Famous Masons - Battle of the Alamo

 

“ A memorial at the site of the Alamo commemorates the following masons” W Bro Terry Warren

William Barret Travis

(August 9, 1809 – March 6, 1836)

 

William Barret Travis (August 9, 1809 – March 6, 1836) was a 19th century American lawyer and soldier. At the age of 26, he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Texian Army, and commanded the Republic of Texas forces and died at the Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution from the Republic of Mexico.


He was born in Saluda County, South Carolina, to Mark and Jemima Travis in 1809; records differ as to whether his date of birth was the first or ninth of August, but the Travis family Bible indicates that he was born on the ninth.

Travis then became an attorney and, at age 19, married one of his former students, 16-year-old Rosanna Cato (1812-1848), on October 26, 1828. The couple stayed in Claiborne and had a son, Charles Edward, in 1829. Travis began publication of a newspaper that same year, the Claiborne Herald. He became a Mason, joining the Alabama Lodge No.3 - Free and Accepted Masons, and later joined the Alabama militia as adjutant of the Twenty-sixth Regiment, Eighth Brigade, Fourth Division.

 


Davey Crockett was born on August 17, 1786, but the location is disputed, with his birthplace given as near the Nolichucky River in Greene County, Tennessee; in Limestone Cove, Washington County, North Carolina; or in Hawkins County, Tennessee. A recreation of his birthplace cabin stands in Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park on the Nolichucky River near Limestone, Tennessee. His father's ancestors were of Scots-Irish and Anglo-Irish descent, while his mother's ancestors appear to have been exclusively English. Tradition has it that David Crockett's father was born on this family's migrational voyage to America from Ireland, but, in fact, it is his great-grandfather, William David Crockett, who was registered as being born in New Rochelle in 1709.

David Crockett was the fifth of nine children of John and Rebecca Hawkins Crockett. He was named after his paternal grandfather, who was killed at his home in present-day Rogersville, Tennessee, by Native Americans in 1775. His father, John, was one of the Overmountain Men who fought in the American Revolutionary War at the Battle of Kings Mountain. The Crocketts moved to Morristown, Tennessee, sometime during the 1790s and built a tavern. A museum now stands on this site and is a reconstruction of that tavern.
 

Davey Crockett

(August 17 1786 - March 6, 1836)

 

James Butler Bonham (20 February 1807–6 March 1836) was a 19th century American soldier who died at the Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution. His younger brother, Milledge Luke Bonham, was a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War, and served as Governor of South Carolina from 1862 to 1864.

He was born near Red Bank (now Saluda), South Carolina, a son of James and Sophia (Smith) Bonham, who had moved to South Carolina from Maryland shortly after the American Revolution. Bonham was a second cousin to Alamo commander William B. Travis and their families attended the same church in South Carolina. He was a first cousin once removed to Andrew Pickens Butler.

Bonham entered South Carolina College in 1824. In 1827, in his senior year, he led a student protest over harsh attendance regulations and the poor food served at the college boardinghouse. He was expelled, along with the entire senior class! In 1830, Bonham practiced law in Pendleton, but was found in contempt of court after caning an attorney who had insulted one of Bonham's clients. When ordered to apologize by the sitting judge, he refused and threatened to tweak the judge’s nose. Bonham was sentenced to ninety days for contempt of court.

He served as an aide to Governor James Hamilton Jr. during the Nullification Crisis in 1832. Bonham brandished a sword and pistol, condemning Andrew Jackson and the Washington politicians. His outspoken position brought him the rank of lieutenant colonel. At the same time he served as captain of a Charleston artillery company.

In October 1834, Bonham moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where relatives lived. The following year he went to Mobile, where he helped organize a company of militia cavalry called the Mobile Greys to serve in Texas. The company reached San Felipe, Texas in November 1835, and Bonham was commissioned a lieutenant in the Texian Cavalry on December 3.
 

 

James "Jim" Bowie

(April 10, 1796 – March 6, 1836)

 

James "Jim" Bowie (April 10, 1796 – March 6, 1836), a nineteenth-century American pioneer and soldier, played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution, culminating in his death at the Battle of the Alamo. Countless stories of him as a fighter and frontiersman, both real and fictitious, have made him a legendary figure in Texas history.

Born in Kentucky, Bowie spent most of his life in Louisiana, where he was raised and later worked as a land speculator. His rise to fame began in 1827 on reports of the Sandbar Fight. What began as a duel between two other men deteriorated into a melee in which Bowie, having been shot and stabbed, killed the sheriff of Rapides Parish with a large knife. This and other stories of Bowie's prowess with the knife led to the widespread popularity of the Bowie knife.

