History

   Richard Royster Royall, legislator, soldier, and plantation owner, was born on June 1, 1798, in Halifax County, Virginia, the youngest son of William and Elizabeth (Bedford) Royall. 
   His mother died when he was four, and he was reared by his stepmother, Polly (Glasscock) Royall. 
   When he was 21, his father gave him a plantation near Tuscumbia, Alabama.  
In 1819 he married Ann Alexander Underwood of Nashville, Tennessee. 
   They had six children before her death on February 18, 1831, in Matagorda County, Texas.  
   On January 3, 1839, Royall married Elizabeth Allen Love in Houston. Their only child died at age 11.  
   In 1819 Royall purchased, from Daniel Kimbell, a Spanish grant of two leagues near the Sabine River on the road between Natchitoches, Louisiana, and Nacogdoches, Texas. 
   He visited Texas in 1820 but found the place too unsettled for his taste.  

 Peter Powell, one of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred colonists, was an Englishman who moved to Texas from Baltimore, Maryland, possibly as early as 1819, when he and Aylett C. Buckner are thought to have settled on Buckner’s Creek in present Fayette County; this was before the official establishment of the Austin colony. 
   In July 1825 a P. Powell wrote Austin, claiming to have improved land in Bay Prairie. Peter Powell was paired with William Kingston as one of the Old Three Hundred families, and the two of them received title to a sitio of land in what is now Matagorda County on May 8, 1827. 

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   William Walter Bouldin, of Bay City, was not only one of the highly skilled physicians and surgeons of Matagorda County, but he also owned and operated a drug store, and owned considerable farm land which he inherited and which he developed after taking charge of the land. 
      He was proud of being descended from honorable ancestors, tracing an unbroken line back to Thomas Bouldin of Shelborne, England, born in 1523, whose grandson, Thomas III, came to Virginia in 1610, being captain of the good ship Swan which brought the first settlers to Jamestown. 
   They were numbered among the eminent families of Virginia, and have furnished judges, congressmen and educators to the public service of the state. 
   His immediate one traces back in this country to Col. Thomas Bouldin and his wife Nancy Clarke. 

   Zipprian’s Corner was the site of a general merchandise store at the crossroads of Texas 60 and the road leading from Gulf to the old iron bridge crossing the Colorado River (now Selkirk Island road).  
   The store was in operations from about 1927 until the 1950s.  
   Named for the owner of the store, Charles Wellington Zipprian, and his wife, Fannie, the Corner was a meeting place for families and young people living in the area.  

  EDITOR’S NOTE: A letter was written to Darwin Williams, president of the Matagorda Chamber of Commerce, from the U.S. Navy Fleet Office in New York City about the U.S.S. Matagorda’s service during World War II.
   The story was written by a member of the crew of the U.S.S. Matagorda.

U. S. S. MATAGORDA (AVP22)
Fleet Post Office
New York, N. Y.

   Having been designated to write this letter, I hardly know how to begin. Perhaps if I knew more of your city personally, I would not feel as if I were treading so uneasily. My words would come more freely; my thoughts would be clearer.
   In December, 1942, there stood in the Boston Navy Yard a cold gray, massive bulk. 

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  Illinois Colony, Iowa Colony, and Ohio Colony were “neighborhood” settlements northwest of Palacios. 
   They were named, obviously, for the persons who settled in their immediate areas, most of them coming south during the migrations from 1900 to 1920. 
   These settlements were never formalized and could not be found on maps; however, anyone at that period of time could give directions to them. 
   Items concerning the little communities could be found in the Palacios Beacon, giving news of births, deaths, illnesses, travels, social events, weather, school events, church services, and the like.

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1929
Dear Santa Claus:
   I am a little girl, eight years old. I am very glad to see dear old Santa come but so sorry to see him forget some poor little girl or boy who hasen’t got any money to buy them something nice for Christmas. Please when you remember ever one else that hasen’t got no way to get something nice if you have some left bring me a rain coat to wear to school when it rains hard. And if you have enough dolls to spare bring me one with brown curly hair and little sister wants a doll and my little brother says he wants a ball. Now dear Santa please don’t forget all the poor little children for you know our dear Lord said the poor were his and he hates to see any one forget his people and I do to. Will close hoping you get my letter and wishing you a Merry Christmas.
Vivian Fisher, Box 1173
Dear Santa:

   There is an old Indian legend to the effect “long, long ago before the coming of the white man,” in all the country drained by the Brazos and Colorado there was but one river. It was a mighty stream, the Caney (Old Caney).  
   According to the legend the Great Spirit becoming angry with a tribe of Indians who lived in the coast country caused a great storm as punishment.   
   This storm lasted for days and flooded the land. After the storm all was changed.  
   Where had been the great river was now but a small stream. “Caney Creek.”   
   The great river was now two rivers, the white man’s Brazos on the east, the red man’s Colorado on the west.  
   Between the rivers were the hunting grounds of the Karankawas, the gift of the Great Spirit.  
   Where had been the great river was now but a small stream. “Caney Creek.”   

   “Today there are no more dense canebrakes and wild grains growing in the river bottoms. Caney no longer flows an even course, but bobs up spasmodically here and there.”

   William Leslie Cazneau, soldier and politician, was born on October 5, 1807, in Boston, Massachusetts, and arrived in Matagorda, Texas, in 1830 to establish a general store.  
   He served on the staff of Gen. Thomas J. Chambers in 1835 and was a member of the guard that escorted Antonio López de Santa Anna and his staff as prisoners to Galveston Island after the battle of San Jacinto. 
   At the direction of Col. Juan N. Seguín he collected the remains of the Texan soldiers at the Alamo and saw to their burial with full military honors. 

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