"One of the best books on Texas issued during the Republic" - Raines
With a Detailed Engraved Map of the Texas Republic
The first edition of this highly readable Texas guide book for people who planned to settle in Texas, written by a self-styled colonel from Virginia. The book is especially valuable for its accounts of Houston and Galveston - as the author briefly served as deputy constable in the first town and spent quite a bit of time in the latter place. This first edition is notable for its excellent engraved map of the Republic of Texas, engraved by Doolittle & Munson of Cincinnati. The map shows the boundaries of the empresario grants nicely hand-colored, including those of Austin, Austin & Williams, Powers, John Cameron, Felisola, Burnet, Whelin, Zavala, and others. There are also two woodcut illustrations, one of Galveston Bay (with a Texas flag flying), the other of the Battle of San Jacinto.
Edward Stiff’s The Texan Emigrant is notable for its candid and sometimes gossipy tone regarding the people he encountered in Texas during the late 1830s. Rather than limiting himself to an impersonal historical account, Stiff included personal anecdotes and sharp observations about prominent figures, which did not always endear him to his subjects.
One notable critic of Stiff’s book was Francis Moore, Jr., then the mayor of Houston and editor of the Houston Telegraph and Texas Register. Moore, an influential figure in early Texas, was incensed by Stiff’s characterizations and took the unusual step of publicly denouncing the book in a published review. He dismissed Stiff’s work as inaccurate and unreliable, accusing the author of misrepresenting events and individuals. Moore’s strong reaction suggests that Stiff’s book struck a nerve, likely due to its unvarnished portrayals of political and social life in early Texas.
Stiff’s willingness to name names and offer unfiltered commentary gives his book a lively, if sometimes contentious, quality. His work provides modern readers with a unique, if occasionally biased, perspective on the personalities and tensions of the Republic of Texas in its formative years.
About the residents of Houston Stiff writes:
Houston... contains 382 houses, and a population that would be difficult to number on account of the constant coming and going that is every day witnessed... Perhaps about 3000 people are to be found in Houston generally, and among them are not exceeding 40 females. Here may be daily seen parties of traders arriving and departing, composed too, of every variety of colour, "from snowy white to sooty," and dressed in every variety of fashion, excepting the savage Bowie-knife, which as if by common consent, was a necessary appendage to all.
John Jenkins styled Stiff's book as "one of the most controversial guide books written by a visitor to early Texas." Most historians consider the book a well-written guide covering the physical features of the land, descriptions of the cities and towns, all tending to reflect the hardships experienced by early immigrants to Texas during the 1830s. It is a sourcebook for Texas affairs issued in the days of the Republic, written with a mix of firsthand knowledge and secondary source material. The book includes an account of the Texas Revolution mostly based on secondary sources. Another potential reason for the book's controversial stature may stem from Stiff's decidedly pro-Mexican slant.
He castigates the Texas Revolution as having been fought by opportunists who "rebel first and find out the reason afterwards." He gives a totally biased account of the revolution, generally praising Santa Anna except for the Goliad Massacre. He recounts an interview with a female survivor of the Alamo, as well as an account of the Goliad affair related by an escapee. He devotes considerable space to the life and land activities of Gen. Moseley Baker, a minor Texas Revolution figure - Jenkins.
A native of Bedford County, Virginia, Stiff had worked as a hatter in Baltimore before coming to Texas. He served briefly as a Deputy Constable of Houston and seems to have acquired his honorific title of "cononel" while in Texas or soon after he left. His constable position in Houston allowed him to acquire an excellent first-hand account of that place. Like many western pioneers his career is not free of tarnish: he was twice discharged for drunkenness. The "gossipy" comments about various early Texas figures, perhaps a negative when the book first came out, today add interest and color to Stiff's narrative.
Houston mayor Francis Moore Jr., in his capacity as editor of the Telegraph and Texas Register, wrote the following about Stiff's book:
To those Texian emigrants who like Col. Stiff emigrated from the Republic [of Texas] because they were too vicious and too shiftless to conduct an honest business there, and who derived no other benefit in visiting the country than a stolen title, the book my be useful; but to all persons desiring to acquire accurate information relative to the country or its inhabitants it is... useless... Indeed, the copy now before us was handed to us by an emigrant, who said he "bought it at an auction for a bit," and got bit at that.
Stiff's book was reissued several times, eventually incorporating material on the Mexican War, but the later editions did not have a map. After he left Texas, he seems to have settled in Alabama where he published a newspaper in Cedar Bluff. He reputedly killed a man and was jailed in Ashville, Alabama, where he committed suicide by an overdose of laudanum.
In sum, a classic early Texas book, deserving of a place on a shelf of Texas rarities because of it interesting first-hand content and the nice map.
Rarity
Examples of the first edition complete with the map in nice condition are quite rare in the market.