An Introduction to Brenham's Emancipation Celebrations, 1878-1923

     This is an article I put together several years ago after being amazed with the amount of information on the Emancipation Celebrations in Brenham newspapers.   Interesting enough in its own right, the next post will present transcripts of the various articles used to compose this article, to give a sense of the volume of material that went into this article.  

     Many of the people mentioned in this article and the newspaper transcriptions are also buried in Camptown Cemetery, which was the original impetus for the article.  It is yet another example of how the cemetery is an focal point for understanding life in in Camptown during this time.  Hopefully it will serve as yet another example of how cemeteries are not just where dead people go, but where people who have lived are. 

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An Introduction to
Brenham’s Emancipation Celebrations

1878-1923

by

Charles Swenson

In a distant corner of Camptown Cemetery the tombstone of Josephine Yancy lays collapsing in a gully next to a railway line.  It was covered in a canebrake until the cemetery was cleared in 2014, found next to the graves of her parents, Ben and Fannie, who had to bear the terrible burden of burying their only child.  She was far too young when she died in August of 1903, not yet 29 years of age.  Little is known about her, but three things are clear from Brenham newspaper accounts in 1896.  In March she gave a vocal duet at the Canton Excelsior Club at Lou Clark’s hall in Camptown.  A few months later she presented a paper for the Union Program at the Mount Rose Baptist Church, a hundred yards or so from her final resting place.  And in June of that year, at the same church, Miss Josephine Yancy  was nominated to become a Goddess.

Josephine wasn’t elected the Goddess of Liberty for the emancipation celebration that year, but she was one of many people buried in Camptown whose life is connected to these yearly observances.  Her father had been sworn in as one of the nine men specially selected as a policeman for the two day celebration two years earlier.  Asa Rippetoe was an assistant grand marshal of the parade in 1878.  Waterman Bynum’s daughter Mattie was also a candidate for Goddess of Liberty in 1885.  In 1884 Felix Whittaker’s father had a float in the parade decorated as “a complete blacksmith shop in full working order, with the mottoes, ‘We live by honest toil’ and ‘Patronize home industries.’”  Wylie Hubert entered a horse in a race at the Fairgrounds during the celebration there in 1894.  Frank Hubert served as  treasurer for the most widely advertised commemoration, held at Chauncey Williamson’s park in 1922.

(Brenham Daily Banner Press, June 8, 1922 p4)

Emancipation celebrations played an important role in Brenham’s black community in the late 19th and early 20th century.  It not only commemorated the freeing of slaves but was a chance for family and friends from around the state to gather together, socialize and relax for a two day holiday free from their daily labors and full of entertainments.  A study of contemporary newspaper accounts gives us not only a surprisingly broad understanding of how this holiday was celebrated but an insight into the black community in Brenham and Washington County as well.  The large number of articles on the subject which exist for the period of 1878 to 1923, as well as the span of time they cover, present a useful tool for investigating the evolving face of black history during this time period.  

“The plows are still in the fields.  Cooks have abandoned the kitchens.  Industries that are handled by colored labor are silent for the two days, having realized the futility of trying to run, have generously closed up and granted them the two days holiday”  (Brenham Evening Press, June 19, 1908, p1)

The Daily Banner reported in May of 1878 on a black committee’s plans for a emancipation day celebrations to be held “in the grove at the head of Hog Branch,” as well as the first intimation of the ongoing “disagreement among the committeemen” that was to continue throughout the years.  There were often two celebrations going on in Brenham, as well as smaller celebrations in other communities throughout Washington County.  The Brenham celebrations were often held at the “old fair grounds,” although later they were also held at a park in Wilkins’ Addition which was later incorporated into “Colored Firemen’s Park.” Stockbridge’s pasture or park was also the location of celebrations in Brenham.  In the 1920s, celebrations were also held at Chauncey S. Williamson’s Park, advertised as having “...a large Pavilion, Two-Story Hall, Stationary Stands, large Trees for shade and Electric Lights.  Come one, Come all!  Everyone is welcome in this Colored Park,which is owned by one colored man.”  1905 had even more separate celebrations, “one at Oak Grove Park, one mile east of Brenham on the Independence road (a commonly used location), one near Mrs. Dawson’s Sanitarium, given by ex-slaves,” one at “Hyde Park by the colored Hook and Ladder Company” (this seems to have been the Wilkins’ Addition park.)  Some of the celebrations were free, while others charge admission from 10 cents to 25 cents.  

The emancipation celebration was always two days long, generally on the 19th and 20th.  If one of these days fell on a Sunday, the dates for the festivities were moved either forward or backward to avoid conflicting with church services.  One emancipation celebration, however, was held by the Washington County Ex-Slaves Association at Stockbridges on October 1 in 1896, though it is not clear why this date was chosen. It was often commented that whites would have to cook their own meals and work in the fields was halted, as it was expected that during the celebrations blacks were to be free of their daily labors.

The celebrations in Brenham were well attended by other communities, including Chappell Hill, Hempstead, Navasota, Austin, Independence, William Penn, Gay Hill, Whitman, Kenney, Caldwell, Burton, Carmine, Sommerville, Temple, Bellville, Giddings, Orange, and Houston.  The influx of visitors for from distant communities was swelled by reduced railway rates during the the days surrounding the celebrations.  As early as the 1880s crowds were from two to three thousand, and by 1914 the crowd at the celebrations were estimated to be as high as six thousand.  This effect of such large crowds was not lost on the white population, with newspaper accounts not only mentioning the loss of cooks for many white families but the economic benefits of such large crowds on the local economy.  

Preparations for the celebrations began months beforehand.  The nomination and elections of a Goddess of Liberty were an important element of the celebrations.  Tickets were sold for the various candidates to raise money for the organizing committees.  The candidates were not only elected to serve as a feminine figurehead of the liberty recently won, much as the Goddess of Liberty had served as a symbol of freedom since the early days of the Texas Republic, but she was also to deliver speeches at the opening of the emancipation celebrations as well.  These elections were often quite lengthy and elaborate affairs themselves.

“The colored people closed the polls for the election of a goddess of liberty for their emancipation celebration at 11 o’clock on Saturday night at the Mount Rose Baptist church.  Miss Esther Johnson, daughter of Rev. Mose Johnson, was declared elected, after which 300 guests, headed by Randle’s brass band went to Henry McAdoo’s residence to partake of refreshments prepared by the committee.  They then went to the residence of the goddess of liberty about 12:30 a.m., and tendered her a serenade.  An address was delivered by J.H. Clinton, which was responded to.” (Brenham Daily Banner, June 12, 1889 p3)

The celebrations were usually started with a parade through downtown Brenham, or two when separate celebrations were being held.  The parades were typically led by

a grand marshal “wreathed in gorgeous silk sashes of emerald and crimson,” followed by a brass band.  Next would be that year’s elected Goddess of Liberty in a carriage covered in lace and led by six white horses,  accompanied by her maids of honor and flower girls, followed by the various orators who were to deliver their speeches at that day’s festivities.

