San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1881-12-15
Observation-Disclosures

on the 18th OF October, 1892, he little
dreamed that it would require nearly
four hundred years to completes the
cycle OF his illustrious mission. More
than three centuries had to pass before
the regions he first revealed to civiliza-
ton began to re assert their sway over
the great empire of the Southwest.
The Dutch, the English and the Swedes
had seized the rich lands OF what are
now the Eastern States, but until JEFF
ferson secured Louisiana from France,
in 1904, the wave of Spanish discovery
and conqueft seemed to pause on the
shores of TIE Gulf of Mexico. Now at
last the genius of Columbus rs-appears
in Texas and Louisiana, and the grad
ual absorption of the republic OF Mexi-
CO into thst OF the United States seems
to be inevitable. My attention has
been directed by Hon. ]. w. Throck-
morton, late Governor Of Texas, now in
Philadelphia, where he is engaged in
organizing another trans continental
railway, to 4 COMMUNICATION in the Ola
las (Tsxas) Herald Of the 18th Of No
vember, in which the surprising fact is
noted by John Henry, Brown, that in
1886 in the Congress Of the Republic
of Texas, sitting at Columbia, Brazoria
county, a bill was passed incorporating
a railway company, with extraordinary
concessions, to run from the coast to
the sources OF, the. Colorado, river; and
thatin the same Congress Of 1S41 AZ,
John WI Dancey, Representativ from
Faysttey INTRODUCED, and in a Inasterly
speech Of nine hours, advocated a bilf
to annex the then Mexican province of
California to the Republic of Texas,
and to build railroad to connect the.
two countries. Mr.. Brown, who is still
living, comments upon this singular
circumstance, and at a time when there
was hardly fifty. miles Of, railroad in the
United States (now there are 100000
and when Texas was an independent
empire, and California Mexican prov
tnce, as follows: i''@ '.i ."
Somewhere between the mouth of
the Gulf Of California AMI perhaps
Monterey on the Pacific coast, on the
one side, and the ports of the Gulf of
Mexico on the other, Dancey-honest
rs Providence permits men to be, en-
thusiastic as all honest and intellectual
advanced thinkers are proven to be.
thoroughly versed in all the geograph-
cal knowledge then attainable, loving
his country and kind-advancsd those
ideas, coupled with the thought that its
consummsti ton would make Texas, lying
across the most temperate and produc-
tive climate in the world, the conserva-
tive republic Of the earth. He was
ahead of his generation, and was laugh
ed at by the minimizing as q visionist.
Dead and forgotten, except by few
who think and snalyze the wealth of
the rich North and Of Europe is now
daily before our eyes, indicating his
memory without knowing it, for the
evidences OF his genius and prescience
are only among the Undiscovered arch
ives in Austin, if not burnt in the late
destruction of the State capitol. Hon
ored be the memory Of John w. Dancey.
In 1S47 meeting was held in the town
of Victoria, Texas, Jesse o. Wheeler,
President, John Henry Brown, Secre-
tary, in which resolutions were passed,
and an address prepared to the Con-
gress of the United States, urging ma
tional aid in the construction OF rail-
road, as military necessity, from some
point on the Gulf of Mexico to the
Pacific ocean in California. An address
was written by John Henry Brown, as
sociated in committee with A. S. Cum
James w. Allen, William s.
Glass, and others, all then prominent
citizens Of Southwest Texas, and pre-
sented to Congress by Representative
'Nimothy Pilsberry, and referred to q
committee, which made favorable re-
port on the subject, but the sectional
jealousy of the day prevented action
upon it. Had Congress endorsed tie
plan proposed and the road been built,
does any sane man believe civil war
would have ensued! Would not the .
million and more men who died during
If A. -, II