A LITTLE ABOUT CYRUS CAMPBELL

From Comanche County Gravestone Inscriptions

Copied and Compiled by Margaret Waring and Samuel J.C. Waring


The life of Cyrus Campbell was researched and written by Margaret Waring in 1977.  Some additional information (in italics) has been added.  Because the piece was originally written as part of a series of books on Comanche County cemeteries, some minor changes have been made to correspond to this format.  Records of the First United Methodist Church indicate his name was Cyrus W. while documents of the Republic of Texas indicated Cyrus K.  He had a son named Cyrus Maxwell Campbell.

    


    As his parents had been, Cyrus Campbell was born in  North Carolina on the 11th of October 1810.  He applied for land as one of Stephen F. Austin’s colonists and came to Texas by way of Arkansas in 1832 with his four brothers(1).  He received a grant of one league (4,428.4 acres) in modern Grimes County.

     In 1835, Cyrus married Rebecca Robbins in what would soon become Austin County.  Rebecca’s parents, William and Mary Robbins, had come to Texas with Austin’s Old Three Hundred.  William Robbins received title on July 19, 1824, to one sito (4,428.4 acres ) in Austin County where the family evidently settled.  During 1835 and 1836, Cyrus lived at Columbia in Brazoria County.

     A blacksmith by trade, Cyrus was evidently a busy one.  Among the Audited Claims Papers in the Texas State Archives is a voucher for five dollars he was due for work on a gun carriage done October 14, 1835.  Another voucher dated November 25, 1835 authorized twenty dollars the Provisional Government of Texas owed him for repairing the arms of the Mobile Grays.  This unit of about 30 volunteers was organized in Alabama by James Butler Bonham, A.C. Horton, and S.P. St. John for the purpose of joining the fight for Texas independence.  After several encounters, all these men are presumed to have been among those lost in the Goliad Massacre on March 27, 1836.

    In 1870 the Texas Legislature approved an act providing pensions for veterans of the War for Texas Independence.  Cyrus’ application does not seem to have received final approval but it is a most interesting document.

    He says that about the 16th of March, 1836 (the Alamo fell on March 6), he received the general order of General Sam Houston for troops to rendezvous at Gonzales.  Campbell says he went at once since he was registered in a company at Columbia commanded by Captain Wm. Patton.  The men arrived in squads and Campbell notes he served with a company commanded by Captain Gibson Kuykendall.

    During the retreat from Gonzales, measles broke out in camp and Cyrus and his brothers (1) became ill.  By the time he recovered, the Battle of San Jacinto had ended (arrived the day following the battle (1))the war and he never returned to the army or received his formal discharge.  His great-grandson, Raleigh R. White III stated that upon returning to San Jacinto, the Campbell brothers captured Santa Anna.(1) Cyrus’ statement is sworn to by Rufus E. Campbell and John Campbell as witnesses.  These men are listed among the soldiers ordered by Houston to remain at Harrisburg as a rear guard while the rest of the Texas army went on to San Jacinto.  Rufus and John subsequently received land grants in recognition of their military service.

    Also among the Audited Claims Papers are other bits of evidence of Cyrus’ activities during the early days in Texas.  Most well know locally is the fact that Campbell made a set of leg irons used on the imprisoned General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna who as president and dictator of Mexico, had led the Mexican army.  W.H. Patton, Chief of the Prison Guard at Columbia, received the irons on July 23, 1836.  On his voucher for the five dollar charge, Patton comments that  “the price is about right if not very moderate”.

   By joint resolution on October 6, 1841, the Republic of Texas Congress approved payment, in promissory notes of Campbell’s claim for $64.12 for his work on the schooner of war Liberty.  This vessel was one of the four original ships purchased for the Texas navy.

    After the war, Cyrus settled in Austin County where he farmed for many years.  He is listed in the 1840 tax roll as having completed the patent on 100 acres of land.  He was also guardian for his youthful brother-in-law, John Reid Robbins, who had 911 acres.  Rebecca’s mother held 2,422 acres as administratrix of the estate of William Robbins who had died in October of 1836.

