May 7, 2025 • 43 mins
Lucy Parker Shaw was an early American settler who played a notable role in the development of Galveston, Texas, during the Republic of Texas era. Born in Eastport, Maine, she was the daughter of Jonathan Weston, a prominent local figure. In December 1838, Lucy, her husband Joshua Clark Shaw, and their two-year-old child relocated to Galveston, joining a group of fellow New Englanders seeking new opportunities in the burgeoning republic.
James Valentino is the author of From Maine to Galveston: The Life and Letters of Lucy Parker Shaw, a book that compiles and contextualizes the personal letters of Lucy Parker Shaw, an early settler in Galveston, Texas. While specific details about Valentino's personal background or any familial connection to Lucy Parker Shaw are not readily available, his work indicates a scholarly interest in early American history, particularly the experiences of settlers during the Republic of Texas era. His compilation provides valuable insights into the challenges and daily life of that period through Lucy's firsthand accounts.
James Valentino's Website: https://www.jamesvalentinobooks.com/
From Maine to Galveston, Republic of Texas https://www.amazon.com/Maine-Galveston-Republic-Texas-Letters/dp/1532307101
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You have macro history, what we usually learn
in school George Washington,benjamin Franklin, american
Revolution.
You know all these big things,big personalities, but the
stories of the individuals youhave to dig for that.
That's where you learn whatpeople's lives were actually
like.
The mosquitoes were justhorrific.
There was a sailor who jumpedoff a ship one day because he
(00:23):
couldn't take it anymore.
People will be shocked to findout.
Sam Houston was not loved byeveryone.
Death is always around everycorner.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to Galveston, unscripted.
In this episode today I sitdown with historian and author
Mr James Valentino.
We discuss his work andresearch into those early days
of Galveston back in the 1830sand 1840s.
One big reason I wanted to haveJames on the podcast is because
of one of the books he'spublished and that is From Maine
to Galveston, republic of Texas, the Life and Letters of Lucy
(01:00):
Parker Shaw.
James stumbled upon theseletters while doing genealogical
research and once he discoveredthe beautifully written
descriptions of early Galvestonhe knew he needed to do
something about it.
So he published these letters afew years ago and we sat down
to discuss what he discoveredalong the way.
What I really enjoy about theletters in this book written by
Miss Lucy Parker Shaw are thebeautiful, long-winded
(01:20):
descriptions of what the islandwas like back in the 1830s and
40s.
They really capture the grit offrontier life and what it was
really like back in those earlydays right here on Galveston
Island.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Welcome to Galveston Unscripted those guys are not
book buyers, though the girlsare.
Though what group are thebiggest book buyers for you?
Well, definitely the girls.
There have probably sold afourth of them a book you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Something like that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Probably one out of every four people there bought a
book, which is a big deal, youknow, percentage-wise I think.
Yeah, Even in Maine I didn'tsell a lot of books and everyone
in Eastport where I give thetalk, very interested.
They were very interested inTexas and even though I was
(02:06):
doing the talk was about thisgirl who came from their
hometown.
They were more interested inTexas and Galveston and what
happened there and I was.
I found myself talking moreabout the Texas City disaster
and the hurricane of you know,1900 hurricane.
Then I was talking, then I wasdoing with the talking about her
You're trying to talk about1838.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I was trying to talk about 1838 and they wanted to
talk about yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
They were just fascinated by Texas and this
kind of stuff actually.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh, I got you a water by the way.
So one of these waters is foryou if you want it.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, I drag all that .
What's the oh the Patriot?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Oh, the Patriot, yes, yeah, the Patriot movie.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You know what movie they should have done instead of
the Patriot?
The Bernardo de Galvez story.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, that might be something interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
The way Bernardo de Galvez and his team moved across
the Gulf Coast during theAmerican Revolution.
For Spain it's so important tothe American story.
It's literally pivotal to theAmerican story for Spain.
But it's so important to theAmerican story, yeah, it's
literally pivotal to theAmerican story to get the
British off of the Gulf Coast,but nobody ever tells that story
.
You know, yeah, I know it's oneof those swept under the rug.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It's interesting what catches on in history and
really what doesn't.
There's a lot of hidden storiesout there, like Lucy Char,
whatever kind of like thingsthat just people.
I don't know for what reason.
Maybe it's just his name,bernardo de Galvez.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, if only they named a city after him, that'd
be nice.
Yeah, that would be nice ifthey did name a city after him.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Nobody even thinks about the name, of how Galveston
got his name, do they?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Not really.
Not really, but it's, I mean,it's obviously from him.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
James, could you tell us a little bit about yourself
before we get into it here?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I was born in, actually, san Leon, but then, as
I was a kid, little bitty kid,like three years old we moved to
Bayview.
This is like we thought of myparents.
My mom insisted on moving.
My father was a commercialfisherman, and so he was a
shrimper.
He also, though, worked forshell dredging companies in the
50.
And that's where he really made.
(04:16):
He made a living.
I mean, that kind of made him,in a way.
He still continued in thatbusiness, and he and my brother
bought into Eagle Point.
So I had been around that life.
At one point.
My dad had two Gulf boats, wherehe fished them out of Grasso's,
which is down from 19th Streetyou think of the Mosquito Fleet
(04:39):
there and all that.
Grasso's was a little fartherdown.
I can't remember the street14th somewhere along in there.
All I remember farther down.
I can't remember the street14th somewhere along in there.
All I remember is sitting onhis boat looking across the
street at the.
What they used to tell me wasthe insane asylum or whatever,
the psych ward with the big redbuilding or whatever they call
it.
Yeah, and so kind of, I alwayskind of got in.
(05:01):
You know, that was somethingthat was always there, and so
when I got out of high school Ibought a boat and I did all that
kind of stuff.
You know I bought and soldoysters for a few years, made a
little money doing that.
That was a hard business.
For a while that kind ofbusiness kind of started getting
a downturn.
I really couldn't keep up withit anymore.
(05:21):
I was getting older and I wentback to school with the money I
sold and leaning on my wife'sincome.
She was making more money allthe time.
So I went back to school and Igot my bachelor's degree and
then my master's degree.
And what the hell do you dowith a worthless history degree?
Oh no, I started hired on atCollege of the Mainland as an
(05:41):
adjunct, and I've been doingthat ever since.
And in the meantime, hired onat College of the Mainland as an
adjunct, and I've been doingthat ever since.
And in the meantime I wouldbecause of the research you know
you have to learn how to doresearch and all this kind of
stuff which I kind of reallyenjoyed.
And I started writing littlestories and I first thing, one
of the first little books I haveis a book about Eagle Point.
(06:02):
That's the piece of property,and I found some very
interesting things and I wrote alittle thing about it,
self-published it.
It really was just more for, Iguess, practice or fun.
It's a little thin book aboutEagle Point.
And then I wrote another bookthat's just stories that my dad
told me or this or that aboutGalveston Bay stuff that my dad
(06:26):
told me, or this or that aboutGalveston Bay stuff.
And then I've read, I wrotethis and of course I realized if
anybody else is going to beinterested in my stuff.
It wasn't really the first twothings.
Really, honestly, although Ididn't like my book of stories,
I think there's some good stuffin there.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
What put you on my radar is I was doing research on
a couple different things and Idon't remember exactly what it
was.
Whether I was doing research ona couple different things and I
don't remember exactly what itwas.
Whether I was doing research onShaw, the one of the men who
named the strand.
His last name was Shaw, Causemy last name is Shaw and I think
I was Googling or just lookingShaw Galveston just to see if
there were any connections,Cause my mom's from Louisiana,
(07:00):
my dad's from Michigan, but Iwas like well, maybe there are
extended connections somehowtrying to tie me back to
Galveston.
But of course, this was probably2020 and your book had been out
for a few years, so it startedto show up in the Google results
.
I saw your book and I was likeI've got to get this.
So I went down to the bookstoreover here and bought From Maine
(07:20):
to Galveston, republic of Texas.
For those who don't know, it'sa series of letters from a woman
named Lucy Parker Shaw, whomoved from Maine to Galveston in
1838.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
They're all letters to her mother in Maine.
We don't have her responsesback and we don't have all of
the letters because there's twoor three gaps in there of two or
three years that are just.
There aren't no letters and Idon't.
Obviously I don't know wherethey are, if they even exist.
(07:52):
They were kept by the Lovefamily in Houston because they
were related to Emily.
That's how they kind of tracedback To Emily.
That's how they kind of tracedback.
I believe that's how theytraced their lineage back
through Emily, which was herinfant daughter that came with
(08:15):
them.
