Schoellkopf really knew the history

I’ve been asked many times about the history before the Butlers’ arrival to our area.

A mutual friend sent this to me, and I found it to be very concise and historically correct. It is written by longtime League City resident Trey Schoellkopf.

“In the 1700s, the land was occupied by five groups of Indians with similar linguistics. League City was occupied by the Karankawa who were known for some pretty nasty habits, including occasional mitotes. They were meanest, greediest, most treacherous of the five.

“After Jean Laffite was run out of New Orleans in the 1800s he spent some time in Clear Lake and Clear Creek but settled on Galveston Island in 1816, calling his community Campeche, after finding the Karankawas to be something of a pain.

“In 1821, per The Dallas Morning News — The Texas Almanac (Dallas, 1975), the government of Coahuila and Texas, as an enticement, offered choice land grants to those who settled here for a fee of $100 and a promise to convert to Catholicism as soon as a priest was available. Men contracted with the government to bring families here. These men were known as impresarios or contractors.

“Stephen F. Austin was the first impresario to bring colonists to Texas. His father, Moses Austin, was given a land grant, but died before fulfilling the terms, leaving the task to his son Stephen.

“Among the first 300 colonists to arrive with Austin were William Whitlock and Michael Ghouldrich. Whitlock, a surveyor, was patented a parcel of land on the north side of the creek, and Ghouldrich received a patent to some on the south side of the creek.

“Citing the need for a priest, Father Miguel Muldoon was sent by the government of Coahuila and Texas to be the resident priest. After a year, the priest returned to Mexico and Muldoon was paid 11 leagues of Texas land, which was the entire northern part of Galveston County.

“In 1835, Muldoon gave Austin the power to sell his land. In December of that year, Austin sold the 11 leagues to Peter Grayson. Upon Grayson’s death several years later, the two leagues in Galveston County were left to three nephew and nieces. The land remained in their possession until 1858.

“Another of the original 300 colonist effecting Clear Creek in League City was the Scobey family. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, who in 1842 married Stephen Justice. In 1853, Stephen and Elizabeth Justice traded some slaves for 200 acres of property on Clear Creek and Galveston Bay. Stephen Justice died in 1856.

“In the 1850s, a ‘Yankee Peddler’ named A.H. Kipp traveled up Clear Creek selling merchandise, and met the widow Mrs. Justice Kipp, who had two sons, Henry and Jerushia, from a previous marriage. In 1857, A.H. Kipp married the widow Justice.”

My thanks to Mr. Schoellkopf for sharing this information with us. The “rest of the story” will be told next week.

Chris John Mallios, a longtime resident of League City, is writing a series of occasional columns about the history of his hometown. He can be reached at mallios(at)comcast.net.