Fort Bend County, Texas - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 31 of those read), 1904

Adam Sylvester Neel, named for James Sylvester, one of the captors of Santa Anna, was born in Fort Bend County, near Stafford's Point, on the 25th of August, 1844. His father was William T. Neel, a native of Louisiana, who came to Texas with William Stafford. He was a young man and unmarried at the time, and was not entitled to as much land as heads of families, but located a labor near Stafford's Point, at which place he built a home, and afterwards located a league in the west on the Medina River during the Presidency of General Lamar. He married Mary, the daughter of William Stafford, who was the mother of Adam S. Neel.

When the Mexican army came William Neel and wife had two children, James D. and William T. Neel. They went with the Staffords and returned with them, and while their home had not been burned, a party of Mexicans had been there and thoroughly pillaged the place, carrying off and destroying the property ; even the bread tray was found in the well. Two more children were born, Sarah -and Adam S. Sarah was not married, and died with yellow fever at Hodge's Bend during the terrible epidemic of 1853. The family at the time were living in Richmond, and fled from the scourge, but Sarah had contracted the fatal malady and died at the Bend while on the way to Stafford's Point.

Adam S. Neel married Miss Ellen Stafford at Richmond, and their children were Cain, Aletha and Sylvester. Aletha married John Irions, and their home is in Louisiana. Adam Neel and his wife live near Richmond, on the east bank of the Braaos.

Mr. McElroy is one of the old settlers of Fort Bend County who still survives those days of pioneer life, fraught with so much danger and hardships - danger from Indian raids and Mexican invasion, and hardships incident to a new and undeveloped country, where the wilderness had to be subdued, far removed from the necessaries of life, except as they could carve them out in their new homes with the ax and rude agricultural implements. Sometimes the sole dependence for food was the rifle as the long months went by, waiting for the maturity of some primitive crop, which was watched with zealous care to keep the wild animals of the woods from destroying it until the time of gathering came.

Mr. McElroy was born in 1827, and came to Texas with his father, Phillip, in 1832, from Connecticut. They flrst settled on the Colorado River, eight miles below the present city of Austin, which was then not in existence. The headright league of the elder McElroy was located here, as were several others at that day and time. They had not long remained in their new home, and' began to accumulate some of the comforts of life, when the few settlers in that region were greatly alarmed and disturbed by an Indian attack, in which two settlers, Harris and Christian, lost their lives, and another one, Josiah Wilbarger, was scalped alive, after being badly wounded. Reuben Hornsby, who was with them, barely escaped with his life. Soon after this distressing episode of frontier life, the McElroys left that country and came down on the Brazos and settled at San Felipe, where the father died in 1835.

In 1836, when the country was being swept by the invasion of Santa Anna, Mrs. McElroy and her children retreated to the banks of the Sabine River and remained there until after the battle of San Jacinto, and then came to Harrisburg, and from there to Houston in 1837, living in the first house built there. This house was double log cabins, situated at the foot of what is now Main Street, on Buffalo Bayou, and if still standing would be in the middle of the street.

Mr. McElroy has one sister, Mrs. J. W. Bell, living in Houston, and who has been living there continually since 1837. He himself came to Fort Bend County in 1840, returned to Houston for a short time, and again coming to Fort Bend, made it his permanent home for the last fiftythree years.