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Post by TRK on May 21, 2009 10:52:43 GMT -5
In the 1930s, Amelia Williams, in “A Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo and of the Personnel of Its Defenders,” Chapter 5: “Annotated and Documented Rolls of the Alamo Victims,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 37, no. 4, advanced the case that William Sanders Oury was one of the Alamo couriers. She claimed that he was “sent out of the Alamo with a message to Houston on or about February 29.” Her source was a manuscript biography of Oury by Cornelius C. Smith Sr., a grandson of Oury. Williams added that the biography “proves” that Oury was a messenger from the Alamo during the siege. Hansen’s The Alamo Reader, 222-25, reprints the part of the manuscript dealing with Oury’s early life up to the time he left Texas in 1849. While it provides anecdotal information on Oury’s supposed participation in the Texas Revolution, it doesn’t “prove” that he was an Alamo messenger. It quotes Oury as reminiscing that “I was sent out with one [of the messages] a few days before the massacre.” It was Smith, apparently, who interpolated that this occurred on February 29.
Three decades later, a full-length biography of Oury came out: Cornelius C. Smith Jr., William Sanders Oury: History-maker of the Southwest (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1967). Rather than rely on Oury’s “a few days before the massacre” statement, Smith flatly stated that Oury left the Alamo with messages on February 29.
In Smith’s book, we also learn that Oury participated in the Siege of Bexar in December 1835; the Battle of San Jacinto; the Battles of Plum Creek and Bandera Pass during the Republic years; and Monterrey during the Mexican War. I have independent documentation that Oury was at Plum Creek and Monterrey (not sure about Bandera Pass). However, his name does not turn up on any of the muster rolls or literature for the Siege of Bexar and Battle of San Jacinto (e.g., in Stephen L. Moore, Eighteen Minutes: The Battle of San Jacinto, or the list of participants compiled by Louis Wiltz Kemp. (As a side note, Oury’s name also doesn’t turn up on the Alamo voting list of Feb. 1, 1836, but that could be because he was eighteen years old and below the then voting age of 21.)
Smith’s book also states that Oury was a member of the Mier Expedition and survived it only because he was one of the ones who drew a white bean at Rancho Salado. But Oury’s name is on none of the muster rolls for the Mier Expedition, or in the records or claims in the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Republic of Texas Claims, or the Adjutant General’s Records, or in any of the voluminous literature of the expedition as far as I can determine. There is more than ample documentation for the members of the expedition who were spared execution at Rancho Salado and were ultimately repatriated.
On August 26, 1874, William S. Oury wrote from Tucson, Arizona Terr., to the comptroller of the State of Texas, requesting a pension for military service during war for Texas independence. He noted that his first recorded enlistment was in Columbia in the summer 1836, in the “company of Capt. ___ Irving” [Irvine], but claimed that he also served in the siege of San Antonio, fall 1835, “but not permanently attached to any company[;] went from the Colorado with Burleson [,] Moore etc.” This request for pension mentioned nothing about any service at the Alamo, let alone as an Alamo courier, or in the Mier Expedition. (William S. Oury file, Texas State Library and Archives Commission) If Oury had indeed been a member of the Alamo garrison and a courier, you'd think that this service would have been the centerpiece of his pension claim.
The evidence thus far for Oury’s having been an Alamo messenger seems to me a pretty flimsy one, based on his own say-so almost forty years later. Has anyone seen independent documentation that would tend to prove that he was in the Siege of Bexar, the Alamo garrison, the Battle of San Jacinto, or the Mier Expedition?
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Post by alamonorth on May 21, 2009 11:12:38 GMT -5
Page 178 of the Muster Rolls of the Texas revolution lists a Wm S Owny who enlisted in Irvine's company on 6 Nov 1836.
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Post by sloanrodgers on May 25, 2009 18:05:13 GMT -5
I believe I discussed William S. Oury with someone on the old forum. I think Oury like others
was a bit of a tale spinner and stretched the blanket on some of his exploits.