Her husband, joshua, was fromBath.
Yeah, they arrived in 1838.
She died in 1850 in the TremontHotel, the one that burned down
in 1865.
And so they run for those about12 years.
The last letter she wrote, Ithink, was a few months before
her death.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
And this book is absolutely fascinating if you're
interested in not onlyGalveston history but Texas
history and the way it connectsthe other parts of the world to
Galveston history, but Texashistory, yes, and the way it
connects the other parts of theworld to Galveston in Texas,
because you got to wonder why somany people were leaving Maine
at that time and coming downhere.
Hey, if you're still watching,I just want to say thank you
(08:57):
very much.
If you enjoy podcasts orhistory content like this, be
sure to subscribe to the YouTubechannel.
If you're listening on Apple orSpotify, head on over to the
YouTube channel and make sure tosubscribe.
We've got hours and hours ofGalveston, texas and American
history content on that YouTubechannel.
All right back to the show, butreally what I want to start at
is your interest in even writingthis book.
(09:20):
How did you, what was thethread you pulled to get you in?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
on this.
I started the project when Iwas doing other research at
Rosenberg.
So I used to go in there quiteoften and doing research for
various things.
You know my Eagle Point thingat first, and then other
projects.
I would go down there and askfor things.
And one day I was looking Idon't even remember what it was,
but I was looking through theircard catalog thing.
(09:45):
You know you pull in to lookthrough the little index thing
and I saw a Shaw and I said youknow what?
Somebody, one of my relativestold me they were related to
some people in Galveston namedShaw, didn't know anything about
any of that and I saw this oneand it said Lucy, 30 letter or
30, 29 letters, whatever it was,and I said, oh OK, so I had
(10:09):
them pull it for me and I satthere and I started reading
through a few and I thought it'sinteresting.
And then when I came back, youknow, a week later or so, I had
them pull it again.
Week later or so I had thempull it again and over a period
of probably looking at them fiveor six, seven times, reading
(10:29):
through them, I kept comingacross people that she knew and
people that she met, historicalevents, things like that, and
realized this is not justmundane ideas of you know, just
general talk about yourneighbors or things like that.
But she was mentioning thingsto her mother about what was
(10:50):
going on on the Galveston, thatshe called her strange little
island.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It is, it hasn't changed.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It's still a strange little island, and so she
describes the island and thingsthat are happening in the
political events that arehappening and she describes it
in a way is very exciting, but Ican also see where it was a
very troubled place.
She'd left out a lot of thedanger you get to realize in the
letters.
She didn't want to upset hermother too much about what was
(11:18):
going on.
But she does talk aboutpolitical events and the death
of people that they knew, somepeople from Maine as well as
people around here.
Her child when she dies is avery touching letter to tell her
mother that her infant died.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I read that part today.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, it's sad, very sad.
She talks about, let's say, forexample, the death of
Ambassador Flood.
That's also pretty interesting.
The charged affairs from theUnited States to the Republic of
Texas stayed in the Tremontwhen they were running it and so
he knew her, she knew him, sheknew lots of people and I have a
(11:57):
list of all just theinteresting people that she
talked to.
I mean it's impressive A listof people that she met.
You know, running a hotel likethis where people stay in there.
And the thing about Lucy if youread her letters, these are not
an uneducated woman.
She knows her stuff.
She has political ideas,political notions she lets you
(12:21):
in on occasionally, if you readcarefully enough social ideas
about religion and education.
Of course, her father, jonathanWeston, was an attorney in
Eastport.
As a matter of fact, if youwant to read an early history of
Eastport I know everyone is outthere would want to instantly
(12:42):
read this history of Eastport.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
He wrote a history about it.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Oh, really.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
But he died in his 30s.
He was a young man when he died.
He was a lawyer and he sent herand her brother she had a
brother named William and hesent them to boston and she was
tutored there by a tutor.
He paid for them to geteducated, so there's some
indication she knew her greekand latin and, like a lot of
(13:11):
people back then, the key tobeing an educated person right.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
It comes across really well that she's very well
educated.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
She is very well educated.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
The long-winded, not in a bad way, but the
long-winded descriptions.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Almost paint a picture of what it was like here
in 1838, 1839, 1840.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And you're like, wow, you can almost imagine.
You know the flat sandy islandthat this was at that time, you
know so why were people movingfrom Maine to Galveston?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
A couple of reasons when you study that period of
time.
Actually, pre-revolutionary Waron New England was getting full
.
England was getting full.
We don't think of it like that.
But even Maine is eithertimberland, the farming
(14:06):
prospects in Massachusetts,maine, vermont you think it's
all so great.
No, it's lousy.
The ground is purely poor.
It's either forest land thearable land is really not a lot,
and as people were born, thisis why New England was spilled
over, of course, back into Ohioand why people were moving out
that way.
(14:27):
A little sidebar that I tell myclass about that they seem to
enjoy hearing, is thatillegitimacy rates before the
American Revolution were quitehigh in New England.
The reason being a father wouldrequire that any suitor for his
daughter be ready to take overand provide her with a suitable
(14:53):
income and home and whatevershow that he could take care of
her and children.
Guys couldn't do it.
There wasn't any land to buy.
What land there was, youcouldn't grow anything on and
you know in Maine they grow alot of potatoes because you can
grow a potato anywhere.
(15:13):
As the population kind of grew,like in Greece, they had to get
off.
That's one thing.
Another thing is that in 1837,we had a banking collapse in
1837.
This has ruined theadministration.
Martin Van Buren wasn'treelected because the economy
(15:36):
took went to garbage and theyblamed it on him.
So people were moving aroundright.
They went bankrupt.
My guess is that Joshua, whosefather founded basically Bath,
maine, found that his prospectsweren't very good.
He had he and his brother,james, had come to this part of
(15:58):
the world a year or two earlier,I guess looked around.
James stayed here.
Joshua went back and got hiswife and numerous other
relatives Okay.
His father had passed away, sohe got his second wife and they
just came here a new place to go.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, and you've got to think I guess the revolution
had just happened a couple yearsprior to them arriving.
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
James Joshua's brother was the secretary to
Commodore Moore in the TexasNavy.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Oh, okay, well, that makes a lot—he was probably
involved and definitely involved.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yes, and then later on she talks about even later,
when she was here and they hadthis expedition against the
Indians or something Right, andand he was off on it.
I never found out, never beenable to find out what happened
to James.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
You found these letters at the Rosenberg Library
and obviously you're readinginto and you really enjoy the
picture they're painting ofGalveston.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I've been fascinating as an historian, what I'm
discovering in them.
Famous people are people that Irealize that I should know but
I don't really know that muchabout.
So I started looking intodifferent varying figures that
were in there.
I needed to print them out.
I did not know what to do withthem.
My first idea I started writingnotes on each letter, thinking
(17:22):
you know, there's a lot of somuch information and the people
are interesting and she'smentioning Sam Houston and Dr
Smith and the Cyrus Hamlin guyand I started, you know,
investigating them and McKinneyand all these people in
Galveston people.
So I started making notes onthem and excerpts and I figured
out this is going to be forever.
(17:44):
I'll never be able to do this.
I need the letters, and so whytry to write something in an
abbreviated form about theletters?
Just publish the letters.
I started looking around andfound out that there was a woman
named Miss Henson, a professorat University of Houston, clear
Lake, when I went there.
(18:05):
That had passed on but she hadcollected them.
She was a Texas history buffand she wrote letters.
I mean, she wrote books andthings about Texas history.
She wrote letters.
I mean, she wrote books andthings about Texas history and
she had the letters and haddonated all of her stuff to
Texas A&M Galveston.
So I went to Texas A&M Galveston.
As soon as I told them theywere like oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
(18:26):
we got them things, we're overhere, you want us to print a few
?
I said no, how about print themall of them?
Okay, so that's where I got theletters.
The letters had beentranscribed from the originals.
The loves a family that wererelated to lucy were interested
in that history, their theirfamily history, and they had the
(18:46):
letters.
They were not in maine, theywere in houston or pasadena
where they lived, and somebodyhad transcribed them, type them
out.
And so I didn't have to go andtry to transcribe those things.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, that's got to be tough, that handwriting is.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, yeah.
I found one other letter.
I was in contact with people inthe Eastport Historical Society
and somebody who belong, whohad a home there and had
relatives who had lived therebut would now is living in
California.
A family law judge, of allthings, in a town outside of San
(19:23):
Francisco contacted me and Igot to talking to her, texting
her back and forth, and she hada letter.
