REMINISCENCES OF OLD LAMAR Excerpts from typewritten manuscript in Corpus Christi Library by Josie McRae Bennett and Ella McRae Clay, daughters of Murdoch McRae§. On a beautiful oak-grown peninsula, slumbering peacefully, with the lapping tides from three bays, which almost surround it, lies Old Lamar.... Captain James Byrne was the first settler in Lamar, and came to Texas in 1838. [1835] He platted out the town for which he planned great things and dreamed great dreams. He gave the town the name of Lamar. An accurate map of Lamar was made by W. H. Jones in the year 1854 which our Sheriff, J. A. Brundrett, still has in his possession. Lamar was named in honor of Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar, a gallant Georgian born in 1798, one of the foremost men of his day.... Captain Byrne built his first home on the water front.... The old house has been since torn down and moved away, only a heap of broken bricks to mark the place. My grandfather, Archibald McRae, and family came to Texas in 1838, and he was the second man who settled in the beautiful sea- side town of Lamar. He...bought a tract of land from Power and Hewetson, and built a home on the present site [on Park Road where the huge oak stands in the back yard of a water front lot].... My father...often told us about the camels being here....In 1855, Congress authorized...$38,000 [to] purchase camels...for military purposes. In May, 1855, a herd of camels... landed at Indianola, and [were] driven overland to Arizona. The experiment ...ended in failure. Some of the camels... were purchased by a Frenchman. He soon turned the animals loose in the desert to shift for themselves. The last camels, nine of them, roamed back to Lamar and were driven off from "Barrel Tree Bend" in Lamar on March 20, 1868....The camels were sold to a man who put them in a pasture with his mules. The next morning he found some of his mules hung all along the barbed wire fence, while the...ones left were scattered all over the surrounding country. In Lamar's heyday it boasted...two stores run by R. Jordan, in 1861....Then R. T. Byrne had a store in 1867...until he moved away in 1882. The town had two churches and a Post Office, which Captain Peter Johnson held for years; there were other adjuncts of old frontier towns, but no saloons. For a number of years the place grew and flourished....Later, business dwindled, stores were closed, families packed their household goods and removed to towns that were growing larger instead of smaller.... At last the popu- lation of Lamar was reduced to a few families. The writer lives in the old home in what was once a busy part of the "Ghost Town"— It is a sad experience now to wander through the almost abandoned place. Many of the houses are still standing, for Lamar, of all coast town, has never been seriously injured by a storm. It is protected from tidal waves by its situation on a high cliff. Particularly sad is the state of the little abandoned Catholic chapel which stands in the heart of our little town. Busy folks, accustomed to its presence, hasten by without a passing glance, but the stranger often pauses before that locked door. I have often wished that I could hear that sweet old bell ring once more. This church was built by an old Frenchman, Dalberder (D'Abadie) by name, and an old slave... named Mose Ballou. He was owned by Dr. Seth Ballou who came from East Texas about 1840. Situated on the bayou in S. H. Paul's Hale Point pasture, is a little knoll, known as the "Neptune", but few people really know why it is called that. In the year 1869, my father, Murdock McRae, and Richard T. Byrne bought a large vessel called the "Neptune", at Galveston. They bought her from John M. Humphrey of that place, paying him the sum of $800 in gold. She was two mast schooner, built at Lavaca, Texas. They expected to fit her up and employ her in the coasting trade.... So they had her hauled out on the ways which was on the bayou between Goose Island and the mainland, the water being very deep at that time. But for some cause they never launched her, and for many years she lay up there, and hull and rigging, together with the masts, bowsprit, sails, cables, and all, slowly rotting away. Now only the name and the memory remain of what was once a fine ship. The chief industry of this country is the raising of cattle, the same as it was years ago. My grandfather, Archibald McRae, was awarded a beautiful silver cup, which I still have, for ex- hibiting the finest cattle at the Victoria Fair in 1849.... [Lamar), with its mild climate, good soil, and fine grazing, is destined to be one of the country's big towns.... No one can visit Lamar and not have a longing to go back.... Farewell from one who still hears the whispering of the waves and the mocking birds' sweet song. Mrs. Ella McRae Clay February 9, 1930, Lamar ________________________________ A Woman's View of Everyday Life in South Texas, 1873-1883 By Lois E. Myers "Letters by Lamplight"  is the correspondence between Anna Louisa Wellington Stoner,  born Victoria County in 1857, died in Uvalde County, 1953, and her family. In the spring of 1878, her mother, Martha Foster Wellington, widow of physician,  Royal Wetherton Wellington, contracted an "infectious virus which continued into the hot,  humid summer months. In July, she journeyed to Aransas Bay for a period of recuperation that lasted until late fall.    In the busy coastal village of Lamar, Martha lived at  the hotel,  operated at that time by the Henry Kroeger family.    She took her meals - cornbread, milk, and occasional butter and fresh meat - with other boarders, and soon learned that life in a hotel called for self-reliance and meant close competition at mealtime.    She wrote Anna: About  three weeks ago I got up in the night to close the window when it was raining & in the dark I had a fall which cut a gash in my right brow & bruised my face very much but it is nearly well now - Mrs.  [Henrietta] Little put on some sticking plaster & closed the cut place up as well as she could & washed it with Castile soap for me - I went to see her as soon as I got my breakfast as there was no one here  to do any thing for me - I was a perfect sight to appear at table before so many men (S all strangers) for a week or two but if I wanted to fare as well as the rest I had to be at the first table." [October 11 1878] Back in Victoria County, Martha's son-in-law, Clinton Stoner, contracted "bilious fever" and Martha received news from Anna of widespread illness throughout Refugio and Victoria counties. At the Stoner Pasture Company, Clinton's relatives were all sick; Anna reported to Martha that "They are all sick and all a shouting."    In September, their friends in Mission Refugio were suffering chills and they heard reports of yellow fever in Corpus Christi.     [September 17, 1878] "In October 1878, an epidemic arose in Lamar, and the local doctor, J. A. Clark, could not keep up with the caseload. The death of Mrs. Wells [Lydia Ann Dana Wells died September 28, 1878. ]    who, Martha wrote Anna,  'kept medicines of all kinds and doctored people,' left Clarke without assistance. Families with medical emergencies began requesting that Martha (being the widow of a doctor), along with the local school teacher, Jane O'Connor,  and Martha's friend,  Henrietta Little (Jane's sister),   nurse patients and instruct  family caretakers 'what was best  for  the sick.'     In terms of her own convalescence, Martha believed that Clarke was overcautious, because, as she wrote Anna,   'He don't know everything.'     [October 11, 1878]