Peters Colonists in Tarrant County

Peters Colony was the name commonly applied to a North Texas empresario grant made in 1841 by the Republic of Texas to twenty American and English investors led by William S. Peters, an English musician and businessman who immigrated to the United States in 1827. Peters viewed the colony primarily as a business venture. But, influenced by his studies of the philanthropic ideas of William Godwin and Thomas Paine, he may also have envisioned the colony as providing new opportunities for the English industrial middle class. Half of the investors were residents of England; the other half were residents of the United States. The headquarters of the Peters colony was in Louisville, Kentucky, where Peters's son William C. operated a successful music store. From this music store W. S. Peters and Samuel Browning, Peters's son-in-law, departed in June 1839 to seek English support for the colony. This was the first of several trips Peters made to England and France on behalf of the colony. He returned from England in July 1841 with news from the London investors, and in Austin on August 30, 1841, Browning signed the first of four contracts with the Republic of Texas.

The settlers at Bird's Fort abandoned their location in the spring of 1842. Various reasons have been cited including hunger, the ongoing Indian threat, and "malarial conditions caused by the lake" (later Calloway Lake). Another reason is that they may have learned the land on which they had planned to settle was now under the control of W. S. Peters & Co., whose commission was to bring in settlers from outside the Republic of Texas.

The site of Bird's Fort and Calloway Lake is situated on land that became part of three Peters Colony grants: the Samuel Kephart survey, the Thomas D. Newton survey, and the Jehu Condra survey.

The following article offers a synopsis of the Peters Colony and its settlers in Tarrant County.

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By 1841 the Republic of Texas was suffering from an empty treasury and its citizens could not pay their taxes. There were Indian troubles and the Republic of Mexico was threatening to reimpose its rule. Land was of almost no value because of its abundance and the shortage of settlers, the population numbering only 50,000 to 60,000. These conditions led the 5th Congress to enact the Land and Colonization Law of February 4, 1841, under which the Peters Group contracted to establish the Republic's first empresario colony, popularly called the Peters Colony. On August 30, 1841, W. S. Peters of Louisville, Kentucky and nineteen associates entered into a contract with the Republic to bring badly needed immigrants into the colony. The contract required the empresarios to bring six hundred families from outside the Republic into the colony. within three years at the rate of at least two hundred families per year.¹

The first tract of the colony land was a strip twenty-two miles wide that ran from the Red River to a point sixty miles south and included part of present-day Grayson, Collin, Cooke and Denton counties. Under the contract the Republic agreed to grant 640 acres of land to each head of a family and 350 acres to each single male over seventeen years of age. The empresarios were to receive from the Republic ten sections of land for every one hundred families and five sections for every one hundred single men brought to the colony.²

Three other contracts followed. The second contract, dated November 9, 1841, extended the colony southward forty miles to include part of present Ellis, Johnson, Dallas and Tarrant counties and raised the number of families to be introduced to eight hundred. This included approximately the eastern fourth of present Tarrant County.³

The third contract of July 26, 1842 granted a six-month extension to the company for the first third of the colonists to be introduced and added a ten-mile strip on the western boundary and a twelve-mile strip on the eastern boundary of the colony land. It also reserved each alternate section of the new land for the Republic. Slightly more than one-half of present Tarrant County, the eastern side, was now a part of the colony land.⁴

The fourth contract, made on January 20, 1843, extended the time for fulfilling the contract for five years until July 1, 1848 and greatly enlarged the size of the colony by extending it westward from the eastern boundary for a distance of 160 miles, including all of present Tarrant County. It also stated that title to the grants would be given to the colony, with the colony then granting the land to the immigrants. These contracts were the basic instruments for colonization, but many changes were made through legislation. Confusion and discord were so great that ten legislative enactments were required to conclude the settlement of land titles, the last act passed October 24, 1871.⁵

The Peters Group signed the first two contracts as a loosely knit unchartered group, then on November 20, 1841 the nine American members declared the English members inactive and formally organized with seven new American members as the Texas Agricultural, Commercial and Manufacturing Company. On December 3, 1842 the company realigned itself with the English interests and an intense struggle for control followed until a separate contract was granted the English on January 19, 1844. ^{The Americans then reorganized on October 15, 1844 as the Texas Emigration and Land Company, and continued administration of the Peters Colony.6}