She wanted the letters rightbecause she didn't have them.
So I sent them to him and shesaid there's one that I have
that you don't have.
So I got one extra one from hernice yes, mary grove in
(19:47):
california.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
So I actually have one letter that they don't have
but in this book you don't haveany of the return letters that
she received.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
No, never been able to find, never have found them
and never found either letters,and that probably is more on me,
because but it would require meto travel.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Of course, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
If somebody else has them, they're not going to be
kept.
I'm not going to find them inHouston because the loves give
up everything that they'rewhatever they had.
Mary Grove had one, but thatkind of left me.
It led me to believe that theremay be others out there,
because if Mary had one, theremay be others.
(20:32):
They're either held somewhere.
I looked in the Eastportlibrary.
They have nothing, but I didn'tgo through the Calais Maine
library.
She knew people in Calais Maineso I'm thinking they have a
bare historical society.
They're somewhere.
I really do believe thatwhoever kept them kept them, if
(20:55):
that makes any sense.
Yes, it does, and there musthave been missing years.
They're missing years andthere's a reason for that.
I don't know why they got movedaround or somebody.
I think somewhere those lettersare out there.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
You know, it kind of highlights the significance of
keeping old documents, sometimeslike old documents, like
letters and notes, because younever know the insights they can
provide.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Absolutely.
As time goes by, times change,you know, you've seen is how
history just goes on and on.
One thing that I think isinteresting about this type of
history you have macro history.
What we usually learn in school, the big things you get George
Washington and Benjamin Franklin, american Revolution, george
(21:41):
III, you know about FranklinRoosevelt, you know it'll be.
You know all these big things,big personalities, wars,
depressions, movements, thingslike that.
But the stories of individualswe don't really know very much
about.
You have to dig for that andthat's kind of like the micro
history and that's where youlearn what people's lives were
(22:06):
actually like.
And you not only get some of thebig picture thing in these
letters because she talks aboutyou know she talks about things
that are happening in theRepublic, for good and for bad,
but then her day-to-day lives,you know, you get to see how
life really was and you begin torealize through those letters.
Number one the first thing ithits you is that life can be
(22:31):
short.
You know Death is always aroundevery corner, whether it's a
storm or somebody's going toshoot you or a yellow fever, or
you just get sick and there'snothing to help you.
There's no antibiotics.
She discusses probably fivedifferent doctors that she had.
(22:56):
She likes doctors, she's a kindof scientific mind.
She wants to do what's latestin everything and yet many times
there's really nothing thatthey can do to help.
Her child dies and she bringsin two or three doctors and
there's really nothing that theycan do.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I read that section today and one of the doctors had
been quarantining for someillness or some type of you know
sickness that was going aroundthe island at that time.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
So doctors were going in and getting sick and it's
one of those things that paintsthat picture.
And even when she's writingthat letter, it's only maybe a
week removed from when her childdies, but the way she's writing
about it you don't really feel.
You feel sorrow, right, you canfeel the sorrow Right, but I
can't imagine writing a letterlike that a week removed from my
(23:46):
nine-month-old dying, you knowRight.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You know it's but you know what.
You have to go on.
You have to move on.
We know that that's your life.
This could always be the lastday.
We take that a little bit forgranted, thinking, oh yeah, well
, they'll rush you to thehospital, give us some blood,
give us some whatever and pumpus up and it'll be all right.
Death is a shock today, when itdoes happen, you know for most
(24:11):
of when people die young.
But back then people died likethat all the time.
She talks about suicide.
People think suicide would besomething more contemporary and
yet suicides were quite commonin that era.
You don't have painkillers thatlike you do today, or think to
ease your pain or whatever.
(24:32):
Yeah, people just can't livewith it no more and end it.
And so she talks about a coupleof sides that happen in there
that are kind of shocking.
You know she describes a buggyride or something on the beach,
and sometimes they're different.
It's kind of lovely, right.
But she also describes all ofthe rattlesnakes on the island,
(24:55):
the mosquitoes that are,literally.
I think.
At one point she wrote a letterto her mother, said you can't
imagine they're.
They torment you day and night.
Without a mosquito net you canforget it.
She claimed that there was asailor.
I don't know if you read that,but there was a sailor who
jumped off a ship one day anddrowned himself because he
(25:16):
couldn't take it anymore.
The mosquitoes were justhorrific.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah, she describes.
Even when they leave Maineshe's writing back to her mother
talking about the journey, andthen when they arrive at the
opening to Galveston.
Bay on the ship.
They had to hail a pilot to getthem into the channel and they
have to wait a couple days, Ibelieve, and then they end up
talking to another ship that'scoming by, I think from England
(25:42):
or something, and they end uptowing them partially and then
they get a pilot on board orsomething like that.
But it's really descriptive.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
By the way, I've never had anybody buy the book
for this reason.
But if you're just interestedin shipping, I kept a list.
I wrote all the ships down.
It's probably in my index ifyou want to go through there.
She mentions dozens of shipsthat were entering the port and
different things at differenttimes, including a British, the
(26:10):
first iron ship that was everbuilt.
It was coming from Brazil orsomething.
It landed in Galveston orsomething.
That's what I was just going tosay, and they were invited on
board, so she got to go and tourit or whatever man that is so
cool and what I've done.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I've read the first probably 30 or 40 pages.
But because this book sits outnormally in here, because I've
used it just to kind of paintpictures in my videos, right,
I'll read sections and then usedescriptions that Lucy Parker
Shaw uses and to paint those old1830s, 1840s pictures in
people's minds.
(26:45):
But I'll skip through, I'lljust pick it up and read a
letter here and there.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That's a good deal about the book.
You can do it.
You can just read it like anarrative all the way through,
or you can just read here orthere and get ideas about you
know.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And you do an amazing job adding historical context
in between most of the letters.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, a lot of the figures and stuff I really
didn't know much about.
And so I said, yeah, I try totell you.
I know, if you know, I've gotan American history degree if
I'm really for sure who thesepeople are, right, then I try to
tell you, yeah, well, let's see, this is who she's talking
about.
This is not a nobody, by theway, you know kind of thing, of
(27:28):
nobody by the way, you know kindof thing.
So when she talks about, likesome of the, some of the figures
like Dr Ashbell Smith is one ofher doctors Well, even in Texas
history he's a huge figure.
I don't know how many people,he's not that big anymore, but
at one time he was one of theyou know, a key figure in Texas
history.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, and his building right down the street
here at UTMB is the flagshipbuilding of University of Texas
Medical.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Branch it is.
He's known as the founder ofthe Texas University.
Texas is, you know, it's kindof his yeah and so, yeah, he's
an educator, by the way, thefounder of Prairie View.
He had Texas legislature pass abill that established Prairie
View University for Freeman.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I had no idea.
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And so, in the process of going through these
letters and preparing them to bepublished, you also had to do a
lot of research to add in thehistorical context.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, that was most of my time was just researching
and a lot of this was not thatdifficult to research.
It wasn't a deep dive.
You'll see my the referencethat I use.
You know the things that Icited.
Some of them are really rathercommon.
You know Texas HistoricalSociety, you know stuff like
that.
It's just out there very easy,but some of it was, you know it
(28:48):
was a lot deeper dive intofinding out who are these people
and what the hell's going onhere.
I like the part she, for example.
The politics is.
Something that people will beshocked to find out is that Sam
Houston was not loved byeveryone At one time.
Sam Houston dissolved the TexasNavy.
(29:09):
She talks quite a bit aboutthat.
That people were very inGalveston, very upset because in
this and I didn't know anythingabout the details of the battle
but the Texas Navy beat theMexican Navy, the Bay of the
Campeche I mean the Battle ofthe Campeche or whatever and in
Galveston that was thought assomething that saved them,
(29:29):
because they expected theMexican Navy to invade Texas and
they were going to land inGalveston, burn the city down.
There was no defense that theyreally had and they said the
Texas Navy saved them and SamHouston went and got rid of it.
Not only that, had a restwarrant for Commodore Moore,
which in their minds was thehero and she talks about.
(29:51):
They held a meeting, meetingsabout it, and her husband was
involved in that.
And then they had a big.
They all met one night and theyhanged Sam Houston in effigy.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You know, know and all that hated his guts and
everything kind of kind of stuff.
It's like sam houston.
He's the man he won the battleof san justino, he demand and
then and then you get into likegalveston history.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
You're like, yeah, people around here didn't like
him very much towards the no inthe 1840s, especially when the
mexican navy was still harassingthe te, the Texas coast through
that entire period I learnedthat that was, by the way, that
battle was the not the last time, the only time a fleet under
(30:36):
sail beat a steam powered fleet.
