The Path to Power (141 page)

William Bray, “Forest Resources of Texas,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Forestry, Bulletin No. 47, Washington, D.C., 1904; Henry C. Hahn, “The White-Tailed Deer in the Edwards Plateau Region of Texas,” Texas Game, Fish and Oyster Commission, Austin, 1945; A. W. Spaight, “The Resources, Soil and Climate of Texas,” Report of Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics and History, Galveston, 1882.

Department of Agriculture, Records of the Federal Extension Service, Record Group 33, Annual Reports of Extension Field Representatives, Texas: Blanco County, Burnet County, Hays County, Travis County, 1931–1941, National Archives.

ON THE BUNTONS:

Harwell,
Eighty Years Under the Stars and Bars;
Hunter, ed.,
Trail Drivers of Texas;
Pickrell,
Pioneer Women in Texas;
Wilson and Duholm,
A Genealogy: Bunton-Buntin-Bentun-Bunting
.

Edythe Johns Whitley, “Kith and Kin of Our President, Lyndon Baines Johnson,” Nashville, 1967.

Lorena Drummond, “Declaration Signer,”
SAE
, March 22, 1931; “h.,” “Col. John W. Bunton,”
Weekly Statesman
, Sept. 4, 1879; Josephine A. Pearson, “A Girl Diplomatist From Tennessee Who Matched Her Wits With a Mexican Ruler,”
Nashville Tennessean
, Jan. 8, 1935; T. C. Richardson, “Texas Pioneer Plays Part in State’s Progress,”
Farm and Ranch
, June 7, 1924; T. U. Taylor, “Heroines of the Hills,”
Frontier Times
, May 1973, pp. 14–24.

Arthur W. Jones, “Col. John and Mary Bunton”; “N.,” “Another Veteran of the Republic Gone Home”; Lon Smith, “Col. John and Mary Bunton,” “An Address in the State Cemetery at Austin,” March 2, 1939, from “Printed Material: Newspaper Clippings,” all in Box 25, Personal Papers of Rebekah Baines Johnson.

ON THE JOHNSONS:

Bearss,
Historic Resource Study … Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Site, Blanco and Gillespie Counties, Texas;
Rebekah Johnson,
A Family Album;
also, “The Johnsons—Descendants of John Johnson, A Revolutionary Soldier of Georgia: A Genealogical History,” 1956; Moursund,
Blanco County Families;
Speer,
A History of Blanco County
.

Rebekah Baines Johnson gave her son a draft of
A Family Album
in 1954 with a covering letter that begins: “Here are some of the stories you desire.” This contains material different in some details from that in the published
Family Album
and is referred to as “Rough Draft.”

Hall, ed., “Horace Hall’s Letters”; Andrew Sparks, “President Johnson’s Georgia Ancestors,”
Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine
, March 1, 1964.

“Pedernales to Potomac,”
Austin American-Statesman
Supplement, Jan. 20, 1965;
“The Record-Courier
-Blanco County Centennial Edition,” Aug. 1, 1958.

Interviews:

Ava Johnson Cox, Ethel Davis, John Dollahite, Stella Gliddon, Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt (RJB), Sam Houston Johnson (SHJ), Clayton Stribling, Mrs. Lex Ward.

He would say;
LBJ repeated this to college classmates and deans, and to residents of the Hill Country. Pool,
LBJ
(p. 50), says, “According to a cherished Pedernales
Valley story, a proud grandfather rode through the countryside to announce to the neighbors that ‘A United States Senator was born today, my grandson.’” In Singer and Sherrod,
Lyndon Baines Johnson
, p. 87, Lyndon Johnson is quoted as saying: “The story goes that the day I was born my granddaddy saddled up his biggest gray mare, Fritz, and rode into town, looking as proud as if he had won the Battle of The Alamo singlehanded. He announced to everyone that a U. S. Senator had just come into the world. It was kind of a joke with my playmates as I was growing up. …” Among other books in which one version or another appears is Mooney,
The Lyndon Johnson Story
, pp. 28–29. Of numerous articles in which it appears, one is “Lyndon B. Johnson, Boy of Destiny,” by a Fredericksburg resident, Bruce Kowert (
Boston Globe
, Dec. 15, 1963). But none of the Johnson relatives or their Hill Country neighbors interviewed remembers that episode. In the “Rough Draft” of the family album, which she gave to Lyndon in 1954, his mother wrote (p. 2) that “when Lyndon was about three years old”, his grandfather wrote in a letter that Lyndon is “as smart as you find them,” and that he expected him “to be a United States Senator before he is forty.”
“He has the Bunton strain”:
RJB; Cox. In the published
A Family Album
(p. 17), his mother says: “Aunt Kate Keele [said] that she could see the Bunton flavor.”

