Musings of a History Buff

Famous Texans: James Bowie, Part 4

James Bowie and his brother speculated in land in Louisiana in the 1820’s, during this time, the brothers set up the rst steam-powered sugar mill in Louisiana. But after James was engaged in the famous ‘sandbar fight,’ he wanted to escape the notoriety. e brother’s seven years of partnership was ended, when Rizen was elected to the Louisiana state legislature. On Feb. 12, 1831, the brothers sold their plantation, Arcadia and other landholdings and eighty-two slaves to several Natchez investors for $90,000. The brothers split themoney and James getting the traveling bug traveled back east, but was drawn to the prospects in Texas. There is confusion about when Bowie actually arrived in Texas, some say it was as early as 1819, but if he was with Benjamin R. Milam and the others in the Long expedition, he was not among those captured. It is known that on Jan. 1, 1830, Bowie and a friend left Thibodaux for Texas. They stopped in Nacogdoches, at Jared E. Groce’s farm on the Brazos River, and stayed several days. He departed there, for San Felipe, and the empresario Stephen F. Austin. Where Bowie presented a letter of introduction from Thomas F. McKinney, one of the Old ree Hundred colonists. On February 20, Bowie and his friend Isaac Donoho took the oath of allegiance to Mexico. From there he traveled to San Antonio, with William H. Wharton and Mrs. Wharton, Isaac Donoho, Caiaphas K. Ham, and several slaves. They carried letters of introduction to Juan Martin de Veramendi, the patriarch of a wealthy and in uential Mexican family.

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