On ​a frigid Friday in December 1821, Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long gave birth to a baby girl on Bolivar Peninsula. Accompanied only by her five-year-old daughter and Kian, an enslaved African American woman, Jane believed that she was the first Anglo woman to give birth to a child in Texas. Though census data contradicts that claim, her nickname and legacy as the “Mother of Texas” stuck.

Jane didn’t learn of her husband’s death until later that summer. Alone in Texas with two daughters to provide for, she initially tried to seek a pension from Mexico for her husband’s accidental death, but was unsuccessful. In 1824, she received a title to a league of land in Fort Bend County and a labor of land in Waller County from empresario Stephen F. Austin. She sold a portion of her Fort Bend County league to Robert E. Handy, who later developed the town of Richmond.

In addition to her ranching and farming endeavors, Jane also operated two boarding houses. She started the first in Brazoria in 1832; her guests included Sam Houston, Mirabeau Lamar and William B. Travis. In 1837, she opened a second boarding house in Richmond, which became a center for social and political activities pertaining to Texas independence.

Folklore and family tradition say that Jane was courted by several famous Texans, including Sam Houston and Mirabeau Lamar. Jane never remarried, however, and died in December 1880. She is buried in Morton Cemetery.

What subjects were taught in one-room schools?
Reading, Writing and Arithmetic were the main subjects taught in one-room schools. They were called the "Three Rs" (Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic). Recitation, the act of saying a verse or paragraph aloud from memory, was sometimes added as a fourth "R." Geography could also be a featured school subject -- but science and history were not taught as we know it today.

 By JESSICA AVERY
Programs Coordinator

During World War II, the United States found itself in short supply of male pilots. With most men fighting overseas, the U.S. desperately needed trained pilots for non-combat missions in America. Women throughout our country then answered the call, leading to the creation of the first female squadron. Between 1942 and 1944, more than 1,000 women volunteered their time to become Women Airforce Service Pilots – WASPs for short. ​The head of the WASP program was Jacqueline Cochran, a pioneering aviator who later became the first woman to break the sound barrier!

As with all military units, the WASPs needed a mascot! Roald Dahl, who served as pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II, had heard stories of little “gremlins” who were responsible for aviation difficulties like tampering with plane engines. Dahl was inspired to create a children’s story about these mischievous gremlins -- but with a few tweaks.

Now it's your turn to fly a plane! Download the paper airplane instructions here and then create your own fleet! How far can your airplanes fly?

The term "silhouette" is attributed to a man named Etienne de Silhouette, a finance minister living in France during the mid-18th century. One of Etienne’s favorite hobbies was to create small and detailed images for friends and family using only scissors and paper. The art form's relatively cheap cost and few required supplies only encouraged Etienne’s enthusiasm for silhouette art and portraits. (He was a finance manager, after all!)

The invention of the camera in 1816 caused a decline in popularity for silhouette portraits. However, there has recently been a resurgence of admiration for the art -- so why not try your hand at this fun and inexpensive craft?!

How did your portraits turn out? Tag us on Facebook or Instagram so we can see your creations!

A blockade is a war tactic where one side will block all of the ports and trade posts of the other in an attempt to keep any goods from getting to the other side.

​On October 4, 1862 William B. Renshaw sailed into Galveston harbor with eight ships and demanded that the port surrender. Colonel Joseph J. Cook (the Island's Confederate commander), managed a four-day truce while he evacuated his men. By December 25, Union reinforcements had taken the town. 

Then, on January 1, 1863, the Confederates entered Galveston Bay before dawn and a battle began. By the time the fighting was over, the Confederates had lost 26 men and had 117 wounded men. The Union, however, lost 150 men plus a number of captured infantry, the Harriet Lane and the Westfield. The Confederacy held Galveston for the rest of the Civil War.​

Union General Winfield Scott came up with the “Anaconda Plan,” which included blockading the South’s ports to strain the South’s economy. The blockade started April 19, 1861 (a few weeks after the war started). Five hundred Union ships were allocated to patrol from Virginia to Florida and from Florida to Texas. The blockade covered 3,500 miles of coast and 180 ports and was intended to stop the export of cotton and in the import of ammunition and war supplies.

Some Southerners attempted to run their ships through blockade; surprisingly, about 80% were successful and made it through!

Ready to give it a try? Set up a blockade in your bathtub and see if your ships can make it through the Union blockade!

As we near the end of dewberry season, it is almost time for blackberry season! If you a drowning in berries, here are two recipes from the Moore family that you can try: Dewberry Cobbler and Dewberry Ice Cream. Blackberries can easily be substituted for dewberries in these recipes. Enjoy! (And let us know if you try the recipes! Tag us on Facebook or Instagram with your berry dish!)