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Post by sloanrodgers on Nov 17, 2010 23:05:05 GMT -5
All of the stories of William S. Oury's participation in the battles of the Alamo, San Jacinto, Plum Creek, Mier, Hacienda Salado, etc. apparently originate with a
rather tendentious unpublished piece written by his grandson Col. William Oury Smith in 1930, while he was stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. Col.
Smith also says that not only had Oury met many of the great Anglo men (Austin, Travis, Bowie, Crockett, Bonham, Bigfoot Wallace, B. McCulloch & Kit Carson)
in TX history, but was also close friends with them. The problem with this statement is that these so-called friends may not have known Oury that well. I don't
believe any of them mention him in their writings. Cornelius Smith Sr. and Jr. tried to make Oury's dynamic Texas adventures more persuasive, but they were not
proof or wordsmiths. The evidence falls pretty flat and it's hard to believe Amelia Williams and others would endorse the W.O. Smith source as completely factual.
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Post by TRK on Nov 18, 2010 9:34:52 GMT -5
Then, there's the matter of Oury's land grant. Under the constitution of the Republic of Texas (RoT), all male citizens over the age of 17 living in Texas as of March 2, 1836 (that would have included Oury, provided he was actually in Texas at that date: he was 19 1/2 years old at the time) were entitled to first-class headright grants of one-third of a league of land: 1,476.1 acres.
Subsequently, there was legislation providing second-class headright grants to persons who arrived in the RoT after the March 2, 1836, declaration of independence but before October 1, 1837. This law provided 640 acres for single men. (Also, subsequently there were third-class and fourth-class headright grants for persons arriving even later in the RoT.)
Oury's biography states that he received a certificate entitling him to a grant of 640 acres. It is established that he enlisted in the RoT Army in November 1836, so it appears that this would qualify his certificate as a second-class headright grant, as opposed to a RoT military bounty or donation land grant, since the comprehensive lists in Thomas Lloyd Miller's Bounty and Donation Land Grants of Texas, 1835-1888, don't list Oury as the recipient of such a grant.
A land survey reportedly was made for Oury's grant in Polk County in August 1838, but the field notes of the survey weren't submitted until 1854, and because the original certificate wasn't filed with the notes within the legal time limit, Oury's claim was invalidated.
It seems that if Oury had actually been a resident of Texas at the time of the sieges of Bexar and of the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto, he would have leaped on a first-class headright. That he settled for a second-class headright seems more in keeping with the scenario that he arrived in Texas subsequent to March 2, 1836, and, if that is indeed the case, that would eliminate the Sieges of Bexar and the Alamo from his service record.
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Post by sloanrodgers on Nov 18, 2010 23:28:51 GMT -5
Then, there's the matter of Oury's land grant. Under the constitution of the Republic of Texas (RoT), all male citizens over the age of 17 living in Texas as of March 2, 1836 (that would have included Oury, provided he was actually in Texas at that date: he was 19 1/2 years old at the time) were entitled to first-class headright grants of one-third of a league of land: 1,476.1 acres. Timing is everything and William S. Oury apparently wasn't a first class Texican citizen. As you said above, he enlisted in Captain's Irvine company in the Summer of 1836, but said that he had served before this time as a volunteer and during the Battle of Bexar. He also said that he was not permanently attached