Following the formation of the new government, the business men of
Nacogdoches entered upon a period of expansion, resulting in the laying
out of numerous new towns in the then Nacogdoches county, extending
almost to the Gulf of Mexico on the south and including Dallas on the
north. Among the towns thus formed following the Revolution may be
mentioned Pattonia south of Nacogdoches on the Angelina river, and a
little further south the town of Travis on the same river, Mount
Sterling at the home of John Durst on the Angelina river west of
Nacogdoches, and a few miles further up the river where the present
highway crosses, the town of Angelina where James Durst and his father,
Joe Durst, lived. The original town of Rusk was south of Nacogdoches
where the road to Fort Teran crossed the Angelina river on the Pierre
Roblo grant. Thornville, near the present village of Mahl; Liberty, a
few miles northwest of Douglass; Jackson, built on an island on the
Attoyac not far from where Chireno was later founded. Haden Edwards
founded two towns north of Nacogdoches on the Sabine river, near the
present town of Longview, one of which was named Fredonia, in memory of
his ill-fated revolution, and the other he called Cotton-Plant. In
addition to these ghost towns of long ago, we may mention such towns as
Attoyac, Melrose, Chireno and Douglass, each of which was regularly laid
out in lots and blocks, in anticipation of the boom to come.
The Cordova Rebellion
But the war was not over yet. The Mexican army had been defeated and
expelled, but there were enemies at home. The town of Nacogdoches was
aroused to feverish excitement when the preacher and congregation of a
country meeting came in one night with the news that the Mexican
population of the country had risen in arms under the leadership of a
former alcalde, Vicente Cordova, and were on the warpath against the
American citizens. General Rusk at once called for volunteers, and
scouts were sent everywhere to discover the whereabouts of the
insurgents. All the next day their efforts were in vain, but at length
John Durst and a party of scouts under him, came in with the report that
they were encamped across the Angelina river in what is now Cherokee
county, where they were doubtless waiting to join those Indians to make
war against the American settlers. Rusk appealed to the people of San
Augustine and Sabine counties, and within forty-eight hours they began
to arrive, armed and equipped for a campaign. After some delay, caused
by contradictory orders from President Houston, Rusk marched into the
Indian country, where he found that the rebels had gone to other tribes,
and were beyond his reach. He marched to the Cherokee and Shawnee
villages and so impressed them with the readiness with which he had
assembled so considerable a body of soldiers that they readily premised
peace and disavowed any connection with the Mexican insurgents.
Commercial Expansion
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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