By ALLISON HARRELL
Texian Time Machine & Outreach Coordinator

Do you know our state fish? How about our state shell? Make a secret decoder bracelet and see if you can crack the codes to learn uncommon Texas signs and symbols!

• Download the bracelet template here.
  
• Download the code here.

By ALLISON HARRELL
Texian Time Machine & Outreach Coordinator

Today's the day, super sleuths! Do you know who killed cashier Robert L. Kirby at the Blue Ridge Bank? Scroll down if you think you've solved the case and are ready to check your answer. If you haven't had a chance to check out the details of the case yet, click here for PART ONE, PART TWO and PART THREE before scrolling.

​The following is a transcript from page 9 of The Houston Post; February 21, 1921.

Tells Story to “Doc” Sammon
Sending for “Doc" Sammon who arrested him, the murderer stated that if he would send from the room police officers present, he would say something of interest to Sammon. This was accordingly done and Absolon, alone with Sammon, made a clean breast of the whole affair, also agreeing to make a written confession.

Cool and composed, his nervousness betrayed only by the frequency with which his cigarette found its way to his lips, Absolon slowly dictated his confession to Mr. Switzer, who sat at a typewriter at police headquarters, and took it word for word. Occasionally Absolon would smile when provoked or annoyed at some question put to him by the assistant district attorney, and his general demeanor was one of absolute indifference, as he described how he had entered the Blue Ridge State Bank at about 10 o’clock on the morning of February 15, and slew Robert L. Kirby, cashier of the institution, escaping through a rear window with $3,500 in cash. Absolon finally broke down after having stolidly denied for 36 hours that he was in any way connected with the affair.

Immediately after the crime, said Absolon, he went to his room in Mrs. J.H. Allison’s rooming house, three blocks from the bank, and lay upon his bead for 15 or 20 minutes thinking over what he had just done.

Mingled with Curious Crowd
Then, so reads his statement, he arose and after washing, returned to the bank where he freely mingled with the curious crowds gathered there to look over the scene of the murder.  At that time he is said to have remarked, “the man who did that should be hung.”

Prior to his confession, Absolon had been in the office of George Lacey, fingerprint expert, and it was when confronted with these fingerprints that he broke down.  Lacey casually questioned the suspect as he forged each piece of evidence and asked him if the finger markers should prove to be his own, how was he going to explain them. Absolon finally stated that he would take the consequences.

While undergoing the ordeal of fingerprint comparison, Absolon had asserted to Mr. Lacey that he had not gone into the bank after the crime, explaining the crowd had prevented it. As the tell-tale evidence began to assume proportions he made explanations of the fingerprints, saying he had picked up the crank later and that he had placed his hand on the window.  About six o’clock Deputy Sheriff Sammon came into the room and asked the prisoner if he wanted to talk to him. Being told that the fingerprints had drawn tighter the web of evidence, Absolon agreed, the confession following.

With the pronouncement made Saturday evening by five physicians to the effect that the bullet wound in his right leg was only five days old at the most and could not possibly have been self-inflicted three weeks before, as Absolon accounted for the wound, the case was made all the stronger.

Confession to the Point
Absolon’s confession was made in approximately 900 words. It is free from superlatives and right to the point.  He describes, over his signature, how it was that the three shots fired were not heard, having been fired within the vault, and in just what manner he did Kirby to death. He returned to the scene of the crime but shortly after its discovery, according to the confession, after changing his clothes and otherwise concealing traces of the crime. As the disposition of his blood-soaked garments, Absolon explained that he gave them to Mrs. Allison, saying, “For God’s sake, get rid of these!”  Nothing in the confession implicates Mrs. Allison in any way other than for the part played in disposing of the man’s clothes. Absolon stated that the $790 found in the woman’s possession did not represent any of the spoils from the bank but was legitimately hers.

The Confession
The confession follows:
“My name is Fred Absolon, I am 25 years of age.  I have been staying at Blue Ridge for about five weeks.  I am an automobile mechanic by trade and when to Blue Ridge to get into that business.

