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McKinney, who, along with eight other
associates (Samuel May Williams, Mosely Baker, John K. Allen, Augustus C.
Allen, William H. Jack, William Hardin, A. J. Gates, and David White)
successfully petitioned for confirmation from the Republic for $50,000 cash or what
McComb calls "acceptable materials in New Orleans," payable in four
months. White, as Texas agent in Mobile, acknowledged receipt of payment but
actually received only what amounted to promissory notes secured by future sale
of the lots. By this process the partners received the grant without making any
cash payment out of their pockets. Five of them, Menard, McKinney, Williams,
Baker, and John K. Allen, became the board of directors of the Galveston City
Company, which began selling the lots in 1838. McComb, Galveston,
pp. 42-43. 4. [p.194] Christy was not one of Menard's ten associates in the Galveston City Company. Sam Houston had taken his convalescence in the Christy home in New Orleans in May of 1836. Llerena Friend, Sam Houston: The Great Designer, p. 72. 5. [p.202] Coleman's troubles derived from his publication of an 1837 pamphlet, Houston Displayed: Or, Who Won the Battle of San Jacinto, which accused the Texas president of drug abuse, cowardice, and other offenses. Houston had Coleman dismissed from his position as a colonel in the Texas Rangers. Williams, Sam Houston, A Biography, pp. 157-58. 6. [p.203] Bailey Hardeman, secretary of the treasury beginning in April of 1836, died on September 25 of that year. David Thomas, the original attorney general of the interim government under Burnet, was killed on April 16, 1836, by an accidental explosion of a gun on the Cayuga. Webb, Handbook, vol. 1, p. 766, Vol. 2, p. 771. 7. [p.204] Jane Wilkinson Long, known by the legendary if historically ludicrous and inaccurate sobriquet "the Mother of Texas," was born in Charles County, Maryland, on July 23, 1798. In Natchez she married Dr. James Long on May 14, 1815, and gave birth to two daughters there. She accompanied her husband during his Texas filibusters, remaining at Point Bolivar in a rude fort while the expedition advanced to Goliad. She gave birth to Mary James Long on December 21, 1821, and was taken to San Antonio in July of the next year. In 1827 she patented land in Austin's colony and lived in the home of a sister, Mrs. Alexander Calvit, operating a boarding house at Brazoria which closed in 1834. In 1837 she opened a hotel at Richmond, Texas. Webb, Handbook, vol. 2, p. 76. 8. [p.204] James Collinsworth was born in Tennessee in 1806 and served as a United States district attorney before emigrating to Texas in February of 1835. He fought at San Jacinto with the rank of major and became acting secretary of state on April 29, 1836, a post he vacated in less than a month in order to represent Texas in the United States. Collinsworth became chief justice of the |