Special Collections The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Vol. XIX * No. 1 * Spring 2005

One more Piece of the Puzzle: Emily West in Special Collections

by Jeff Dunn*

The University of Texas at Arlington Special Collections recently announced the acquisition of approximately 200 manuscripts and printed documents that once belonged to the "Texiana" collection of William A. Philpott, Jr. (1885-1971). Within this collection are several James Morgan business records, including employment contracts of workers he hired in New York in 1835. Philpott did not recognize the significance of these contracts except as specimens of Morgan’s signature. However, one of these contracts – signed by Emily D. West – offers evidence to one of the most sensational stories relating to the battle of San Jacinto.

James Morgan was born in Philadelphia in 1787. He lived in North Carolina and Florida before coming to Texas in 1831. In December 1834, he purchased Clopper’s Point, a peninsula between upper Galveston Bay and the mouth of the San Jacinto River, now called Morgan’s Point. Morgan went to New York in early 1835 to purchase supplies for a town (to be called New Washington) that was intended to be constructed on the point. While in New York, he also purchased two schooners and hired fourteen workers to assist in building the town. Employment contracts for six of these workers are now at UTA.

The contracts were signed in October 1835, the same month that Morgan’s New York financiers organized themselves as the New Washington Association with a capitalization of $60,000. The only female contractor was Emily D. West, who was hired as a housekeeper. The workers and schooners left New York in early November and arrived in Galveston Bay in late December 1835 during a lull in the Texas revolution against Mexico. Construction of warehouses and a home for Morgan was underway in early 1836 while the schooners hauled passengers and merchandise between Texas and New Orleans. Meanwhile, hostilities intensified between Texan colonists and Mexican soldiers. Texans declared independence from Mexico on March 2 and the Alamo fell a few days later. In late March, Texan cabinet members moved to Harrisburg, on Buffalo Bayou. Sam Houston led the nucleus of the Texas army eastward in front of the advancing Mexicans under the command of General Santa Anna. Morgan was appointed commander of Galveston, but many of his employees remained at New Washington. The settlement became a staging area for refugees fleeing across the bay to Anahuac and Galveston.

The Texan cabinet managed to evacuate Harrisburg on April 15 hours before Santa Anna reached the town, but a Mexican cavalry force arriving at New Washington on the morning of April 17 surprised President David G. Burnet, his family, and many of Morgan’s slaves and servants. Burnet and his family escaped to Galveston, but others were captured. Santa Anna arrived at New Washington on April 18, burned Morgan’s buildings on April 20, and advanced toward Lynch’s ferry before encountering Houston’s army. On the afternoon of April 21, the Texans attacked and defeated Santa Anna at the battle of San Jacinto.

One of Morgan’s employees, a young free black from New Haven, Connecticut, named George Cooper, stated in an affidavit many years later that he was taken by the Mexicans from New Washington and witnessed the battle. Emily D. West had a similar story, as indicated from a passport application she filed with the Texan government in 1837. This application, attested to by San Jacinto veteran Isaac Moreland for its truthfulness, and now housed in the State Archives, states that she was a free woman who emigrated with Morgan to Texas in 1835 from New York "and is now anxious to return and wishes a passport." Moreland also states: "Her free papers were lost at San Jacinto as I am informed and believe in April of –36."

The passport application indicates West’s identity as a free woman of color and places her at the battle. Although her employment contract from October 1835 does not state her ethnicity, the agreement provides a strong clue in support of her status as a free black. The contract states that she is from New Haven and is witnessed by Simeon Jocelyn, a prominent New Haven minister of an all-black congregation and outspoken opponent of slavery.

Is there more to Emily D. West’s story? In July 1842, English ethnologist William Bollaert came to the town of Houston on tour. During this visit he wrote in his diary the following verbatim account from an unpublished letter written by Sam Houston to a friend:

The "Emily" he mentions appears to be the same Emily D. West named in the 1835 employment contract and 1837 passport application. The word "private" appears in pencil off to the side of Bollaert’s diary entry. Although he later wrote about his trip to Texas, Bollaert never published a word about this story. In fact, no other known 19^th century account of the battle– from either the Texan or Mexican side – refers to this story or even hints of it as a rumor. No one would have known about Bollaert’s diary entry at all except for the fact that the diary was purchased in London about 1911 and found its way to the Newberry Library in Chicago. There the diary’s reference to "Emily" rested for decades unnoticed. Several Texas historians used the diary for its rich description of Texas in 1842, but it was not until Joe Frantz published his book on Gail Borden in 1951 that the story of Emily in Santa Anna’s tent made its debut in a published work. In 1956 the diary was published in full by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Frank X. Tolbert of the Dallas Morning News appears to have been the first to weave the story into a narrative of the battle, but he went even further and surmised in his Informal History of Texas (1961) that the woman named Emily may have inspired the Civil War marching song "The Yellow Rose of Texas." The words of the song refer to a beautiful woman of color. The reality is that no credible evidence exists to link the story to the song, but the association has stuck to this day and Emily is likely to be forever known as the "yellow rose." It was not until the mid-1970s that researchers connected the Emily D. West passport record in the State Archives with the "Emily" referred to in Bollaert’s account. Prior to that time researchers assumed she was a slave and gave her the fictitious name Emily Morgan. The passport record showed that she was a free woman with her own surname. The 1835 employment contract further confirms that a woman named Emily D. West was in fact associated with James Morgan, and not as a slave.

The employment contract does not, of course, shed any light on whether West was in Santa Anna’s tent at the start of the battle, but it does provide additional critical evidence of her identity, and corroborates parts of both the passport application and Bollaert’s diary entry. Her association with Simeon Jocelyn indicates that she was probably an educated woman. Her neat signature on the contract is evidence of her literacy. Under the terms of the contract she bound herself to go in Morgan’s vessel to Texas to work for Morgan "at any kind of house work she, said West is qualified to do and to industriously pursue the same from the time she commences until the end of twelve months…." Morgan agreed to pay her $100 over the year she committed to work. The one-year term of employment explains why she filed the passport application in 1837. Her term of employment had ended.

The three known documents reflecting Emily D. West’s experiences between 1835 and 1837 raise more questions than they answer because of the absence of other evidence of her life both before and after this time period. The late Dr. Margaret Henson believed Emily D. West was a servant of Mrs. Lorenzo de Zavala, whose maiden name coincidentally was Emily West, but this association was not documented. There has been much embellishment of this story, but the fact remains that the contract, the passport application, and Bollaert’s diary represent the only known evidence of Emily D. West’s existence, and Bollaert’s diary is the only evidence placing her in Santa Anna’s tent. Debate will continue to rage over the credibility of Bollaert’s account and we may never know the true story, but the employment contract is a critical piece of the puzzle that is now available for public study for the first time. From the 1980s until 2004 the contract was kept in a bank vault and was not available for public view. Fortunately, the contract is now safeguarded at UTA. Perhaps someday this document will lead to new evidence that will either support or refute one of the most remarkable stories in Texas history.

Top of Page    Next Article    Table of Contents   Special Collections Home Page

Special Collections
The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries
Phone: (817) 272-3393 * Fax: (817) 272-3360 * E-mail: Reference Desk

This page last update on Wednesday, May 11, 2005