Canoes and seals from Houston's earliest times
by Louis F. Aulbach and Linda Gorski
Barge traffic at the wharf at Allen's Landing (left) with
White Oak bayou entering on the right. (c. 1911)
Click on image to enlarge.
photo courtesy of TxDOT
One would think that the town that calls itself "the bayou city" would recognize the contributions of watercraft and the stream that bisects the city on its offical seal. But, Houston does not.
The official seal of the City of Houston was authorized by City Council on February 17, 1840 and it was approved a week later. With a design commissioned by former mayor Francis Moore, the seal has three figures in the center: a Lone Star, a steam locomotive and a plow.
The Lone Star, of course, represents the new republic of Texas, and later, the state. The plow is a symbol of the importance of agriculture, especially cotton, to the Houston economy. The locomotive is named the "General Sherman" after General Sidney Sherman who fought at the Battle of San Jacinto and who was one of the founders of the first railroad in Texas.
The presence of the locomotive on the city seal suggests that the design of the seal was revised at some later date. The first railroad in Texas was charted in 1850. The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railroad became operational in August, 1853 on a line that went from Harrisburg to Stafford.
Harrisburg? In 1840, why would the City of Houston promote the rival town of Harrisburg on its own seal?
The intense competition between Houston and Harrisburg would decline after the 1870's when a series of disasters, including fire and hurricane, devastated the shipping facilites in Harrisburg. Ultimately, the town of Harrisburg was annexed by the City of Houston in December, 1926.
Although the original seal supposedly was lost and rediscovered by Margaret Westerman in 1939, the design on the present seal probably dates from the twentieth century.
Which brings us back to the 1840 seal. What was it like? Did it have a steamer or a schooner on it? Would that not have been more appropriate at that time? Boats docked at foot of Main Street would have been a better image of the prosperity of the city. The City fathers would have been extemely prescient to have placed a locomotive on the seal in 1840.
Actually, in a flash of whimsy, it might be nice to see a canoe on the city's seal. The earliest written accounts of Houston tell of the role played by canoes.
Dilue Rose Harris, in her memoirs recalling the days after the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, wrote of the excitement that the proposed new town of Houston was creating among the people returning to Texas after the defeat of Santa Anna. In early June, 1836, some of the young men from the Stafford Point community (now, modern Stafford) rode over to Buffalo Bayou to check out the new town described in the circulars and handbills distributed by the Allen brothers.
What they found there became more of a joke than anything else. The town, which was difficult to locate among the pine woods, "consisted of one dugout canoe, a bottle gourd of whisky and a surveyor's chain and compass, and was inhabited by four men with an ordinary camping outfit."
That's where the story takes a ominous turn. To escape the heat and the swarms of mosquiotes, the men decided to take a swim in the bayou. No sooner had they all gotten into the water, when the "water was alive with alligators." Three of the men got out on the south bank of the bayou from whence they entered, but one exited on the other side. Those on the south bank got a canoe and rescued him, bringing the separated man back to the south side.
Not only did the man face death at the jaws of the alligators, but, he told his rescuers that while he was waiting for them, a large panther was lurking nearby. The big cat ran off as the canoe approached.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Buffalo Bayou as a major shipping lane was on the decline. Ocean going vessels exchanged cargo at docks below the turning basin, and the traffic upstream to Allen's Landing was primarily that of barges. By the turn of the twentieth century, the bayou has little or no commercial traffic. It is time to return the bayou to the canoes.