I am interested on where to find maps that show the original land grants to the Old 300. I live on what was Alexander Hodge's land grant, which from what I can tell, lies roughly between Hwy 6 and FM 1464 in Fort Bend Co. His family cemetary is at the intersection of Old Richmond Rd and Pheasant Creek Dr in Sugar Land. I've done a little bit of research on Hodge, and would like to know more about he and his land.

I didn't see a link, but perhaps there is a website similar to the Sons of DeWitt Colony where it lists the grants and shows them on a map:

http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/dewitt.htm

Found this, and thought it interesting:

quote:

---

The Hodge family was camped in a grove of trees near Lynch's Ferry when the
>Battle of San Jacinto erupted. Alexander Hodge stood silent near a pine
>tree, just as straight and almost as tall; hat pulled low over his forehead
>and arms across his chest. At last a rider passed their camp and called to
>them the war was over, the Mexicans defeated. They could go home. They all
>fell to their knees and crying, prayed their thanks to God - even the
>grandfather. These are the memories recorded by his granddaughter, Clarinda
>Pevehouse Kegans.

Judge Hodge returned to Hodge's Bend on Oyster Creek, but the exposure and
>strain of the journey took its toll. He died August 17, 1836 and is buried
>beside his wife, Ruth, who died in 1831. They are buries in the family
>semetary.

Hodge moved his family west. in 1814 he was serving as magistrate in Spring
>River Township, Lawrence County Arkansas. There he met Stephen F. Austin.
>The empresario's "Come with me to Texas, Judge Hodge," struck a responsive
>chord in the old Scotsman. He and his family arrived in Austin Colony in
>1826.
>Austin granted Hodge one of the leagues he had reserved for himself. Hodge's
>Bend was situated on the road running from Fort Bend to Harrisburg and was a
>gathering place for family and friends alike. Ruth Hodge was a gregarious
>hostess and never needed an excuse to arrange a "social" William B. Travis,
>James Bonham, Lorenzo de Zavala and the de Leons from Victoria were among
>the visitors to enjoy the Hodge hospitality.

---

Link

I've run across historic Texas County maps in the past, but I can't seem to be able find it now.

quote:

---

Judge Hodge returned to Hodge's Bend on Oyster Creek, but the exposure and
>strain of the journey took its toll. He died August 17, 1836

---

There were a number of epidemics going on in Texas in 1836. Stephen F. Austin died of one, if I remember right.

Never thought about it before, but I wonder if the confluence of Mexican soldiers, American volunteers, etc. all in close contact may have spurred on the spread of disease, as Alabama viruses spread to Mexican soldiers and Mexican viruses spread to Texans. Be interesting to do a study on that.

quote:

---

The second known revolutionary double-dipper is Alexander Hodge. Born in Pennsylvania in 1760, he eventually moved with his family to South Carolina. There, at 18, he volunteered to serve under Gen. Francis Marion, better known as the Swamp Fox.

Following the revolution, Hodge moved his family to Arkansas. That’s where he met Stephen F. Austin and decided to join the young empresario in Texas. In 1825, Hodge settled his family along the Brazos in what is now Fort Bend County.

After the Alamo fell in 1836, Hodge shouldered his flintlock and helped protect the women and children as Texans fled eastward in what came to be called the Runaway Scrape. Maybe the strain of that finally wore him out. He died at 76 that summer. His grave is in the Hodge’s Bend Cemetery near Sugarland.

---

Interesting.

Heh. I even managed to surprise myself this time.




Historic Map Works - Fort Bend County 1898

While the map is "newer" than the original land grant it appears the original grant of 1 league is intact.

[This message has been edited by p_bubel (edited 12/1/2008 3:41p).]

Very Nice!! Thank you very much. I was also going to try the Fort Bend Co library in Richmond.

I was thinking that map being dated 1898 probably only showed a sliver of the original league of land owned by a decendent of the same name, but zooming out and checking the size relative to the county itself and checking out the names of the neighbors I'd say that is probably the whole thing.

It's a long narrow sucker.

I've looked around his family cemetary; someone is taking really good care of the grounds. I read that he's the only veteran of the American Revolution that is buried in Fort Bend Co.

Check the GLO website:

www.glo.state.tx.us

Browse around, they've got lots of cool stuff. If you want, you can always go to their headquarters here in Austin and look through their archives. I have a friend over there who helped me track down stuff related to my ancestors and he also let me hold Stephen F. Austin's deed and title book.

While you're in the Richmond Cemetery, stop by and see the grave of Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas. Has big Texas flags on it, so it's hard to miss.