The first record of settlement is that of a group who arrived in Shreveport, Louisiana by steamer in January 1842, and eventually settled in Fannin county. By September the group had abandoned their land because of the Indians and a shortage of provisions. Immigration continued, nevertheless, with most settlers arriving in two waves of immigration. The first wave began in the spring of 1843 and lasted until July, 1845. In the winter of 1845-46 there was a mass exodus of eighty five to ninety per cent of the colonists; later, however, sixty to seventy per cent of these who had left returned. Immigration was slow until the second wave of immigration, which began in the spring or swmmer of 1847 and lasted until the spring of 1848. At the contract's expiration on July 1, 1848, over seventeen hundred heads of families or single men had settled, along with spouses and almost three thousand children.⁷

The colony area was legally closed to all but bona fide Peters Colony immigrants for a term of seven years. Nevertheless, an influx of squatters increased as the contract neared its end and they became a problem. There was also confusion over the company's claims of surveys. Legislation was passed in January 1850 to protect the colonists and ensure their full grants. During the summer of 1850 land commissioner Thomas William Ward, as appointed by the governor, traveled through the colony and issued certificates to those who could prove they were bona fide colonists, had built a cabin, and had settled prior to July 1, 1848. On February 10, 1852, legislation extended the colonists' time for settling claims to August 4, 1852 and granted seventeen hundred sections in the western counties of the grant to the company, with five years alloted for laying of certificates. An episode known as the Hedgecoxe War followed. It was led by land speculators, mostly non-colonists, who held unlocated certificates and feared their future profits endangered by the February 10, 1852 legislation. Evidence of the colonists' claims, held by the colony agent hedgecoxe, was stolen. The loss of the records created a problem of issuing land titles. This led to passage, February 7, 1853, of an amendment which permitted the colonists to file their claims directly with the land office and extended for three months their filing time. The majority of the colonists throughout the colony filed their claims and were issued patents during the period from 1852 to 1854. In Tarrant County many of the patents were issued after these dates.⁸

The Peters Colonists, who were entirely from outside the Texas Republic, were predominately native Americans Who came to seek economic betterment under the inducements of the empresario company. Some stayed, establishing themselves on free land. Others were speculators who sold their unlocated certificates and moved on. Over eighty per cent of the settlers were farmers who settled in loose kinship networks or spread through the area clustered as closely as the tracts of land would allow. They were farmers who worked their land themselves. Slaveholding was minor, with only 106 slaves in the entire colony. The number of tradesmen were few and represented only a few trades, the predominant occupations being laborers, blacksmiths and carpenters. There were few merchants. They were predominately from the border and midwestern states, which led to Union sentiment being quite heavy in the colony area during the Civil War era. Many of the colonists were illiterate, with over 25 per cent unable to write their names. Speculation in unlocated certificates was a significant part of colony history as 607 whole or partial certificates passed into speculation, many changing hands more than once. There were also a number of fraudulent claims before the county courts, both by non-colonists and colonists who were trying to obtain additional certificates.⁹

The empresario device was proven a failure by the litigation and the long series of statutes required to settle the land titles, and that the state had given away nearly three million acres of land and in return acquired less than eighteen hundred settlers. A total of 1,088,000 unsettled acres were placed in the hands of out-of-state owners through the Texas Emigration and Land Company. This land wes divided among the stockholders, put into the bonds of an agent and sold with little profit to the stockholders. Consecuently, there was little profit for anyone connected with the colony.¹⁰

The Peters Colony was important, however, because the amount of land involved, the number of persons involved, and the length of time it played an active role on the Texas scene made it the most extensive empresario enterprise in Texas under either the Republic or Mexico. It established a trend of migration to north Texas from the Ohio River valley from 1841-48 that continued for several decades. Farmers, small land owners, merchants and artisans arrived and the region developed rapidly.¹¹

Of the counties to comprise the Colony, Tarrant County ranked third in the number of settlers. Of the first wave of immigrants only about seven per cent settled in the land area which was to become Tarrant County, and of the second wave of immigrants about ten per cent settled in this area. Intracolony movement eventually brought other settlers into the county. Approximately 150 Peters Colonists settled in Tarrant County and over one hundred of the unlocated certificates sold in speculation were patented there. By marking (on a General Land Office map of original land titles in Tarrant County) the locations of those Peters Colonists who patented their own claims, it is revealed that early settlement was in the eastern and central part of the county, with settlement spanning the Eastern Cross Timbers.¹²

The following is a list of bona fide Peters Colonists who were issued certificates for land from Commissioner Thomas William Ward or the Courts as Peters Colonists, each of whom patented all or part of his claim himself in Tarrant County. Seymour Connor's system for evaluation assumed that if a person patented his own claim himself it was probably his residence and his "homestead" Exceptions would be rare.¹³

The list includes the names of those colonists whose heirs patented the certificates due to the death of the colonist. In some cases the heirs claimed land that the colonist had settled in Tarrant County. In other cases the original colonist did not live in Tarrant County, but his heirs patented the claim there. These colonists' names are included because their heirs were living in the colony and, though not head of that household, must be considered members of the coiony who established residence in Tarrant County.