“In the forenoon of February 15, 1921, I went by the Blue Ridge State bank.  I walked into that bank, and saw one man in there.  He was there in charge of the money and behind the counter of the bank. I walked around behind the counter of the bank where he was writing on a typewriter or doing something, and I pulled my pistol and held it on him and told him to ‘Stick ‘em up,” and he held up his hands, and stood there.  I went then to the drawer of the counter of the bank and got all the paper money that was in the drawer.  When I went in there and saw he was a little man, I thought I could make him stick them up with my pistol and if he did not I could overpower him, and get the money without hurting anyone. I was just finishing getting the money out of the drawer, when he moved from his position at the desk, where he was when I entered, and went to the safe and went into the safe and pulled the door of the safe to after him. I turned around with the money on me. I then thought it was a foolish thing for him to do. If he had've stood there and had not gone into the safe, I would have given all the money back to him and called the matter a joke. I then went over to the safe door and tried to open it, because I was afraid if I left him in there he would perish or I would have to tell someone to come and open it.  I tried to open the door for a minute or two, and when it finally opened, and the man stood there with the crank of the safe door in his hand, and he made a pass at me with it and I shot him with my pistol. After I shot, he dropped down. I then went into the safe and fell; and I was just starting out when he got up and came towards me again and I again shot at him while he was still inside of the safe.  I do not know whether I hit him that time or not.  He seemed to be coming at me with the crank off the safe door and I shot at him again. All of the shots were fired while he was in the safe, and I was in the safe when I fired the last two shots. After the third shot he and I scuffled, and I was shot in the leg.  I do not know whether he had a gun or he pulled the trigger of my pistol in the scuffle.  I then tried to shoot him for the fourth time and my pistol hung and would not fire.  I then picked the crank to the door up and hit him over the head with it several times, the exact number I do not remember.

“I then took the money, which I got when I first went into the bank, and went out the back window of the building.

“I then went to my room in the rooming house known as Coleman’s Place, which was about three squares from the bank building. I laid down on the bed for about 10 or 15 minutes. I then washed up a little and went down on the street and went over to the same bank where the people were looking the situation over, and I looked it over myself.  I then went and ate lunch, and later went back to the rooming house and was sitting there playing cards, when Waldell Pitts came by and said he was going to Houston and I came to Houston with him.  Went to the Milby Hotel and got room No. 222. I got some whisky from a negro about 6 p.m. and was still putting up at the Milby when I was arrested about 4 a.m. February 18, 1921.

“At the time of my arrest Doc Sammon and some other officers came to my room where I was staying at the Milby, and I heard Doc Sammon say, “Fred, open the door.’ I got up out of bed and threw a roll of paper money that I had gotten from the bank into the toilet and pulled the string and it went down into the sewer. I had been carrying the money in a grip, and I took it out of the grip when I threw it into the sewer.

“Doc Sammon then took some money out of my coat pocket, about $50; I do not know just how much there was."

(Signed)
Fred Absolon
Witnesses: J.J. Settegast, Jr
L.E. Memper

Became Panic-Stricken
Absolon verbally reaffirmed the above statement to the effect that he fell inside the vault from fright, and that he was panic-stricken after he realized what he had done.
“I entered the place without the slightest intention of injuring anyone,” he explained in the presence of a Post reporter, “and when Kirby slammed the vault door shut upon himself, I became frightened and realize that I could not go off and leave him there to stifle to death.  I wrestled with the door for a minute or two, but it refused to yield; then, it suddenly swung open and Kirby appeared with the crank, which he raised menacingly, I shot.”
Concerning one point, Absolon was very vague saying that he could not explain it.  This was in regard to how he came by the wound in his right leg.  He could not recall when pressed to do so, whether it was he or Kirby who had fired the shot that inflicted the wound.  Absolong supposed it occurred while they were scuffling.

$600 Thrown in Toilet
The money thrown in the toilet at the Milby Hotel just preceding his arrest is estimated to have amounted to $600. 

Deputy Sammon is credited with the opening and closing chapters dealing with establishing the identity of the man who slew Kirby, since it was Sammon who discovered the man hiding in the hotel just off Main Street, Houston, at a time when the city police here and county police throughout the country were conducting extensive searches.

Sammon had previously unearthed certain clues at Blue Ridge which led him to search for Absolon, who was found to have left town on the same afternoon of the crime. Mrs. Allison, in whose house Absolon resided at Blue Ridge, was found living at the Milby and a watch was thrown over her with the hope that she would drop some clue as to Absolon’s whereabouts.  Looking back over the hotel blotter, Absolon’s signature was found entered thereon by deputy sheriff.  The arrest followed.

That further killing was narrowly averted is contained in a statement made Saturday night by Absolon to the effect that only Sammon’s presence in the raiding party at the hotel early Friday morning prevented him from shooting. That such was true seems to be borne out by the fact that a 38-caliber pistol, cocked, loaded and ready for business, was found in the man’s bed when Deputy Sammon, Sheriff Collins, and others forming the posse, entered.

Circumstantial evidence directed to Absolon as Kirby’s slayer, was one of the strongest kind since the time that suspicion was first thrown upon him.