Then came the floats, which were ranged from the mundane to quite elaborate.  Aside from Felix Whittakers working blacksmith shop, these covered a wide range of themes and topics.  These included “a children’s float decorated in the National colors, with swings suspended from the canopy, in which little children were swinging,” “a choir singing sacred songs,” various community groups, “a representation of Ransom’s tonsorial parlor.” “a juvenile fire company with a boat on a truck,” and “an ox wagon load of imitation cotton.”  In 1897 there was even a float representing racoon hunting, on which “a good sized tree had been transplanted, and amid its spreading branches a festive coon disported in apparent satisfaction, despite the fact that he had been shackled in freedom’s name.  At the root of the tree a veteran coon dog bayed deeped mouthed defiance to the treed coon and a lot of small boys with sticks and horns and other implements of noisy warfare added their full quota to the din.” The parades would also be accompanied by the Brenham Blues colored militia unit, Camptown’s  Hook and Ladder Company No.2, uniformed baseball teams, bicyclists and various other hangers on the way to the grounds where the celebrations were to be held.  

The local colored lodges and societies, including the Camptown Mutual Aid Benevolent Society, the Masons, the Ladie’s General Missionary Society, Ladies Aid Society, Missionary Building society, the Draymen’s Club No. 1, the Band of Progress, Grand United Order Odd Fellows, order of the Seven Stars of Consolidation, the Sons and Daughters of Zion and the Peculiar Sevens.  Many of these social groups played a role in organizing the celebrations as well as participating in the parades.

(Brenham Daily Banner Press, June 8, 1918, p2)

The celebrations were accompanied by speeches, sometimes with responses by that years Goddess of Liberty.  The speeches were often given by white community leaders as well as black, and the more accomplished black speakers would in time become in demand at other emancipation ceremonies.  Although there is no record of the content of these speeches, there does exist portions of a speech delivered by J.D. Bushell, the orator of the day at the the 1917 emancipation celebration at Chauncey Williamson’s park.  This speech  also given at Williamson's park two months earlier as the United States was just entering into the Great War.  Bushell, who was not only the principal of the Brenham Normal and Industrial college but a veteran of the Spanish American War and had charged up San Juan Hill with the Rough Riders.  The speech, as quoted by the Brenham Daily Banner-Press of April 16, 1917, gives a sense of Bushell’s power as a speaker.

“...These ties are ties of blood, and may be seen upon battlefields, on southern plantations, in the home and in the forest. We made the crops, tilled the fields, felled the forests and did the primary, the fundamental, the strenuous labor for a period of more than two hundred years.

‘Our hands have not grown weary.  The same arms of iron, and fingers of steel that tilled the fields when we were not citizens, are doubly ready to do now that we are part and parcel of this great nation.  The man who walks behind the plow, who sits upon the reaper, who begins at early dawn and labors till the purple twilight deepens into night, is as much a soldier as the man who stands by his guns.  While our brethren are in the field, be they white or be they black, let the rest of us be making it possible for them to stay in the field until they shall have wrested from the crown of autocracy the incubus of human authority.

“There was never a war in the United States to free slaves.  The North has never had any more love for negroes than the South.  Slavery was not a Southern institution, but an American institution.  The Emancipation Proclamation was not issued to free the slaves, but it was issued as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing rebellion, and was used as a military necessity.  Mr. Lincoln clearly and distinctly stated in his first inaugural address delivered March 4, 1861, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.  I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and have no inclination to do so.”  While the North and the South were engaged in a war between themselves, making determined efforts for good government the gates flew open and the negro slave walked out and he has been walking ever since.  It is in the South where he was held as a slave that the negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world.  The South has never desired to re-enslave the negro, but it has helped, like the North, to Christianize and educate him.

“Our emancipation was not an accident, but a result.  It was the culmination of the working out by the mighty forces of faith and prayer through two hundred and fifty years of the proposition that “All men are created equal, and are of right and ought to be free.”  It was not the triumph of a system, nor of the North over the South.  When freedom tore the azure robe of night and set the stars in glory over the camps of four million slaves, it was the result of the well-defined and determined efforts of men and women North and South, many of whom were the descendants of Puritans and Huguenots, who, themselves had felt the fires of persecution and were wedded to liberty.

“Negro blood forms a part of the red in every stripe in “Old Glory.”  We have rendered valuable services in the nineteen wars of the United States, from the Revolution in 1775 to Carrizal where negro troopers went singing to their death.  If anywhere their bravery and valor are questioned, when they have been called upon to defend their country, go to San Juan Hill.  Ask the bleeding earth that drank their blood!  And if the rocks could find a tongue, they would tell you that negro troopers saved the day for American, by marching to the old Block House midst shot and shell, “while horse and hero fell.”  They routed the Spaniards with victory perched upon their banners and while the band played, “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” negro soldiers seized the artillery, turned it upon the fleeing Spaniards, and through their brave and heroic deeds, wrote their names in blood upon the records of military triumphs and scored a decisive victory for America.

“Every member of the race stands ready now to serve the country’s needs.  Let it be remembered that the man with the hoe is as much a factor in this contest as the man with the sword.  Every one is not fitted for service at the front.  Let everyone serve where he is best fitted, and in this we serve not only our country, but we serve humanity and God.

“This is no time for quibbling or shuffling.  The constitution of the United States is the expression, the highest expression of the organic law of our land.  That law gave us the elective franchise and we are citizens.”

In addition to the speeches, there were a number of various amusements available at the ceremonies.  There were horse races, shooting contest, colored military company drills, fiddler’s contests, mule riding, tournaments and  stock shows. Children could “join in a potato race, and egg race, running and hopping abstracts and many other such contests.”  There were many other contests as well, such as one for “the lady that proves herself to be the most talkative and entertaining,” prettiest woman and ugliest man,  best needlework, neatest dressed woman, best quilt, best oil painting, best recitation, best essay, best jubilee singing, best lady rifle shot, best milk cow, best bicycle rider, best cotton, best corn, fastest trotting horse and best decorated float.  Prizes included cash, hats, scarfs, rockers, painting, items of jewelry, vases, boxes of candy or cigars, and even sacks of flour.

