by Drew McGunn
That thought brought him back to the article he had read in the newspaper. Defaults on farms had been climbing over the past year. According to the Telegraph nearly one of every ten farmers who bought land from the land bank over the past two years were in default or foreclosure. The article blamed the failure on spillover from the ongoing financial crisis in the United States and also pointed out the rate of foreclosures was still below the foreclosure rate back east.
As Charlie finished eating his breakfast, he asked, “Anything wrong, Pa?”
Will thought, “Between slavery and farm foreclosures, take your pick.”
Instead he said, “Set your schoolwork aside for a moment, Son, and read this article.” He unfolded the newspaper and slid it across the table, where Charlie studied the article.
After a few minutes, the boy finished reading and Will asked, “What do you think the writer was saying?”
The boy’s face grew thoughtful as he considered the question. “It sounds like lots of farmers are struggling to pay back the money the bank gave them when they bought their farms.” The boy paused as he processed the information. His thoughtful expression was replaced by a look of confusion. “But, Pa, I don’t understand. Both you and Friar Jesus said farmers could pay the land bank in, ah, comedies.”
Will briefly smiled at the malapropism. “I think you mean commodities. But yes, you’re right. The article doesn’t address that, and without knowing what’s causing these ranchers and farmers to default on their loan payments when they can pay with their farm produce, it doesn’t tell the whole story. What do you think one of the reasons could be they aren’t able to make their loan payments?”
After a lengthy pause, Charlie ventured a guess, “Maybe they’re trying to grow crops where the land can’t support them, or maybe they’re lazy.”
“I doubt very many of them are lazy,” Will said, “The average farmer is very hardworking. From what I have read, some of the farmers are losing their farms because they established them too far from water sources or the ground was poorly suited for the crops they tried to grow, and some small number just didn’t understand the harsh demands some parts of Texas make on a farmer.”
Charlie’s curiosity led to more questions. “Pa, why aren’t we farmers? Didn’t Uncle Davy give you a lot of land?”
A small smile crossed Will’s face, as he imagined Crockett’s response to being called, ‘Uncle Davy.’ He dismissed the image and replied, “Most of the time, Charlie, I enjoy my job in the army. I doubt very seriously I’d make a very good farmer. Why? Do you want to become a farmer when you grow up?”
The boy tossed his head in an exaggerated manner. “No sir, Pa. I wanna be a soldier, like you, when I grow up. If I can’t be a soldier, then I wanna be a politician, like Uncle Davy!” He tumbled out of his chair in a fit of giggles.
The boy’s antics made Will laugh. But Charlie’s words got him to thinking. The land grant he had received for service to the Republic totaled more than six thousand acres. The land was in East Texas, along the Trinity River. It was supposed to be very good farmland, but it was undeveloped and lying fallow. An idea began to circulate in his mind. Maybe it was time to do something about that.
***
The following day, Will and Charlie were walking home from the Methodist service. The congregation was not yet able to afford to build a church building, so they rented the dining room of a cantina near the main plaza, where they held service every Sunday morning. As they walked down the hard-packed dirt street, Will spotted one of his former soldiers walking past, toward the cantina.
Will stopped and turned, “Corporal Wynters, have you forgotten your manners after only six months out of the army?” Will’s broad smile belied his stern voice.
The former soldier, walking with a cane, turned, and looked Will over. As recognition dawned, he said, “Sorry, General, sir. Didn’t recognize you in your Sunday best. Onlyest time I seen you, you was in uniform.”
Will asked after the former soldier’s wellbeing and discovered he was working at the very cantina from which they just came. “Been here for a few months now, sir. It helps to put a roof over my head.”
Curious about how the former infantryman was adjusting to civilian life, he and Charlie returned to the cantina, where the Methodist circuit rider and the cantina’s owner had just finished moving the tables back into place. As Will and Charlie took a seat, the former corporal came over and said, “It’ll be a few minutes before the cook gets the kitchen open. While you’re waiting, can I get anything for you, General?”