to any one company and their probably wouldn't be any record of his irregular service. The lack of information didn't get a soldier land, but as you showed Oury was in Texas and qualified for a head right grant. It's strange that he listed dead soldiers and others that probably couldn't strengthen his case like Rip Ford. He should have gotten affidavits from old friends like old ranger friends Rufe Perry, Walter P. Lane and D. C. Cady Oury's 1874 Comptroller letter, 2 pages. www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/repclaims/viewdetails.php?id=76890&set=1#viewSettslarc.tsl.state.tx.us/repclaims/232/23200113.pdfActually I think Oury enlisted with the rest of Irvine's company in October '36, then for some reason he was furloughed from Nov. 5, '36 until May 28, '37. As a result Oury may not have qualified for a military bounty land grant for 3 months service in the Texas army. He applied for this bounty grant for 1280 acres, but never received it. When lawyer Douglas Brown asked the Court of Claims in 1858 about Oury's application it was no longer on file. Oury's last pay certificate for 1836 with Nov. 5, '36 - May 28, '37 furlough mentioned. www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/repclaims/viewdetails.php?id=59859Douglas Brown's 1858 Court of Claims letter. www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/repclaims/viewdetails.php?id=85706&set=1#viewSetI haven't seen a document for Polk, only Liberty County. That's a great assessment. I think Oury's troubles in his declining years and rise to national prominence of his younger brother Grandbury probably fueled wild stories to his children about his days in Texas. None of these tales seem to have filtered into the later newspaper stories on William S. Oury and his illustrious family |
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Post by sloanrodgers on Nov 21, 2010 20:44:56 GMT -5
I meant to provide more information on the original source material for Cornelius C. Smith Jr.'s book on his grandfather William S. Oury, but got a bit
distracted by Oury's meager revolutionary documents. Most of the so-called evidence that places Oury in many of the key Texas revolutionary and
republic era battles were gleaned from W.O. Smith's 1930 unpublished manuscript, Life of William S. Oury which is housed at the Center of American
History in Austin, TX. Apparently Cornelius jumped to a few conclusions about this biased manuscript and didn't conduct much independent research
on Oury. In one paragraph W.O. Smith wrote that Augustus Oury (W.S. Oury's father) was invited to settle in Texas by his friend Stephen F. Austin.
He moved to Missouri in '33 and later Texas. Somehow Cornelius Sr. or Jr. determined that the young William S. Oury departed Missouri alone around
this time, but I think they may have been confusing his Texas arrival with the arrival of his dad in Missouri. I've found no proof that W. S. Oury lived
in Texas before the fall of '36 when he joined Irvine's company. So far as W.S. Oury's alleged Alamo messenger service. According W.O. Smith, Oury
said; "I know messages were carried from Travis on the Colorado; from this camp at San Antonio and from the Alamo; and I was sent out
with one a few days before the massacre." W.O. Smith listed the various Alamo messengers and dates of their departure:
Jan. 28-unknown
Jan. 29-Tom Jackson
Feb. 12-Unknown
Feb. 13-Deaf Smith and Williams
Feb. 16-Maverick
Feb. 24- Albert martin or Juan Seguin
Mar. 3-John W. Smith
Based on Oury's ambiguous statement about leaving a few days before the massacre and the absence of a name for the Feb. 12 messenger, W.O. Smith
concluded that Oury departed the Alamo on February 12. Cornelius C. Smith Jr. ignores this early date in his book and somehow determined that Oury was
actually sent out of the Alamo on Feb. 29th, but gives no documentation despite Amelia Williams' claim that he had proof.
