WRITINGS OF Sur HOUSTON, 1859
369
1 Tltc Standard, August 20, 1859. It is also to be found in manuscript-- probably in Houston's handwriting-in the Swante Palm Papers, Bergstrom Gift, in The University of Texas Library. The lette1· answers a charge that Houston opposed granting public land to railroad companies to assist road building. 1 See The Writings, I, p. 425. 3 In 1859 all these men were prominent professional or business men of Houston, Texas. (1) Judge Alexander McGowen (July 5, 1817-December 26, 1893), was born in Dublin County, North Carolina, but was reared an orphan in l\font- gomery, Alabama. He learned the tinner's trade and came to Texas in September, 1839, settling at Houston. He set up a tin shop and prospered, developing his business into a large hardware store, and later into the first foundry to be established at Houston, and probably the first in Texas. Later he turned this business over to the management of his son, but retained an interest in it until his death. In 1841 he was married to Mrs. Christopher, by whom he had eight children, only two of whom lived to be grown. Mrs. McGowen died in 1873, and two years later, her husband married !11iss Florence Abbey. They had one son, Walter McGowen of Houston. But history is not so much concerned with McGowen's financial and social life as with his political life and his public service. He lived in Houston from 1839 to 1893, and throughout that time he was almost con- tinuously in public office. First, he was elected over David G. Burnet, as a representative to the first State constitutional convention, in 1845; later, he was three times elected mayor of the city of Houston; he served two terms as Chief Justice of Harris County, two terms as County Assessor, and six years as County Treasurer. He was always greatly interested in the cause of public education, and worked enthusiastically for the develop- ment of a system of public free schools. For a more detailed account of Judge Alexander McGowen's life, see the Lewis Publishing Company, History of T6xas with a Biogmphical History of the Cities of Houston and Galveston, etc., pp. 466-469. (2) Little biographical information has been found concerning W. H. King beyond the fact that he was, in 1859, a lawyer of Houston. Tommy Yet (chief compiler), 11'Iembe1·s of the Legislature of the State of Texas from 1846 to 1989, p. 98, lists W. H. King as a member of the Sixteenth Legislature, 1879, from Sulphur Springs, Hopkins County. Whether this W. H. King is the man who lived at Houston in 1859, has not been cer- tainly determined. (3) W. H. Eliot is as uncertainly identified as was W. H. King. In 1859, he was a lawyer and business man of Houston. In 1879, one W. H. Eliot served in the Sixteenth Legislature as a representative from Texarkana, Bowie County. See ibid., 112. (4) Harvey H. Allen is more certainly known. He was the youngest of six brothers who came to Texas from New York, in the early days of the Republic; in fact, Augustus C. and John K. Allen came before the Texas revolution. See The Writings, II, 48, 100, 181. These two older Allen brothers were the founders and developers of the city of Houston; but they had many interests besides the making of a city. They were intcrestd with Williams and McKinny in the establishment and operation of the first bank in the Texas Republic, the "Commercial and Agricultural Bank," at
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