The Last Survivors of the Texas Revolution

[Texas Revolution]: [Photography]:

[Large-Format Photograph Picturing the Last Reunion of the Final Five Survivors of the Battle of San Jacinto, Posed with Colonel Fannin's Goliad Cannon and a Large Texas State Flag].

Houston: Nelson Art Studio, [ca. 1906]. Albumen photograph, 9.25 x 7.25 inches, on a printed studio mount measuring 14 x 11 inches. Substantial rubbing and soiling to printed mount, with some loss of printed text, top two corners chipped, right corner chip costing a few words of text. Extremities of photograph worn and a bit chipped, with some soiling to the image area. Overall, a battered but charming survivor. About good. Item #5502

A stunning original photograph of the final five survivors of the crescendo of the Texas Revolution, the Battle of San Jacinto, on a detailed printed mount which provides important information on the subjects. These five Texian veterans are all identified in the printed caption at the bottom. From left to right, they are: William Physick Zuber of Austin, John Washington Darling of Taylor, Stephen Franklin Sparks of Rockport, Levi T. Lawlor (or Lawler) of Florence, and Alfonso (or Alphonso) Steele of Mexia. Each man's age is listed, as well. The latter man, Alfonso Steele, was the last surviving participant in the battle when he died in 1911. Zuber stretches the Texas flag out from the flag staff while the other four men sit or stand at right, facing the camera. One of the veterans sits on the cannon used by Colonel James Fannin at Goliad. The photograph was taken at the final annual meeting of the Texas Veterans Association on April 21, 1906, the seventieth anniversary of the battle.

According to the online Portal to Texas History: "The Texas Veterans Association, an organization of those who had served prior to, during, and immediately after the Texas Revolution, held its first convention in Houston on May 13–15, 1873, with about seventy-five veterans present. After 1876 the annual meetings, held in some seventeen different Texas cities, always took place in the week including April 21, San Jacinto Day.... The association dissolved in Austin on April 19, 1907, during its thirty-fifth annual convention. With its dissolution its work was taken over by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas."

The present card mount containing the photograph is printed with important information on all four sides, though some of the information at the top has been chipped away. We would prefer to know the handful of missing words, but we cannot find another example of this photograph on the same mount for comparison. Still, the heading of the photograph identifies the subjects as survivors of General Sam Houston's Army from the Battle of San Jacinto, fought April 21, 1836. The caption in the left margin states that "This Picture Was Taken at Their Last Reunion. They Have Resolved Never to Meet Again, Being Too Old to Travel. This Picture Can Be Had for One Dollar. Address, V.C Terry, Houston, Texas, General Delivery." A few words in the right margin are obscured but can be easily inferred: "These are the Remnant of General Houston's Army. Five Living Out of Six Hundred and Eighty-Six Who Captured Santa Ana and His Murderers, Twenty Miles Below Houston." The last portion of text below the identifying captions at bottom addresses the other Texas war relic in the photograph: "This is Colonel Fannin's Cannon at the Massacre, near Goliad, where Two Hundred and Eighty Men Were Shot Next Day, Two Weeks After the Fall of the Alamo."

The present photograph is decidedly rare, but not completely unknown. The only other version of the image we can locate measures roughly the same size, but includes a sixth Texas veteran named Asa Collinsworth Hill (who holds the flag staff but was not part of Houston's forces during the Revolution), and is affixed to a different printed mount, with identifying captions for the veterans, but with a simple title reading, "Veterans of the Mexican War -- 1836" above two lines of poetry. This other version contains a photo credit and copyright notice from C.A. Major of Goliad, who apparently took the original photograph at the reunion.

The present example pictures only the five surviving veterans of San Jacinto, is affixed to a much more verbose printed mount, with a blindstamp in the center of the bottom margin credited to Nelson Art Studio in Houston. Curiously, Asa Hill may have been removed from the middle of this version of the photograph through photographic development methods. In any case, these are the only two versions of this photograph we can find. We locate examples of the six-man version on the simpler mount at the Bee County Historical Commission in Beeville (with an image hosted by the University of North Texas's Portal to Texas History), the Texas State Library, and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library (which may own more than one copy). We have been unable to locate any other examples of the present photograph on the same printed mount as seen here. This somehow appropriately-wounded photographic relic featuring the heroes of the Texas Revolution should positively sing to collectors of Texas history.

Price: $6,000