Lucy not only meets a lot ofinteresting people and you can
tell her education in the thingthroughout the book but it's
also very kind ofheart-wrenching.
One of her doctors some of thepeople from Maine are
interesting.
She talked pretty early in thisbook.
(30:57):
She mentions a doctor, dr CyrusHamlin.
Dr Cyrus Hamlin.
Now see, this is what.
If you just go over somethinglike this and you just see the
name, you don't think anythingabout it.
Right, we just move on.
Well, my job was to wonder whowas Cyrus Hamlin.
(31:20):
Well, it was pretty easy tofind out who he was because he
was the brother of HannibalHamlin, lincoln's first vice
president.
They lived in Paris, maine, andhis practice originally was in
Calais, maine, which is up theSt Croix River.
(31:40):
From Eastport you go around thecorner and go up this river.
It's a border between Canadaand Maine and that's where his
practice was.
When I gave a talk in Calais,maine, you could go out.
Their historical society was inhis home where he had his
medical practice.
They claimed he was buriedthere too, you could go see his
(32:02):
grave.
But I said too, you could gosee his grave.
But I said they must have movedit because he died in galveston
and she records him beingburied oh, so they were all at
his funeral, so he's heresomewhere he's there, he's he,
he should be here somewhere andwe don't.
(32:23):
And I've never been able to findwhere, never for sure where
they were burying people.
They just said it was outsidethe city one time.
That's all I know.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It's probably like 30th Street or something these
days I don't maybe something Idon't really know.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
You know she doesn't identify exactly where the
burying ground was.
Now she is buried in citycemetery out here.
She's not buried with herhusband, by the way.
She's married with her mother-in-law, because when they came,
joshua brought his wife, theirinfant emily, and then he also
brought his sister, hisstepmother and, I think, one
(33:07):
other person that comes upoccasionally that I had a hell
of a time finding I think it washis aunt.
Okay, so he came with a crewand a lot of stuff they brought
with them.
Okay, because they were settingup shop here and Joshua was a
carpenter.
I say carpenter, he built houses.
Everyone knows.
(33:28):
Well, everyone doesn't know,but the Menard House, one of the
oldest buildings, was a prefabhouse right from Maine and I've
always been wondering if Joshuadidn't have something to do with
that, because when he got herehe built houses and then later
he got the job of managing theTremont.
(33:49):
So he and his wife moved intoTremont and then they built a
hotel for themselves and thensuddenly, two years go by,
they're back at the Tremont andI have no idea what happened to
their hotel.
But there's a lot of things.
It got me involved, the ideathat she comes here with her
husband and she's educated.
(34:11):
Like I said, and I'm not so sureas much about Joshua, I did
throw one of his letters inthere because I had it and I
just wanted you, I wanted thereader just get a little taste.
He's writing, I think, his son,william, because she ends up
she does have a child that dies.
(34:32):
She comes with Emily and thenshe has two other children,
william and Annie, william, herson.
There's easy to find stuffabout him.
Find stuff about him.
He ended up during the CivilWar.
He joined I don't know, it wasGalveston Rifles or something
(34:52):
like that and then he got out ofthat and joined the Confederate
Navy.
He actually went to theConfederate Naval Academy.
The only service I could findand this, by the way, was when
he passed away the Masonic Lodge.
He was a Mason, so they had abit on him and supposedly he was
on.
He served on the cruiserwhatever, tallahassee, it was a
(35:16):
Confederate raider.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
That sailed up the East Coast.
It took 19 prizes.
It was in one trip.
It was a big deal.
It really harassed yankeeshipping up there a little.
I think is an interesting sidenote, and again I'm not for sure
, I have to kind of dig into ita little bit deeper.
They took a ship offmassachusetts main, somewhere in
(35:42):
there.
They recorded it in their log.
They took this ship and themaster of the ship was a guy
named Captain Marston.
The Marstons are related to theShaws and so ergo, what I'm
saying is he might have been ona ship that took a ship that was
captained by a relative of his.
(36:06):
Uh-huh, you know what I mean,that's a pretty common Civil War
story, though.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Right you know, brother fighting, brother father
fighting son.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Well, yeah, we've got the story in Galveston about
the.
You know the what?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
was the deal about the.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Battle of Galveston.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah, Edward and Albert Lee father and son.
Yeah, yeah, father and son,both on separate sides.
Right, both on separate sides,I think the son was on a Union
Navy vessel that had takenGalveston for a few months and
then, the father was on theConfederate side and they
battled each other right here,two blocks away from where we
(36:37):
are.
Okay, do you know anythingabout Saccharap?
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I looked into it briefly, it's named after
Saccharap Falls.
It's a beautiful little, veryiconic little main town, right,
and they have a historicalsociety and I I sent them off,
them in in you know queries.
So this what history tells meis we have this filibuster age
(37:01):
and we know the filibusters werein Bolivar and if you read
anything about the Bolivarianrevolts you think this is only
Latin Americans.
It was not.
Many.
Many Americans were involved inthese revolutions in South
America and Central America,right, some of them for
(37:23):
nefarious reasons of trying togather some sort of little
kingdom or something, but othersjust because they thought it
was the right thing to do.
It was a patriotic kind ofAmerican kind of thing, because
the idea of why does Bolivarrevolt?
Right, because the model wasthe United States did it Right.
(37:44):
We're going to do the same thing.
So a lot of Americans werefighting against Spain, and so
that can be one reason, you know, is just this idea.
They were drawn down hereduring this filibuster era and
or it's new land, it's arableland.
There's things they can do,although Joshua and them, he's a
(38:06):
merchant.
They're merchants, you know.
They're typical.
Like Yankees, I was telling myprevious class audience, lucy is
the prototypical Yankee.
Everything she believes in islike New England of that era,
puritan ethics, right.
(38:28):
They're founding members ofTrinity Episcopal Church, but
she also befriends anotherPresbyterian minister named
William McCalla that later on,my research found out in that
era was a very famous churchman,that era was a very famous
churchman.
Okay, he founded churches, hestarted the second college in
(38:49):
the Republic of Texas and he wasreally well known and he
visited Lucy when you know, whenhe came down here.
So they were very kind ofreligious, they really.
And she mentions religionoccasionally and mentions
getting religious books for herdaughter, you know, and children
they need to be educated, youknow this is part of their
(39:11):
education.
She knew Gail Borden.
She mentions Borden severaltimes.
People who know anything aboutold Galveston history know Gail
Borden.
You know Borden milk guy andall that Talks about his garden,
because he was into thathorticulture thing.
She was too.
(39:32):
And also she started a schoolwith gail borden and she taught
in this school until things gotgoing and she got busy and
couldn't do it anymore.
But she helped gail bordenstart a school, right, her
husband was an alderman, he washead of the wars board.
(39:52):
You know what I mean.
There are all this kind of NewEngland-y, yankee kind of way of
looking at the world.
Yeah yeah, and so my previoustalk kind of centered on that
idea that what is she bringingto Galveston?
What is her and her husband, butparticularly her, because the
(40:15):
letters are from her Is therebringing this civilized kind of
like saying right, you knowpeople, this is a whole idea of
the frontier.
You know the Frederick Turnerthesis and all this that this,
this country, was settled inwaves and there was always the
(40:37):
frontier.
Ok, you know, you start withtrappers and explorers and it
moves on to and then it moves onto more wild kind of settler,
and then the farmers and thenthe merchants and there's a
(41:00):
pattern, and so they kind of fitinto this pattern of taking
this wild place and making it alivable place.
She's interested in science,she's interested in science,
she's interested in medicine,she's interested, like I said,
in religion, the civics of itmaking a place.
If you really look and you seewho created the government here
(41:22):
in the early eras, you're goingto find most of them were people
from that era, that area, right, not just Maine and
Massachusetts, but you know whatI mean.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah, maryland and Pennsylvania, new York.
A lot of New Yorkers settled inin Galveston so they bring this
whole merchant class, thistrading class, this organization
bureaucracy and all that toGalveston.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Is there anything else you wanted to say?
Any parting thoughts?
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Let me read this.
I'm just going to read thislittle passage by Eric Hoffer,
okay, because it's about historyand it's about the importance
of studying individuals andtheir lives, their lives, death,
how they approach life, howthey look at things, society and
all that, but also how theymake us feel.
(42:17):
As eric hoffer wrote, it is theindividual only who is timeless
.