Baseball was a big event during the celebrations.  Local teams, such as the Lee, the Famous, the Strikers of Camptown and the Lone Star of Watrousville played matches not only with each other, but with teams from Navasota, Hempstead, Beaumont, Galveston, Bryan, Bellville, and Austin.

Concessions were sold at stands that had been sold to the highest bidder prior to the celebrations, for categories such as saloon, chile, tamales, ice cream, confectionary, restaurant, shooting gallery, bootblack, barbecue pit, weinerwurst, lemonade, milk shake, “blue rock,”  dancing, “cane stand and doll baby,” and hobby horses.  Barbecue dinners were common at some of the smaller celebrations, where they were usually provided free.  Alcohol was generally present, especially at the larger gatherings,

Music played a large part in the celebrations, starting with the parades all the way through the Grand Balls given at night.  There were usually one or more local bands, such as Prof. Foss’ Brass Band, Emmanuel Taylor’s Lone Star Band (which earned $90 for the celebrations in 1900), Jerry Randle’s Cottonpatch Band, the Zobo Band (directed by Mrs. Estella Lindsey), the Twentieth Century Quartette and  Gus Hopkin’s Band.  The Brenham Brass Band, under the leadership of Prof. C.P. Hicks, even composed special music for the occasion, such as the “Emancipation Quadrille” and “Out of Bondage Waltz.”  Out town bands included the Seaport Band of Galveston and the W.H. Hawkins Band of San Antonio, with Sid C. Isles’ Ragtime Band from Houston being especially favored in later years.  An account of a musical contest between the Hawkins and Isles bands is found in a 1938 copy of Down Beat Magazine...

“Here’s an invitation to a carving contest that took place ‘way back in the ‘teens on the 19th of June in Brenham, Tex.  The occasion was the yearly celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves, and every mother’s son was really ready  to hear a battle of the music between the two best Colored bands in Texas  (A vote of thanks to Ray R. Hone, Jr., the  well-known record collector, for digging this dope.)

The line-up was as follows: W.H. Hawkin’s Brass Band, the pride of San Antonio, was bucking Sid Isles’ Ragtime Band from Houston.  And this man Sid Isles blew a hot horn that had echoed all over Texas.  The boys from Houston were sold on Sid, and packed the excursion train to the roof on the trip to Brenham.  Excursion trains were puffing in everywhere, but they calculated that there were over over a thousand Sid Isles fans from Houston alone.  The Hawkins Brass Band was unafraid.  They played strictly legit usually, the regulation stuff, for clubs, lodges, and city functions.  Besides Hawkins himself had composed that “March Tanforn.”  But they did have a solid cornetist, who could get off if he had the chance, named George Washington Smith.

Well, the final decision was one of those things.  The newspaper men had organized the battle, and they voted for the Hawkins Brass Band, because they played a legit overture.  But the crowd went the other wy.  And the most disappointed cat was George Washington Smith, not because he wasn’t allowed to get off, but because he wished he was playing with the Sid Isles band, that didn’t “pay no mind” to music reading.  George knew the real thing when he heard it and lost no time starting a real band of his own.”

( M.W. Stearns, ‘George Washington Smith Rocks Cradle of Jazz, Two Years Older Than Jelly-Roll He Carved Regulation Cats in Texas,’ Down Beat, April 1938, vol. 5, No. 4, page 13, columns 1-4 (found at http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/page10bc.html )

Despite the differences, in music venues and otherwise, the similarities between Brenham’s annual Maifest and the emancipation celebrations were often noted.  “(T)he colored people pattern their  celebration a good deal after the manner of the white have their Maifest, save that a Goddess of Liberty takes the place of a May Queen”  (Brenham Evening Press, June 19, 1908 p1),  even though it was recognized that best special railway fares for Maifest were not as good as those the emancipation committees arranged for their celebration and at times drew a much larger crowd.  Just as the Maifest is held at the Firemen’s Park, the emancipation celebrations were often held at the Colored Firemen’s Park, and many of the floats that had been used in the Maifest procession were later used in the Juneteenth parades.  

The local newspaper accounts compiled below are limited in their temporal scope by what is readily available at the Portal to Texas History site hosted by the University of North Texas.  As such do not give much of a clue as to what eventually happened to the emancipation celebrations in Brenham after 1923, although it seems to have gone the way of so much of black history in Brenham.   It would be easy to guess that ominous racial prejudices and animosity might be at play, especially given the some of the openly derogatory comments made in the newspaper accounts, though the large number of supportive reports should also be taken into consideration.  

“However there is one ironic note about Emancipation Day that had deeper historic echoes in the historic record.  It was on June 19, 1891 that the Texas separate coach law of was go into effect, a seemingly odd choice for any law to come into effect, but especially this one.  “Today is the last day our colored friends can claim the social privilege of occupying the same coach or even the same seat with their white friends on the railway lines of Texas.  The separate coach law goes into effect tomorrow, and as the colored people are rushing about to the most accessible points to celebrate the 26th anniversary of their emancipation the change will be particularly noticeable and as the Banner has previously remarked will seem like the irony of fate that it should have gone into effect on this particular day. But this is best, and while there may be some recalcitrant colored individuals who oppose the law and will perhaps not accept it with good grace, it will be enforced.  The colored people will be furnished equal accommodation with the whites but they will ride in the same coach no more.”  (Brenham Weekly Banner, June 18, 1891, p8)

“It is a coincidence worth of note that on the day when the colored people of Texas will all be celebrating the anniversary of their emancipation, going on excursions and etc., they will be quietly ordered out of the coach with with white people into coaches prepared for them, for the separate coach law goes into effect on that day.  There is no doubt that this law was one of the best for all the people of Texas that was enacted by the last Legislature.”  (Brenham Daily Banner, May 26, 1891, p1)

This was one of the many separate coach laws that were proliferating throughout the country at the time, leading ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court “separate but equal” ruling in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896.  This was one of the legal precedents that helped solidify Jim Crow laws throughout the next 60 years, which certainly were separate if not quite so equal.  As surely as the directive issued by General Gordon Granger in Galveston on June 19 in 1865, this separate coach law issued by the Texas Legislature and taking effect on June 19 in 1891 was to have a long lasting effect in Brenham.  

The Long Strange Journey of Hiram Williams

     Hiram Williams has a well defined marker in Camptown Cemetery, a military marker.  The story of his life, or at least particulars of it, are actually fairly well documented.  To a large extent this documentation comes from newspaper accounts, most of them related to his run-ins with the law.   Nonetheless, he is an interesting example of just how much can be learned from such documentation about various aspects of life in and around Camptown.  The incident of his being swept up by the police after a near fatal assault on an officer in Hell's Half Acre provides interesting insights into Brenham's red light district.  

