Soy de Duval

The San Felicidad Ranch in the Agua Poquita grant was the first voting precinct in Duval County. It was located at the crossroads of the San Diego to Mier road and the road to Laredo. When Archie Parr, the founder of the Duchy of Duval, was still in the cradle in the Matagorda Island frontier town of Saluria, an election occurred in Duval County that laid the foundation for the future of Duval County and the Parr political machine. The special election to fill the unexpired term of the Fourteenth Judicial District in August 1860 was the first time that an election precinct was established in the unorganized county of Duval. At the end of the voting, the turnout in Agua Poquita and San Diego thrust Duval County into the middle of state politics. Governor Sam Houston intervened to reverse the vote and the Texas Supreme Court ultimately settled the matter. The 1860 election included all the elements that would later make the Parrs notorious in state politics. Political historians and obse...

For those of you who are interested in genealogical research, here are some direct links to the 1860 Census of Nueces County, which includes San Diego and Agua Poquita in what would become Duval County. There are some other communities in the area that may be of interest. Please keep in mind that the handwriting of the census taker is hard to read and that the microfilm of the original papers also makes it hard to read. This transcription was done for the  USGenWeb Census Project  and they and I cannot vouch for the complete accuracy in transcription. Click here to see File #1 which includes Agua Poquita (spelled Poquito) and one page of San Diego . Click here to see File #3 which includes most of San Diego . Enjoy! Alfredo E. Cardenas | September 13, 2013 at 1:45 am | Reply (Edit) Interesting story. Thanks for sharing it. Anonymous | September 13, 2013 at 1:43 am | Reply (Edit) Now that you mention Mr. Pharr, I remember going with my parents to the voting polls in Alice, Te...

 The print depicts the town plaza in San Diego, Texas, 1876. South Texas Museum Collection, Special Collections & Archives, Mary & Jeff Bell Library, Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi. As Moses indicated in his early history, the San Diego and other creeks were a good supply of water for herds of wild horses and cattle that grazed on their banks. In addition to the water supply for livestock, the creeks were edged by groves of elm, ash, live oak, hackberry, and mesquite trees. Travelers also took advantage of the water and cover provided by these small watering holes. The Ranchero newspaper in Corpus Christi reported there were “a number of large stock raising establishments called ranchos…all prosperous” with water wells and tanks. The newspaper, in an uncanny prophetic observation, noted that the area was “good sheep raising country” and that “possible that valuable minerals may exist in…Duval County.” Clear roads crisscrossed the county to a number of trading sp...

Photo from “Texas in Other Times: J. Williamson Moses,” published by Friends of the Corpus Christi Public Libraries. It is not clear why the Texas Legislature chose to create a county in the area between Nueces and Webb Counties. In 1858, 10 years after officially becoming American territory, the area was still Mexican in all aspects. There were not yet any “Americans” living in the area. But, they would soon begin to make their way. One on the early settlers who went on to become a political leader in Duval County was J. Williamson Moses. During this period, Moses was a mustanger in and around what is now Duval, Jim Wells and western Nueces Counties. He came to San Diego in 1871 and served as county attorney and then county judge. He wrote a number of articles for area newspapers, including the San Antonio Express under the pen name Sesom, Moses spelled backwards. In September 1887, Moses wrote what is perhaps the earliest history of San Diego, called the “City in the...

Duval County , Map, March 25, 1863; digital image, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth88510/ : accessed July 30, 2013), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas General Land Office, Austin , Texas. After Texas joined the United States and Mexico ceded it, along with the area known as Medio México or the trans Nueces, things begin to settle down in the frontier. Gradually, the area began to take form in the mold of other parts of the new country. On February 1, 1858, the Texas Legislature created 23 counties including Duval County. Many historical references suggest that Duval County was formed from parts of Nueces, Starr and Live Oak Counties. The law that created Duval County makes no mention of this point. It merely laid out the county’s boundary, which did not mention either Live Oak or Nueces Counties. To be sure, the boundaries laid out in the law were somewhat ill defined. The confines of the new Du...

Tombstone for N. G. Collins, who had the San Diego Cemetery surveyed in 1891. In 2002, the city of San Diego secured a Historic Texas Cemetery Medallion for the San Diego Cemetery, which was first surveyed by N. (Norman) G. Collins in April 1891. But of course, a cemetery must have existed of some sort prior to 1891, since people had been dying in San Diego for at least half a century. Whether it was the current cemetery or another burial site, San Diego residents had been burying their loved ones for many years. The first death in the records of the Catholic Church in San Diego dates to March 3, 1867 when Father Claude Jaillet oversaw the funeral services for a man named Guajardo. According the the Corpus Christi Caller, Father Pedro Bard presided over the funeral of Kletus Hoffman in San Diego in June 1888. The following month, he presided over the funeral services of Dona Rafaela Yzaguirre, an “old and much respected matron of San Diego. A large concourse of citizens on foot, on ho...

Before beginning a discussion on the history of San Diego and the creation of Duval County, I would like to explain the danger of relying on sources that do not provide back up for their historical reporting. In historical research, the best sources are primary records. These include government records of all kinds, such as land records, court records, tax records, birth and death records, census records, military records, etc. It also includes church records and others. Nowhere in those records have I found any mention of a Perezville, often cited as the initial name of San Diego.  Many primary sources, on the other hand, report about the ranch and town of San Diego. After primary sources, historical researchers rely on secondary records. These include newspapers of the period being researched, history books written using primary records, scholarly journals, etc. Secondary records can be problematic if the writer or compiler is not properly trained in historical research. For exam...