As for the long, slender sections, my guess is that they considered riverfront property to be so valuable (since rivers were the prime method of transport in those days) that giving everybody those long slender parts with river access was considered more equitable than giving them squares or rectangles of normal dimensions, and have some folks win the river lottery and some folks lose.

quote:

---

It's a long narrow sucker.

---

If you think those are bad, you should see the land grant maps from the Rio Grande Valley.

Dividing the land up along the river also made surveying easier.

__amount of riverfront by __amount distance due north.

quote:

---

Never thought about it before, but I wonder if the confluence of Mexican soldiers, American volunteers, etc. all in close contact may have spurred on the spread of disease, as Alabama viruses spread to Mexican soldiers and Mexican viruses spread to Texans. Be interesting to do a study on that.

---

IMO the confluence would have some responsibility for the epidemics. However, it would have been the stresses of the road march, partial scorched earth policy, poor nutrition, and the general physical breakdown of spending the late winter, early spring months on the march and not in proper housing.

The confluence of the troops and civilians probably only served to increase the effectiveness of the disease.

Just my opinion, I am not an icy doctor by any means.

If you look at the land grants in the DeWitt colony, they are much less worried about being equitable and more about claiming prime lands... Evidently, there were plenty to go around among the earlier colonists.

I think it may be a difference between the styles of Green DeWitt and Steven F. Austin, and also the kinds of settlers they initially attracted. The Old 300 may have been a bit more genteel than the earlier admittees to the DeWitt colony, who probably had more of a frontier background/were from less established areas initially. In other words, they picked lands in an orderly fashion versus a mad free-for-all to get the best lands. I may be totally wrong with that analogy, though. I know Austin brought settlers from his earlier speculations in Arkansas and Missouri as well, so it's not exactly like the Old 300 were afraid to pick up everything at the drop of a hat for a better stake.

It probably had more to do with the fact that more of the area in Ft. Bend county was arable farmland (read: flat with at least marginal soil), versus the rich alluvial valleys surrounded immediately by upland hills and prairie thought unsuitable for farming in Gonzales Co. That would explain the more regular and orderly shapes of the Austin grants, and the more topography-based surveys of the DeWitt Colony where they are compressed closer to the river.

The larger tracts on the map are areas where the Guadalupe/San Marcos river valleys are very wide, smaller tracts where the river valley is narrower.
I occupy a fair part of the Eliza DeWitt survey just east of downtown Belmont, Tx.


[This message has been edited by SWCBonfire (edited 12/2/2008 10:08a).]

I occupy a 55' x 155' plot of Austin's orignal land survey in Fort Bend Co.

[This message has been edited by Spittin Ag (edited 12/2/2008 10:43a).]

My best friend's family has one of the original grants west of Corpus. Not exactly sure which one, but 100,107,110,130 & 132 are likely candidates.

[This message has been edited by p_bubel (edited 12/2/2008 11:34a).]

Where did that map come from? Image properties say photobucket.

This thread gets a blue star. Good stuff.

Mine? A Google image search took me to Texas Beyond History.net which doesn't like hotlinking so I had to upload the map to my photobucket account.

p_bubel, my dad's folks were from around that area. They lived in the town of Violet, which is right off the Corpus Christi Airport.

Good stuff.

I'm having a difficult time with that map. I'm unable for some reason to come up with the proper location. They're from near Alice, which is west of where your Pop is from. (I believe)

Oh well. It's probably slightly south of the map locations I listed earlier.

[This message has been edited by p_bubel (edited 12/3/2008 3:26p).]

Yes, good stuff. I started looking for infomation about Brazoria Texas, where my great, great grandmother was born in 1847. Then, I stumbled accross this nugget pertaining to our property in Lampasas County. I don't know why I never thought about researching the name on our survey but, for some reason, this thread made me do it.

Threshold for settlement of Lampasas, San Saba counties. Commemorates homestead site of Robert D. McAnelly (1806-1888) who came here in early
1830's; was surveyor of large areas of surrounding land. McAnelly's Bend was
named for him in 1858. His son, Cornelius, was first white child born in Lampasas County.

Its just "Bend" now. The locals call it "The Bend".

Historical Marker Text McAnelly, Robert D:
Star and Wreath Born in Kentucky, 1806; came to Texas in 1835; joined the Texas Army on its way to San Antonio; one of the storming party who entered Bexar, December 5, 1835; died in Guadalupe County, Texas, 1888. Erected by the State of Texas, 1962

I'm a first generation Texan and I wish I had some family connection to the past here as I find it all absolutely fascinating.