302
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1851
Republicans after the Civil War, Pease came to be hated by many of the people, but it remains a well-known fact that during the harsh adminis- tration of Governor E. J. Davis, he opposed many of the harsh measures against the Southern people, and threw the weight of his influence into the scales on the side of conservatism, thus rendering Texas a great service during the bitter times of reconstruction. In 1874, the Secretary of Interior, Colonel Bristow, offered Pease the position of Collector of the Port of Galveston. He refused it; but when it was again offered to him in 1879, he accepted it. That was his last public service in Texas. At the time of his death Pease was vice-president of the First National Bank of Austin, John T. Breckenridge and R. T. Brackenridge being presi- dent and cashier, respectively. He was also a Master Mason, having become a Mason in 1839, a member of St. John's Lodge No. 5, of Columbia, Texas; and he was a useful and beloved member of the Texas Veterans' Associa- tion, an organization composed almost entirely of men who had fought with the Confederacy (see John Henry Brown, Histo,·y of Texas, II, 449). While he was never a member of any church, he attended the Episcopal Church, the church in which he had been reared. In 1850, Pease was married to Miss Lucadia Christina Niles, of Windsor, Connecticut. She survived her husband, and lived until January 28, 1905. See Governors' Letters; also Executive Record Books, Nos. 276, and 283, Texas State Library; John Henry Brown, Indian lVa,·s and Pioneei·s of Texas, 201-205; N. G. Kittrell, Governo,·s Who Have Been and Other Public Men of Texas, 26-27; Biographical Encyclopedfo, of Texa$, 17-19; A Twentieth Century Histor.y of Sou,thwest Texas, I, 157, 216; Lewis E. Daniell, Texas, The Country and Its Men, 94-96; Johnson-Barker, Texas and Texans, IV, 1609-1611; James Lynch, Benck and Bar of Texas, 221- 250, 533-608; Biographical Souvenir of Texas, 662-663; Davis and Grobe, The New Encyclopedia of Texas, I, 258-259; The Encyclopedia of the New West, 44-45; Benjamin H. Miller, Elisha Marshall Pease, (MS.) a Master's Thesis, The University of Texas Library. Nearly all the Texas newspapers from 1850 to 1880 have a great many articles in them concerning E. M. Pease, especially Texas State Gazette, Austin Daily Statesman, Northern Standard, The So1,thwesteni Anuwican; Texas Mercury, and various others.
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To JOHN R. BURKEL
Huntsville, 19th July, 1851. My dear Burke: I, was glad to receive your letter of the 13th inst. I am happy to hear from you, but I am candid in saying that my happiness is enhanced, by hearing from Mrs. Burke, for it has been so long since I had the pleasure to see her, that it was warrantable to suppose she had ceased to think of me. Will I be at home by the middle of August, you say? Yes, I say, if I have any hope of seeing my friend John R. Burke at my Wigwam, as what would make us more happy than to see him and his family! It will make us all happy, to see you. About the last
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