8/14/1819: First Texas newspaper begins brief life
The Nacogdoches Texas Republican, believed to be the earliest newspaper published in Texas, was first printed on August 14, 1819. Eli Harris printed the paper for the James Long expedition. No copy of the paper is known to have survived, but the St. Louis Enquirer noted that the content was “principally occupied with the military and political operations going on in that quarter.” The paper, a weekly, appeared twice in August and possibly a few times in September and then ceased publication.
8/15/1836: Philip Sublett nominates Sam Houston for president of the Republic of Texas
On this day in 1836, Philip Sublett nominated Sam Houston for president of the Republic of Texas. Sublett, a Kentucky native, had participated in the battle of Nacogdoches in 1832 and was a delegate to the conventions of 1832 and 1833. In 1835 he was elected chairman of the San Augustine Committee of Safety and Correspondence. On October 6 he submitted a resolution appointing Houston commander-in-chief of the forces of San Augustine and Nacogdoches until the Consultation should meet. Sublett was commissioned lieutenant colonel in October and in December 1835 was present at the siege of Bexar. He returned to his farm east of San Augustine after the battle of Concepción. Sam Houston resided in Sublett’s home while recuperating from wounds received at San Jacinto. Sublett died in San Augustine on February 25, 1850.
8/15/1855: First Feast of the Assumption celebrated in Praha
On this day in 1855, the first Feast of the Assumption celebration was held in the small Czech community that was renamed Praha three years later. Praha, in southern Fayette County, was originally known as Mulberry and Hottentot. During the mid-1850s a Bohemian immigrant named Mathias Novak came to the region. Other Bohemian immigrants followed, and in 1858 the Bohemian settlers changed the town’s name to Praha in honor of Prague, the capital of their homeland. In 1865 Joseph Bithowski, a Bernardine father, built a small frame church in the town. An annual celebration of the Feast of the Assumption on August 15 attracts more than 5,000 visitors, many of them Czechoslovakian. Mass is celebrated in the historic church, with its extraordinary interior painted by Godfrey Flury, Czech food is served, and Texas Czech bands play throughout the evening.
8/16/1828: Irish colony founded in South Texas
On this day in 1828, John McMullen and James McGloin received a contract from the Mexican government authorizing the two to introduce 200 families to an assigned territory along the left bank of the Nueces River. The Irish-born empresarios went to New York in the summer of 1829 to recruit colonists, principally new Irish immigrants. They accompanied the first group of Irish colonists from New York to Texas on the Albion and the New Packet in October 1829. In October 1831 the colonists laid out a town on the east bank of the Nueces, which they called San Patricio de Hibernia (St. Patrick of Ireland). The original contract was considered suspended by the Law of April 6, 1830, but in 1834 the empresarios secured a four-year extension, and by the outbreak of the Texas Revolution a total of eighty-four titles had been issued.
8/18/1824: Mexican Congress passes colonization law
On this day in 1824, the Mexican Congress passed a national colonization law. This law, and the state law of Coahuila and Texas passed the following year, became the basis of all colonization contracts affecting Texas, with the exception of that of Stephen F. Austin. Among the members of the congressional committee that drafted the legislation was Erasmo Seguín, the father of Juan N. Seguín. In effect, the national law surrendered to the states authority to set up regulations to dispose of unappropriated lands within their limits for colonization, subject to certain limitations, but reserved the right to stop immigration from particular nations in the interest of national security. Six years later the federal government invoked this reservation in forbidding the settlement in Texas of emigrants from the United States; the resulting Law of April 6, 1830, helped touch off the Texas Revolution.
8/20/1886: Repeat hurricane dooms Indianola
On this day in 1886, the town of Indianola suffered through the second day of a devastating two-day hurricane. The settlement, on Matagorda Bay in Calhoun County, was founded in August 1846 and named Indian Point. It was renamed in February 1849 and soon became the second busiest port in Texas (after Galveston). Indianola was the county seat of Calhoun County from 1852 to 1886. With a population of more than 5,000, the town was at the peak of its prosperity when a hurricane struck in 1875, causing great loss of life. The community rebuilt on a smaller scale, but then was almost obliterated by the hurricane of August 19-20, 1886, and the accompanying fire. By 1887 the site had been abandoned.
8/20/1866: Peace–finally!–between the U.S. and Texas
On this day in 1866, President Andrew Johnson, declaring that “the insurrection in the State of Texas has been completely and everywhere suppressed and ended,” officially ended the Civil War by issuing a proclamation of peace between the United States and Texas. Johnson had declared a state of peace between the U.S. and the other ten Confederate states on April 2, 1866. The last land battle of the Civil War took place at Palmito Ranch near Brownsville on May 13, 1865, more than a month after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse.
