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The
Old Stone Fort
by Archie
P. McDonald, PhD |
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In
the spring of 1779 a later-day Moses named
Antonio Gil Y'Barbo led some displaced persons back to East Texas
to found the community of Nacogdoches.
They had formerly lived in western Louisiana and eastern Texas near
Spanish missions, but a change in government policy had forced them
to move to San Antonio
in 1774.
As soon as they arrived in San
Antonio, these East Texas Spaniards petitioned for permission
to return eastward. Their request granted, Y'Barbo led them to the
banks of the Trinity River where they established the community of
Bucareli. Four years of floods and trouble with the Comanche convinced
them to move eastward, where they founded Nacogdoches.
Soon after leading his wanderers to the valley of LaNana and Banita
Bayous, Y'Barbo erected a Stone House on the northeast corner of town
square. It was private property, but because of Y'Barbo's civil and
militia authority the Stone House took on a public nature it never
lost. There he conducted private and government business, so it became
the civic center of the community.
When Simon Herrera came to East
Texas in 1806 to negotiate the Neutral Ground agreement with General
James Wilkinson, he headquartered in Y'Barbo's Stone House. In 1813,
the Army of the North led by Augustus Magee and Bernardo Gutierrez
de Lara proclaimed Texas independent from Spain while occupying the
house, and within its walls A. Mower set type for the Gaceta
de Tejas, the first -- if short lived -- newspaper in Texas, before
moving on to defeat in the southwest.
James Long led Americans across the Sabine River in 1819 in violation
of the Adams-Onis
Treaty, and again used the Stone House as the venue to declare
Texas independent, once more unsuccessfully. The story was repeated
by Haden Edwards and the Fredonians in the 1820s, again unsuccessfully.
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The
Old Stone Fort
Postcard courtesy rootsweb.com/~txgenweb// postcards/Index.html |
Y'Barbo's Stone
House hosted meetings of the Nacogdoches Committee of Public Safety
and the selection of representatives to the conventions and the Consultation
during the Texas Revolution and it witnessed the Battle of Nacogdoches
in 1832. There mustered soldiers for service in the Civil War. Towards
the end of the nineteenth century, the Stone House, by now known as
the Stone Fort though it never served as such, fell on bad times.
By then it sheltered a saloon and was consider quite unsavory. Still
it was a shock to the community when the Perkins brothers razed the
old rock house and erected a modern business building.
The Cum Concilio Club, a local women's group, salvaged the remains
of the Stone House and stored them on Washington Square. Later some
were used in a building on the public school campus. In 1936, a replica
of the Old Stone Fort was located on the campus of Stephen F. Austin
State University, and visitors can drop by and get a good idea of
what the first building in Nacogdoches looked like.
All Things Historical
MAY 13-19,
2001
Published by permission.
(Archie P. McDonald is Director of the East Texas Historical Association
and author or editor of over 20 books on Texas)
See East Texas |
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