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Issue 1 Volume 3 Grimes County Historical Commission January 2017 Meetings of the Grimes County Historical Commission are held on the Second Monday of the Month at 7:00 pm in the Courthouse Annex in Anderson, Texas Contact Information Joe King Fultz [email protected] Visit us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Grim esCountyHistoricalCommission Grimes County Historical Commission Executive Board Photo of the Month Chairman Joe King Fultz Vice Chairman Vacant Secretary Vanessa Burzynski Treasurer Joe King Fultz COMMITTEES Historical Markers Denise Upchurch Historic Preservation Sarah Nash Navasota City Hall Newsletter & Publicity Navasota, Texas Vanessa Burzynski GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017 PAGE 2 the Camp properties on the south. He built a log Navasota, Texas cabin under a big oak tree, which still stands in the yard of the Crittenden Hardy’s home. Here the Negro women who worked the crop left their babies Navasota was founded in 1831 as the stagecoach on pallets and at intervals one or another would stop of Nolansville. Its name was changed in 1858 to return to the cabin to see about them. Aunt Maria Navasota, a name perhaps derived from the Native Nolan went in one morning and found her baby American word nabatoto (“muddy water”). dead, a wildcat had gotten in and eaten the baby’s face entirely away. The earliest settlers to come to Navasota were James Nolan, Sr., James Nolan, Jr., I. M. Freeman and wife, James Nolan built a large hotel on the Washington D. Fisher and wife, Mrs. P. A. Smith, J. J. Creagor, W. T. Avenue corner where J. W. Brosig later built a fine, Smitheal and wife, W. J. Peterson, Mrs. W. E. Bigger, large hardware store, and which is still owned by the Mr. and Mrs. Giesel, Charles Ahrenbeck, Chris Brosigs. Many families have moved to Navasota by Froehligh and A. Rainbow. To Judge James Nolan this time and the Nolan hotel was filled to capacity goes the distinction of being Navasota’s earliest most of the time. Every day after the noonday meal citizen. According to his granddaughter, Dorothy at the Nolan hotel, a floorshow was put on for the Clark Bednar, he came to Navasota from Mississippi guests or anybody else who cared to come. It was right after Texas became a state, probably as early as free and Navasota’s first floor shows though it was 1846. He had no grant or certificate of any kind, but not then known as such. picked out a likely place to live and squatted. The place he chose for his first home happened to be The big brown bear was brought out and fed a bowl land later owned by Mr. Bob Blackshear. James of honey. That was his pay-off and he wouldn’t Nolan brought with him in his oxen drawn wagon his budge until he had eaten it. Then he’d go through father and mother, a daughter and at least one slave. the gamut of his tricks. He waltzed, boxed and Aunt Maria Nolan, who lived to be almost a hundred played dead. His partners were the Negroes who years old and never deviated in her affection for “Ole worked about the hotel. They loved it because the Master’s folks.” Besides his family, he brought with guests tossed them coins. him a brown pet bear. His equipment consisted of several tents, a few crude pieces of furniture, a few In August 1859 Mr. Nolan deeded to the H & TC pots and pans, bedding, farming tools, and seed. Railroad 80 acres of land to be used as a right of way Besides vegetable seed he brought cotton and corn and subdivision. He gave land to the Jewish citizens seed. He lived in tents until about 1855 at which time and the Negroes for burial purposes and to the he began to buy up land. He bought 133 acres from Christian peoples he gave the south end of Oakland M. L. Duke for 77 cents an acre. He bought other land Cemetery. Atchinson gave the rest. Judge Nolan was as cheap as 50 cents per acre. He built his first real never actually a Judge but on one occasion he home at the back of the property, which is now the presided at a case when the populace wanted to old Brosig home place and where Mrs. Watts Brown lynch a criminal. Since then he was called Judge and Miss Nettie Brosig live. It was a double log Nolan. house. Judge Nolan sunk a 60-foot water well on the corner of the place. He struck such a strong current of water that people came from all around and After September 1859, when the Houston and Texas hauled the water away in barrels. Travelers too Central Railway built into the town, Navasota stopped to water their thirsty horses and to quench became important as a shipping and marketing their own thirst. Judge Nolan planted 15 acres in center for