Societies, cultures andcivilizations, past and present,
are often incomprehensible tooutsiders, but the individual's
hungers, anxieties, dreams andpreoccupations have remained
(42:40):
unchanged through the millennia,through the millennia.
Thus we are up against theparadox that the individual, who
is more complex, unpredictableand mysterious than any communal
entity, is the one nearest toour understanding, so near that
even the interval of millenniacannot weaken our feeling of
(43:01):
kinship.
If, in some manner, the voiceof an individual reaches us from
the remotest distance of time,it is a timeless voice speaking
about ourselves.
You have macro history, what we usually learn
in school George Washington,benjamin Franklin, american
Revolution.
You know all these big things,big personalities, but the
stories of the individuals youhave to dig for that.
That's where you learn whatpeople's lives were actually
like.
The mosquitoes were justhorrific.
There was a sailor who jumpedoff a ship one day because he
(00:23):
couldn't take it anymore.
People will be shocked to findout.
Sam Houston was not loved byeveryone.
Death is always around everycorner.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to Galveston, unscripted.
In this episode today I sitdown with historian and author
Mr James Valentino.
We discuss his work andresearch into those early days
of Galveston back in the 1830sand 1840s.
One big reason I wanted to haveJames on the podcast is because
of one of the books he'spublished and that is From Maine
to Galveston, republic of Texas, the Life and Letters of Lucy
(01:00):
Parker Shaw.
James stumbled upon theseletters while doing genealogical
research and once he discoveredthe beautifully written
descriptions of early Galvestonhe knew he needed to do
something about it.
So he published these letters afew years ago and we sat down
to discuss what he discoveredalong the way.
What I really enjoy about theletters in this book written by
Miss Lucy Parker Shaw are thebeautiful, long-winded
(01:20):
descriptions of what the islandwas like back in the 1830s and
40s.
They really capture the grit offrontier life and what it was
really like back in those earlydays right here on Galveston
Island.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Welcome to Galveston Unscripted those guys are not
book buyers, though the girlsare.
Though what group are thebiggest book buyers for you?
Well, definitely the girls.
There have probably sold afourth of them a book you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Something like that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Probably one out of every four people there bought a
book, which is a big deal, youknow, percentage-wise I think.
Yeah, Even in Maine I didn'tsell a lot of books and everyone
in Eastport where I give thetalk, very interested.
They were very interested inTexas and even though I was
(02:06):
doing the talk was about thisgirl who came from their
hometown.
They were more interested inTexas and Galveston and what
happened there and I was.
I found myself talking moreabout the Texas City disaster
and the hurricane of you know,1900 hurricane.
Then I was talking, then I wasdoing with the talking about her
You're trying to talk about1838.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I was trying to talk about 1838 and they wanted to
talk about yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
They were just fascinated by Texas and this
kind of stuff actually.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh, I got you a water by the way.
So one of these waters is foryou if you want it.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, I drag all that .
What's the oh the Patriot?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Oh, the Patriot, yes, yeah, the Patriot movie.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You know what movie they should have done instead of
the Patriot?
The Bernardo de Galvez story.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, that might be something interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
The way Bernardo de Galvez and his team moved across
the Gulf Coast during theAmerican Revolution.
For Spain it's so important tothe American story.
It's literally pivotal to theAmerican story for Spain.
But it's so important to theAmerican story, yeah, it's
literally pivotal to theAmerican story to get the
British off of the Gulf Coast,but nobody ever tells that story
.
You know, yeah, I know it's oneof those swept under the rug.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It's interesting what catches on in history and
really what doesn't.
There's a lot of hidden storiesout there, like Lucy Char,
whatever kind of like thingsthat just people.
I don't know for what reason.
Maybe it's just his name,bernardo de Galvez.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, if only they named a city after him, that'd
be nice.
Yeah, that would be nice ifthey did name a city after him.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Nobody even thinks about the name, of how Galveston
got his name, do they?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Not really.
Not really, but it's, I mean,it's obviously from him.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
James, could you tell us a little bit about yourself
before we get into it here?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I was born in, actually, san Leon, but then, as
I was a kid, little bitty kid,like three years old we moved to
Bayview.
This is like we thought of myparents.
My mom insisted on moving.
My father was a commercialfisherman, and so he was a
shrimper.
He also, though, worked forshell dredging companies in the
50.
And that's where he really made.
(04:16):
He made a living.
I mean, that kind of made him,in a way.
He still continued in thatbusiness, and he and my brother
bought into Eagle Point.
So I had been around that life.
At one point.
My dad had two Gulf boats, wherehe fished them out of Grasso's,
which is down from 19th Streetyou think of the Mosquito Fleet
(04:39):
there and all that.
Grasso's was a little fartherdown.
I can't remember the street14th somewhere along in there.
All I remember farther down.
I can't remember the street14th somewhere along in there.
All I remember is sitting onhis boat looking across the
street at the.
What they used to tell me wasthe insane asylum or whatever,
the psych ward with the big redbuilding or whatever they call
it.
Yeah, and so kind of, I alwayskind of got in.
(05:01):
You know, that was somethingthat was always there, and so
when I got out of high school Ibought a boat and I did all that
kind of stuff.
You know I bought and soldoysters for a few years, made a
little money doing that.
That was a hard business.
For a while that kind ofbusiness kind of started getting
a downturn.
I really couldn't keep up withit anymore.
(05:21):
I was getting older and I wentback to school with the money I
sold and leaning on my wife'sincome.
She was making more money allthe time.
So I went back to school and Igot my bachelor's degree and
then my master's degree.
And what the hell do you dowith a worthless history degree?
Oh no, I started hired on atCollege of the Mainland as an
(05:41):
adjunct, and I've been doingthat ever since.
And in the meantime, hired onat College of the Mainland as an
adjunct, and I've been doingthat ever since.
And in the meantime I wouldbecause of the research you know
you have to learn how to doresearch and all this kind of
stuff which I kind of reallyenjoyed.
And I started writing littlestories and I first thing, one
of the first little books I haveis a book about Eagle Point.
(06:02):
That's the piece of property,and I found some very
interesting things and I wrote alittle thing about it,
self-published it.
It really was just more for, Iguess, practice or fun.
It's a little thin book aboutEagle Point.
And then I wrote another bookthat's just stories that my dad
told me or this or that aboutGalveston Bay stuff that my dad
(06:26):
told me, or this or that aboutGalveston Bay stuff.
And then I've read, I wrotethis and of course I realized if
anybody else is going to beinterested in my stuff.
It wasn't really the first twothings.
Really, honestly, although Ididn't like my book of stories,
I think there's some good stuffin there.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
What put you on my radar is I was doing research on
a couple different things and Idon't remember exactly what it
was.
Whether I was doing research ona couple different things and I
don't remember exactly what itwas.
Whether I was doing research onShaw, the one of the men who
named the strand.
His last name was Shaw, Causemy last name is Shaw and I think
I was Googling or just lookingShaw Galveston just to see if
there were any connections,Cause my mom's from Louisiana,
(07:00):
my dad's from Michigan, but Iwas like well, maybe there are
extended connections somehowtrying to tie me back to
Galveston.
But of course, this was probably2020 and your book had been out
for a few years, so it startedto show up in the Google results
.
I saw your book and I was likeI've got to get this.
So I went down to the bookstoreover here and bought From Maine
(07:20):
to Galveston, republic of Texas.
For those who don't know, it'sa series of letters from a woman
named Lucy Parker Shaw, whomoved from Maine to Galveston in
1838.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
They're all letters to her mother in Maine.
We don't have her responsesback and we don't have all of
the letters because there's twoor three gaps in there of two or
three years that are just.
There aren't no letters and Idon't.
Obviously I don't know wherethey are, if they even exist.
(07:52):
They were kept by the Lovefamily in Houston because they
were related to Emily.
That's how they kind of tracedback To Emily.
That's how they kind of tracedback.
I believe that's how theytraced their lineage back
through Emily, which was herinfant daughter that came with
(08:15):
them.
Her husband, joshua, was fromBath.
Yeah, they arrived in 1838.
She died in 1850 in the TremontHotel, the one that burned down
in 1865.
And so they run for those about12 years.
The last letter she wrote, Ithink, was a few months before
her death.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
And this book is absolutely fascinating if you're
interested in not onlyGalveston history but Texas
history and the way it connectsthe other parts of the world to
Galveston history, but Texashistory, yes, and the way it
connects the other parts of theworld to Galveston in Texas,
because you got to wonder why somany people were leaving Maine
at that time and coming downhere.