The “Bunton eye” and personality:
Among others, Cox, SHJ, RJB, Mrs. Lex Ward.
“Shadow of sadness”:
“Joseph L. Bunton,” in Harwell, p. 88.

Encounter on the plains:
Eli Mitchell, quoted in Pearson, “A Girl Diplomatist.”
At the first battle:
Ibid
.; “N.,” “Col. John W. Bunton.”
“Towering form”:
Captain Jesse Billingsley, quoted in Drummond, “Declaration Signer.”
Leader of the sevenman patrol:
Jones, “Col. John and Mary Bunton,” p. 3, says he was the leader. Smith, “Col. John and Mary Bunton,” p. 3, and Johnson,
Album
, p. 126, say he was “one of the seven men who captured Santa Anna.”
“To the present generations”:
“h.,” “Col. John W. Bunton.”
Wild journey:
Smith, “Col. John and Mary Bunton,” pp. 3, 4; Pearson, “A Girl Diplomatist.”
“Commanding presence”; “eloquent tougue”:
Drummond, “Declaration Signer”; Smith, p. 3.
Texas Rangers bill:
Pearson, “A Girl Diplomatist”; Jones, “Col. John and Mary Bunton,” p. 3.
Retirement:
Johnson,
Genealogy
, p. 16; “h.,” “Col. John W. Bunton,” p. 2; Jones, “Col. John and Mary Bunton,” pp. 4–5; Cox; SHJ. A further indication of the respect in which he was held, Jones wrote, is that he was chosen to be Administrator of the estate of the legendary hero of the Alamo, Jim Bowie.

“Big country”; “far behind”; the frontier; the “bloodiest years”:
Fehrenbach, pp. 255–56, 276–86, 298, 302, 313–20, 501.
To the
very
edge:
See Figure 1, Jordan, p. 23; Fehrenbach, pp. 276, 279–80, 286, 313–20.

Rancho Rambouillet description; arriving with Uncle Ranch; wife scaring off Indians:
Pearson, “A Girl Diplomatist.”
“A large impressive”:
Johnson,
Album
, p. 90.
Robert Bunton’s biography:
Wilson and Duholm, pp. 18, 19; Cox; SHJ.
A “substantial planter”:
Johnson,
Album
, p. 89.
All over six feet:
Wilson and Duholm, p. 32.
Military career:
Ibid.
, p. 19.
Raising cattle:
Caldwell County Ad Valorem Tax Rolls, 1870–1880, Texas State Archives.
Philosophical Society:
Handbook of Texas
, Vol. I, p. 246.
“Absolutely truthful”; “an idealist”; “an excellent conversationalist”:
Cox, SHJ; Johnson,
Album
, p. 90.
“Charity begins at home”:
Johnson,
Album
, p. 73.
“Leaving a handsome estate”:
Brown and Speer,
Encyclopedia of the New West
, p. 575.
Desha Bunton:
Richardson, “Texas Pioneer.”
“Very proud people”:
Mrs. Lex Ward.
Selling off, but holding on:
Pearson, “A Girl Diplomatist.” The ranch was finally sold off on Oct. 10, 1981, but only because the Bunton heirs got a very good price for it.

Cardsharps:
Wilson & Duholm, p. 32. They say that it was James Bunton, who owned half the herd, who said nothing, but family lore says it was Robert (Cox, SHJ).
Renting out pastures:
Connolly, in Hunter, ed., p. 190.
Retiring comfortably:
RJB, Cox. The West Texas rancher was Lucius Desha Bunton of Marfa.

The Hill Country was beautiful:
Schawe, p. 240 and
passim;
Hunter,
passim;
Fehrenbach, p. 606; Frantz and White, p. viii; Graves,
Heartland
, pp. 12–16, 24 ff, and
Hard Scrabble
, p. 11. Horace Hall, who came to the Hill Country in 1871, called it “a beautiful country … high hills wooded with rich valleys, with tall grass over a horse’s back,” Hall, p. 342. Also, descriptions of early days from Cox, Gliddon, and elderly residents who heard them from their parents or grandparents.

“The cabins became”; “A man could
see”:
Fehrenbach, pp. 286, 301.
“Grass knee high!”:
Hall, p. 351.
“My stirrups!”:
Hunter, ed.; an “early pioneer” quoted in
AA-S
, Nov. 19, 1967.

The grass and the soil:
Thomas, ed., esp. pp. 49–69, 115–33, 350–66, 721–36; Graves,
Heartland
, p. 23.
Role of fire:
Thomas, ed., pp. 57, 119–26; Hahn, “White-Tailed Deer,” p. 7; Bray, “Forest Resources,” p. 28; Graves,
Hard Scrabble
, p. 12.
Failure to understand:
Fehrenbach, p. 606; Graves,
passim
.