     The story of his life also allows a little light into the life of Rhoda Williams, nee Rodgers, also buried in Camptown Cemetery.  She and Hiram seem to have actually been married twice, and it is reasonable to speculate that the first marriage suffered from his affairs in Hell's Half Acre, and their second marriage (after her previous marriage to Jordan Johnson and his death) may indicate a change in Hiram's lifestyle which made their marriage more amenable the second time around.  

     Bringing such stories back to life reinforces the concept that Camptown Cemetery is not just a place where dead people went but a place where people who were once alive are. 

     This article was originally printed in the March 2016 issue of the Bay Area Genealogical Society Journal. 

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The Long Strange Journey of Hiram Williams

by Charles Swenson

(photo courtesy of Amy the Spirit Seeker)

     The long strange journey of Hiram Williams began on December 20, 1858, and ended 84 years later, on March 1, 1943. Like those of so many others buried in Camptown Cemetery, it began in slavery, the forced progeny of white and black blood. After a stint in Brenham's short lived black militia, the Brenham Blues, he took on a life of fighting and gambling, winding up in one of the most dangerous and violent areas of Brenham, Hell's Half Acre. To escape a charge of attempted murder of a police officer and possible lynching he led a life on the run through much of the American West before he was exonerated of that crime. He participated in the Spanish-American War as part of an all-black volunteer regiment in Cuba before eventually returning to remarry his wife and make his final home in Brenham, just a few blocks away from Camptown Cemetery.
     Hiram was born into bondage in Louisiana to Malissa and Clark Williams.¹ Little is known about his early childhood, his parents or how he came to arrive in Texas. His first appearance in the records is the 1870 Census, at which time his living with his mother next door to Wiley Hubert, a well-to-do carpenter and one of the prominent black citizens of the Camptown area of Brenham.² Although his father is not mentioned in this census (his name only appears on his death certificate), he was a mulatto, which always brings up uncomfortable questions of parentage for those born into slavery. In 1894 a reporter for the Galveston Daily News described him as “rather a good looking man, almost white, with black curly hair.”³ His mother is listed as a mulatto 39 years of age, as well as all of his siblings. She owned her own house worth $200, as well as personal property listed with a value of $200. Also in the home were four other siblings; Mary, a 17 year old laborer and the only child born in Texas, Pierce, a 15 year old news boy, Henry 7, and another sister whose name is not clear in the census. Hiram is listed as employed as a domestic servant, and having attended school within the past year, with later records indicating his education only reached to the third grade.
     Hiram's first appearance in the Brenham papers came with the announcement of his marriage to Rhoda Rodgers on December 12, 1878.⁴ This marriage did not last long, and seems to have ended with some acrimony, since in the 1880 Census, 18 months after their marriage, Hiram is listed as widowed, with a ten year old son, Clark Williams.⁵ However, it does seem that they were able to resolve whatever differences they had, and they were eventually remarried some forty years later.
Shortly after Hiram's marriage, a black military company of Texas volunteer guards was formed in Brenham, in accordance to the then current militia laws. They were called the Brenham Blues, and after filing bond were granted the 48 members received the Springfield rifles that had belonged to a former militia group, the Brenham Greys. Under the leadership of Captain C.C. Coleman, Hiram was made 1^st Lieutenant. Around 10 at night on July31, 1880, he and the rest of the company paraded under torchlight down the streets of Brenham, accompanied by a brass band. The procession proceeded to Camptown, where they gathered at the school house for a fund raising dinner which helped acquire uniforms.⁶ It is not clear how long Hiram remained in the militia, but the Brenham Blues disbanded within a year of their participation in Emancipation Celebration parade (in full uniform and with muskets) in 1881. ⁷
     Following this account, newspaper reports regarding Hiram reveal a darker side of his nature. From 1880 to 1881 alone there are at least eight articles in the Brenham Banner his fights or court cases for fighting, assault, being drunk and disorderly or use of abusive language. Most were with fellow blacks, such as Dick Riley, Bill Price or Injun Bill, but Hiram was not beyond carrying the fight to whites.⁸ A Galveston newspaper later reported “(h)e was raised in Brenham, and from early youth his name has been frequently found on the criminal dockets of the courts. Having a little education he was always stirring up mischief between the races, and never hesitated to show his enmity for the white people.”⁹ At the Central Railroad passenger depot in January of 1881 he got into a fight with a white man who insulted a black woman. Another white man pulled a gun on him and although it “for a time looked as if it might become interesting”¹⁰ the police stepped in to prevent the an early end to the story of Hiram Williams.
     Larger problems were looming on the horizon for him, as he continued broaden his horizons. His travels frequently took him to Houston, where he once again became well known to the police. But in April of 1882 he was arrested in Waco for involvement in the robbery and murder of a white man.¹¹ He was still being held there in 1883 when he and two other “jail birds”attempted an escape. They had nearly cut their way through their prison bars with files made from a kitchen knife and a pocket knife before they were caught.¹² Although still in jail in Waco as late as June of 1884, eventually Hiram was released and found his way back to Brenham, where he was once again found himself in legal hot water, despite his increasing skill in getting back out of it.¹³
     The Brenham Banner reported that December 11, 1884 “was a day that will long be remembered by the colored sports of the city. The police went fishing for them; they set hoop nets, trammel nets, wing nets and also draw a long seine; when the nets had all been taken up and the seine drawn it, it was found that fifteen able-bodied colored gamblers had been caught.” Two had their case continued and twelve of the fifteen were fined, although five of them used their winnings to pay “$5 and trimmings each.” Seven others were confined to jail to work off their fines working on street repairs. But only one case, that of Hiram Williams, was dismissed. “Hiram proved that he was so sharp a gambler that no one would play with him, consequently he had done no gambling.”¹⁴
     Hiram was once again frequenting one of the most notorious areas in Brenham, Hell's Half Acre. Most cities of any size at this time Brenham had a similarly named red light district, specializing in drink, gambling and prostitution. It's exact location was unclear and probably somewhat fluid, though it seemed to center around several blocks south of the town square, bounded on the south by the Buzzard's Roost¹⁵ and on the west by Coon Flats.¹⁶ It's general proximity to the railway depot assured a ongoing stream certain clientele looking for a good time and colorful but shady characters willing to make them think they could find it there, providing a ready way into town which it was thriving and a quick way of leaving during the period attempts to clean it out. It was also convenient located near to the calaboose, or city jail, a which was located on Quitman Street, behind the county jail.
     One of the earliest references to Brenham's version of Hell's Half-Acre is found in a Galveston newspaper from 1876 and tells of a number of black and white citizens who had been arrested there for gambling.