Name	Immigrated to Colony Prior to July	Cerificate Issued by	Acres	Certificate Number
George Akers	1848	Ward	640	1316
John Akers	1848	Ward	320	1733
Simon Akers	1848	Ward	320	1741
Thomas Akers	1848	Ward	320	1732
Jesse G. Allen	1848	Ward	640	1729
Parmelia Allen	1848	Ward	640	1318
Richard F. Allen	1848	Ward	640	1317
John Bailey	1844	Ward	160, 160 - Cooke County	5236
Charles Baker	1845	Ward	320, 320 - Dallas County	943
Daniel Barcroft	1848	Ward	640	1321
Abraham Barnard	1848	Ward	640	1806
Larkin Barnes	1848	Ward	640	1757
Allen Beard	1848	Ward	320	2000 and 2592
Hamilton Bennett	1848	Ward	640	1325
James H. Biles	1848	Ward	320	2765-1/2
James Blackwell - heirs	1848	Ward	320	1198
Joel Blackwell - heirs	1848	Ward	640	1199
Washington Bradshaw - heirs	1848	Ward	320	1567
Henry Brandenburg - heirs	1848	Ward	196	1668
Jotham Brown	1844	Ward	640	1728
Rutha Brown (Smith)	1848	Ward	640	1200
William Bussell	1848		320	1250
C. C. Carder	1844	Ward	320	1569
Elijah S. Carder - heirs	1844	Ward	320	1682
Thomas Cate	1845		640	1523
Cornelius Conely	1844	Ward	640	1568
Joseph W. Conner	1844	Ward	640	1448
William D. Conner	1844		320	1990
George W. Coonrad	1848		640	1756
Benjamin Franklin Crowley	1848		320	1555
Richard Crowley	1848		320	1554
Joseph C. Davis	1848	Ward	160, 160	1333, 2299
Soloman Davis	1848		640	1202
Jabez Degman		Ward	320	1201
Josepg A. Dunaway	1848	Ward	320	1331
Thomas Easter	1848	Ward	480	1553
Lemuel J. Edwards	1848		640	1761
Samuel Elliott	1848	Ward	640	1336
Joshua N. Ellis - heirs	1848	Ward	640	1797
John W. Elliston	1848		640	1441
Mortimer Elliston	1848		320	1442
Patrick Everard	1845	Ward	640	1335
Jonathan B. Fay	1845	Ward	640	1522
Lewis Finger	1848		640	1573
Ambrose Foster - heirs	1848	Ward	640	1803
John A Freeman	1848	Ward	480	1648
Jessee Gibson	1844	Ward	640	1344
John A. Gibson	1848	Ward	320	1345
James Gibson	1844		640	1552
Sebourn Gilmore	1848	Ward	640	1315
John J. Goodwin	1848	Ward	320	1340
Micajah Goodwin	1846	Ward	640	1575
Adolphe Gouhenant	1848	Ward	160	3362
John Guess - heirs	1843	Ward	21.5	3841
Littleberry G. Hall	1848	Ward	320	1789
William W. Hall	1848	Ward	320	1788
Andrew S. Harris	1848	Ward	640	1447
Solomon Hayworth	1848	Ward	640	1353
Thomas H. Helms	1845		320	1755
Morgan Hood - heirs	1845	county court	320, 320	1661, 1662
Thomas Hood	1848	Ward	640	1647
Mary Horn		county court	640	2134
William C. Howard - heirs	1845		320	2093
Andrew Jackson Huitt	1844	Ward	320, 320	1354, 1707
John Huitt - heirs	1843	Ward	640	1589
Solomon Huitt	1844	Ward	320	1551
John A. Hust	1848		640	1591
Vincent J. Hutton	1844	Ward	640	1804
Henry Johnson	1848	Ward	320	3124
Mary Johnson		county court	640	2181
William R. Jones	1845		160	4710
Samuel Kephart	1848	Ward	280	1742
Edmund M. King		county court	160	1357
Gabriel B. Knight	1848		320	1233
Obediah Knight	1848	Ward	640	1232
A. J. Lee		county court	320	1208
Archibald Leonard	1848	Ward	640	1807
John Little	1848		320	1207
Samuel P. Loving	1848	Ward	320	1759
John Preston Lusk - heirs	1844	Ward	320	1741
Horatio G. Lynch	1848		320	1209
Josiah Lynch	1848		320	1210