The rain:
Webb,
Plains
, pp. 17–27; Bray, “Forest Resources,” pp. 28, 29; Fehrenbach, pp. 606, 607.
A small shrub; mulberry bushes:
Engelmann, quoted in Bray, “Forest Resources,” p. 29.
Cactus; “too low”:
Bray, “Forest Resources,” p. 4.
“Well-defined division”:
Vernon Bailey, “Biological Survey of Texas, 1905,” quoted in Webb,
Plains
, p. 32.
“Divided”:
O. E. Baker, Agricultural Economist in the U.S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics, in
Yearbook of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(1921), quoted in Webb,
Plains
, p. 19.
“West of 98”:
Graves,
Hard Scrabble
, p. 20.
“Sound and fury”:
Fehrenbach, p. 273.

“A conspiracy”:
Fehrenbach, pp. 605, 607.
“Kendall’s victims”:
Speer, p. 12; Brigham, p. 9.
“The springs are flowing”:
Frantz and White, p. viii.
“Erratic moves”:
Richard Blood, the Weather Bureau’s climatologist for Texas, quoted in Jones, “What Drought Means.”

No realization:
It is apparent, even if not stated in Darton, “Texas: Our Largest State”: “It has large areas of fertile soil and a climate approaching the temperate.”

The Johnsons:
Bearss, pp. 1–6; Johnson,
Album, passism;
Johnson, “The Johnsons,”
passim
.
“Some historians”:
Including the President’s mother, in her
Album
, p. 107.
Jesse’s migration:
Sparks, “President Johnson’s Georgia Ancestors”; Bearss, pp. 1, 2; Johnson,
Album
, pp. 87–88.
“They were prosperous”:
Elizabeth Thomas, an Alabama genealogist, quoted in Sparks, “President Johnson’s Georgia Ancestors.”
Will:
“Last Will and Testament of Jesse Johnson,” Aug. 30, 1854, in Johnson,
Album
, p. 88.
Didn’t realize enough:
Caldwell County Probate Record Book C, pp. 267–68; Bearss, pp. 4–6.

Indians in the Hill Country:
Speer, Taylor, Fehrenbach,
passim
.
“The terror”:
Elliott Coues,
On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer
, p. xxv, quoted in Webb,
Plains
, p. 120.
“They lived along the streams”:
R. Henderson Shuffler, “Here History Was Only Yesterday,” in Maguire, p. 22.
Federal responsibility:
Texans’ fury as it is shown in Fehrenbach, pp. 496–97, 501, 530, 532–33.
36 and 34 families:
Brigham, p. 9.

“One of the outhouses”:
Speer, p. 6.
“The back of a bush”:
Olmsted, p. 134.
“Most popular use”:
Fehrenbach, p. 298.
“At random”:
Hayes, quoted in Fehrenbach, p. 298.
“This life”; “a difference”:
Fehrenbach, pp. 300, 451.

Colt revolver; “Never again”:
Fehrenbach, pp. 474–76.
149:
Fehrenbach, p. 497.
Hundreds died:
Fehrenbach, p. 501.
Torture and rape:
Fehrenbach, pp. 450–51, 460.
“A thousand deaths”:
Nunley, “The Interesting Life Story of a Pioneer Mother,” pp. 17–21.

Formation of Blanco County:
Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics and History, “Blanco County,” pp. 27–29, Galveston, 1882.
Pleasant Hill:
Gillespie County Historical Society, p. 63.
Swarming with steers:
Hahn, “White-Tailed Deer,” p. 9.
The rise of the cattle business:
Pelzer, pp. 45 ff; Hunter, ed., pp. 96-99 and
passim;
Fehrenbach.

The Johnson brothers as trail drivers:
Hall, Speer, Moursund,
passim
.
“The largest”:
A. W. Capt, in Hunter, pp. 362–63.
“On his return”:
Fred Bruckner, quoted in Bearss, p. 31.

“Tall”:
Johnson,
Album
, p. 73. T. U. Taylor described her as “a beautiful young woman with piercing black eyes, coal black hair, queenly in her carriage, a woman of great refinement and strong family pride” (p. 21).
“Loved to talk”:
Johnson, “The Johnsons,” p. 71.
“Admonished”:
Johnson,
Album
, p. 74.

“The months”:
Fehrenbach, p. 558. The bitterness Hill Country ranchers felt toward the federal government for its Indian policies is shown in a remark by Capt, in Hunter, p. 36, that “As for chasing Indians, that was out of the question, for at that time they were under the watchful care of government agents.”
The only wife:
SHJ, Cox.
“Gently reared”:
Taylor, p. 21.
Hiding in the cellar:
Porterfield, pp. 39–40. Although most published accounts say, as Porterfield does, that it was an “extra diaper,” Eliza herself, when recounting the story, was, relatives say, less squeamish.