“These prisoners have all been committed in due course of law, and it is the duty of the Sheriff to keep them safely in jail until lawfully released; but the Banner is informed by the night policemen that a number of the gambling gentlemen have been turned out after dark and allowed to go where they please. A policeman says on Saturday night he saw four or five of these prisoners around town generally, a party of them in their old tramping ground – Hell's half-acre; and that with some difficulty he succeeded in capturing one of them – a very bad one - and succeeded in landing him in the city bastile. As the case stands, these men are simply being boarded at the expense of the county and allowed unrestricted liberty going and coming at will.”¹⁷

     The city fathers were periodically felt the pressure to attempt to clean up the area, especially when other newspapers began to give it unwelcome publicity, such as that found in an Austin paper, The Weekly Democratic Statesman. “Fanny Watson, a dusky queen of the Hell's Half Acre of Brenham, was fatally shot Friday night...Jim Simpson, colored, is the head devil of hell's Half Acre at Brenham...It was too cold for “Hell's Half-Acre” in Brenham to bubble up very fiercely Christmas week, and even whisky froze in some of the dens of the ghastly suburb.”¹⁸ From January to October of 1877 alone there were at least three separate (and apparently unsuccessful) efforts to clear out the “denizens of this sink of iniquity,” usually by offering the choice of jail or leaving town.¹⁹
But Hell's Half-Acre turned out to be uncommonly difficult, at least partly because of the continuing appeal of it's illicit pleasures to so many of the local citizens. The color line did not seem too high a bar, as is found in this account of a white visitor in February of 1885.

Thursday an old man named Tom Flippen, who formerly lived in this county, was robbed of $130... Flippen was drunk and fell into the hands of thieves. He was steered to a negro bagnio in Hell's Half acre, a notorious locality and later to another house of the same character in Coon valley, a settlement two or three squares south of the union depot. He went to bed in one of the houses after dark and after staying two or three hours he emerged only to find that his wealth had vanished. A copper colored negro named Frank Brown aged about 25 years, acted as steersman and run Flippen into the dens. After the “loot” had been obtained the accountant of the mob divided it up by long division, he obtaining a liberal share. He was first robbed of his silver at Caroline Sweetning's in Hell's Half acre, and later of his currency at Becky Vaughn's in Coon flat. Late on Friday evening, Rena Vaughn, Becky Vaughn's daughter, was caught in an up-town saloon with Flippen's fine plain gold ring ornamenting one of her dingy and left fingers. Frank Brown, the pilot, Becky Vaughn, the bagnioist, and Ed Shelby, a one legged white man, who has for some time been gate-keeper at the union depot, were arrested Friday... After dark Caroline Sweetning and Rena Vaughn were arrested and jailed. There seems to have been an organized band of colored hyenas, who for a long time have been preying on unwary strangers who had picniced on rifle whiskey, and who after they had been robbed would rather stomach their losses than to “squeal.”²⁰

     Murder was not an uncommon occurrence in Hell's Half Acre, leading one Galveston newspaper to comment that “(t)he mere fact that one negro has shot and killed another is so common as to excite no more comment than the wringing of a chicken's neck by the family cook.”²¹ But an underlying hostility towards attempts at law enforcement in the area were growing. In February of 1887 Jim Smith, a particularly dangerous character was murdered there, possibly as the result of “a conspiracy...by five or six negro prostitutes and three or four negro men to make away with Smith.” There was an effort to blame the murder on Ed Inge, a black policeman in Brenham who had killed a number of other blacks in the line of duty, though he was cleared by the results of a post mortem examination.²²

(The Galveston Daily News, October 3, 1887 p1)

     Hiram was caught up in one of the most notorious these backlashes against attempts to police Hell's Half Acre. Around one in the morning of October 1, 1887, John Lockett, a white night policeman was breaking up a fight there outside of a late night dance. He was set upon by three men, and while one held his arms so another could bludgeon him, another cut his throat from ear to ear, severing his windpipe as well as slashing his mouth and head. When Lockett attempted to pull his pistol to fend off the attack, it was wrested from him and he was shot in the wound that had been opened up in his throat. Fortunately Marshal Swain had been already summoned, and Lockett was rescued, although it took him over five months to recover from the assault. Hiram was soon implicated.

“As soon as assistance could be procured, Lockett was removed, and all that the combined medical skill of the city could do was at his service. He could not speak and Marshal Swain immediately started in search of the his assailants with such clues as he could get. Strangely enough one of the negroes whose name Lockett afterwards gave as one of his assailants offered his services very officiously to the Marshal and was very certain that he could render valuable assistance in hunting down the perpetrators of the outrage. As soon as he was able the wounded man with blood streaming from his hands traced the names of Hiram Williams and Sam Rucker as two of the men and described the other one fully not knowing his name. They were soon found and taken in. The third one calls himself Henry Bassett, and was identified by Lockett . He is a strange negro. Hiram Williams is a gambler and one of the most vicious and dangerous negroes in town. He figured in a killing in Waco a year or two ago and has been in innumerable scrapes in various places.”²³

     Talk of lynching the prisoners quickly began to circulate and the Sheriff moved the prisoners to Bellville in Austin County for their own protection.²⁴ “...(H)ad not wise precaution been taken by the sheriff of the county to remove the wretches charged with the cowardly crime; the good name of this county might have again suffered at the hands of Judge Lynch.”²⁵ This was a very real possibility since less than a year earlier three black prisoners being held in the Washington County jail were abducted and lynched in the middle of the night by a crowd of outraged citizens, as part of what came to be known as the Election Outrage of 1886 in later Senate investigations.²⁶
     A week after the attempted murder indictments had been handed back by a grand jury against Rucker, Williams and Bassett. Hiram lawyered up early with two attorneys and within two weeks had filled a motion of continuance on the grounds of “...absence of witnesses, by whom the defense proposed to prove, that Hiram Williams was elsewhere when the assault was committed, that in fact another person, viz. Ben Hill committed the assault, that the razor found near the scene of the assault was Ben Hill's razor, that immediately after the assault Ben Hill fled the country and is now a fugitive from justice, and various other facts and circumstances.”²⁷ Within three weeks Henry Bassett had been convicted in a separate trial and sentenced to the maximum penalty, seven years in the penitentiary, and was on his way to prison.²⁸
     Hiram and his lawyers kept up their legal maneuvering early, seeking to avoid the indictment being served because of the omission of the phrase “make an assault' in the copy.²⁹ At one time they even managed to have the original indictment thrown out on the grounds that the ground jury had thirteen jurors instead of twelve. There were even reports of threats being made against witnesses in the case.³⁰ Although he had been offered bail earlier and decided it was safer to remain in jail, after remaining in jail in Bellville for over fifteen months his bond of $500 was finally secured by Mr. Ellis, a local banker.
     Hiram jumped bail the day before his trial and disappeared for the next five years.



