[Texas]. A significant archive of letters dealing with the estate and family of John McMullen, Irish Empresario

(TEXAS)

A SIGNIFICANT ARCHIVE OF LETTERS DEALING WITH THE ESTATE AND FAMILY OF JOHN MCMULLEN, IRISH EMPRESARIO AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE MCMULLEN-MCGLOIN COLONY IN TEXAS

Approximately 42 letters, mostly autograph letters signed by Jacob Waelder in San Antonio, Texas, to John McMullen ("Friend McMullen") in Mauch Chunk (present-day Jim Thorpe), Pennsylvania, 12 December 1834 to 22 February 1869, totaling approximately 105 pages on a variety of blue and white papers (various sizes), a few accompanied by original envelopes (stamps clipped away), also accompanied by a few fragmentary letters; a very few letters with short tears or fold separations, but generally fine condition. 

John McMullen was born in Ireland in 1785 and came to the United States as a young man, living first in Maryland and then Georgia. In 1810 he married a widow, Esther Espada Cummings, and was a successful merchant in Savannah for more than a decade. But in the 1820s, the couple moved to Matamoros, Mexico. Perhaps tutored by his wife, McMullen quickly became fluent in Spanish after the move.

McMullen’s business success continued, and in 1828 he was granted an empresario contract by the Mexican government to establish a colony in Texas. Mexico required landholders to be Roman Catholics, so McMullen, Catholic Irish emigrant, was a qualified candidate. He travelled to New York and Philadelphia the next year with his partner, James McGloin (who had married McMullen’s step-daughter) to recruit Irish colonists. The two men returned to Texas later that year with several hundred colonists to settle a vast area of land between the Nueces and Medina rivers; the town of San Patricio was established in 1831 as part of the colony.

In the foment of the Texas Revolution, McMullen was elected a delegate to the Consultation of 1835 and appointed to the General Council of the provisional government of Texas. Because of its proximity to Mexico, San Patricio suffered greatly during the Revolution, even though most of its residents opposed the war. McMullen found himself unpopular, if not reviled, and after his property had been vandalized and his cattle driven off, he sold out his parcels to McGloin and moved to San Antonio about 1838, where he again worked as a merchant. His wife died in San Antonio in 1846, and on 21 January 1853, McMullen was murdered at his home, perhaps during an attempted burglary, perhaps by an assassin. The crime was never solved, but one tradition is that the assailant was a boy he had adopted at the age of nine in 1833, who was baptized as José Antonio de Jesus in San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio.

His nephew and namesake, John McMullen, son of Neal, his late brother, travelled to Texas from Pennsylvania to claim the estate for himself and his siblings. An eventual settlement was reached between John McMullen, who had become administrator of the estate, and the grandchildren of his wife, represented by John J. McGloin, one of the grandsons of Esther McMullen and the administrator of her half of the community property. The estate was divided equally among the respective heirs. Most of the correspondence here is written to John McMullen by Jacob Waelder, a lawyer and newspaper publisher from Pennsylvania (though born in Germany), who moved to San Antonio in 1852. Presumably John McMullen the nephew knew Waelder from Pennsylvania and trusted him to look after his interests in Texas.

The earliest piece of correspondence in the lot is the first four pages only of a letter written to Empresario John McMullen by an unknown colonist at San Patricio, 12 December 1834, commenting on the local elections and complaining that promised land grants have not been made.

Next are two letters written from San Antonio to John McMullen the nephew of the Empresario on 3 April 1853, shortly after his uncle's death. One is from Edward Miles, the first administrator of McMullen's estate. Miles provides a highly detailed narrative of McMullen's final days and death. "Since Sept last I resided in one of your uncle John McMullen's houses and within a few feet of his residence. … the old man lived entirely alone in the rear part of a two story building … and he had neighbors all around him—one of these a Negro woman named 'Jane' lived in a small house in the rear of your uncle's & in passing to get water out of the River very early on the morning of the 21st of Janry (ult) saw a hole through the wall in the rear of the house where your uncle lived and 'mistrusted' something. She called Elizabeth's (who was up at the time) attention to the hole who called me and said Oh Mr. Miles there is a great hole in the wall of 'Pa''s house and I am sure he has been murdered and Robbed." Miles describes breaking in the door and trying to wake McMullen, to no avail. His narrative continues, "The Mayor had handbills posted offering a reward for the Murderer—many persons were questioned—a great many enquiries were put on foot and some arrests were made, yet so far the affair is involved in Darkness, in mystery—his trunks had been broken open & pillaged or ransacked $68 in Silver was found in the Table Drawer—my own opinion is that the Murder's object was money & I believe that in this he failed. Some think that the object was for papers—the old man was constantly improving his property, and was always hard run for money."

After a dramatic peroration in which he claims the scene of the murder was worse than anything he had seen on the battlefield during the Texas Revolution, Miles describes the holdings of McMullen's estate: "I am the administrator—the Estate is possessed of some fine property in this City & I presume that he has some valuable Lands—my Inventory is not yet considered complete, but I have given Bonds for $23.000. … Half of his Estate is claimed by the McGloins as Community property on the side of his deceased wife. …"

The final page of this letter bears a note of warning to John McMullen, signed by his brothers James and Anthony, and written from Philadelphia on 12 May 1853: "We think it looks very strange that this Edward Miles lived Next Door to unkles And unkel said He lived out on a farm. John Place No Confidence in Edward Miles. …" John McMullen acted on this warning and had himself made executor of his uncle's estate.

The second letter from 3 April is from the San Antonio attorneys Hewitt & Newton; it provides an overview of the McMullen estate and concludes by noting "that the poor old Gentleman was most basely & fowly murdered & that the perpetrators of the dastardly & cowardly act has not yet been discovered." The bulk of the remaining correspondence, beginning with a letter of 9 June 1854, comprises letters to McMullen from his San Antonio lawyer Jacob Waelder, describing the unwinding of the estate, including much information on McMullen's land holdings, and ultimate disposition of the properties between the McMullens and McGloins.

LITERATURE:

cf. “John (Juan) McMullen: Irish Empresario & Co-founder of the McMullen & McGloin Colony,” reprinted with permission from San Patricio de Hibernia by Rachel Bluntzer Hebert (Eakin Press, 1981) (http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/irishmcmullen.htm)