Nacogdoches—The Spanish Town
With the French cession of Louisiana to Spain in 1764, the necessity for the Spanish garrison in Nacogdoches ceased; and the town was abandoned as a military post in 1773, to be refounded by Captain Antonio Gil Ybarbo and his compatriots in 1779.
The Red House
Built in 1827 for accommodation of Mexican officials. See [page 23].
The city of Nacogdoches, as a civic corporation, dates from that year, in which that sturdy old Spaniard, Ybarbo, conducted his harassed and bewildered followers from their experimental settlement of Bucareli on the Trinity river, to the old Mission of Guadalupe. The eastern boundary of Texas was at that time a shadowy, uncertain quantity, somewhere between the Sabine and Red rivers. Louisiana belonged to Spain, and the government was but little concerned to mark out definitely the exact limitation between its provinces.
Gil Ybarbo recognized the necessity of a commissary for the storing of military and commercial supplies, and after applying to the authorities in Mexico for such a building, and growing weary of the endless delays and red tape, that industrious old Spaniard erected on his own account what he and his followers called “The Stone House,” now generally referred to as “The Old Stone Fort.” It was not erected primarily as a fort, but as a house of commerce; and that has been its main use throughout its varied history. But the construction of its walls—almost a yard in thickness—made it practically impregnable to the ordinary means of offense; so that it naturally became a place of refuge and haven of safety in the successive perils that visited the old border-town.
Gil Ybarbo, ruling his people as a benevolent despot, was officially known as Lieutenant Governor of the Eastern Province of the New Philippines and Military Comandante of the Post of Our Mother of the Pilar of Nacogdoches. He promulgated the first Book of Ordinances for the government of the city in 1780, the original of which is now in the Nacogdoches Archives in the Capitol at Austin.
The new city grew apace, and by the beginning of the Nineteenth Century embraced a population of several hundred souls. In 1792 General Don Ramon de Castro sent Don Juan Antonio Cortez, captain of cavalry at LaBahia, to Nacogdoches for the purpose of conducting an investigation of the irregularities of verbal land grants made by Ybarbo, as well as of his illegal traffic with the French and Indians. The result of the investigation was the removal of Ybarbo from his office; he was sent to Bexar while the investigation proceeded. Don Carlos de Zepeda succeeded Ybarbo as Lieutenant Governor, and in turn was followed by a succession of officials who had charge of the public business of the town, and superintended legal and commercial affairs, in addition to leading what military expeditions were needed in their infrequent exigencies. Nacogdoches was at that time the second largest town in Texas.
Philip Nolan
In 1800 Nacogdoches was a loyal Spanish town, as was shown by the part it took in the suppression of Philip Nolan’s expedition. Nolan had been reared by General James Wilkinson, commander of the United States forces at Natchez, Mississippi. In furtherance of the schemes of Wilkinson and Aaron Burr (then Vice President of the United States), Nolan invaded Texas with a small band of adventurers, on the pretext of horse-trading. The population of the town were largely behind Lieutenant M. Musquiz and his Garrison, when they were ordered to pursue and arrest the little band. Musquiz and his men were accompanied by William Barr, of the trading firm of Barr and Davenport, who acted as interpreter between the Spanish and Americans. Lieutenant Bernardo D’Ortolan, a Frenchman by birth, was left in charge of the garrison here while Musquiz was on his expedition; during this time he conveyed titles to land to such settlers as applied for them.