The room occupied by Absolon at Mrs. Allison’s developed into a rich store of circumstantial evidence when searched by Sheriff Collins, and Deputies Sammon and Sparks.  Besides bloody fingerprints upon the window shade, washstand, washbowl, bureau and other articles of furniture, blood was found on a talcum powder tin and the sweatband from a cap.  A towel with particles of human cuticle and hair still adhering to it, was also uncovered. In addition to this, three empty cartridges of .45 caliber – the same caliber as that used in the killing when three bullets were found in the bank the next day, their cases gone – were discovered upon the upper ledge of the window frame in the man’s room.

All But One Room Searched
Commenting upon this feature Saturday evening, a prominent banker recalled how he and Mr. Robinson, president of the bank, had searched the Allison house, entering and examining every room but one, which afterwards was known to have been Absolon’s.  They were about to enter this room, according to the banker, when they were informed that an oil field worker who had been at work all night was asleep there. Mr. Robinson’s party then left the place, without examining the room.

Only through accident was Absolon’s presence in Houston discovered, for Deputies Sammon and Sparks were planning to catch an early train for San Antonio the same morning on which the arrest was made at 4 a.m. They had been watching Mrs. Allison and were about to abandon the search here for Absolon when his name was discovered upon the hotel register.

Contributions to Downfall
Contributions to the man’s downfall were the following:

1. Fingerprints found at the bank and his room, shown to positively agree with his own
2. The combined opinion of five Houston physicians that the wound in his leg was not more than five days old, disproving his own story that it had been self inflicted while hunting on Green’s Bayou three weeks before
3. His friendship with Kirby and intimate knowledge of the bank
4. His known indolence and probable need for money
5. His liking for Deputy Sammon and the latter’s reputation for “getting his man.”

With the confession of Absolon and his commitment to the county jail without bond to await arraignment Tuesday morning in Judge Fenn’s court at Richmond, the baffling mystery which has shrouded the Blue Ridge tragedy since its discovery, is brought to conclusion. The veiled obscurities which for five days, encompassed the killing of Kirby and looting of the bank, and perplexed officers working upon the case to the extreme, are all entirely cleared away through the confession, and now appear comparatively simple.

“Hunch” Leads to Arrest
It was a mere “hunch” that started Deputy Sammon upon the trail which grew warmer and warmer almost hourly, culminating in the arrest at the hotel. The surrounding countryside was astonished at the manner in which Kirby was killed. On Absolon’s arrest and publication of evidence against him, feeling commenced to run high both here in Houston and in Blue Ridge and Richmond.  When Mrs. Allison and the man were taken to the latter town upon their arrest here, a mob formed and talk of a lynching was heard. Sheriff Collins whisked his man out of town, leaving Mrs. Allison there, and hurried him back to the county jail at Houston, making a wide detour of Blue Ridge where, rumor had it, another large mob had congregated, bent upon doing violence.

August De Zavala, vice president of the Blue Ridge State Bank and of the Houston National Exchange Bank, upon being informed Saturday of the man’s confession, expressed his satisfaction.

In Favor of Quick Trial
“And now I am in favor of a quick trial,” stated Mr. De Zavala.  “The men who brought this man to book are to be especially commended for their intelligence and speedy work.

“Absolon’s failure to get away with his deal should serve as a warming to others who might be contemplating trying the hazardous game of bank robbing.”

All efforts to link Absolon with the robbery of the Citizen’s State bank have, thus far, failed. That institution, located at Washington Avenue and Heights Boulevard, was looted on the afternoon of January 20 and about $23,000 taken by two men. City police have not yet found any clue which might lead to the identity of the men who perpetrated that affair, and working upon the theory that Absolon might have played a part, city police officers grilled him with that end in view.  Three officers of the Citizen’s State Bank were brought face to face with Absolon, two of them asserting that they were “positive” he was one of the two who held up the bank, basing their opinions upon the man’s accent (Absolon is a Czecho-Slav and speaks with a slightly foreign accent), the appearance of his jaw and chin, etc.  One of the officials of the bank who saw Absolon stated that he did not think him the man because of his prominent ears.

No Application for Counsel
Up to late Saturday night Absolon had not yet made application for counsel.  It was announced that Judge Llewellyn of Liberty would defend Mrs. Allison.

The first hearing has been set for Tuesday morning in Richmond.

Sheriff Collins stated on Saturday that he would countenance no attempt at lynching and that the law should be permitted to run its just and proper course.

So far as known, Absolon, who came to Texas nearly a year ago from Baltimore, Md., has never been convicted of any crime.