History

   Situated in the shadows of the Bay City Regional Airport, near the crossroads of FM 457 and FM 2540, is a small cemetery which was a part of the Caney community, and is now only a memory, except for the historical marker placed on the side during the Texas Centennial in 1936. 
   The marker reads: 
Site of Caney Post Office
Established about 1838
In its vicinity members of
Austin’s Colony established 
pioneer sugar plantations.
   During the days of the Republic of Texas – and earlier – the original Caney was once called Caney Crossing.  
   It received its name from the Caney Creek, thought to be an old bed of the Colorado River, which flowed through a dense cane break.  
   Caney Crossing was situated in one of the most historic areas of Matagorda County – the bottom lands of the Colorado River and Caney Creek.  

   Paul L. Brewer, M. D., was born in Bronte, Texas, on January 26, 1912, to Mary Simpson Brewer and Robert Lee Brewer. 
   His family moved to Rogers, Arkansas, where Paul received his grade school education. 
   He received his B. S. degree from the University of Arkansas in 1935; he was valedictorian of his class and a member of Phi Beta Pi, a national honorary fraternity. 
   He received his medical degree from Arkansas in 1938. 
   Brewer served a twelve-month residency at Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri, in 1940, and he was supervisor of pediatric residents at Mercy Hospital for twenty-seven months until 1944. 
   He received his license to practice medicine in Arkansas on June 30, 1940, and his Texas license on November 15, 1944.
   While Brewer was supervisor of pediatric residents at Mercy Hospital, he met Quinta Nahrendorf, a nursing supervisor. 

   The Rugeley family is one of the oldest in the county, and one of the most honored and prominent in all the affairs of the county since 1840 when John Rugeley came to Texas. 
   John Rugeley was a native of South Carolina, but moved in 1824 to Mobile, Alabama, where he was a member of the state legislature; and in 1840 came to Texas, settling on Caney and clearing away one of the dense cane-breaks on that stream to make way for his plantation. 
   He became interested in the public affairs of the then young Republic and was elected to Congress in 1843. 
   He soon acquired considerable wealth by means of successful planting, sugar and cotton being the main products of his large plantation, these products being shipped through the port of Matagorda. 
   He died in 1878 at the age of 84 years.
   The only son surviving him by his first wife married in Alabama, was Edward S. Rugeley, born in 1830 in Alabama. 

   Celebration A Big Success
Six to Eight Thousand People Attend the Giant Celebration at Palacios July Fourth.
   Probably the largest and most successful 4th of July celebration ever held in this section of the Gulf Coast, was celebrated when Palacios honored her Matagorda County heroes.
   The city was in gala attire, every business house was appropriately and lavishly decorated.  Juniper Pluvius took a day off and Old Sol shown forth in all his glory—casting sunshine into the hearts of the happy throng.
   Crowds began to arrive on the 3rd and by the time the excursion train steamed in from Bay City the city fairly hummed with activity.
   Prof. G. Martino’s band of 50 pieces, made up of Bay City and Palacios men, started the day off by playing a concert at the depot as the excursion train arrived. 
   Prof. Martino deserves a great deal of credit for the excellent band he gave us, considering the space of time for rehearsing.

   Caleb R. Bostwick (Bostick, Bostic), one of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred colonists, may have originally been from Columbia County, New York. 
   He moved to Texas as early as 1820 or 1821, when he traveled from Arkansas with John Ingram and the Thomas Williams family. 
   In 1822 Bostwick and Williams helped move newly arrived settlers up the Colorado from the landing at its mouth. 
   A census of the Colorado District in March 1823 listed Bostwick as a twenty-eight-year-old carpenter who owned one horse. 
   By May of that year he had enlisted in a scouting company, headed by Moses Morrison, that had been raised to control Karankawa Indians in the area around the Colorado River and Tres Palacios Creek, and in June 1823 Bostwick, Williams, Morrison, and Thomas Jamison cut a path south to Bay Prairie in what later became Matagorda County, then over to the rich lands of the Caney Creek bottom and to Cedar Lake. 