Mahaly Lynch	1848	Ward	640	1361
Joseph B. McDermott	1848	Ward	640	4659
Thomas Mahan	1848	Ward	640	1367
Joseph J. Martin		county court	320	5373
Thomas Martin - heirs	1844		640	907
William Mask - heirs	1848	Ward	640	1651
James Matthews	1844	Ward	320	1366
William G. Matthews	1848	Ward	320	1365
Rachel Medlin - heirs		county court	640	1583
Elijah Meredith - heirs	1848	Ward	320	3134
Charileous Miller	1848	Ward	160	5307
Green W. Minter	1845	Ward	640	1700
Richard Morris	1848		320	1680
Felix G. Mullican - heirs	1848		640	1582
Ireneous Neace	1848	Ward	640	1737
James R. Newton - heirs	1848	Ward	320	1371
Thomas D. Newton	1848	Ward	320	1525
William Norris	1848	Ward	640	1373
Daniel E. Norton	1848	Ward	320	4091
William O'Neal	1848	Ward	640	1753
Jesse Overton	1848	Ward	270	1374
Joseph R. Parker		county court	320	1211
Franklin S. Perry	1848	Ward	320	2593
Simcoe Popplewell	1846	Ward	320	1972
Robert Ray	1847	Ward	320	1954
George W. Rogan	1848	Ward	320	1752
James Reading - heirs	1844		320	789 and 913
Robert O. Reeves		county court	320	2656
James A. Roberts	1845		320	906
John Roberts	1845	Ward	320	1381
Archibald Robinson	1848	Ward	160	1897
William M. Robinson	1845	Ward	640	688
Elijah Rogers	1848	Ward	320	1384
Joseph Schreech - heirs	1848	Ward	320	1735
William Schreech	1845	Ward	320	1697
Michael K. Selvidge	1848	Ward	320	1389
William Shacklett - heirs		county court	320	2494
Absalom Smith	1848	Ward	186	1596
Alfred M. Smith - heirs		county court	320	1595
John W. Smith	1848	Ward	320	2213
Samuel K. Smith	1845	Ward	308	1598
William Smith	1845	Ward	320	1597
Samuel C. Stockson - heirs	1844	Ward	240	1593
D. C. Strickland - heirs		county court	320	2815
Henry Suggs	1848	Ward	640	1689
David Tannehill	1848	Ward	640	1689
Edward S. Terrell		county court	320, 320	1314, 2493
John P. Thomas - heirs	1848	Ward	320	1429
Alexander Thompson - heirs	1848	Ward	307	3358, 5029
Charles M. Throop - heirs	1848	Ward	640	1801
Francis Throop - heirs	1848	Ward	640	1889
Lewis G. Tinsley	1848	Ward	640	1444
Allen S. Trimble	1848	Ward	640	1395
William A. Trimble	1848	Ward	320	1394
William C. Trimble	1848	Ward	498.5	1393
Samuel Tucker	1844	Ward	320	1734
Henry P. Tuggle	1847	Ward	320	2287
Norman Underwood	1844	county court	640	1884
Francis M. Wales - heirs		county court	320	2214
Albert Gallatin Walker	1846	Ward	640	1798
Joel Walker	1848	Ward	577	1399
Joab Watson	1848	Ward	320	1790
Samuel West - heirs	1844	county court	320	2536
Thomas White	1848	Ward	320	1991
Edward Wilburn - heirs	1845	Ward	320	1746, 3190
Mansel W. Wilmeth	1848	Ward	320	4837, 5007
Gulaver Wilson	1848	Ward	320	5354, 5312
Joseph Wilson	1848	Ward	640	1793
John J. Wingfield	1848	Ward	640	1750
Richard Worthington - heirs	1848	Ward	320	1407
John B. York	1848	Ward	640	1312
T. G. Zachary - heirs		county court	320	3141

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Connor, Seymour V., The Peters Colony of Texas. The Texas State Historical Association, 1959.

Map of original land grants. Texas General Land Office, Austin.

Abstracts, Texas General Land Office.

Gammel, Laws of Texas.