Texian Navy Day Celebration and Commissioning Ceremony

   Sept 16 2023, 11 a.m.    Matagorda Harbor Pavilion (East side)    Welcome remarks by Admiral Craig Hlvinka, Harbor Master and also Texas Historical Commission Marine Steward.     Master of Ceremonies - Admiral Chris Barbee, Mayor of El Campo.

Samuel Fisher lived a complicated life of business, politics

   Samuel Rhoads Fisher, secretary of the Texas Navy during the republic era, was born in Philadelphia, Penn. on Dec. 31, 1794.     He was reared and educated in the best schools of that city.        He began life as a government employee in the Naval Stores of Philadelphia.

Jane Cazneau was the only lady colonizer in Texas

   CAZNEAU, JANE MARIA ELIZA MCMANUS (1807–1878).    Jane Cazneau [pseuds.: Montgomery, Cora Montgomery, Corrine Montgomery], journalist, author, promoter, and unofficial diplomat, daughter of William Telemachus and Catharina (Coons) McManus, was born in or near Troy, New York, on April 6, 1807.

"Natham Blum installed 1st TVs in Bay City, Palacios" By Katherine Pollard Carter

   What’s wrong with your car radio?” Nathan Blum, owner of Radio Center on Nichols Avenue, asked his distraught customer.  “It cuts off if I go over a bump or around a corner or up a hill or down a hill and it’s too full of static to understand a program,” the customer wailed.

Memories of the family home at Rotherwood

Rotherwood    Mary L. White was born in 1815 in Knoxville, Tenn., whence she came with her father, the late B.J. White, to Texana, Jackson County, Texas in 1830.     Mr. White settled first with his family on the Navidad.     In 1833 she was married to Colonel Robert H.

Tidehaven was early Tres Palacios River port

   Tres Palacios, also known as Tidehaven, was a port community on the Tres Palacios River south of Hawley and near what is now Farm Road 459, thirteen miles southwest of Bay City in western Matagorda County.

Pumphrey Burnett credited with founding Tidehaven

   Pumphrey Burnett (Pumphry or Pumpry Burnet), partner of Albert L. Sojourner as one of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred families, was born around 1796 to Plenander and Elizabeth Burnett.

Englishman 1st to settle on lower Caney

   Sargent, on FM 457, five miles northwest of the Gulf of Mexico and 24 miles southeast of Bay City in the eastern corner of Matagorda County, was named for George Sargent, an Englishman who immigrated to Texas from Cornwall, England, in 1834.

Kenner Prairie once farming community

   Kenner, also known as Kenner Prairie, was between Live Oak and Caney creeks 25 miles northeast of Matagorda and four miles southwest of Sargent in southeastern Matagorda County.

Israel and Abe Ditch Family

Almost since the founding of Bay City in 1894, the Ditch name was synonymous with excellence in dry goods and men’s and women’s furnishings.      The Ditch brothers, Israel and Abe, opened one of the first stores in Bay City which was located at the corner of Avenue G and Seventh Street.