John Dennis Stell: The Texas Secession Convention

GENEALOGICAL NOTES AND ANECDOTES

John Dennis Stell:
The Texas Secession Convention

Col. John Dennis Stell,¹ the "foster father" of John Calhoun Cox and a native of Georgia, was 56 years of age when, on 28 January 1861, he was elected president pro tempore, in Austin, of the first session of the Secession Convention of Texas. At the Convention, he was the representative for Leon County, listing his occupation as "planter." About Stell, Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, in volume 8 (pp. 255 - 256) of their edition of The Writings of Sam Houston: 1813 - 1863 (Austin: 1943) report the following:

John D. Stell was a large landholder and public-spirited man of Leon County, Texas. He was a representative of that county in the Eighth Legislature (1859 - 1861). He had been a noted Indian fighter and frontier protector, and as commander of militia companies had earned the title of colonel.

In The Handbook of Texas Online, the joint project of The General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association, Thomas W. Cutrer published a concise biography:

John Dennis Stell, planter and legislator, was born on October 27, 1804, in Hancock County, Georgia, the son of Robert Malone and Elizabeth (Jones) Stell. He married Rachell Carroll on November 24, 1822; they had six children. On January 2, 1839, he was married a second time, to Mrs. Amanda Cox. They also had six children. Stell was a colonel in the Georgia Militia and participated in the removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia to Indian Territory. He was also a judge and, for seventeen consecutive years, a member of the Georgia legislature, both of the House and the Senate. In June and November 1850 he represented Georgia at the Nashville Convention, and from 1853 through 1854 he was president of the senate. The family moved to Texas in 1855. In 1856 Stell established a prosperous cotton plantation in Leon County known as the Bower. He was also involved in transportation on the Trinity River. He represented Leon County in the House of Representatives of the Eighth Legislature, 1859-61, and was a member of the Secession Convention. On January 28, 1861, he was elected president pro tem of the convention and was later elected its vice president. With John Henry Brown and Pryor Lea, Stell drew up the convention's "Address to the People of Texas," which detailed the delegates' rationale for supporting secession. With the outbreak of the Civil War. Stell sold his Leon County property, valued at $90,000, and moved to Smith County, where he worked for the Confederate ordnance works at Tyler. He died in Tyler on October 28, 1862.²

The Ordinance of Secession, which was adopted at Austin on 1 February 1861 and which is reproduced below, bears Stell's autograph which can be found in the fifth column from the left, beneath the signature of Gideon Smith and above that of John G. Stewart "of Anderson:"

From Leon County, John Dennis Stell was elected to the Secession Convention by a vote of 534 to 82.

[Image credit: Texas State Library, Austin, Texas]

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After the conclusion of the War Between the States, as is evident from the following curious narrative, which was published 34 years after the Secession Convention, Stell was unremembered:

DALLAS NEWS

SUNDAY, JANUARY 20, 1895

SOME REMINISCENCES

A Letter Written in the Dark Days

of 1861, Before the Austin

Convention.

A Bill for Merchandise Rendered in 1855,

Showing the Prevailing Prices — Why

Farmers Were Prosperous

Palestine,³ Tex., Jan. 17.—The News' reporter made a tour over the city yesterday in quest of items and stumbled upon some very old ones which may not be uninteresting. Among other things he found an old letter in the street dated at Bowers, Tex., 14th day of January, 1861, thirty-four years ago. The handwriting is clear and legible and bears the distinctive features of the chirography of our forefathers. It was written by John D. Stell to his brother, R. M. Stell,⁴ neither of whom is known here. After touching on some family matters, the following language in reference to the secession convention which convened at Austin, January 28, 1861, is used: "I shall be in Austin as a delegate to the convention to assemble on the 28th instant. Our people, with great unanimity, are for secession, and I am decidedly of the opinion that it is the proper remedy. Your references to the constitution were all good and your positions well taken before a tribunal from whom we had the hope of a fair decision. But what can we hope from Mr. Lincoln and those that have elevated him to power? I regret very much the course Governor Houston has taken in this momentous crisis. He may retard the onward progress of Texas for a brief period, but it will be very brief. No one occupying the position of a statesman and possessing a particle of patriotism can hesitate for one moment as to the true policy to be pursued, with all the lights before him. The fullness of the time has surely come that was spoken of in the olden times 'when he that dallies is a dastard and he that doubts is damned.' I am going to the convention, calm, cool, deliberate, but determined to act firmly and decidedly upon the question—the great question. I will write from Austin and forward you such documents as I may be able to command."

