Page:Don Erasmo Seguin.djvu/6

 It is true that Juan N. Seguin, a son of Don Erasmo Seguin, was a prominent figure in early Texas history, he entered the Alamo with Travis; he was sent to Goliad to raise reinforcements and thereby escaped the massacre; he joined Houston on the Guadalupe and fought rear-guard actions with the advance forces of Santa Anna all the way to the Brazos; and on the immortal field of San Jacinto he commanded a company of Texans-born Mexicans and gallantly led them in the charge of the Army of Independence which was the motive force that created a new Republic and gave to an oppressed people the priceless blessings of liberty!

As a colonel in the Texas Army and under Houston's orders Juan N. Seguin returned to San Antonio and reverently gave Christian burial to the sacred remains of the devoted champions of freedom who had so courageously sacrificed their lives as burnt offerings upon the altar of Liberty, thereby fanning to white heat the wavering spark of independence in the hearts of the people of Texas!

Following the proper performance of this duty he was placed in command of the military forces at San Antonio, and when, because of the exposed position of the city, the general staff decreed its destruction and the transfer of the inhabitants to the east side of the Guadalupe River, Seguin so earnestly protested that the order was rescinded.

Later he represented Bexar County in the Senate of the Republic. He was ambitious for higher political honors which he felt that he could attain if Texas remained a Republic, but which could not be acquired if it was annexed to the American Union, and he vigorously opposed annexation. He felt that in political matters he was discriminated against and was mistreated by the Anglo-Saxons of Texas. He foreswore his allegiance to Texas, moved to Mexico and fought under her flag against the Texans and later the Americans dying a citizen of Mexico.

As a matter of fact, the town of Seguin was so named to commemorate the record of the father of Juan N. Seguin, Don Erasmo Seguin, of whom the historian Thrall said, "He was a high-tone gentleman of truly honorable and patriotic sentiments."

In 1831 Humphreys Branch, a Green DeWitt Colonist, located his League and Labor of land, upon a portion of which the City of Seguin is situated, moved onto it in 1832 and built the first house on the banks of Walnut Branch (the former name of the City of Seguin in 1833.

In 1834 Humphreys Branch sold a portion of his League. The Texas Revolution temporarily arrested the development of the country, but in 1838 the Town of Walnut Springs was layed out and a form of government organized.

Guadalupe County, originally a portion of Bexar and Gonzales Counties, was created by Act of the Texas Legislature in 1846. The writer hereof has had the pleasurable opportunity of knowing intimately a few of the descendants of that group of sixteen families