TexasEscapes.com  
HOME : : NEW : : TEXAS TOWNS : : GHOST TOWNS : : TEXAS HOTELS : : FEATURES : : COLUMNS : : BUILDINGS : : IMAGES : : ARCHIVE : : SITE MAP
PEOPLE : : PLACES : : THINGS : : HOTELS : : VACATION PACKAGES
TEXAS TOWNS
Texas Escapes
Online Magazine
Texas | Columns | "Texas Tales"

A Lost Letter
from an Old Ranger
turned Representative

by Mike Cox
Mike Cox

Newly arrived in Austin from Bosque County, 61-year-old former Texas Ranger Buck Barry took a sheet of House of Representatives stationery and began scratching out a letter to his 12-year-old son.

Elected to the House in 1882, in January 1883 Barry traveled to Austin to serve in the 12th Legislature. In the largely ceremonial early days of the session, he had been presented what he called "the finest gun that could be bought" in recognition of his Ranger service along the frontier during the Civil War.

Once the two chambers finally got down to business, Barry proved to be as good a lawmaker as he had been an Indian fighter. The North Carolina native, who had come to Texas in 1845 as a young man of 24, had a way with words even if he couldn't spell those words all that well. Nor did he seem to have awareness of what a period is used for in composition, his missive essentially only two giant run-on sentences. Even so, it was a meaty letter.

I came by a copy of the letter in 1999. My late mother, much better at deciphering old-style handwriting than me, graciously transcribed Barry's missive into a digital file. Organizing my papers, I recently came across a copy of her efforts and realized I had never written about it. At least until now.

Texas's 1850s-vintage limestone Capitol had been gutted by fire in November 1881 and the Legislature was conducting its business in a hastily built temporary brick state house at 11th and Congress. Meanwhile, a permanent red granite Capitol slowly took shape across the street, construction having begun in February 1882. Reading between the lines, Barry likely wrote his letter while sitting in the House chamber.

"Dear son," he began, "I hardly know what to write you unless I knew what would please you most…. After that, the old ranger dispensed with any "I'm fine, how are you?" sentiments and went right to the most interesting thing he could think of, the recent death of former Gov. E.J. Davis.

"[H]e died 7th Feb of something like Pneumonia Called pleurisy[.] Yesterday the 9th he was buried in the state Cemetery[.] The weather was bad and there was not [a] great many that turned out maybe five hundred with the Colored folks," he wrote.

Barry said Davis had lain in state in the House for four hours.

"His face was left bare that all who wanted to could see him[.] He looked very natural though his beard was much whiter than when I last saw him," Barry wrote. "He was a man that all rebels hated very much, but the Legislature bothe the House and Senate were all rebels…paid a great tribute of respect to him when he died, as [his] History…will constitute a part of the great state of Texas history and consequently the tribute of respect paid to him after his death by his political enemies will also be a matter of history."

Davis had served as a Union officer during the Civil War, and as the state's chief executive during Reconstruction had been seen as a near-despot by most of his constituents. The respect Barry described likely masked near elation at his passing on the part of many Texans.

But now, nearly 18 years since the war ended, Texas faced new problems.

The invention of barbed wire, and its growing popularity in the state, pitted large landowners (ranchers) against small land owners (mostly farmers.) Those opposed to the fencing of what for years had been free range land took every opportunity to cut wire fences, often in the dead of night. Fence cutting had led to violence, and Barry's successors in the Rangers had been saddled with stopping the costly practice.

"Johnny," the freshman representative from Bosque County continued, "I am trying now to get a law passed to indict [indiscernible] and all others who do not put pole or rail on their wire fence so that we will not have so many horses to doctor for worms." (The result of parasites entering wounds caused by barbed wire.)

But Barry was having trouble with the measure.

"The stock men on the Rio Grande and the Panhandle Country oppose me[.] They have 20 to 40 miles [of] wire fence without pole and do all they can against me as they don't want to pay money for [poles] and they have no poles out there," the ranger-turned-lawmaker wrote.

While Davis's death and the barbed wire problem had been the main topics of his letter, Barry did dispense a bit of fatherly advice to his son:

"You must try to write well which you do very well for a boy of your age," the elder Barry said. "You must not forget it no boy or man can get a position in any Department of state unless he writes a smooth, clear…hand."

His election to "a position" in the Legislature didn't happen because of his penmanship, but Barry practiced what he preached. His script was readable (at least by those familiar with the handwriting of the day) and with no scratch-outs.

Barry would live to be an old man, dying on his 85th birthday on Dec. 16, 1906. But even in his early 60s, he seems to have had a sense of posterity.

"When you read this [letter] and all the rest," he enjoined his son, "file it [away] with your old papers as rellicks."



© Mike Cox
"Texas Tales" - October 8, 2015 Column

Related Topics: People |
Columns | Texas History | Texas Towns | Texas Counties | Texas

Custom Search
TEXAS ESCAPES CONTENTS
HOME | TEXAS ESCAPES ONLINE MAGAZINE | HOTELS | SEARCH SITE
TEXAS TOWN LIST | TEXAS GHOST TOWNS | TEXAS COUNTIES

Texas Hill Country | East Texas | Central Texas North | Central Texas South | West Texas | Texas Panhandle | South Texas | Texas Gulf Coast
TRIPS | STATES PARKS | RIVERS | LAKES | DRIVES | FORTS | MAPS

Texas Attractions
TEXAS FEATURES
People | Ghosts | Historic Trees | Cemeteries | Small Town Sagas | WWII | History | Texas Centennial | Black History | Art | Music | Animals | Books | Food
COLUMNS : History, Humor, Topical and Opinion

TEXAS ARCHITECTURE | IMAGES
Courthouses | Jails | Churches | Gas Stations | Schoolhouses | Bridges | Theaters | Monuments/Statues | Depots | Water Towers | Post Offices | Grain Elevators | Lodges | Museums | Rooms with a Past | Gargoyles | Cornerstones | Pitted Dates | Stores | Banks | Drive-by Architecture | Signs | Ghost Signs | Old Neon | Murals | Then & Now
Vintage Photos

TRAVEL RESERVATIONS | USA | MEXICO

Privacy Statement | Disclaimer | Contributors | Staff | Contact TE
Website Content Copyright Texas Escapes. All Rights Reserved