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Brazoria County
"Where
Texas Began" |
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The First
Reward Poster Issued in Texas
After the
Battle of
San Jacinto, the captured General
and Mexican President
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was
imprisoned in Brazoria County at
Velasco (Treaty
of Velasco), Columbia, and the
Orozimbo Plantation. A young
Spaniard name Bartolome Pages, who owned a grog-shop in Velasco,
plotted to free him. With the aid of the Mexican consul in New
Orleans,he was able to buy a fifty foot schooner named the
Passaic, owned by Gabriel DeHabiles and captained by John Scott.
With a sympathetic crew, he sailed from New Orleans on July 27,
1836, reaching the mouth of the Brazos on August 10. He proceeded
upstream to Bell's Landing, only to discover that word had gotten
out. The ship and crew were captured and Pages fled to Orozimbo to
report to Santa Anna that all was lost. Judge Franklin ordered the
first reward poster ever issued in Texas and on September 13, Pages
was apprehended. The results of his trial are not known but he was
soon after, reported by Juan Almonte, one of Santa Anna's former
aides, to be in Mexico. The Passaic was renamed the Viper
and used as a Texan supply ship.
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