Hey, if you're still watching,I just want to say thank you
(08:57):
very much.
If you enjoy podcasts orhistory content like this, be
sure to subscribe to the YouTubechannel.
If you're listening on Apple orSpotify, head on over to the
YouTube channel and make sure tosubscribe.
We've got hours and hours ofGalveston, texas and American
history content on that YouTubechannel.
All right back to the show, butreally what I want to start at
is your interest in even writingthis book.
(09:20):
How did you, what was thethread you pulled to get you in?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
on this.
I started the project when Iwas doing other research at
Rosenberg.
So I used to go in there quiteoften and doing research for
various things.
You know my Eagle Point thingat first, and then other
projects.
I would go down there and askfor things.
And one day I was looking Idon't even remember what it was,
but I was looking through theircard catalog thing.
(09:45):
You know you pull in to lookthrough the little index thing
and I saw a Shaw and I said youknow what?
Somebody, one of my relativestold me they were related to
some people in Galveston namedShaw, didn't know anything about
any of that and I saw this oneand it said Lucy, 30 letter or
30, 29 letters, whatever it was,and I said, oh OK, so I had
(10:09):
them pull it for me and I satthere and I started reading
through a few and I thought it'sinteresting.
And then when I came back, youknow, a week later or so, I had
them pull it again.
Week later or so I had thempull it again and over a period
of probably looking at them fiveor six, seven times, reading
(10:29):
through them, I kept comingacross people that she knew and
people that she met, historicalevents, things like that, and
realized this is not justmundane ideas of you know, just
general talk about yourneighbors or things like that.
But she was mentioning thingsto her mother about what was
(10:50):
going on on the Galveston, thatshe called her strange little
island.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It is, it hasn't changed.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It's still a strange little island, and so she
describes the island and thingsthat are happening in the
political events that arehappening and she describes it
in a way is very exciting, but Ican also see where it was a
very troubled place.
She'd left out a lot of thedanger you get to realize in the
letters.
She didn't want to upset hermother too much about what was
(11:18):
going on.
But she does talk aboutpolitical events and the death
of people that they knew, somepeople from Maine as well as
people around here.
Her child when she dies is avery touching letter to tell her
mother that her infant died.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I read that part today.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, it's sad, very sad.
She talks about, let's say, forexample, the death of
Ambassador Flood.
That's also pretty interesting.
The charged affairs from theUnited States to the Republic of
Texas stayed in the Tremontwhen they were running it and so
he knew her, she knew him, sheknew lots of people and I have a
(11:57):
list of all just theinteresting people that she
talked to.
I mean it's impressive A listof people that she met.
You know, running a hotel likethis where people stay in there.
And the thing about Lucy if youread her letters, these are not
an uneducated woman.
She knows her stuff.
She has political ideas,political notions she lets you
(12:21):
in on occasionally, if you readcarefully enough social ideas
about religion and education.
Of course, her father, jonathanWeston, was an attorney in
Eastport.
As a matter of fact, if youwant to read an early history of
Eastport I know everyone is outthere would want to instantly
(12:42):
read this history of Eastport.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
He wrote a history about it.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Oh, really.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
But he died in his 30s.
He was a young man when he died.
He was a lawyer and he sent herand her brother she had a
brother named William and hesent them to boston and she was
tutored there by a tutor.
He paid for them to geteducated, so there's some
indication she knew her greekand latin and, like a lot of
(13:11):
people back then, the key tobeing an educated person right.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
It comes across really well that she's very well
educated.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
She is very well educated.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
The long-winded, not in a bad way, but the
long-winded descriptions.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Almost paint a picture of what it was like here
in 1838, 1839, 1840.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And you're like, wow, you can almost imagine.
You know the flat sandy islandthat this was at that time, you
know so why were people movingfrom Maine to Galveston?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
A couple of reasons when you study that period of
time.
Actually, pre-revolutionary Waron New England was getting full
.
England was getting full.
We don't think of it like that.
But even Maine is eithertimberland, the farming
(14:06):
prospects in Massachusetts,maine, vermont you think it's
all so great.
No, it's lousy.
The ground is purely poor.
It's either forest land thearable land is really not a lot,
and as people were born, thisis why New England was spilled
over, of course, back into Ohioand why people were moving out
that way.
(14:27):
A little sidebar that I tell myclass about that they seem to
enjoy hearing, is thatillegitimacy rates before the
American Revolution were quitehigh in New England.
The reason being a father wouldrequire that any suitor for his
daughter be ready to take overand provide her with a suitable
(14:53):
income and home and whatevershow that he could take care of
her and children.
Guys couldn't do it.
There wasn't any land to buy.
What land there was, youcouldn't grow anything on and
you know in Maine they grow alot of potatoes because you can
grow a potato anywhere.
(15:13):
As the population kind of grew,like in Greece, they had to get
off.
That's one thing.
Another thing is that in 1837,we had a banking collapse in
1837.
This has ruined theadministration.
Martin Van Buren wasn'treelected because the economy
(15:36):
took went to garbage and theyblamed it on him.
So people were moving aroundright.
They went bankrupt.
My guess is that Joshua, whosefather founded basically Bath,
maine, found that his prospectsweren't very good.
He had he and his brother,james, had come to this part of
(15:58):
the world a year or two earlier,I guess looked around.
James stayed here.
Joshua went back and got hiswife and numerous other
relatives Okay.
His father had passed away, sohe got his second wife and they
just came here a new place to go.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, and you've got to think I guess the revolution
had just happened a couple yearsprior to them arriving.
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
James Joshua's brother was the secretary to
Commodore Moore in the TexasNavy.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Oh, okay, well, that makes a lot—he was probably
involved and definitely involved.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yes, and then later on she talks about even later,
when she was here and they hadthis expedition against the
Indians or something Right, andand he was off on it.
I never found out, never beenable to find out what happened
to James.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
You found these letters at the Rosenberg Library
and obviously you're readinginto and you really enjoy the
picture they're painting ofGalveston.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I've been fascinating as an historian, what I'm
discovering in them.
Famous people are people that Irealize that I should know but
I don't really know that muchabout.
So I started looking intodifferent varying figures that
were in there.
I needed to print them out.
I did not know what to do withthem.
My first idea I started writingnotes on each letter, thinking
(17:22):
you know, there's a lot of somuch information and the people
are interesting and she'smentioning Sam Houston and Dr
Smith and the Cyrus Hamlin guyand I started, you know,
investigating them and McKinneyand all these people in
Galveston people.
So I started making notes onthem and excerpts and I figured
out this is going to be forever.
(17:44):
I'll never be able to do this.
I need the letters, and so whytry to write something in an
abbreviated form about theletters?
Just publish the letters.
I started looking around andfound out that there was a woman
named Miss Henson, a professorat University of Houston, clear
Lake, when I went there.
(18:05):
That had passed on but she hadcollected them.
She was a Texas history buffand she wrote letters.
I mean, she wrote books andthings about Texas history.
She wrote letters.
I mean, she wrote books andthings about Texas history and
she had the letters and haddonated all of her stuff to
Texas A&M Galveston.
So I went to Texas A&M Galveston.
As soon as I told them theywere like oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
(18:26):
we got them things, we're overhere, you want us to print a few
?
I said no, how about print themall of them?
Okay, so that's where I got theletters.
The letters had beentranscribed from the originals.
The loves a family that wererelated to lucy were interested
in that history, their theirfamily history, and they had the
(18:46):
letters.
They were not in maine, theywere in houston or pasadena
where they lived, and somebodyhad transcribed them, type them
out.
And so I didn't have to go andtry to transcribe those things.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, that's got to be tough, that handwriting is.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, yeah.
I found one other letter.
I was in contact with people inthe Eastport Historical Society
and somebody who belong, whohad a home there and had
relatives who had lived therebut would now is living in
California.
A family law judge, of allthings, in a town outside of San
(19:23):
Francisco contacted me and Igot to talking to her, texting
her back and forth, and she hada letter.
She wanted the letters rightbecause she didn't have them.
So I sent them to him and shesaid there's one that I have
that you don't have.
So I got one extra one from hernice yes, mary grove in
(19:47):
california.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
So I actually have one letter that they don't have
but in this book you don't haveany of the return letters that
she received.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
No, never been able to find, never have found them
and never found either letters,and that probably is more on me,
because but it would require meto travel.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Of course, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
If somebody else has them, they're not going to be
kept.
I'm not going to find them inHouston because the loves give
up everything that they'rewhatever they had.