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Post by TRK on Nov 22, 2010 7:25:15 GMT -5
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Post by sloanrodgers on Nov 22, 2010 21:40:06 GMT -5
Perhaps the Liberty County documentation is related to the Polk County documentation: the Oury land-claim for Polk County I referred to dated from 1854 in Polk County; Polk County had been carved out of Liberty County in 1846. Maybe. I've read three different versions (W.O. Smith, C.C. Smith Sr. and C.C. Smith Jr.) of Oury's land grant in Polk County, certificate 111 for his supposed service at the battles of the Alamo, San Jacinto or Bexar, but can't find any evidence that a donation grant was ever issued for any of Oury's battles. The only grant listed in Oury's name at the TX General Land Office is the Liberty County, 3rd Class head right for his apparent post revolutionary immigration to Texas. It's possible this incomplete grant was transferred to Polk County before it was abandoned, but the grant definitely wasn't for battle or Texas army service as the Smiths would have us believe. They seemed uninterested in the criteria for the issuance of the various land grants. I wonder why? I saw the Oury material in my Hanson copy, but forgot it was online. Thanks. Hanson seems to buy all the deficient evidence for Oury's Texas revolutionary service, but everything seems to originate with the three Smiths as cited by Hanson. They also state that Oury served during the Mexican War at the fights at Matamoros, Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Buena Vista, etc. although he only appears on the ranger muster rolls of Robert A. Gillespie. Oury was also supposedly a Spanish interpreter for Gen. Zachary Taylor. Whew! busy fellow, but not on anything, but Smith paper. Who was messenger Tom Jackson above? Was he a Smith creation? Never heard of him before. |
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Post by Hollowhorn on Aug 11, 2011 18:02:29 GMT -5
Who was messenger Tom Jackson above? Was he a Smith creation? Never heard of him before. What were the movements of the troops after the Gonzales fight? Is it possible that Thomas Jackson (Gonzales Ranging Company) was in Bexar on Jan 29th? |
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Post by sloanrodgers on Aug 14, 2011 16:10:07 GMT -5
Who was messenger Tom Jackson above? Was he a Smith creation? Never heard of him before. What were the movements of the troops after the Gonzales fight? Is it possible that Thomas Jackson (Gonzales Ranging Company) was in Bexar on Jan 29th? I guess it's possible, but we don't know if it's the same person that was identified by the Smiths as a messenger. Tom Jackson seems like a very common name. |
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Post by sloanrodgers on Dec 16, 2015 9:37:55 GMT -5
Here's my short biography of faux Texas hero William S. Oury, which was recently used to revise some of the many errors in his Handbook of Texas article. I've also revised the flawed biographies of non Hays ranger James W. Nichols and Mexican War hero John J. Glanton.
William S. Oury biography by Sloan Rodgers of Austin, Texas, 2014.
William Sanders Oury was a Texas Ranger, Mexican War soldier and an early mayor of Tucson, Arizona. He was the first child of long-time Abingdon, Virginia post master Augustus Oury and he was born August 13, 1817 in this small town near the Tennessee border. On June 9, 1836, eighteen year old William Oury was arrested for stealing money from sealed letters in the Abingdon Post Office on the testimony of his father. Oury escaped jail soon afterward, but was recaptured. At some point later, Oury escaped jail again. By November 1836, Oury was making amends and proudly serving the new Texas Republic as a third corporal in Capt. Robert B. Irvine’s Company of the First Infantry Regiment. Oury was discharged from the Texas regiment on December 30, 1837 and was eventually issued the maximum acreage (1280 acres) for a second class head-right grant, but he did not complete the process to claim the land. Oury was apparently more interested in employment with mercantile stores and surveying than on land acquisition.
A couple weeks after Captain John C. Hays’ famed victory over the Comanche at the battle of Walker Creek, Oury joined Hays’ unit for the first time on June 27, 1844, but he saw little fighting against the momentarily pacified tribe. A year later, Oury enlisted in Capt. Robert Addison “Add” Gillespie and First Sergeant William “Bigfoot” Wallace’s Company, which was federalized into Colonel John C. Hays’ First Regiment of U.S. Mounted Riflemen for the looming Mexican War. Oury was near Capt. Gillespie when the officer was mortally wounded while leading a charge at the battle of Monterey. After the American victory, the regiment was discharged. Oury immediately returned to San Antonio and appeared at an October 17, 1846 memorial for his fallen commander. Oury settled down to farming around San Jose Mission with former Hays ranger Charles L. Pyron, and they bought land there in 1848. The next year Oury married Inez Garcia and they followed the Gold Rush to San Francisco, California, and eventually Sacramento. Not striking it rich, Oury and his growing family headed back to Texas in 1856. Their wagon stopped in the hot, dusty frontier town of Tucson, Arizona, where Oury started a small cattle ranch. Here Oury killed two men in separate duels and managed the Butterfield Mail Station until the start of the Civil War. As a Confederate sympathizer, some of Oury’s land and other property were confiscated by the U.S. Government after the war. In 1864 Oury became the first mayor of Tucson. Oury later held other town and county appointments, some of which were marked by his personal corruption.
