WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1842
172
men enough in the field to enable a force to cross the River with the hope of success. What the men of Texas will do no one can tell, for we must look at them as men, but not as an organized body. To do any good we must unite and act in harmony, or we cannot exist as a nation. We have all the natural elements, if we had a larger portion of the moral leaven to raise up into harmonious proportions. When will we get it? It must soon come or all will be lost. I hope that we will be pretty pleasantly situated here, by and by; the Houses are not first rate, but almost anything will do "now-a-days." Mrs. Houston is very well and joins me in regards to you, and all our friends in Houston - to whom present us very kindly. Sam Houston. Thomas M. Bagby, Esq. 1 Bagby Papers, Houston Public Library. 2 Thomas M. Bagby (May 18, 1814-May 12, 1868), son of Daniel and Lucy Bagby, was born in Virginia. The family migrated to West Tennessee in 1822, and settled in Montgomery County. There Thomas Bagby was reared and received such meager educational advantages as the frontier county afforded. While still young lhe boy became a clerk in a store at Clarksville, where he acquired a considerable fund of information concerning the mercantile business. In 1837 he moved to Texas, and located in Houston. There he became one of the early merchants of the town. He did a large commission business, receiving and forwarding goods from the coast to the interior of the Republic. After the forties he became one of the largest . cotton factors of the state. He remained in the mercantile business until the day of his death, and was almost as well known throughout the interior of the state as he was on the coast. At different times during his career he was in partnership wilh H. D. Taylor and Samuel L. Allen. He was never in politics; he never sought, or held political office in county or state, but for a short time served on the board of alderman for the city of Houston. On February 23, 1848, he married Marianna Baker, daughter of Asa and Hannah Baker, and sister of William R. Baker. To them were born six children. Thomas M. Bagby became a member of the Masonic Lodge-Holland Lodge No. 1, while he was a young man, and throughout his life continued to manifest a great interest in the Masonic Order. He was a zealous member of the Presbyterian Church of Houston, one of the Pioneer churches of Texas. Thomas M. Bagby was a man of even temper, quiet tastes, and was devoted to his home and family. See the Bagby Papers, Houston Public Library; The Histoi-y of Houston and Galveston, pp. 469-470 (Lewis Publishing Company, 1895.) aThis was evidently Colonel Joseph L. Bennett. See Houston to Joseph L. Bennett, July 26, 1842.
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