W~ITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
385
look to the people to sustain me. My hopes point me, however, to the honorable body before me, believing that in so much wisdom and intelligence there cannot fail to exist, at the same time, that amount of virtue and patriotism necessary to meet any emergency. 1 Executive Records, December f21, 1859-December 21, 1861, pp. 1-7, Texas State Library; The Harrison Flag, January 13, 1860; The Texas Republican, January 14, 1860. For a graphic description of the scene of Houston's inauguration, see an article signed "S" in The San Antonio Daily Herald, December 27, 1859.
To WILLIAM C. DALRYMPLE 1
Austin, December 26, 1859.
Confidential!!! My dear Sir. Your favor of the 21st inst has been received and in reply I have only to express my desire to see you here so soon as your convenience will permit. I wish to take immediate action for giving protection to the frontier; and in the outset it may be promotive of my views to have a personal understand- ing with the officers to whom I wish to confide the important and delicate duty to be performed. Truly Thine Sam Houston. Capt. W. C.· Dalrymple, Georgetown, Williamson County. 1 Executive Records, December 21, 1859, to Decembe1· !!1, 1861, p. 22, Texas State Library. :wmiam Cornelius Dalrymple (August 3, 1814-March 29, 1898) was born and reared on his father's farm in Moore County, North Carolina. What education he received was from the schools of his neighborhood. At the age of twenty-one he set out for Texas. In 1837, he joined the ranger service that was scouting the waters of the Brazos. In 1839, he was again in military service, guarding the woodchoppers who built the first govern- ment cabins at Austin. In 1840, he married Elizabeth Wilbarger and settled on a farm near the present town of Georgetown. In 1842, he joined Burle• son to repel the Vasquez invasion, and the next year he was one of the leaders in the Snively expedition (see Ben Stuart, Texas Fighters and Fron- tie1· Rangers, 254-258; also Beatrice G. Gay, Coleman County, p. 87). In 1846, he moved his home to the San Gab1·iel River, six miles from Georgetown, and was one of the commissioners to locate the county seat when Williamson County was organized in 1848. It was through his in- fluence that the other two commissioners were induced to select George- town. In that same year he was elected the first tax assessor and collector of the new county, and he held this position for a number of years. In 1855 he was elected to represent Williamson and Burnet counties in the lower house of the Texas Legislature, and was 1·e-electd in 1857, serving in this position during the sixth and seventh legislatures of the State.
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