Mary Grove had one, but thatkind of left me.
It led me to believe that theremay be others out there,
because if Mary had one, theremay be others.
(20:32):
They're either held somewhere.
I looked in the Eastportlibrary.
They have nothing, but I didn'tgo through the Calais Maine
library.
She knew people in Calais Maineso I'm thinking they have a
bare historical society.
They're somewhere.
I really do believe thatwhoever kept them kept them, if
(20:55):
that makes any sense.
Yes, it does, and there musthave been missing years.
They're missing years andthere's a reason for that.
I don't know why they got movedaround or somebody.
I think somewhere those lettersare out there.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
You know, it kind of highlights the significance of
keeping old documents, sometimeslike old documents, like
letters and notes, because younever know the insights they can
provide.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Absolutely.
As time goes by, times change,you know, you've seen is how
history just goes on and on.
One thing that I think isinteresting about this type of
history you have macro history.
What we usually learn in school, the big things you get George
Washington and Benjamin Franklin, american Revolution, george
(21:41):
III, you know about FranklinRoosevelt, you know it'll be.
You know all these big things,big personalities, wars,
depressions, movements, thingslike that.
But the stories of individualswe don't really know very much
about.
You have to dig for that andthat's kind of like the micro
history and that's where youlearn what people's lives were
(22:06):
actually like.
And you not only get some of thebig picture thing in these
letters because she talks aboutyou know she talks about things
that are happening in theRepublic, for good and for bad,
but then her day-to-day lives,you know, you get to see how
life really was and you begin torealize through those letters.
Number one the first thing ithits you is that life can be
(22:31):
short.
You know Death is always aroundevery corner, whether it's a
storm or somebody's going toshoot you or a yellow fever, or
you just get sick and there'snothing to help you.
There's no antibiotics.
She discusses probably fivedifferent doctors that she had.
(22:56):
She likes doctors, she's a kindof scientific mind.
She wants to do what's latestin everything and yet many times
there's really nothing thatthey can do to help.
Her child dies and she bringsin two or three doctors and
there's really nothing that theycan do.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I read that section today and one of the doctors had
been quarantining for someillness or some type of you know
sickness that was going aroundthe island at that time.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
So doctors were going in and getting sick and it's
one of those things that paintsthat picture.
And even when she's writingthat letter, it's only maybe a
week removed from when her childdies, but the way she's writing
about it you don't really feel.
You feel sorrow, right, you canfeel the sorrow Right, but I
can't imagine writing a letterlike that a week removed from my
(23:46):
nine-month-old dying, you knowRight.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You know it's but you know what.
You have to go on.
You have to move on.
We know that that's your life.
This could always be the lastday.
We take that a little bit forgranted, thinking, oh yeah, well
, they'll rush you to thehospital, give us some blood,
give us some whatever and pumpus up and it'll be all right.
Death is a shock today, when itdoes happen, you know for most
(24:11):
of when people die young.
But back then people died likethat all the time.
She talks about suicide.
People think suicide would besomething more contemporary and
yet suicides were quite commonin that era.
You don't have painkillers thatlike you do today, or think to
ease your pain or whatever.
(24:32):
Yeah, people just can't livewith it no more and end it.
And so she talks about a coupleof sides that happen in there
that are kind of shocking.
You know she describes a buggyride or something on the beach,
and sometimes they're different.
It's kind of lovely, right.
But she also describes all ofthe rattlesnakes on the island,
(24:55):
the mosquitoes that are,literally.
I think.
At one point she wrote a letterto her mother, said you can't
imagine they're.
They torment you day and night.
Without a mosquito net you canforget it.
She claimed that there was asailor.
I don't know if you read that,but there was a sailor who
jumped off a ship one day anddrowned himself because he
(25:16):
couldn't take it anymore.
The mosquitoes were justhorrific.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah, she describes.
Even when they leave Maineshe's writing back to her mother
talking about the journey, andthen when they arrive at the
opening to Galveston.
Bay on the ship.
They had to hail a pilot to getthem into the channel and they
have to wait a couple days, Ibelieve, and then they end up
talking to another ship that'scoming by, I think from England
(25:42):
or something, and they end uptowing them partially and then
they get a pilot on board orsomething like that.
But it's really descriptive.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
By the way, I've never had anybody buy the book
for this reason.
But if you're just interestedin shipping, I kept a list.
I wrote all the ships down.
It's probably in my index ifyou want to go through there.
She mentions dozens of shipsthat were entering the port and
different things at differenttimes, including a British, the
(26:10):
first iron ship that was everbuilt.
It was coming from Brazil orsomething.
It landed in Galveston orsomething.
That's what I was just going tosay, and they were invited on
board, so she got to go and tourit or whatever man that is so
cool and what I've done.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I've read the first probably 30 or 40 pages.
But because this book sits outnormally in here, because I've
used it just to kind of paintpictures in my videos, right,
I'll read sections and then usedescriptions that Lucy Parker
Shaw uses and to paint those old1830s, 1840s pictures in
people's minds.
(26:45):
But I'll skip through, I'lljust pick it up and read a
letter here and there.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That's a good deal about the book.
You can do it.
You can just read it like anarrative all the way through,
or you can just read here orthere and get ideas about you
know.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And you do an amazing job adding historical context
in between most of the letters.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, a lot of the figures and stuff I really
didn't know much about.
And so I said, yeah, I try totell you.
I know, if you know, I've gotan American history degree if
I'm really for sure who thesepeople are, right, then I try to
tell you, yeah, well, let's see, this is who she's talking
about.
This is not a nobody, by theway, you know kind of thing, of
(27:28):
nobody by the way, you know kindof thing.
So when she talks about, likesome of the, some of the figures
like Dr Ashbell Smith is one ofher doctors Well, even in Texas
history he's a huge figure.
I don't know how many people,he's not that big anymore, but
at one time he was one of theyou know, a key figure in Texas
history.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, and his building right down the street
here at UTMB is the flagshipbuilding of University of Texas
Medical.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Branch it is.
He's known as the founder ofthe Texas University.
Texas is, you know, it's kindof his yeah and so, yeah, he's
an educator, by the way, thefounder of Prairie View.
He had Texas legislature pass abill that established Prairie
View University for Freeman.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I had no idea.
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And so, in the process of going through these
letters and preparing them to bepublished, you also had to do a
lot of research to add in thehistorical context.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, that was most of my time was just researching
and a lot of this was not thatdifficult to research.
It wasn't a deep dive.
You'll see my the referencethat I use.
You know the things that Icited.
Some of them are really rathercommon.
You know Texas HistoricalSociety, you know stuff like
that.
It's just out there very easy,but some of it was, you know it
(28:48):
was a lot deeper dive intofinding out who are these people
and what the hell's going onhere.
I like the part she, for example.
The politics is.
Something that people will beshocked to find out is that Sam
Houston was not loved byeveryone At one time.
Sam Houston dissolved the TexasNavy.
(29:09):
She talks quite a bit aboutthat.
That people were very inGalveston, very upset because in
this and I didn't know anythingabout the details of the battle
but the Texas Navy beat theMexican Navy, the Bay of the
Campeche I mean the Battle ofthe Campeche or whatever and in
Galveston that was thought assomething that saved them,
(29:29):
because they expected theMexican Navy to invade Texas and
they were going to land inGalveston, burn the city down.
There was no defense that theyreally had and they said the
Texas Navy saved them and SamHouston went and got rid of it.
Not only that, had a restwarrant for Commodore Moore,
which in their minds was thehero and she talks about.
(29:51):
They held a meeting, meetingsabout it, and her husband was
involved in that.
And then they had a big.
They all met one night and theyhanged Sam Houston in effigy.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You know, know and all that hated his guts and
everything kind of kind of stuff.
It's like sam houston.
He's the man he won the battleof san justino, he demand and
then and then you get into likegalveston history.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
You're like, yeah, people around here didn't like
him very much towards the no inthe 1840s, especially when the
mexican navy was still harassingthe te, the Texas coast through
that entire period I learnedthat that was, by the way, that
battle was the not the last time, the only time a fleet under
(30:36):
sail beat a steam powered fleet.
Lucy not only meets a lot ofinteresting people and you can
tell her education in the thingthroughout the book but it's
also very kind ofheart-wrenching.
One of her doctors some of thepeople from Maine are
interesting.
She talked pretty early in thisbook.
(30:57):
She mentions a doctor, dr CyrusHamlin.
Dr Cyrus Hamlin.
Now see, this is what.
If you just go over somethinglike this and you just see the
name, you don't think anythingabout it.
