560
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1860
Banta was the first Justice of the Peace elected in Fannin County. In 1843, he sold his headright and moved to South Sulphur, and there assisted in organizing Hunt County. William, the second son of the family, was· with his father's family during these changes of residence; but in 1849 he came to Austin, Texas, arriving on September 2. During the fall and winter he went on several Indian scouts. He had an altercation with two brothers, "the Wilson boys," which caused him to leave Austin and go to Hamilton's Valley (later called Burnet). There, March 4, 1850, he married Lucinda Hairston, this being the first marriage in Burnet County. William Banta was also the first man ever to be baptized in Burnet County. He was in nearly all the Indian fights of this region between 1850 and 1859, and organized and commanded the first company of minute men in the county. He was one of the first men to volunteer for Confederate service in 1861, and enlisted in Company A of A. McCord's regiment, Walker's division. He collaborated with J. W. Caldwell in writing Twenty-seven Years on the Frontie1·, or Fifty Years in Texas, which see for further data on William Banta. To WILLIAM S. HoTCHK1ss 1 Executive Department, Austin, March 27th, 1860. To the Hon. William S. Hotchkiss, Commissioner of Court of Claims Sir: Whereas application has been made by the President of the Washington County Railway Company for one hundred and seventy-six sections of land to which the said company is entitled by virtue of the completion of eleven miles of its road And whereas the State Engineer has reported under oath that the said eleven miles upon which this application is made, is entirely completed and put in running order, and that the same has been constructed according to the provisions of the Charter of said Company and also of the general laws of the State, in force at this time, regulating railroad Companies. You are therefore requested to issue to the said Company its President or other lawful officers agent or attorney, the said One Hundred and Seventy-six Sections of land in land scrip of Six Hundred and Forty acres each. Sam' Houston. 1 Executive Reco1·ds, 1859-1861, p. 112, Texas State Library. Besides being one of the commissioners of the Court of Claims, William S. Hotch- kiss is remembered at Austin as a leader, and as a trustee of a temperance society-Metropolitan Division, No. 29, Sons of Temperance-that had a long and rather prosperous career at Austin. This society was organized, March 22, 1849, and the funds were still extant and being administered
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