   Rebecca died and only two of their children were living in 1911.  One son, Cyrus M. was in Temple by then and another, William T. lived at Childress. 

    On October 3, 1846, Cyrus married Minerva T. Clemmons in Washington County.

   In 1870, the census taker lists Cyrus and Minerva living in Austin County.  Cyrus says they lived “near Travis”.  At home were their  children:  James I. who was 19, Lewis W. , 16, and Alice who was 10.  Also their daughter Ann F. was living at home with her husband James E. Stevens and their three month old son.  By 1880, the situation had changed slightly.  The only child remaining at home was Alice who was there with her new husband, James M. Presler.  The James E. Stevens family was living nearby and included three children by 1880.

    Soon afterward, there seems to have been considerable change in the family’s activities.  Cyrus M. who had  lived in Austin and Washington Counties, sold his interest in a successful store at Brenham and moved to Belton where he put in a lumber yard about 1883. He subsequently moved to Temple as his lumber yard chain grew.

    James I. Campbell, then of McLennan County, bought property in De Leon on September 10, 1882.  He apparently went into the lumber business in De Leon first purchasing a lumber yard owned by John D. Ham.   Later he partnered with Ham and still later with W.C. Streety.

    James E. Stevens, also of McLennan County, bought a city block in De Leon January 31, 1883.  In March he sold half of this to Cyrus Campbell and this deed is acknowledged at Comanche on May 30, 1883.

    Evidently Cyrus did not live long in De Leon but he is remembered fondly as a minister in the Methodist Church.  It was noted in a Methodist history assembled in 1943 by Mrs. May Streety Whaley that “Rev. Cyrus Campbell, local preacher...was abundant in good works and labored faithfully in the construction of the first building (constructed in 1883)....”  She also recalled that aside from the charter members of the church, other early who wrought well in the erection of the first house of worship  including J.E. Stevens and J.I. Campbell.  His death is the first recored in the Record of Deaths of Members   A stained glass memorial window honoring him was placed in the church building constructed by the Methodist in 1895. Another window replaced the original window when the church constructed a new building in 1917.  The window was subsequently transferred to the present First United Methodist Church building on Texas Avenue when it was constructed in 1964-65.  The pane of glass honoring Campbell was inadvertently knocked from the center of the window when a child missed his step and fell into the window several years ago.

      Cyrus died in De Leon September 12, 1883.  On September 30th, less than three weeks later, Minerva died there also.  He was the first person buried in the De Leon Cemetery and his wife was the second.  He had given her instructions as to where he wished to be buried because it overlooked his new home town.  A historical marker was placed on his grave about ten years ago.

   The Campbells’ daughter Alice and her husband James M. Presler, lived in De Leon for a time during the mid-1880s.  They later moved to Comanche where Presler was a law partner of S.J. Thomas and later of T.L. Hutchinson.  Presler was educated at Soule University at Chappel Hill and at Texas A&M College, and he studied law after his marriage to Alice.  His career as a jurist was a long and distinguished one and he represented the district including Comanche County as State Senator for three terms in the Legislature.  He left Comanche to become associate Justice of the Court of Civil appeals in the Second District and in the Seventh District which was created Later.  Cyrus Maxwell Campbell moved to Temple in 1894.  His daughter Annie May married Dr. Raleigh R. White Jr. (1872-1917) in 1903.  Dr. White and his partner Dr. Arthur Carroll Scott founded Temple Sanitarium which has become the renown central Texas health facility  and was renamed Scott and White following the death of White.

    The Cambells were related to the Maxwell (thus the Maxwell in the Campbell names) Chambers family of Salisbury, Rowen County, North Carolina.  An uncle founded Campbell College in Salisbury.


Notes:  (1) letter from Raleigh R. White III to Phil Tate 1981.

Photographs of (L) Cyrus Campbell and his wife (R) Minerva Clemmons Campbell.  The two photos are extracted from copies of pictures taken during the placement of a historical marker at Campbell’s grave. 

He made the leg irons used on Santa Anna.