Page 15 - Fulton Mansion

Rockport-Fulton, Texas George Explores a New Nation
While working for the General Land Office, George traveled by foot from Houston to San Antonio. He kept a journal in which he recorded some of his adventures with wildlife and descriptions of towns and battle-worn sites. In San Antonio he sketched the Alamo and the San Fernando Cathedral.
Journal Description of Goliad:
Often have I read of deserted towns & cities but the little imaginative powers of my mind have never been able to comprehend the full reality of such a scene. I was now on the very ground that was disgraced by the inhuman massacre of over 461 unresisting American prisoners. . . . I entered the ancient town of LaBahia or Goliad. There was no light but what was shed by a few stars that peeped out between the clouds. It made the stone walls of the houses built upon the Mexican plan, every house a fort, look still more dismal. We passed up and down the streets. Entered the fort—not a soul was to be seen. Immense piles of ruins and tottering walls was all we would discover. Not a sound broke the stillness of the night except the tromping of our horses’ feet as we rode through the deserted streets. (Fulton [George W. and James] Papers, 1836–1916)
Left: George wrote and drew in this leather-bound journal while traveling throughout Texas in 1837. He makes specific mention of Houston, then the capital, as well as his impressions of postrevolution Goliad and San Antonio. (Courtesy of The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
Right: George drew this sketch of the ruins of the Alamo in 1837 while working for the General Land Office. (Courtesy of The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
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