About these pages

These pages are an online version of:

The History of Clarksville and Old Red River County, Pat B. Clark, Mathis, Van Nort & Co., Dallas, Texas, 1937, ill. 15, maps 2, pp. xix, 259.  Online pages add an index, 2 maps and a report by Capt. Wm. B. Stout.

Red River County has a rich history from being a major gateway for pioneers to Texas. Pat B. Clark has captured some of this history through interviews with early settlers and their descendants and through his own experiences. Clark's family settled the town of Clarksville, which became the county seat. A biography of the author is in the Introduction.

The book includes biographical sketches of prominent early families, first-hand accounts of pioneer life and stories of interactions between the settlers, their slaves and the Indians. Military records include the exploits of Militia Captain Henry Stout, the members of Company F of Whitfield's Civil War Legion of Texas Cavalry and a long letter from Major Ben McCulloch describing his activities at the Battle of Buena Vista during the war between the United States and Mexico.

It may help the reader better appreciate the value of moneys mentioned in the book to know that $1 in the mid 1830s would be equivalent to about $17 now (2004). [ 1] A $10 horse then should be worth about $170 now.

A reader who has never lived in Red River County should know the town of Bogata is called "Bogota" by its citizens.

Changes from the book

The book is presented online in its entirety with spelling preserved, except for a few corrections to obvious errors missed in the book's proofing (e.g., "Clarksvilled"). This online version has been proofed word-by-word against the book, not an infallible process itself. The book's pagination has been preserved so that prior references to the contents will still be valid.

My comments or corrections in the online version are within square brackets "[...]" to keep them separate from the original text.

Large sections of text, particularly some of the genealogical sketches, have been segmented into several paragraphs to improve readability. In addition, for large families, the use of numbering, italics and bold font help separate different generations of children, to assist the reader. Where absent, a title (e.g., "[The Davis Family]") has been inserted before a family's sketch.

This book should not be considered a primary source of genealogy as family structure is sometimes ambiguous in the sketches. Also, in places the book attempts to repeat a sketch, but with some of the names missing or spelled differently. Readers interested in family genealogy should verify these sketches with other genealogical records.

If a missing maiden name occurs elsewhere in the book I have added it within square brackets and provided a link to that location. Where a wife's name is missing, the Index shows only, for example, "Bagby, Mrs. John A." If a wife's full name is provided, the Index contains both a maiden-name entry and a married-name entry with maiden-name in parentheses.

Page Navigation

From the online-contents page, readers have a choice of the original table of contents or (on the right side of the page) a list of abbreviated chapter titles from the book's page-headers. These shorter titles appear also on the online pages' navigation bars as an aid to the reader.

Here are some details on how to move around within the online volume.  A navigation bar appears at the top and bottom of each page with the following links:

• Go to Page   - provides tables of page numbers for going directly to a page if the page number is known.
  
  
• Index   - link to a choice of the first letter of the name of interest, then to that section of the Index.
  
  
• Cont.   - link to the online-contents page.
  
  
• Enlarge   - link to a larger image of an illustration.
  
  
• Page-   - moves backward by one page number.
  
  
• Page+   - moves forward by one page number.  The entire volume can be sequentially accessed using these Page links.
  
  

Additional Material

This online version of the book includes:

• A map of the original land grant surveys around Clarksville which shows the 22 corners of Henry Stout's survey (p. 73) and the location of William Becknell's land.
  
  
• Gov. M. B. Lamar's notes from a report given by Captain Wm. B. Stout on Indian conflicts in northeastern Texas, 1836-1843.
  
  
• A map of the Battle of Buena Vista during the war between the United States and Mexico in 1846, described in Major Ben McCulloch's letter (p. 245)

Many official Republic records are now online. The site INDEX TO MILITARY ROLLS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS 1835-1845 has transcriptions of the surviving muster rolls of Captains Wm. Becknell, Henry Stout and Wm. B. Stout. A "Research Help" page at this site lists sources for tracing individual soldiers' records.

The Texas State Library and Archives has online images of Republic of Texas claims against the government, largely for military pay and other services rendered the state.

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/index.html

The Texas General Land Office Archives has an online database of abstracts (summaries) of the original land grant surveys.

The Internet addresses of reference works change over time so it may be necessary to find their current location (URL) by using one of the Internet search sites.

Acknowledgment

On behalf of the public I would like to thank the Clark family of Clarksville, Texas, for their assistance in putting this book online. The book will join an increasing number of freely available reference works on the Internet. Even small rural schools are getting Internet service which eventually will give them a virtual library much larger than they could otherwise afford.

Copyrights

According to Jim Clark of Clarksville, Texas, nephew of the author, there are no living direct descendants of Pat B. Clark. The Clark family believes the copyright to this book was not renewed at 28 years as required so that it has passed into the public domain.

I checked the Copyright Renewals for 1964, 1965 and 1966 in the online pages of the Library of Congress without finding a record of the book's copyright renewal, confirming the Clark family story.

Any copyrights I've accrued to this online version I hereby release to the public domain.

Web page maintenance

Any further corrections or additions to this online book should be made within square brackets so the reader will know they are not a part of the original text. No corrections or additions should be made unless they are based on documented evidence.

The safest way to correct an online work is to use a plain-text editor (e.g., Windows Notepad) that can change the page's content without altering the HTML. Commercial web-preparation programs insulate the user from HTML details, but often rewrite the original HTML to their current proprietary level without the user's knowledge. Also, commercial programs may substitute absolute (the current complete URL to this page) link addresses for the original relative (partial URL to other pages assumed to be in the same folder or a subfolder) link addresses, without the user being aware. The changed page is fine until the online work is moved to another server where the absolute links no longer function.

Simply uploading a corrected web page from a personal computer to a server can be damaging. The safest way is to use a file-transfer program that provides a "raw ASCII" option (e.g., WS_FTP) that does not alter the HTML. Some Internet browsers provide an upload option, but may reformat the page in their proprietary HTML in the process without the user's knowledge. The uploaded web page then looks fine on the same browser, but may not look the same on other browsers.

H. David Maxey - 2004

with roots in Red River County
from 1837

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1. Inflation calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ by S. Morgan Friedman, based on Historical Statistics of the United States, colonial times to 1970, Washington: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975.