When
Colonel Charles DeMorse -- widely acclaimed as the father of Texas journalism
-- died at Clarksville
in 1887, he left behind what has become one of Texas' rarest buildings.
The DeMorse house, Clarksville's oldest structure, was originally built as a two-room
log cabin with a central hallway in 1833, three years before Texas won its independence
from Mexico.
The Red River County Historical Society has embarked on
a $1 million fundraising effort that could lead to the restoration of the early
Greek revival home as an educational museum of early Texas architecture and the
remarkable life of Colonel DeMorse. "This structure is in danger of complete demise
without immediate intervention," said the Society.
Anyone who has read
a history of Texas in the 1800s will find many references to the Clarksville Standard,
which DeMorse founded as the Northern Standard in 1842. It was one of Texas' foremost
newspapers, largely because DeMorse not only recorded Texas history; he was one
of the principal makers of it.
DeMorse was born Charles Denney Morse
at Leiceser, Massachusetts, in 1816, and came to Texas in 1835 to help Texans
in their fight for independence. While traveling to Texas he was detained by British
agents at Nassau. They mistakenly listed his name as Charles DeMorse, but he liked
it so much that he adopted it permanently.
He served numerous roles for the new Republic of Texas, first in the Texas Navy
and then the Army, as a commissioner of public debt, and as a reporter for the
House of Representatives in the Republic Congress.
When he founded the
Standard, its first issue bore the motto, "Long May Our Banner Brave the Breeze--the
Standard of the Free."
The sparsely settled East Texas area, the lack
of roads and mail routes, and the numerous streams and rivers that could not be
crossed during floods created serious problems for DeMorse, but he persevered
-- and by 1846 the paper was doing so well that it was enlarged. In 1852, he changed
the name to The Standard and built a cylinder press. The only other such press
in Texas was at the Galveston Daily News.
In the following years, the
Standard was second in circulation among Texas newspapers and had agents as far
away as Philadelphia, Boston and New York.
Recognizing its influence,
early Texans used the Standard as a forum for their views on statehood, the Civil
War and other major political events. DeMorse often had something to say about
non-political issues, too. If a particular event such as a lynching or murder
caught his attention, his readers were likely to be get a good dose of his views.
Morse ran the paper from its birth to his death in 1887. Only during the
Civil War, when DeMorse rode off to become a colonel with the 19th Texas Cavalry,
was he absent and John R Woolridge took over the paper. Even upon his death, his
daughter continued the publication of the paper for about a year.
The
Standard was unique for 45 years because it was edited and published by a single
individual whose personality, opinions and hopes it reflected, and neither DeMorse
or his family wanted its control to pass to anyone else.
All
Things Historical >
February 12,
2004
A syndicated
column in over 40 East Texas newspapers
Published with permission
All Things Historical is a public service of the
East Texas Historical Commission. Bob Bowman is a former president of the Association
and the author of 30 books on East Texas. |
