27. Texas and local history

This collection consists of correspondence, design documents, planting lists, and photographs that cover the history of the gardens designed for J. Robert Neal in Houston from the initial contact of the Olmsted firm to inquiries by the present owners of the property concerning restoration.

Ann Holmes personal papers encompass materials outside the scope of her research on her book for Houston's cultural arts. Included are materials from her everyday life--correspondence, awards and honors, social activities, and copies of her articles, columns and reviews.

This collection contains two letters, one an invitation from Fletcher (then President of the Bell County Historical Society) to S. Walker (one-time city editor of the New York Herald-Tribune) to a Historical Society meeting; the other a rather humorous response from Walker.

This collection consists of a series of letters and a map annotated by Mr. Atwood concerning his archaeological findings in the Galveston Bay area.

Biographical sketch of Jared Ellsion Groce, one of the Old Three Hundred (Austin's first colony), who emigrated to Texas in January 1822. Time period described ranges from 1782-1836.

This collection includes transcriptions of correspondence between Sam Houston and John Wyatt Moody when Moody was auditor of the Army of the Republic of Texas and then of the Republic of Texas. The folder also contains correspondence between Helen Foster Snow, relative of John Wyatt Moody, and Jean Halden Walker, both genealogists researching the Moody family and its family holdings in Houston.

Letters to and from David Gouverneur Burnet (1788-1870) of the Republic of Texas, in typescript form and as reprinted in the "La Grange Journal."

This collection contains a letter written by John Brown to his wife. It was written from Grigsby’s Bluff and gives news of the people there, in particular, their health. Grigsby’s Bluff was located on the Neches River in Eastern Jefferson County. Its name was changed to Port Neches in 1901.

The collection consists of a bound volume of 28 letters, the majority of which were written by Mrs. Kezia Payne DePelchin (1828-1893) to her sister, describing her experiences as a nurse during the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. The volume also includes letters from E. Kate Heckle, a friend and fellow nurse, to DePelchin, describing some of her own experiences during the same epidemic.

This collection consists of several hundred typewritten pages and many photographs of people and places concerning the immigration of Germans into Texas, most notably the Dresel and Spiess families. Most of the material focuses around the middle of the nineteenth century when Gustav Dresel and Hermann Spiess settled in Galveston and Waco Springs, respectively. Clyde H. Porter compiled the material.