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    Seabrook
    Seabrook
    Seabrook
    Ebook178 pages57 minutes

    Seabrook

    By Ruth Burke and Don Holbrook

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Seabrook enjoys a prime location on Galveston Bay at the outflow of Clear Creek. Formerly a Spanish land grant known as Morris Cove, the town began to assume its modern shape in 1895 when Seabrook Sydnor purchased part of the Morris league and platted the town site. Brothers Albert and Ernest Fay founded the Seabrook Shipyard in 1938, which went on to build submarine chasers and rescue boats during World War II. The year 1961 was a landmark moment for Seabrook: Hurricane Carla hit on September 11, and a week later, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that its Manned Spaceflight Center would be built in nearby Clear Lake, launching a period of accelerated growth. Fearing annexation by Houston or La Porte, Seabrook leaders took steps toward incorporation that same year. Today Seabrook is listed on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail and is part of the third largest boating community in the United States.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439639832
    Seabrook
    Author

    Ruth Burke

    Author Ruth Burke has been preserving the history of Seabrook with her photographs since 1978. Her images have been featured in numerous publications and are part of many private art collections. Coauthor Don Holbrook attended area schools and served on the bicentennial committee and as the parks board chairman. Holbrook is currently an elected city councilman.

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      Book preview

      Seabrook - Ruth Burke

      photographs.

      INTRODUCTION

      The beauty of the lush green coastline of Clear Lake as it feeds into Galveston Bay through the Clear Creek Channel has been home to civilizations for centuries. The land that is currently known as Seabrook, Texas, was first the home of the Attakapas, Karankawas, and Cohuiltecan Indian tribes. Sandbars and shell reefs extended far out into Galveston Bay. They fished the local waters, feasting on fish, turtles, and alligators. The location of Pine Gulley Park in Seabrook is a historical site, with shell middens where the Native Americans set up camp.

      The 1800s witnessed visits of Jean Lafitte, a Frenchman and pirate. The Karankawa Indians were a nuisance to him, and he referred to them as demons from hell. He mounted an all-out campaign to eradicate the fierce warriors from the Galveston Bay area. By 1850, most of the Native Americans that roamed the Texas Gulf Coast had vanished due in large part to being victims of wars and European diseases, such as smallpox and chicken pox. By 1908, only nine Attakapas were alive, and all the other tribes were considered extinct. Legend has it that when Jean Lafitte took his loot and traveled up the Clear Creek Channel into Clear Lake, he was searching for a hiding place for his treasure. He was believed to have traveled on into Mexico but some of his men stayed and settled in the area around Seabrook. As shown on the Seabrook land plot from the late 1800s, the channel made an S curve before entering Clear Lake, thus, providing a secluded hideaway for his men, ships, and treasure.

      At one time, the Peden Estate, a beautiful 250-acre summer estate located on Clear Lake and Taylor Bayou in the 1920s, was part of the Morris land grant that became known as Morris Cove and then Seabrook. This estate claimed fame to numerous legends and traditions about rare jewels, Spanish doubloons, and precious stones being buried there after having been seized by the pirate crews of Jean Lafitte on the high seas. One of Lafitte’s men, named Taylor, owned a log cabin in the area. He was a hunter and fisher for Lafitte in the region, thus, Taylor Bayou was named after him. Sisters Ada M. Goodrich and Mrs. Bob Larabee (granddaughters of Ritson Morris) related in an article that appeared in the May 16, 1926, issue of the Houston Post that as girls we would find objects around the place, which we were told were relics of Lafitte. A widely told treasure story told by the Morris granddaughters is about a seaman from the North [who] came down to this country and became friendly with one of Lafitte’s pirates. The pirate fell ill, and the northern man doctored him and took care of him. The pirate died, but before his death he told the northern man he was going to reward him. The pirate drew a map of Clear Lake, showing the Morris Place, and the house. ‘Follow this map,’ said the pirate. ‘Dig deep under the elm tree, at the spot I have marked, and you will find a fortune.’ They dug and dug at the exact spot indicated but found no treasure . . . grandfather used to talk of it, and he expressed the theory that the treasure chest happened to be buried in one of those sand strata which they shift and move and thus was carried farther from the tree, toward the lake. Much of the treasure lore is noted to be in the vicinity of where Lakewood Yacht Club is currently located.

      After the pirates and Native Americans came the pioneers. In 1829, Amos Edwards moved from Nacogdoches to live in Stephen F. Austin’s colony on Galveston Bay (the site he had chosen was Davis Point, on what is known today as San Leon, Texas). In 1830, Edwards moved northward, up Galveston Bay, purchasing land north of Clear Creek from Anson Taylor (reputed cohort of Jean Lafitte) for his son-in-law Ritson Morris, a young lawyer from Virginia. On November 14, 1832, Ritson Morris was granted one league of land from the Mexican government at the site that later become Seabrook. He built a home for his wife, Minerva, and their daughter, Virginia, in the area along Galveston Bay, north of the Clear Creek Channel. The home was named Elmwood Plantation and was beautifully situated in a long-sweeping crescent of the bay between Edwards Point and Red Bluff. Morris raised cattle, chickens, horses, and hogs on the plantation. The 1840 tax list of Harris County enumerated 150 cattle, 15 horses, 6 slaves, and title to 3,600 acres of land for the Morris family. As other settlers joined him, the area became known as Morris Cove. A Ritson Morris/Elmwood Plantation historical marker has been placed by the State of Texas near Seabrook’s Evelyn Meador Library. Legend has it that some time after the Battle of San Jacinto, a number of men rode up to the Morris home with a Mexican prisoner. Morris fed them and let them stay the night. It was later learned that this prisoner may have been Santa Anna, who was captured at the battle and was taken to Freeport under Gen. Sam Houston’s orders.

      Toward the end of the 19th century, the Southern Pacific built a railroad from Galveston to Houston, routing it around the bay shore area. This created a development opportunity that spiked the interest of John Seabrook Syndor, a businessman and former mayor of Galveston, Texas. He saw the potential for wealthy Houstonians to have summer homes on the bay with easy access by train. Planning this as a business for his son, Seabrook, he purchased 263.3 acres for $35 per acre in May 1895. Seabrook Syndor grew up in the Powhatan

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