He then alludes to a succession of short crops, and winds up his letter in the following spirit of patriotism:

"Another such crop as the last one will be very sacrificial to my family interests. You will perhaps say that I should stay at home and attend closely to business instead of spending my time and money in political excitements. True, but I have been elected to the position of delegate unsolicited and without opposition, therefore I can not well decline the responsibility imposed, and especially when I remember that my posterity are deeply interested in the great question involved."

Dr. W. M. Shumatte of this city has a bill rendered against him for merchandise purchased of A. Joost in this city in 1855, and an account sale of twenty-four bales of cotton in the city of New Orleans, being upon a gold basis, and affords an interesting comparison with present prices of merchandise and cotton. For instance, he paid $16 per barrel for flour. The very best can be bought now for $2.50. He was charged 15 cents a yard for calico, present price 5 cents; checks 20 cents, present price 5 cents; tobacco 75 cents, present price, 30 cents; stripes 16 2-3 cents, present price 5 cents; sugar 10 cents, present price 5 cents; 1 wash pan 50 cents, can be bought now for 10 cents, and so on for over one hundred items, showing about the same relative prices, except coffee, which he bought for 13½ cents per pound, worth now 23 cents. His cotton averaged 4¾ cents per pound. The ginning fees were about the same then as now, but the wrapping cost him $3.25 per bale, where it costs only 87 cents now. The cost of transportation to New Orleans was $6.75 per bale, against $3.50 now. The doctor says that farmers had more money then than now, and his assertion is verified by the fact that this account, which amounted to several hundred dollars was paid in full. He states that the only way he accounts for this is that farmers always had bins full of corn and an abundance of fodder and oats was kept constantly on hand and always found a sale at a better profit than cotton, either as it existed or through fattening stock.

NOTES

1. For the system of kinship of which John Dennis Stell was a member, see Antecedents and Descendants of Michael Stell (1683 - ABT 1706).

2. Cutrer's bibliography on John Dennis Stell includes the following: Leon County Historical Book Survey Committee, History of Leon County (Dallas: Curtis Media, 1986). Memorial and Biographical History of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone, and Leon Counties (Chicago: Lewis, 1893). Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, eds., The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863 (8 vols., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1938-43; rpt., Austin and New York: Pemberton Press, 1970). E. W. Winkler, ed., Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas (Austin, 1912).

3. It seems likely that Emily Cunningham STELL (29 December 1839, Fayette County, Georgia - 21 November 1912, Palestine, Anderson County, Texas), the daughter of John Dennis STELL, who was married to Benjamin Franklin CLARK, M. D., was residing in Palestine, Texas when her father's letter was discovered 19 January 1895.

4. This was Rev. Robert Malone Stell, Jr., M. D. (5 April 1808 - 18 February 1875) who, like his brother, was the offspring of Robert Malone Stell (4 March 1767 - 2 September 1814) and Elizabeth Jones (ABT 1770 - ABT 1840). An excellent presentation of the system of kinship to which the brothers Stell belonged can be seen online at Penny's Southern Diggins'.

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RETURN: Antecedents and Descendants of Michael Stell (1683 - ABT 1706)

John Dennis Stell: Address to the People of Texas

John Dennis Stell: Texas Ordinance of Secession

GENEALOGICAL NOTES AND ANECDOTES: TABLE OF CONTENTS

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