Matagorda County TXGenWeb
EDITOR’S NOTE: Anticipation for the Intercoastal Canal was great when this article in the Matagorda News was written in 1912.
When Patrick O’Donald with a short-handled spade dug a channel one mile long connecting Old Caney with the head of Matagorda Bay in the 50’s, he little dreamed that he was building the first link of a great intercoastal canal, to form an important part of one of the great waterways of commerce.
O’Donald was working under instructions of Col. Shephard, one of the large planters along Caney who saw in such a canal his best route to market and sea port for his big crops of sugar, molasses and cotton.
As he anticipated, the waters of Caney once given a start washed out a channel which served his purpose, a canal route to Matagorda, then an important port, shipping cotton, etc., to New York and European ports.
The News editor accepted an invitation to accompany a party of Matagorda business men up the Intercoastal canal to the San Bernard river where the dredge is now at work.
The Ben Hur, recently overhauled, was brought into requisition for the trip by her owners, Messrs. G. B. Culver and Goodwyn Sterne, and she made the trip with flying colors and as we left her anchored out in the bay, she looked as proud as the Massachusetts at anchor off Galveston.
The remainder of the party were A. C. Stewart, Gus Gottschalk, Geo. T. Sargent, Frank L. Rugeley, J. B. Hawkins, and W. E. Williams.
The launch passed out of the deep Colorado and thru the channel dredged by Matagorda enterprise to the middle of the bay (which the government has decided to reimburse the town for, take over and maintain as a part of the canal) and once in the intercoastal canal the biggest of Matagorda’s 100 boats had a smooth run of 51 miles without incident to mar the pleasure of the day.
From eight to 20 miles up the bay we passed three fleets of oyster boats taking out the delicious bivalves for our patrons up the state.
On every side were fine oyster beds capable of producing with proper cultivation and little cost, ten million barrels of oysters as against 350,000 barrels a year as now.
“Yes,” said Mr. Sterne, an old residenter and close observer, “this is a fine oyster field and cultivation could make it very profitable and a source of great revenue to our town.
“It appears our people have not yet learned how to plant them; the time will come, however, when it will be a great industry here.”
Five miles out on the left looms up Big Hill with its oil wells and derricks, and soon-to-be sulphur mines.
On the west of the hill is the farm of Gus Gottschalk and on the east the farm-home of C. and G. W. Zipprian.
On the right, is the peninsular, and there is the farm-ranch of the Kains where John and Andy keep bach, raise cattle and truck to the music of the sad waves and roaring billows of the gulf.
Further on is the old Brown home, still surrounded with its ever-to-be-remembered salt cedars whose sheltering arms in the storm of ’75 saved all of the inmates of the Brown home while their neighbors were lost.
On the left is Poverty Point, but rich in fine oysters.
At the point where the Caney empties into the bay was pointed out to the northward the ranches of three of our townsmen, J. Morgan Smith, Gus Smith and _____ Burke.
Passing through the O’Donald canal for a mile, then into old Caney which the Intercoastal follows another mile or so but is forced to leave because of its tortuous course, the Intercoastal then taking a straight course nearly northeast, crossing Caney twice within half a mile, but for the next 18 miles as straight as an arrow.
Old Caney and Oyster Creek, revive impressions of long ago, their valleys more fertile than that of the Nile.
There’s the old Sargent ranch, where Geo. T.’s grandfather settled near 1840, and farmed and ranched till his death in 1875, his father dying in 1909, leaving about 25,000 acres. On the western portion, at the old homestead lives the widow and on the banks of Caney, a few miles above, J. W. Rugeley, son-in-law of Mrs. Sargent, is building the town of Sargent.
To the east is Geo. T.’s ranch, a fine body of several thousand acres, with long horns and short horns, with cows from the western plains and cows from the redlands of East Texas.
There are the wings of the old swimming chute where the cattlemen swim their cattle across the canal and down the peninsular to the finest winter grazing in Texas, and where Geo. Culver lost a fine horse a few years ago―“just give up and wouldn’t try to swim.”
On both sides of the Intercoastal, a mile to the gulf and as far to the north as the eye can see the range looks good; but on the south, “that,” said Mr. Sargent, “is good for a cow to three acres, and fat,” and Mr. Gottschalk, another good authority on cows approved.
After a dozen miles more thru the treeless expanse of grazing ground, the canal enters Cedar Lake, or a chain of lakes, each appearing to range in size from 800 to 1500 acres.
A few years ago an effort was made to locate these lands as public domain, but “upon a personal inspection by Land Commissioner Robison,” said Mr. Culver who accompanied the Commissioner, with the party seeking to locate the land, “the Commissioner held the ‘lakes’ to be a bay or arm of the gulf, as it is often true that the tide water from the gulf fills them.”
The water is salt, and oyster reefs are visible all about; while the excavation for the canal thru the lakes (and even in the cut just made by the dredge out of the San Bernard eastward) show oyster shells two and three feet below the surface.
The lake water seems to be salty enough for oysters but in depth too shallow and uncertain.
Another crook or two in the last mile or two, the dredgers evidently following the course of a bayou connecting the lakes with the river, and the Ben Hur turned swiftly into the beautifully clear San Bernard, and just a few hundred yards down this stream our boat came to anchor opposite the mouth of the canal in which the big dredge Matagorda was at work about 300 yards inland.
A trip was made to the dredge-boat by Mr. Culver and the writer, and Capt. Jacobson of the Matagorda invited to visit his old friends on the Ben Hur, which he did after supper.
R. Williams caught a shark and three fine redfish.
But it was some sport to see George and Jim land a 15-in. flounder ― and some more sport to tackle them on the table after they had passed thru the skillful manipulations of Chef Sterne and assistants.
Mr. Stewart and the News man were neck and neck for first place in demonstration of appreciation of the chowder and hot cakes.
Capt. Jacobson says he is now on the last ten miles which will complete the canal between Galveston and Corpus Christi, a distance of about 190 miles.
He says that without accident or delay he will finish the canal to Velasco in February, but by March any way he expects to close the gap; and then go over the route perfecting it.
There is an old canal from Velasco to Galveston which will be used.
The distances are: from Matagorda to head of bay 21 miles, to the San Bernard 51, to Velasco 61, to Galveston 86, Matagorda to Port Lavaca 40, to Port O’Connor about 50, to Rock Port or Aransas about 85, and to Corpus Christi about 108 miles.
Saturday afternoon the bow of Ben Hur was turned homeward; but as the norther was blowing briskly, anchor was cast for the night in the Caney channel at the head of the bay.
But morning brought even a fiercer northwind, but the Ben Hur made the trip all right.
It was a jolly and congenial party; and a fine trip, not only highly enjoyable as an outing, but the newness of the country, with bits of its history, made it very interesting and doubly enjoyable to the writer.
The Matagorda News,
October 18, 1912