     In August of 1893, a curious letter arrived at the Houston office of George Ellis., the sheriff of Harris County. It was from Sheriff Matthews, the sheriff in Tacoma, Washington, “inquiring as to who wants a negro man, Hiram Williams, for murder committed about four years ago. Williams, he says, is understood to have escaped from jail somewhere in Texas, may be had if wanted for he is evidently in a safe place, though a long way from home.” ³¹ But no further mention is found of this near arrest of Hiram, and he apparently managed to evade arrest for the next ten months.

(The Morning Call, San Francisco, May 26, 1894)

     In May 16, 1894 James Martin, a part owner of a barber shop in Los Angeles, California, was arrested. This turned out to be an alias being used by Hiram Williams, although the details of his arrest are unclear from newspaper accounts. A local paper states that he was arrested on a “minor charge” and detectives, “profiting from a remark of the prisoner, began an investigation and found he was wanted in Texas.”³² According to a Brenham paper, the arrest was the result of “information from a negro woman there, who gave away his identity.”³³ Either way it was clear that Hiram knew his life on the run was over, though not if he could help it.

Williams made an attempt the other day to gain his freedom. He secreted a long iron in his cell in the city prison, with which he intended striking the jailer when opportunity presented. The weapon was discovered in time to prevent its use.³⁴

     Regardless of the events surrounding his apprehension, two days later Washington County Sheriff Teague received notice of it and, determined not to let him slip away again, quickly sent his under-sheriff, W.L. Sallis by train to pick up Hiram.³⁵ On May 24, after a four day train trip Sallis arrived in Los Angeles, and went around to identify Hiram the next morning. “He recognized Mr. Sallis and asked him about some of the people of Brenham, and if he intended to take him back.”³⁶ It took several more days for the extradition paperwork to arrive from Sacramento, during which time which time Sallis toured San Francisco and Los Angeles. He also took time to composed a lengthy travelogue letter describing his journey which was later printed in its entirety in the Brenham Banner.
This letter also describes his encounters with Hiram, who apparently made no further attempts at escape, while at the same attempting to justify his flight from trial five years earlier.

In regard to the prisoner, who is known here as being a desperate negro of bad character, I want to state that I found him to be as obedient and docile a prisoner a s I ever went after. He never caused a particle of trouble or uneasiness on the whole trip. The handcuffs on his wrists made them sore, but he never complained, and in changing cars, and in getting off to eat he avoided making any more trouble than was absolutely necessary.

Hiram said to Mr. Sallis after they had turned toward home that he was glad that he had not got a lawyer to prevent his return, as he was tired of being a fugitive from justice, and that it had always been his intention to return to Brenham if he could have ever made enough money to pay a lawyer to defend him and get him bond, that he had been afraid of the prejudice against him him, unless prepared for it, and for this reason had evaded arrest...He has been a constant reader of the papers and was thoroughly posted as to what had been going on during his absence, even to being able to tell about the Brenham city elections here during his absence. He protests his innocence of the crime of which he is charged and believes that with a fair trial he will be acquitted.³⁷

     Shortly after being re-incarcerated in Brenham, Hiram was visited in his cell by a reporter from The Galveston Daily News, who found him sitting up on a top bunk, “smoking a cigar and reading a copy of The News.” He seemed to relax into being the center of attention after so many years of hiding who he was, and launched into a lengthy account of his years on the run.

I was kept in jail at Bellville for fifteen months and was then released on bond. I was afraid of being killed by some on or lynched by a mob if I came back to Brenham, because I was warned by a number of friends that it would not be safe for me and I had no money to pay a lawyer to defend me, so I thought best to leave. I first went to El Paso and then to Piedras Negras, Mexico. I was there two weeks and left for Chihuahua, where I also spent two weeks. I came back to El Paso, spent a day and a half and went to Silver City, N.M., where I remained ten days, then went to Los Angeles, Cal, by way of Deming N.M. I was in Los Angeles only two days when I concluded to go further north, so I left for Portland, Ore., and after nine days went to Seattle, Wash., where I remained a month. I then crossed the strait to Vancouver island and spent two weeks at Victoria. From there I went to Winnipeg in the Northwest territory, remained two months and returned to Victoria and then down to San Francisco, remaining only four days at the Golden Gate. I went east again to Gallup, N.M., on the Atlantic and Pacific railroad, and remained there three months. I returned after this to Seattle, where I went to work as second steward on a steamship on Puget sound. I held this job about a year and then going to Vancouver I took passage on a steamer for Honolulu. I remained don the islands for three months, then returned to San Francisco. After spending three months there I went back to Seattle and Tacoma, Wash.; was there a month; then back to San Francisco for a three month's stay. After this I went to Fresno and remained for a month, I then left Fresno and went to Los Angeles, arriving February 22 of this year. I had bought an interest in a barber shop, and was doing pretty well when I was arrested by the California officers on May 17. I staid in the Los Angeles jail until June 1, and at 8:30 o'clock on that morning I left in charge of Deputy Sheriff Sallis for Texas. Arrived in Houston Sunday night and reached the Brenham jail at 2 o'clock in the morning.³⁸

     He took the opportunity to not only protest his innocence, but to announce that it had always been his “intention to come back and stand my trial whenever I could get money enough to pay a lawyer. I have been warned time and again that the Texas officers would get me and I would be brought back, but I came to the conclusion that they did not want me bad enough to spend all the money necessary to bring me back, so I was not much afraid I would be brought back until I got ready. I haven't any doubt about my being able to establish my innocence. All I want is a fair trial by an impartial jury.” He had already an ex-judge from Dallas and his judge to represent him, showing he still a man of enough means to hire competent attorneys. Their advice was probably instrumental in his requesting a clarification of his account of his activity on the night of the assault.³⁹
     By the end of the month Hiram had once again released on bond, which “was made in Houston and brought here for his release, and was secured through the instrumentality of his brother.”⁴⁰ This was likely his brother Henry, who at the time of the 1900 Census was married and living with his wife, aunt, uncle and cousin in Houston's Third Ward. Interestingly enough, his brother was also a barber.⁴¹ Despite speculation in the press that he would once again flee, Hiram did stand trial for assault for murder. His case was heard in September of 1894, but the case was ultimately held over until March of 1895 when it was dismissed in District Court, though for reasons not made clear in the newspapers.⁴²