Will pointed to one of the empty chairs at the table. “Sit a spell, Corporal. What did you do following your discharge from the army, before you found this job?
Wynters sat and rested his cane against the table. “I was laid up in the hospital for several weeks. After that arrow struck the bone in the leg, I was afeared of ever walking again, but the Doc, he got me well again and after that, I couldn’t walk good any more so, I was given my land grant and mustered out. I found this here job a few weeks later, and been here ever since.”
An idea which had been forming since the previous day resurfaced in Will’s mind and he asked, “Have you redeemed your land voucher yet?”
Wynters shook his head, “No. What the hell am I going to do with the four thousand acres that the government gave me? I can’t farm with this bum leg, any more. Hell, I can’t even stay on a horse for more than a little bit at a time these days.”
Will said, “Have you considered leasing your land to farmers?”
Wynters shook his head, “No. why would farmers lease land from me? They can get it cheap enough from the land office.” Intrigued at the question, he asked, “What are you getting at, General?”
Will laid out his thoughts, “Now, Corporal Wynters, right now, who’s making all the money growing cash crops in Texas?”
The former corporal grumbled. “It’s those damned plantation owners, with their slaves, growing and selling cotton. But it takes a lot of money to buy the slaves and all that equipment. It takes money to make money. And I ain’t got any.”
Will acknowledged Corporal Wynters’ position. “That may be true, but you do have the land. What if you were to divide the land into, say, forty-acre tracts and lease it out to other farmers. I could provide you both the seed, and money for some of the equipment, and pay to get some cabins built. These tenants wouldn’t have to worry about making loan repayments. All they have to do is provide their labor.”
Wynters scratched his chin as he tried to work out how the scenario would work.
Taking his thoughts from the previous day, Will said, “Well, Corporal, one way it could work is a tenant would lease the land from you, I would loan the tenant the supplies for the crops, the tenant would own everything he produces, but would pay you rent and repay the loan from me.”
Wynters shook his head. “I don’t know, General. I knew some folks back east who were tenant farmers. The landlord kept half the crops. Those poor men were only one step about a nigger. I don’t know about it.”
Between his own memories and stories he’d recently heard from soldiers, Will didn’t think much of the tenant farming which was becoming more common in the South. “I don’t think I could do something like that to a tenant, Corporal. I think it would demoralize a man to work like that. What I want to do is provide men who are struggling with the ownership of land the ability to work a tract of it, and profit from their own labor. Even at eight or nine cents for a pound for cotton, I think between the rent and cost of the seed and materials, any farmer working with us, would still have more than half the value left.”
Wynters’ eyes lit as he saw the possibilities. “It do seem too good to be true, General, but if you can put together something like this, hell, I’d be happy to use my land grant for something like that.”
The day before Will was scheduled to leave to tour the forts along the Rio Grande, Juan Seguin found him working in his office in the Alamo. After settl
ing himself in a chair across the table from him, the Tejano said, “What is this I hear about you plotting to start a plantation? I can’t fathom you’d be willing to buy and sell slaves. This doesn’t sound like you at all.”
Will was startled by the accusation. “Major, I would never deal in slaves.” Apparently, word had leaked about Will’s conversation with Wynters and as rumors tend to, it had been twisted. Will explained the idea of tenant farming of cash crops to him. “What I was thinking of doing, is form a corporation which would provide the tenants the necessary equipment and seed, in a competitive loan. The land would be leased to the tenant farmer at competitive rates. The idea is the tenant’s income won’t be arbitrarily compromised by a landlord or a banker taking most of the tenant’s crop.”
The Tejano officer nodded, “I think I see where you’re going with this. I know a few men who work land near my father’s hacienda who might be interested in this. The land they own is too small to ranch and too poor to grow cotton. What you’re proposing might work well for them. But,” he paused for a long moment, “I wonder, why create a tenant system?”