Right, we just move on.
Well, my job was to wonder whowas Cyrus Hamlin.
(31:20):
Well, it was pretty easy tofind out who he was because he
was the brother of HannibalHamlin, lincoln's first vice
president.
They lived in Paris, maine, andhis practice originally was in
Calais, maine, which is up theSt Croix River.
(31:40):
From Eastport you go around thecorner and go up this river.
It's a border between Canadaand Maine and that's where his
practice was.
When I gave a talk in Calais,maine, you could go out.
Their historical society was inhis home where he had his
medical practice.
They claimed he was buriedthere too, you could go see his
(32:02):
grave.
But I said too, you could gosee his grave.
But I said they must have movedit because he died in galveston
and she records him beingburied oh, so they were all at
his funeral, so he's heresomewhere he's there, he's he,
he should be here somewhere andwe don't.
(32:23):
And I've never been able to findwhere, never for sure where
they were burying people.
They just said it was outsidethe city one time.
That's all I know.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It's probably like 30th Street or something these
days I don't maybe something Idon't really know.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
You know she doesn't identify exactly where the
burying ground was.
Now she is buried in citycemetery out here.
She's not buried with herhusband, by the way.
She's married with her mother-in-law, because when they came,
joshua brought his wife, theirinfant emily, and then he also
brought his sister, hisstepmother and, I think, one
(33:07):
other person that comes upoccasionally that I had a hell
of a time finding I think it washis aunt.
Okay, so he came with a crewand a lot of stuff they brought
with them.
Okay, because they were settingup shop here and Joshua was a
carpenter.
I say carpenter, he built houses.
Everyone knows.
(33:28):
Well, everyone doesn't know,but the Menard House, one of the
oldest buildings, was a prefabhouse right from Maine and I've
always been wondering if Joshuadidn't have something to do with
that, because when he got herehe built houses and then later
he got the job of managing theTremont.
(33:49):
So he and his wife moved intoTremont and then they built a
hotel for themselves and thensuddenly, two years go by,
they're back at the Tremont andI have no idea what happened to
their hotel.
But there's a lot of things.
It got me involved, the ideathat she comes here with her
husband and she's educated.
(34:11):
Like I said, and I'm not so sureas much about Joshua, I did
throw one of his letters inthere because I had it and I
just wanted you, I wanted thereader just get a little taste.
He's writing, I think, his son,william, because she ends up
she does have a child that dies.
(34:32):
She comes with Emily and thenshe has two other children,
william and Annie, william, herson.
There's easy to find stuffabout him.
Find stuff about him.
He ended up during the CivilWar.
He joined I don't know, it wasGalveston Rifles or something
(34:52):
like that and then he got out ofthat and joined the Confederate
Navy.
He actually went to theConfederate Naval Academy.
The only service I could findand this, by the way, was when
he passed away the Masonic Lodge.
He was a Mason, so they had abit on him and supposedly he was
on.
He served on the cruiserwhatever, tallahassee, it was a
(35:16):
Confederate raider.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
That sailed up the East Coast.
It took 19 prizes.
It was in one trip.
It was a big deal.
It really harassed yankeeshipping up there a little.
I think is an interesting sidenote, and again I'm not for sure
, I have to kind of dig into ita little bit deeper.
They took a ship offmassachusetts main, somewhere in
(35:42):
there.
They recorded it in their log.
They took this ship and themaster of the ship was a guy
named Captain Marston.
The Marstons are related to theShaws and so ergo, what I'm
saying is he might have been ona ship that took a ship that was
captained by a relative of his.
(36:06):
Uh-huh, you know what I mean,that's a pretty common Civil War
story, though.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Right you know, brother fighting, brother father
fighting son.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Well, yeah, we've got the story in Galveston about
the.
You know the what?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
was the deal about the.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Battle of Galveston.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah, Edward and Albert Lee father and son.
Yeah, yeah, father and son,both on separate sides.
Right, both on separate sides,I think the son was on a Union
Navy vessel that had takenGalveston for a few months and
then, the father was on theConfederate side and they
battled each other right here,two blocks away from where we
(36:37):
are.
Okay, do you know anythingabout Saccharap?
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I looked into it briefly, it's named after
Saccharap Falls.
It's a beautiful little, veryiconic little main town, right,
and they have a historicalsociety and I I sent them off,
them in in you know queries.
So this what history tells meis we have this filibuster age
(37:01):
and we know the filibusters werein Bolivar and if you read
anything about the Bolivarianrevolts you think this is only
Latin Americans.
It was not.
Many.
Many Americans were involved inthese revolutions in South
America and Central America,right, some of them for
(37:23):
nefarious reasons of trying togather some sort of little
kingdom or something, but othersjust because they thought it
was the right thing to do.
It was a patriotic kind ofAmerican kind of thing, because
the idea of why does Bolivarrevolt?
Right, because the model wasthe United States did it Right.
(37:44):
We're going to do the same thing.
So a lot of Americans werefighting against Spain, and so
that can be one reason, you know, is just this idea.
They were drawn down hereduring this filibuster era and
or it's new land, it's arableland.
There's things they can do,although Joshua and them, he's a
(38:06):
merchant.
They're merchants, you know.
They're typical.
Like Yankees, I was telling myprevious class audience, lucy is
the prototypical Yankee.
Everything she believes in islike New England of that era,
puritan ethics, right.
(38:28):
They're founding members ofTrinity Episcopal Church, but
she also befriends anotherPresbyterian minister named
William McCalla that later on,my research found out in that
era was a very famous churchman,that era was a very famous
churchman.
Okay, he founded churches, hestarted the second college in
(38:49):
the Republic of Texas and he wasreally well known and he
visited Lucy when you know, whenhe came down here.
So they were very kind ofreligious, they really.
And she mentions religionoccasionally and mentions
getting religious books for herdaughter, you know, and children
they need to be educated, youknow this is part of their
(39:11):
education.
She knew Gail Borden.
She mentions Borden severaltimes.
People who know anything aboutold Galveston history know Gail
Borden.
You know Borden milk guy andall that Talks about his garden,
because he was into thathorticulture thing.
She was too.
(39:32):
And also she started a schoolwith gail borden and she taught
in this school until things gotgoing and she got busy and
couldn't do it anymore.
But she helped gail bordenstart a school, right, her
husband was an alderman, he washead of the wars board.
(39:52):
You know what I mean.
There are all this kind of NewEngland-y, yankee kind of way of
looking at the world.
Yeah yeah, and so my previoustalk kind of centered on that
idea that what is she bringingto Galveston?
What is her and her husband, butparticularly her, because the
(40:15):
letters are from her Is therebringing this civilized kind of
like saying right, you knowpeople, this is a whole idea of
the frontier.
You know the Frederick Turnerthesis and all this that this,
this country, was settled inwaves and there was always the
(40:37):
frontier.
Ok, you know, you start withtrappers and explorers and it
moves on to and then it moves onto more wild kind of settler,
and then the farmers and thenthe merchants and there's a
(41:00):
pattern, and so they kind of fitinto this pattern of taking
this wild place and making it alivable place.
She's interested in science,she's interested in science,
she's interested in medicine,she's interested, like I said,
in religion, the civics of itmaking a place.
If you really look and you seewho created the government here
(41:22):
in the early eras, you're goingto find most of them were people
from that era, that area, right, not just Maine and
Massachusetts, but you know whatI mean.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah, maryland and Pennsylvania, new York.
A lot of New Yorkers settled inin Galveston so they bring this
whole merchant class, thistrading class, this organization
bureaucracy and all that toGalveston.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Is there anything else you wanted to say?
Any parting thoughts?
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Let me read this.
I'm just going to read thislittle passage by Eric Hoffer,
okay, because it's about historyand it's about the importance
of studying individuals andtheir lives, their lives, death,
how they approach life, howthey look at things, society and
all that, but also how theymake us feel.
(42:17):
As eric hoffer wrote, it is theindividual only who is timeless
.
Societies, cultures andcivilizations, past and present,
are often incomprehensible tooutsiders, but the individual's
hungers, anxieties, dreams andpreoccupations have remained
(42:40):
unchanged through the millennia,through the millennia.
Thus we are up against theparadox that the individual, who
is more complex, unpredictableand mysterious than any communal
entity, is the one nearest toour understanding, so near that
even the interval of millenniacannot weaken our feeling of
(43:01):
kinship.
If, in some manner, the voiceof an individual reaches us from
the remotest distance of time,it is a timeless voice speaking
about ourselves.
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