(General Index Card for War with Spain, Hiram Williams)

     The next instance of Hiram's life in the public record comes in 1898. A Hiram Williams appears in Galveston City directory working as a porter, living at 1312 17^th Street, while a Henry Williams, the name of his brother, was operating a barber shop there at 505 24^th Street.⁴³ While it is not certain that Hiram was living in Galveston at this time, it was from here that another important chapter in his life began to unfold.
     In 1898 the Spanish American war had stirred the patriotic spirit in many Americans, and many volunteer militias throughout the country were answering McKinley's call in late May for 75,000 volunteers to serve. Although hundreds of black Texans were ready to volunteer after the heroic performance of the army's four black regiments, including the state's black militia units, Governor Charles Culberson refused to accept them in fulfilling the state's volunteer quota. A similar situation existed in all but four other states, with the only opportunity for black citizens to serve being enlistment in one of the regular army's black regiments. This barrier to service was circumvented with the authorization by Congress of ten federal “immune” regiments.⁴⁴
     As in all wars, disease was a major source of casualties, and there was an erroneous but widely accepted misconception that blacks were naturally immune to the tropical diseases that were devastating the troops in Cuba. Galveston's republican House Representative Robert Hawley, was instrumental in the formation of one of these immune regiments, and the company formed there was referred to as the Hawley Guard or the Hawley Rifles in his memory. This was Company G, of the 9^th Volunteer Infantry, which Hiram enlisted in on June 29, 1898. There were 75 men in Company G, and when they when they left for New Orleans there was a crowd of 700 blacks and whites at the train station to see them off.
     In New Orleans Hiram's company met the other black Texas volunteers, Company I (the Ferguson Rifles) from Houston, received their Springfield rifles and improvised marching ditties such as “Colonel Crane has arranged a plan, To fight old Spain with a nigger man.” The Immunes moved to Georgia for further training at Camp Thomas before setting out for Cuba, arriving in Santiago on August 22. The fighting had come a close in Cuba, and the Immune's first assignment to relieve the soldiers at San Juan hill who had been guarding the several thousand Spanish prisoners there. The regiment that had been guarding them had been devastated by tropical disease. Within several weeks the Immunes showed they weren't immune and began suffering losses to these diseases also, with over thirty enlisted men and one lieutenant eventually dying from those same diseases, including three in Company G.
     Hiram was one of those who suffered from disease while serving in the Ninth Volunteer Infantry, first falling ill less than a month after enlisting and before even leaving New Orleans. He may well suffered from disease more than this, although the roster listing his “Date of First Illness” seems to indicate that recurring illness was not uncommon.⁴⁵ The Immunes remained in Cuba until April 26, when they left Santiago for Staten Island, where they were kept in quarantine for another two days before proceeding on to Camp Meade in Pennsylvania for mustering out. Hiram was discharged on May 25, 1899 and may have returned to Galveston; there is a Hiram Williams living at the same address listed in the 1899 City Directory.⁴⁶ The same name appears in various city directories in Houston, Waco and Fort Worth, but nothing is certain in the public record about him for nearly three decades.
     On November 23, 1927, Hiram Williams was married once again in Washington, this time to a Rhoda Johnson.⁴⁷ Since Hiram listed himself as widowed in the 1880 Census, it is not unreasonable that this was either a misunderstanding on the part of the census taker or self justification on the part of a recently divorced and disgruntled Hiram whose later behavior makes it clear that he was probably far less than a perfect husband during this period of his life. There is a marriage record of Rhoda Rogers to Jordan Johnson, who worked at a cotton compress, in October of 1884,⁴⁸ and they lived together on Bragg Street; Jordan died of dysentery in 1919, his death certificate listing "impure water" as a contributory cause.⁴⁹ It seems this is the same Rhoda Rodgers that Hiram married in 1878, and she appears as his wife in the 1930 and 1940 Census.⁵⁰ The 1930 records indicate that they had been married while she was 18 and he was 20, which hints that her given age of 60 may have been abbreviated in deference to the prerogative of feminine vanity.
     Further evidence that this is the same Rhoda Rodgers he originally married is the mention in the 1930 Census is that Alex Rodgers is listed as a brother-in-law living in the same household. Alex was Rhoda Rodger's sister, and is listed in the 1880 Schedule of Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes as an “Idiot,”⁵¹ defined as “a person the development of whose mental faculties was arrested in infancy or childhood before coming to maturity.” Rhoda was possibly helping to care for her brother with diminished mental capacity, although in 1910 he had lived alone as the head of a house on Bragg Street.  
     Their residence at 223 Parker; this street was one street east of Bragg Street and the same lots faced on both Bragg and Parker; this may have been the same home Rhoda had been living in for some time. Interestingly enough, the maiden name of Rhoda's mother was Jane Bragg. In 1930 it was valued at $1000, and $500 in 1940. Hiram's occupation is listed as “none”, Rhoda (her name is given as Rosa in this Census) was listed as a “laundress” (the same as in the 1910 census when she was living with Jordan Johnson) whose place of work was “in and out.” Alex's occupation is given as “laborer” working at “odd jobs.”
     Ten years later, the Williams were still on Bragg Street, and had been there for at least the past five years. Alex is no longer living with them, but boarding with a Louisa Brown. Although the census indicates that neither had worked over the past year, Hiram is listed as having unspecified other sources of income. One of these may have been as a cook, since this is listed as his occupation on his death certificate three years later. But the indignities of old age were finally beginning to catch up with Hiram. He had been suffering from prostatitis for over a year, and his kidneys began to fail him him in February of 1943. At 4 o'clock on Tuesday morning, March 1, 1943, the long, strange journey of Hiram Williams came to a close.⁵²

(US Headstone Application for US Military Veterans, Hiram Williams)

     Hiram was buried on March 7 in Camptown Cemetery, just two blocks away from his home on Bragg Street. In November Rhoda applied for an application “for a headstone or marker for the unmarked grave of a veteran.” In April of 1944 an “upright granite headstone” was shipped by rail to Brenham, and this is the marker that now stands over his grave.⁵³ Rhoda died in 1946, and she is also buried in Camptown Cemetery.

