the gun.“On Sept. 29, Capt. Robert M. Coleman arrived at Gonzales with a militia company of 30 mounted Indian fighters. The gun was retrieved from its shallow grave, taken to John Sowell’s blacksmith shop, and mounted on a pair of cart wheels. After organization of the Texian ‘Army of the People’ under Gen. Stephen F. Austin, the cannon was assigned to Capt. James C. Neill's artillery company and hauled to San Antonio. After the capture of Bexar in December1835, the cannon remained at the Alamo, where it was one of 21 artillery pieces commandeered by the Mexican army upon the recapture of Bexar on March 6,1836.”That’s the community from which Kerrville sprang.Jo« Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who misses his faraway wife. He may be reached atjoe# herringpriting.com.Joe Herring Jr.Hometown talk
Newspaper Details
Kerrville Daily Times
Kerrville, Texas, US
Sat, Jun 21, 2008
Page 21
Full Page
Clipped by
Charles Z.
USA 10 Jan 2025
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