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WRITINGS OF SAl\·I HOUSTON, 184--1
TO THOMAS J. HARDEMAN, OR EDWIN MOREHOUSE 1 Executive Department, VVashington, February 14, 1844. To Thomas J. Hardeman/ Esq., or Gen. E. Morehouse: Sir, You are hereby appointed an Acting Auditor, for the special purpose of examining the accounts at Austin contained in the boxes containing the books and papers of the Auditor's office up to March, 1842, and see whether any of the enclosed items have ever been audited for McKinney & Williams, for Thomas McKinney, or any other person for them, as ,:vould appear in their accounts, or either of them. If none of the said items should appear as having been audited, you v, 1 ill certify the same on oath to the Auditor at this place. Sam Houston. 1 Executive Record Boole, No. 40, p. 338, Texas State Library. For General Edwin Morehouse, see Houston to the Senate, December 22, 1836, Volume I, 521. 2 Thomas Jones Hardeman (January 31, 1788-1852), was born in Davidson County, Tennessee, about three miles from the city of Nashville. He received a liberal education and then studied law, but when the Texas revolution was brewing in 1835, he and his brother Bailey Hardeman, came to Texas, and located at Matagorda. They had hardly established a home before they were called upon to engage acti\•ely in the war for Texan independence. Thomas Jones Hardeman was twice married: first to Mary Polk, daughter of Ezekial Polk of Bolivar, Tennessee, who was a brother of James Knox Polk; and his second marriage was to Eliza DeWitt, daughter of the empresario, Green DeWitt. Of Hardeman's many children, two sons be- came prominent in the military history of Texas, Thomas M. Hardeman, who fought at San Jacinto, in the Plum Creek fight, and in the Somervell Expedition; and William P. Hardeman, who is best remembered for his service in the Confederate army, in which he rose to the rank of Brigadier Genernl and made himself conspicuous for bravery in many hard-fought engagements. But their father, the subject of this sketch, rendered to Texas a service of a more peaceful nature. He represented Matagorda County in the Second and Third Congresses, and was the first to suggest that the newly-located permanent capital of the Republic should be named Austin. Later he removed to Bastrop County and served that district in the state leglslature in 1847-1848. He was the Worthy Grand Master of the Masonic Order in Texas in 1850-1851. He died at his home in Bastrop County in 1852. See Jounwls of the House of Rcp,·escntati·ves of tl,e State of Texas, for the second and third legislatures; Ben Stuart, Te:i·ns Ra11gel'B and Frontiel' Fightel's (MS.), The University of Texas Library; Sid John- son, Texans Who J,Vo,·e the Gray, 121-122; Z. T. Fulmore, The History mid Geogra.phy of Texas As Told in Co11nty Names, 109-110.
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