(photograph courtesy of Amy the Spirit Seeker)

(photograph courtesy of Amy the Spirit Seeker)

1Texas Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Standard Certificate of Death for Hiram A. Williams

21870 United States Census, Washington County, Brenham, Precinct 3

3The Galveston Daily News, June 6, 1894

4Brenham Weekly Banner, December 13, 1878

51880 United States Census, Washington County, Brenham, ED 145

6The Daily Banner, August 1, 1880

7Brenham Daily Banner, June 19, 1881; The Galveston Daily News, December 21, 1882: Austin Weekly Statesman, February 25, 1886

8The Daily Banner, June 16, 1880; The Daily Banner, October 5, 1880; The Daily Banner, October 6, 1880; Brenham Daily Banner January 8, 1881; Brenham Daily Banner, January 13, 1881; Brenham Daily Banner, January 29, 1881; Brenham Daily Banner, August 5, 1881 (two articles)

9The Galveston Daily News, October 3, 1887

10Brenham Daily Banner, January 8, 1881

11The Waco Daily Examiner, April 8, 1882; Brenham Daily Banner, April 16, 1882

12The Galveston Daily News, February 7, 1883

13The Waco Daily Examiner, June 8, 1884

14Brenham Daily Banner, December 12, 1884

15Brenham Daily Banner, July 21, 1886

16Brenham Daily Banner, November 23, 1884

17The Galveston Daily News, September 7, 1876

18Weekly Democratic Statesman, October 19, 1876; Weekly Democratic Statesman, November 9, 1876;

Weekly Democratic Statesman, January 4, 1877

19The Daily Brenham Banner, January 20, 1877; The Daily Brenham Banner, March 10, 1877; The Daily Banner, October 14, 1877

20Brenham Daily Banner, February 21, 1885

21The Galveston Daily News, February 5, 1887

22Brenham Daily Banner, February 2, 1887

23Brenham Daily Banner, October 4, 1887

24The Galveston Daily News, October 3, 1887

25Brenham Daily Banner, October 4, 1887

26Shook, Robert W., The Texas “Election Outrage” of 1886, East Texas Historical Journal, Vol. 10, Issue 1, 1972

27Brenham Daily Banner, October 21, 1887

28Brenham Daily Banner, October 28, 1887; Brenham Daily Banner, October 30, 1887

29Brenham Daily Banner, October 25, 1887

30Brenham Daily Banner, October 30, 1887

31The Galveston Daily News, August 18, 1893; Brenham Daily Banner, August 19, 1893

32The Herald (Los Angeles), May 26, 1894

33Brenham Daily Banner, June 6, 1894

34The Herald (Los Angeles), May 30, 1894

35The Southern Mercury ( Dallas), May 24, 1894

36Brenham Daily Banner, June 6, 1894

37Brenham Daily Banner, June 6, 1894

38The Galveston Daily News, June 6, 1894

39The Galveston Daily News, June 6, 1894; The Galveston Daily News, June 7, 1894

40Brenham Daily Banner, June 24, 1894

411900 Census, Harris County, Houston Ward 3, District 0076

42Brenham Daily Banner, September 21, 1894; Galveston Daily News, September 23, 1894; Brenham Daily Banner, March 30, 1895.

431898 Galveston City Directory

44The information on the Ninth Volunteers Infantry Regiment and Company G comes from Roger Cunningham's excellent article, “'A Lot of Fine, Sturdy Black Warriors'; Texas's African American 'Immunes' in the Spanish-American War,” found in Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers; Perspectives on the African American Militia and Volunteers, 1865-1917, edited by Bruce A. Glasrud, University of Missouri Press, 2011.

45Coston, W.Hilary, The Spanish-American War Volunteer; Ninth United States Volunteer Infantry Roster and Muster, Biographies, Cuban Sketches, pulished by the Author, 1899 (2^nd Edition)

461899 Galveston City Directory

47“Texas Marriages, 1837-1973,” Database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FXMX-9X2 : accessed 24 June 2015)

48Marriage Record, Washington County, Texas, No. 1689, Page 351

491910 United States Federal Census, Washington County, Brenham Ward 2, ED 0101; Texas State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Standard Certificate of Death for Jordan Johnson

501930 United States Federal Census, Washington County, Brenham, ED 239-8; 1940 United States Federal Census, Washington County, Brenham, ED 239-8

511880 United States Federal Census, Washington County Enumeration District, Schedule of Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes

52Texas Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Standard Certificate of Death for Hiram Williams

53Application For Headstone or Marker, War Department O.G.M.G. Form No. 623, for Hiram Williams

Camptown Obituaries

     Compiling the Camptown Cemetery Census is a tricky process, at best.  

     There are some clear indications of who are buried there - the extant grave markers.  Most of these have been added to the census, though some, such as that of Robert S. Sloan were simply overlooked in earlier iterations of the census.  The marker is prominent and hard to miss, but by sheer dint of poor editing he was overlooked  in my earlier attempts at compiling the census. 

     There are also some problems with even with markers, such as the grave of Karl Schneider, who is not only not black and did not even live in Brenham, but rather in Millheim, in Austin county.

     An additional problem with Schneider's grave is that he also has another marker in the Millheim cemetery, although this is a cemetery which was not established until several years after his death. The mystery of his two graves remains one that is yet to be solved. 

     Fortunately, there exists another tool for establishing that a person has been buried in Camptown Cemetery - obituaries.

     The marker for Waterman Bynum is one of the more outstanding early markers in Camptown Cemetery, a grave which clearly spoke of the deceased as being a prominent man of some means.

(Photography courtesy of Amy the Spirit Seeker)

     An obituary for Bynum was found early one in the digital newspaper archives of The Portal to Texas History, an absolutely invaluable source of material for researching the cemetery.

 (Brenham Weekly Banner, December 8, 1881)

     There is some very important information about Bynum presented here - that he seemed to have a store in Camptown, had unlimited in Galveston (very important for a merchant of the time), was a city alderman and that his funeral had been attended by the mayor and other council members.  This vastly expands our understanding of the importance of Camptown and the cemetery in the black community.  But there were even problems here as well, no the least being his first name.  It is Waltman on the grave, but Waterman in the article.  There is also the matter of the condition of the obituary itself, which cuts out some of the important details.  Another was the date of the newspaper article.  It does not match the date of Bynum's death, and it becomes clear from reading other articles on in the same paper that this was not the correct date of the paper.  

     At the time this article was first found, it was the only copy available.  Since then the Portal to Texas History has expanded it's digital collection of Brenham papers, and a more complete copy of the obituary is available.  The practice of the Brenham Weekly Banner was to copy reproduce entire articles from papers of the previous week, so those empty spaces can now be filled in.

(Brenham Daily Banner, June 29, 1881)