   James Attwell (Atwell), printer, newspaper publisher, and editor, was born in New York and apparently moved to Texas soon after the Texas Revolution.
   He was publisher and printer of the Matagorda Colorado Gazette and Advertiser, the first issue of which appeared on May 16, 1839, with W. Donaldson as editor.
   By Dec. 25, 1839, Attwell had sold the paper to William Douglas Wallach, but he continued to work on the Gazette as a printer.
   Whenever Wallach was away, Attwell served as his “authorized Agent” and had “entire control” of the paper. The Gazette apparently ceased publication in 1843.
   Attwell later became editor and proprietor of the Matagorda Weekly Despatch (1843–46).
   He was apparently assisted in the editorial work by Richard Drake Sebring, who died in August 1844.
   By 1850 Attwell had moved to Lavaca (now Port Lavaca).

   Moses Morrison, one of the Old Three Hundred colonists and leader of the force some historians call the precursor to the Texas Rangers, was born in North Carolina, probably in 1793, and in 1821 moved from Missouri to Texas. 
   He had previously served on the upper Mississippi frontier with the United States Army. 
   He was probably living on the Colorado River near Columbus by November 1822, when in elections ordered by Governor José F. Trespalacios he was elected a lieutenant in the militia of Stephen F. Austin’s colony. 
   In May 1823 Morrison became commander of a scouting company composed of ten men recruited to control the Karankawa Indians around the Colorado and Tres Palacios rivers. 
   Some see this group as forerunners of the later Texas Rangers. 
   With partner William Cooper as one of the Old Three Hundred families, Morrison received title to a sitio of land in what is now Matagorda County on July 24, 1824. 

   Albert Clinton Horton was born September 4, 1798 in Hancock County, Georgia, son of William and Mary Thomas Horton. 
   His father died when he was very young and later his mother married Colonel Samuel Dent, moving to LaGrange, Franklin County, Alabama in 1823.
   Albert Horton married Eliza Holliday in 1829, daughter of General Thomas Holliday. Eliza was born in North Carolina in 1815, but was living in Alabama with her brother-in-law and guardian, W. J. Croom, father of Colonel John L. Croom of Matagorda, Texas.
   Horton and his wife moved to Greensboro, Alabama where he served one term in the Alabama State Senate in 1832.
   Albert Horton came to Matagorda County, Texas, April, 1835, when he purchased several leagues of land in the northern part of Matagorda County, which is now part of Wharton County. 
   In addition, he was granted a league and labor of land on January 19, 1838.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Matt Pierce worked with Burton D. Hurd and brought in alot of excursions from the Midwest to Collegeport, beginning around 1910. 
   The family eventually moved here  and later moved to Hidalgo County after the deaths of their children and the Collegeport “bust!” 
   They are buried there.
Matthew & Frances
Smaha Pierce
   Matthew Pierce was born April 20, 1871 in Ohio to Hiram Pierce and his wife, according to available records.
   Frances “Fannie” Smaha was born December 15, 1881 in Nebraska City, Nebraska to George (1851 - 1920) and Frances Bartos Smaha (1856-1914).  
   Her siblings were George M., Frank Jack, Joseph C., Emma Helen, Fred Harold and Sophia Lucile. By 1900, the family was living in Red Oak, Montgomery, Iowa. 
   By 1910, Matt was working with land developer Burton D. Hurd, founder of Collegeport. 

   Collegeport Day 2020 is cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns. 
   Collegeport Day celebrates the founding of the Town of Collegeport on May 25, 1908. 
   A homecoming celebration has been held every year since 1908 and is now observed on the last Saturday in May, said Collegeport resident G.W. Franzen.
   Since 1945, a covered dish meal featuring barbecued beef prepared by local chefs has been hosted at the Mopac House Community Center. 
      Side dishes, salads and desserts prepared by guests always complete the meal. 
   “2020 is the first year since its founding that the community and friends will not gather, but are encouraged to reflect on past celebrations and to remember those who are no longer with us. 
   “We hope to resume this long-standing tradition in May 2021,” Franzen added.