In 1871, Mayor Oury was one of the leaders in the infamous Camp Grant Massacre committed in retaliation for Apache depredations. The force of mostly Mexicans and members of the Papago Tribe indiscriminately killed numerous women and children on the U.S. Indian Reservation. With the loss of some respect, the rising fame of his politician brother Granville and old comrade Bigfoot Wallace, William Oury began to exaggerate his contributions to Texas history. In an 1874 correspondence to the Texas State Comptroller, Oury unconvincingly stated that he served as a volunteer at the “Siege of San Antonio in the fall of 1835” and that he followed Col. Edward Burleson on the long retreat to East Texas. Oury also invoked the names of deceased veterans in this letter, who would obviously be unable to testify on his behalf. Later Oury would say that he escaped the final Alamo battle as one of Col. William B. Travis’s last messengers and probably other tall tales. In 1884 Oury was elected the first president of the Arizona Pioneers Historical Society. Oury wrote a few articles on the history of the Arizona territory, where he was a well-known and sometimes controversial pioneer of the future state.
Oury passed away on March 31, 1887 in Tucson, Arizona. Oury’s grandson Col. Cornelius C. Smith and other family members would write in the 20th Century that their ancestor served heroically in the Texas Frontier battles of the Alamo, San Jacinto, Plum Creek, Salado, Bandera Pass, Mier, Walker Creek and the Mexican War battles of Resaca de le Palma, Palo Alto and Buena Vista. They also claimed that after Oury’s alleged capture at the battle of Mier that he was imprisoned for almost two years in Mexico. However Private William S. Oury only appears on the muster rolls of Captains Irvine, Hays and Gillespie. There is apparently no documentation or first-hand witness testimony that places Oury in Texas before the fall of 1836 or any battle other than his Monterey service.
Bibliography:
June 20, 1836 Alexandria Gazette (Alexandria, Virginia), Republic Claims 79-542 and 232-113, Texas State Archives, Austin, TX, William S. Oury, History-Maker of the Southwest by Comelius C. Smith Jr. (University of Arizona Press, 1967) William Orrey, Texas Adjutant General, Ranger Rolls, Texas State Archives. Austin, TX, Texas Volunteers in the Mexican War by Charles D. Spurlin (1998) March 26, 1883, Boston Herald, (Boston, Massachusetts).
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Post by TRK on Dec 23, 2015 7:26:02 GMT -5
That's interesting that Oury was engaged in postal theft. A real standup guy.
Was that reference to Abingdon the one near Roanoake, Virginia? I guess we now know for sure where Oury really was in the spring and summer of 1836 (at the age of 17): nowhere near Texas.
Too bad the Handbook of Texas didn't delete the previous bio of Oury and just use yours, Sloan. It gives a more reasoned picture of the rascal than the hybrid bio that remains on the HoT site.
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Post by loucapitano on Dec 24, 2015 12:01:38 GMT -5
Oury is an interesting character full of human contradictions that affect so many of the characters of history. I really don't know what to make of him, his faults exceed his virtues and his participation in Indian destruction is appalling.
There's an interesting coincidence that he claimed to be an Alamo courier and Texas hero about the same time historical interest in the battle was emerging in the U.S.
Thanks for all the research by Forum members.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Lou from Long Island
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Post by Jim Boylston on Dec 24, 2015 12:44:41 GMT -5
Here's my short biography of faux Texas hero William S. Oury, which was recently used to revise some of the many errors in his Handbook of Texas article. I've also revised the flawed biographies of non Hays ranger James W. Nichols and Mexican War hero John J. Glanton. Glanton...now there's a piece of work. |
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