Will said, “It’s an inexpensive way to connect the land and the farmer. My hope is that everyone wins. The owner of the grant gets paid for the leasing of the land. I get a return on my investment for the loans and the farmer gets most of the sale of the crop.”
“That’s true, to a point, but everyone’s risk is high. If there aren’t enough farmers to lease the land, the landlord has too little return on the investment of his land. If the tenants are not able to do well, then you, as the lender, run the risk of losing your investment.”
Will hadn’t thought of it in that way. “Do you have a better idea, Juan?”
The other officer nodded. “Maybe. My father is the expert here, but have you considered a single corporation handling everything? Imagine for a moment, a corporation owns the land, hires the farmers and provides the means of production, like seed, shelter, and equipment.”
“Wouldn’t that put all of the risk on the corporation?”
Seguin nodded. “Yes, but it also puts all of the control in the hands of the corporation. Let me explain, the corporation owns the land, and hires men to work the land and pays them a wage and in turn, sells the crops. The corporation schedules the farmers’ production in a way that is most efficient, rather than each farmer being responsible for their own little patch of ground.”
Intrigued, Will said, “This could work. If we hire a worker and later find he isn’t pulling his weight, he gets replaced by someone who will.”
Seguin thoughtfully added, “We could compete well against the plantation owners. These ‘gentlemen’ farmers bring their slaves with them to farm the land, and they have to force them to work with the overseer and the whip. I could find you a hundred men between the Nueces and the Rio Grande that would work hard for steady pay.”
Before the new year of 1839 was far along, the idea of the farming corporation had gone from concept to reality. The first step Will and his business partners took was to acquire the necessary land. He, Juan Seguin, Corporal Wynters and several more veterans took their grants, and with the aid of the Texas Land Office, consolidated all the grants into a single tract along the Trinity River, totaling 26,000 acres in Liberty County. Each of the men transferred their portion of the tract to the Corporation in exchange for shares of stock. In addition to the land, Will and several other investors, including Juan and Erasmo Seguin, contributed $15,000 in cash as seed capital for the business. Thus, was born the Gulf Farms Corporation.
***
Will was still feeling the effects of the stagecoach ride from San Antonio to Austin and the subsequent ferry ride across the Colorado river as he settled into his hotel room for the night. The building was so new that the smell of cut pine was heavy in the room. He had opened the window to lessen the smell and to let in the cool night breeze. The mattress ticking was stuffed with hay, which the proprietor swore was changed after each customer.
As he lay in the narrow bed, staring at the dark ceiling, Will couldn’t get Becky from his mind. He hadn’t felt like this about a woman since college. He recalled the last time he had seen Ashley; it was a few days after graduating from University of Houston and he had just received his deployment orders from the 36th Infantry Division’s 144th Infantry Regiment. He had taken her to her favorite restaurant near campus and after dinner broke the news to her. “It’s only nine months, Ash,” he had told her.
The way she had stared back at him, as though he were not even there, made him feel there was more wrong than simply the order to deploy. She’d known of his prior service before college and his two days each month played hell with their dating life. This shouldn’t have been a surprise to her, he remembered thinking.
When she pursed her lips and bit back a sigh, his heart crept into his throat. But the words she spoke cut to the quick. “Nine months or nine years, Will. It doesn’t matter.” Will’s heart felt squeezed in a vice as she spoke. “Now’s as good a time as any to tell you. I can’t do this anymore. When we started dating I thought I felt something, and God knows, I gave it more than a year of my life. But I realize now it’s not love.”
There was a too long pause as she looked at him. “Don’t look at me that way, Will. Would you rather get a ‘Dear John’ letter a few months from now? I can see you think I’m a bitch, but this is better for both of us.”