 

Almaron Dickinson (1814 - March 6, 1836)

Dickinson was born in the U.S. state of Tennessee, learning the trade of blacksmithing. He later enlisted in the US Army as a field artilleryman. He and Susannah Dickinson married when she was just 15, on May 24, 1829, and two years later the couple moved to the Mexican province of Texas, where they became settlers in the Dewitt Colony. Dickinson received a league of land along the San Marcos River, where he started a blacksmith shop, and partnered with George C. Kimble in a hat factory. On December 14, 1834, Angelina Elizabeth was born, which would be the couples only child together. Following a number of Indian raids on settlements, he took part in hunting down hostile Indians shortly thereafter, with his band being led by fellow settler Bart McClure.

In the Fall of 1835, Dickinson served as one of the defenders during the Battle of Gonzales, which marked the beginning of Texas' war for independence. Dickinson was elected as First Lieutenant of Artillery in December 1835.[1] He then joined a band of volunteers going to defend San Antonio, Texas, and became an aide to General Edward Burleson during the Siege of Bexar, with a rank of Lieutenant in the Texian Army. A few weeks later, his home where Susannah and his daughter had remained was looted by members of a Texas Militia, prompting her to join her husband in San Antonio. The family set up residence in the Musquiz house, on the southwest corner of Portero Street and the Main Plaza. However, when Antonio López de Santa Anna and his troops arrived on February 23, 1836, Dickinson moved his family inside the Alamo.

 

At some point, either on March 3 or March 4, 1836, Col. Travis, seeing that their situation was hopeless and their fate set, called the troops of his garrison together. He informed them of the situation, and gave the soldiers the opportunity to either stay or to go at that point. Only one man, Moses Rose, chose to flee, with the rest choosing to remain and fight to the death. Rose would forever, up until present day, be remembered as the "Coward of the Alamo", while Dickinson and the rest of the defenders would achieve immortality as heroes.
 



The Fall of the Alamo, painted by Theodore Gentilz in 1844, depicts the final assault.
 

 
Story of the Battle of the Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) is the most famous battle of the Texas Revolution. After a revolutionary army of Texian settlers and adventurers from the United States drove all Mexican troops out of Mexican Texas, Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna led an invasion to regain control of the area. Mexican forces arrived in San Antonio de Bexar on February 23 and initiated a siege of the Texian forces garrisoned at the Alamo Mission.

In the early morning hours of March 6 the Mexican army launched an assault on the Alamo. The outnumbered Texians repulsed two attacks, but were unable to fend off a third. As Mexican soldiers scaled the walls, most of the Texian soldiers retreated into the long barracks or the chapel. Several small groups who were unable to reach these points attempted to escape and were killed outside the walls by the waiting Mexican cavalry. The Mexican soldiers fought room-to-room and soon had control over the Alamo. Between five and seven Texians may have surrendered; if so, they were quickly executed on Santa Anna's orders. Most eyewitness accounts reported between 182 and 257 Texian dead, while most Alamo historians agree that 400–600 Mexicans were killed or wounded. Of the Texians who fought during the battle, only two survived: Joe, spared because he was a slave, and Brigido Guerrero, a Mexican Army deserter who convinced Mexican soldiers he had been imprisoned. Women and children, primarily family members of the Texian soldiers, were questioned by Santa Anna and then released.

On Santa Anna's orders, three of the survivors were sent to Gonzales to spread word of the Texian defeat. After hearing this news, Texian army commander Sam Houston ordered a retreat; this sparked the Runaway Scrape, a mass exodus of citizens and the Texas government towards the east (away from the Mexican army). News of the Alamo's fall prompted many Texas colonists to join Houston's army. On the afternoon of April 21 the Texian army attacked Santa Anna's forces in the Battle of San Jacinto. During the battle many Texians shouted "Remember the Alamo!" Santa Anna was captured and forced to order his troops out of Texas, ending Mexican control of the area, which subsequently became the Republic of Texas.

By March 24 a list of names of the Texians who died at the Alamo had begun to be compiled. The first history of the battle was published in 1843, but serious study of the battle did not begin until after the 1931 publication of Amelia W. Williams's dissertation attempting to identify all of the Texians who died at the Alamo. The first full-length, non-fiction book covering the battle was published in 1948. The battle was first depicted in film in the 1911 silent film The Immortal Alamo, and has since been featured in numerous movies, including one directed by John Wayne. The Alamo church building has been designated an official Texas state shrine, with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas acting as permanent caretakers.
 
Plan of the Alamo, by José Juan Sánchez-Navarro, 1836

Susanna Wilkerson Dickinson (first name also spelled Susana and Susannah; last name also spelled Dickerson and Dickenson) (1814 – October 7, 1883] was among the two Anglo survivors of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution, where her husband, Captain Almaron Dickinson, and 182 other defenders were killed by the Mexican Army. The second was her infant daughter.