Texas... who'da believed it

the wild world of the internet have led me to the wilds of a 19th century Northeast TX colony. I mean really? But it just seems like people were willing to try and risk ALOT in those days. I also suspect they often were sold fools gold and made the best of it too, but hey. So I was hunting around old posts on Rootsweb under one or the other Counties in MO that we had family in and I came across a post about the Andersons. My families Andersons. So I fired off an e-mail to the poster. She told me quite a story. In point of reference... if you look at my last post with pictures of James Campbell, you see his first wife Rebecca. She's the stern looking one ;) Rebecca was an Anderson.

The story she told me goes as follows. Rebecca's Uncle and shortly thereafter her Grandparents went down to settle TX around 1846. This was during the time Texas was the Republic of Texas, and they settled in a place called the Peters Colony. TX was eager to bring in settlement, and offered 320 acres to a family or 160 to a single male. This was doled out by the colony 'empresarios' who were under contract to encourage the settlment. The land of the Peters Colony was good, but the Comanche weren't real welcoming (and who can blame them).

Later, back in MO during the civil war, a serious riff developed in the family between those who favored the Union and those who favored the South. Well, Rebeccas father Andrew (who would be my GGG Grandfather) was one of the latter, and according to the story things got so hot he had to run from a Unionist posse called by one of his daughters (could it have been Rebecca? Don't know) and left to join his brother and parents in TX. Obviously this is a family story thats hard to corroberate but wow.

There is a large contingent of Andersons that lived in and remain in Dallas County.



So I've some reading to do on this part of TX and this family, I've already ordered a family genealogy I should be receiving soon. But the world gets even smaller... this woman who told me all this married a Campbell, who may very well also be related, he is checking on some of the names I mentioned LOL.