Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1854-10-13
WASHING TON NEWS AND GOSSIP

WASHING TON NEWS AND GOSSIP.
"A Lion in Washington.-An American
readers will recollect the Col. Kinney, of Kin
neys Ranch, of Corpus Christi, in Texas wss
OF the Nueces, who acted 80 conspicuous par
throughout our late Mexican war This dis
tinguished gentleman, being now in Wash
ington, On his way to Europe, is at present the
observed of all observers here. Old Fathe,
lime seems to have laid his hand lightly, in.
deed, ON the gallant, enterprising, and ener
gefic frontiersman, wLo, at forty, flor be mus
have arrived at that age,) locks as hale aid
active as when in 1888, '39, 40, al, and AZ
It was the fortune of the senior, editor of the
Star to be more or less associated with him il
the then extreme western wilds of Texas-ther
the jumping off place, as it were, of American
civilization. In those days, there were some
four hundred men, most of them under thirty
years old, residing on and around that from
tier, always ready to mount and be off against
Indian or Mexican. Some Of them formed the
nucleus of the many hair-brained expeditions
the history ofwhich have become essential Tea.
lures in the annals Of the Republic of Texas
The Inflated Santa Fe and other expeditions
sent large portion of them to premature
graves, and another large portion of them died
by the arrow and scalring knife of the Indians,
and the lance of the Mexicans, in small affairs,
before the Mexican war commenced Another
large portion (Texas Rangers) sacrificed their
lives in that contest, leaving hardly handful
OF the gallant but reckless band, now living.
The most conspicuous of them during the Mex
lean war were Kinney, Hays, Mccullough,
and Walker-the last mentioned from this
city. Walker, it will be recollected, was
killed in an encounter with Mexican guerillas;
Mccullough, the trusty scout of Gen. Taylor,
is now United States marshal of Texas. HAYS
Jack Hays-the hero of Monterey, was not
long since sheriff of San Francisco and Kin
ney, the long headed private counsellor ofTay-
lor-and, if we recollect correctly, Scott also
throughout that brilliant, arduous, and glori-
rious campaign, has since been scarcely less
famous as the architect of the fortunes of the
region of Texas lying between the Nueces and
the Rio Grande, having by his enterprise and
sagacity built up a thriving community of
three thousand souls at Corpus Christi, SO we'll
known a. Kinney's Ranch" in the early
times Of Texas trials. His expedients to at
tract attention to that section of his PROSPER
Gus State, we recollect we'll, we're as stupen.
dous as they were novel in many cases. His
celebrated Fair, not long after the war, attr &C.
ted fifteen thousand souls to that then far, out.
of-the-way corner of the earth, who bought of
him, among them, thirteen thousand head of
horned cattle, thousands of horses, mules and
sheep, and perhaps fifty thousand a ;res of land
sufficient of them repa ming there after the ex.
citement of the occasion had passed of. to Law
the foundation of the prosperity Of the now
most thriving city or town of Corpus Christi.
We recollect that it was said at the time thai
Col. Kinney spent fifty thousand dollars in en-
tertaining his guests on that memorable occa.
sion, and yet came out of The affair gamer
by some hundred thousand dellafp. He is one
OF the men Of our country nos. peculiarly
typical Of the genius of pure Anericanisu
In Illinois, when but boy, mot twenty. FIVE
years OF ageJ he was famous as the great pio-
neer specuat and undertaken in th at region
failing there in the financial troubles of 1897
while engaged in business requiring him to
use millions of dollars. His labgrs there paved
the way for the subsequent prosperity of thou
sands OF the present citizens Of that State.
though terminating go disastrously for him
SELF He then cast himself on the shere Of
Texas, two hundred miles west of the nearest
considerable white settlement and BATTLING
first with the Indians, then with Mexicans.
and not unfrequently with American outlaws.
far more dangerous enemies than either of
the other classes named his life having been
perhaps, more frequently in peril than that Of
any other living American, at forty years Of
age he has fairly conquered all the difficulties
by which he was surrounded, and sees his
dreams and labors of so many trying years
realized, in having rescued his beautiful coun
try from the savage, and the hardly more in.
hospitable attribute of the desolation of an
almost entire want of inhabitants. Having
spent many Of the best years of our youth on
that same frontier, We are conversant with the
details of the trials by which its pioneers were
surrounded, and knowing we'll that but very
few Of them now live to think over the troubles
dangers, and excitement, which, in those days
were the hourly concomitants of their exis.
tence, we may be pardoned by our readers 70,
thus being led afar back on the path of mem.
DRY, by seeing on Pennsylvania avenue, this
morning, the tall, sturdy and manly form Of
the famous ''Col. Kinney, of Kinney's Ranch u
who figured so conspicuously throughout the
Mexican war
The Southern Wings Tho Charleston Mer
curry, in recently considering the probable
future of the Southern Wing party, conceive:
that they will organize separately from the
Southern Democracy, and urges them SO to do
taking their stand upon ultra and very ex.
treme southern positions, as means of forcing