Fort Bend County, Texas - Chapter 52, 1904
From History of Fort Bend County, Containing Biographical Sketches of Many Noted Characters, published 1904. 533 words, reproduced complete and unedited. Source changes inside the text are labelled in place.
The text
533 wordsMachine-read from scans of History of Fort Bend County, Containing Biographical Sketches of Many Noted Characters, published 1904. Nothing has been corrected: fixing what looks like a misspelled name is how an invented one gets published. Source changes are marked where they occur.
This well known and historic place is situated on the old original grant of a league and labor of land conceded by the Mexican government to Abraham Darst as a colonist, but through intermarriage with the Damon family the mound became part of their property, which they owned for forty years, and the place in time wais called ^^Damon's Mound.''
After the death of x^braham Darst it changed hands many times, but forty or more years ago, while some children were playing in the head of a ravine, which had its source at the base of the mound, they drank of some water which seeped from under the mound, and stood in little pools amid clay soil, and discovered that it was sour. The idea occurred to the children now that if they had some sugar they could make lemonade, so one repaired to the house for sugar and cups, and told of their good fortune. The action of the children attracted the attention of older persons. An investigation was made, and thus was discovered the famous medical waters of ^^Damon's Mound."
At an early day all the lime that was used in South Texas came from this mound. It has an elevation of ninety-seven feet, and embraces about 3,000 acres. The limestone sets in forty feet above the level of the surrounding country. It is eight miles from the Brazos River and two miles from the San Benard River, and some think was originally in Fort Bend County, but is now in Brazoria Cxmnty, the Fort Bend line being on the north side, near that base. The trend of the mound is east and west about a mile in length, and six or eight hundred yards in width. Columbia, the old capitol of Texas, is eleven miles away in a southerly direction. North to Rosenberg and south to Columbia is a magnificent body of prairie, farm, fruit and vegetable lands, comprising nearly 500 square miles.
This mound is a strange place, a freak of nature some call it, situated as it is in this level country, and is one of the most picturesque spots in South Texas, rising nearly 100 feet above the level of the surrounding prairie, and gradually sloping in every direction to its base. West of the mound, beginning almost at the base, lies a great forest of liveoak, pecan, ash, cedar, cypress and many other varieties of wood. The lands have a black alluvial soil, and all well drained. Sulphur crops out in places, and salt has been found in abundance by boring.
Mr. R. T. Mulcahy, of Rosenberg, is the present owner of the land, and now has a contract for three oil wells. Eighty feet of the first one have been bored, and all the way through limestone except the first seventeen feet.
Mr. Mulcahy is ai native of Kentucky, but has been in Texas since 1871, first settling in Fort Bend County, and has been here ever since, except at intervals when away on railroad business. His people were among the old pioneers of Kentucky, identical with the time of Boone, Kenton and Logan, historic names during the bloody days of war on the border.
Provenance
Text from History of Fort Bend County, Containing Biographical Sketches of Many Noted Characters, published 1904, in the public domain in the United States and digitised by the Internet Archive.