the surrounding area. Whereas nearby cotton. This land embraced the region extending Washington on the Brazos protested the coming of from his log house covering the entire area about the rails, the old historic town forfeited its our churches except a plot of 4 acres that had been geographic advantage, and it began to decline as deeded by Dickson Greer and Jackson M. Duke to the many of its businesses and residences began a sure school trustees for school purposes. It extended to migration to the new railhead across the Brazos River at Navasota. GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017 PAGE 3 Slaves were a large part of the local economy, as they During these days, Navasota was considered a wild were imported, traded and used to work in the many and wooly place, where it was not considered safe local cotton plantations. Guns were made in nearby for women and children to go downtown in broad Anderson, and cotton, gunpowder, and shoes were daylight. The downtown buildings were teaming with made, processed and stored there for the Southern lawless ruffians, gamblers, prostitutes and drunks. Confederacy during the American Civil War. By 1865 Lawmen had to hide and watch, and often were the population was about 2,700. All during the Civil afraid of the streets at night. There were many War, all the marketable goods produced in the saloons and gaming halls, and every Sunday morning region were brought to Navasota, then the furthest the undertaker hitched up the buggy and went inland railhead in Texas, to be shipped south to downtown to collect the bodies that were Galveston, where it could be transported by anticipated to be there, from another wild Saturday steamboat from the Texas coast and up the night. Mississippi River to the war effort, or exported to Mexico or overseas to Europe. By Spring of 1861 Navasota had grown by leaps and bounds. It resembled a young metropolis. Then Navasota suffered a series of disasters in the mid- came the war. Everything stopped dead off. 1860s that severely depleted its population. In 1865 Business was at a stalemate. No new industries a warehouse filled with cotton and gunpowder came in. Few buildings were built and trade had exploded after it was torched by vagrant stopped. Most of the young men had gone off to war, Confederate veterans; the blast killed a number of leaving behind the women and children., the very old people and started a fire that destroyed much of the and the disabled. By the time four years had original downtown, and damaged many buildings, elapsed, the time it took to lose the war, Navasota including the post office. Not long afterward the was in a sad state. Slaves had been freed, many of town was struck by a deadly cholera epidemic, which its choicest young men had been killed in battle; was followed in 1867 by an even more dangerous others chose to settle elsewhere. Everywhere was epidemic of yellow fever. As many Navasota citizens, chaos, confusion, dilapidation and want. including the mayor, fled to escape the disease, the town population dropped by about 50 percent. Soldiers who had returned were naked, barefoot and penniless. They were disgruntled at losing the war; Mid 1860s skirmish between Navasota disgruntled they were disgusted at not being able to get any pay freedmen and Confederate veterans broke out in the so they felt justified in seizing anything that Brazos Bottoms near Millican, after a race riot there belonged to the government in lieu of the debt, threw the whole region into a panic. An informal which they considered the government owed them. militia rallied in Bryan, gathered arms, and caught A few military stores consisting of kegs of the train southward towards the angry mob of gunpowder, cotton, bayonets, salt and swords were armed freedmen who were marching on Bryan, a city stored in Parker Smith’s warehouse. The soldiers to the north of Navasota. Many men were left dead burst into the warehouse, broke open the powder and many were wounded after this little-known kegs and scattered the powder all over the place battle, perhaps the greatest race battle ever fought onto the adjacent sidewalks. One soldier filled a in Texas. This led to the formation of numerous shell with powder, struck a match to it and rolled it private militias, and ultimately during the late 1860s toward the warehouse. There followed a terrific the KKK in Navasota, and on one occasion a tense explosion followed by roaring flames. Some of the confrontation between federal soldiers and a crowd adjacent buildings were blown to bits, and the of local white citizens occurred there.

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