As his eyes followed the lines on the whitewashed boards on the ceiling, he was amused how his brain worked. He hadn’t thought of Ashley since before the transference. Now, having thought of her, he couldn’t stop himself from making a comparison between her and Becky. They were as physically different as could be. Ashley had been short, with the muscled build of the cheerleader she had been, while Becky took her height from her father. She was also willowy thin. Ashley had always worn makeup and she was good at accentuating her cheeks and full lips. Will had never seen Becky wearing makeup. It’s not that a little face powder wasn’t socially acceptable. It was. But as a girl raised in the backwoods of Tennessee, it was neither affordable nor available. Now, as the daughter of the president of the Republic of Texas, she behaved as though wearing face powder would be pretentious.
That lack of pretension was one of the things which had drawn Will to Crockett’s daughter. To Will, part of his attraction to Becky was because she acted as though what she looked like didn’t matter at all. That she obviously liked him didn’t hurt his ego either.
As he closed his eyes and ignored the crunching sound of the hay shifting beneath him, he hoped his trip to the capital would be successful.
The next morning, Will noticed the paint on the walls of the president’s small office was barely dry. The glass-paned windows were raised, letting the early spring air into the new office. Will fidgeted while he waited for Crockett to finish addressing a letter. “Damned if one day, I’ll find myself a clerk to do this part. There are parts of this job that are drier than a Baptist’s liquor cabinet, Buck.”
After he dusted sand across the letter and placed it in a pile of other correspondence under which was placed a wooden shingle with the word “out” stenciled on it, Crockett said, “What has gotten you out of San Antonio, Buck? Did you hear tell that we got the whole government relocated to Austin town and now, having hung our shingle out here, are now open for business? Or maybe you just got yourself a hankering for Becky’s fine cooking. She learned it from the master, my Liza.”
Crockett’s banter, as always, put Will at ease. “Well, Mr. President …”
“Hell’s bells, Buck, that damn door is closed and ain’t nobody to hear you call me David than the two of us. That ‘Mr. President’ talk is for the honor of the office. Betwixt the two of us, it’s David and Buck. Right, Buck?” Crockett said, with a rather toothy grin.
Will smiled in return. “Well, David, it actually is about Becky’s cooking.”
“Well, just come around the home this evening, and I’m sure she and Liza
will have fixed up some good vittles. Is it just the cooking that brought you to Austin?”
“Pretty much, David. Actually, I came by to see if I could talk you until letting me take her back to San Antonio, and cook for me regular like,” Will said.
Crockett’s eyebrows edged up a bit, “Are you aiming to ask Becky to be your cook or your wife, Buck?”
Will’s eyes crinkled at the corners, as he dug a tiny box out of his jacket pocket, “The latter, sir.” He opened the box revealing a small gold ring, with a dark green stone fixed in the setting.
Crockett whistled as he picked up the box, “That’s a mighty fine bloodstone you found there, Buck. Becky’s going to love it. So, I figure you are looking for her Pa’s permission to marry?”
“Marriage or Cooking, either is fine by me, David,” Will replied with a twinkle in his eye.
Crockett laughed, “I doubt Liza or Becky would let me across the threshold if I said no. That’s to the marriage. You’re on your own about the cooking though.”
Will stood and shook hands with his soon-to-be father-in-law and said, “I’d best go find Becky. I can’t wait to tell her.”
***
A few days later, back in San Antonio, Will sat at the dinner table, as Henrietta cleaned off the supper dishes. Will’s proposal to Becky was going to make a huge change around the household and he owed it to the boy to explain things.
“Son, I suppose you know why I went up to Austin this past week.”
Charlie shrugged, “I guess you went to see Miss Becky. I think you’re sweet on her, Pa.”
“I can’t pull the wool over your eyes, son. Yes. I’m definitely sweet on her.”
“Are you going to ask her to marry you?”
Will’s face colored at the question. “Well, Charlie, I actually already asked her when I was in Austin. I hope you don’t mind?”
The boy closed the book he had been reading, and gently sighed. “No, I don’t guess so. You’re gone a lot, so having someone beside Henrietta around will be nice.”