Texas Governors and Their Times
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Early Statehood 1846 - 1861
Elisha M. Pease (1812 – 1883)
Governor: December 21, 1853 – December 21, 1857; August 8, 1867 – September 30, 1869.
Pease, Elisha Marshall, undated. Hartford, Connecticut: Isaac White. Mrs. William C. Varney Collection, 1964/275-1. Prints and Photographs.
Elisha Pease won election to the first two of his three terms as governor in 1853 and 1855. As governor, he supported Texas' first state school fund with $2 million in U.S. bonds from the Compromise of 1850, and the legislature also made appropriations for a state university. Pease encouraged railroad construction through state loans prorated per mile of new track laid. A new capitol was built, and Pease was the first governor to inhabit the present governor's mansion. Institutions for the deaf, blind, and mentally ill were also established. In 1854, Pease sent rangers to deal with the violent attacks on Mexican freight carriers in South Texas, known as the Cart War. The next year, a border war with Mexico was narrowly averted after mounted volunteers pursued a band of raiding Lipan Apaches across the Rio Grande, an incident which Pease handled diplomatically. He defeated a Know-Nothing candidate in 1855. As a Unionist, Pease spent the years from 1858 to 1866 in semi-retirement from public life. He became provisional governor of Texas again in 1867 following the Civil War, resigning from office in 1869 over disagreements with some Reconstruction policies. Pease lived the remainder of his life in Austin.
| List of Governors | |
| J. Pinckney Henderson: First governor of the state |
February 19, 1846 – December 21, 1847 |
| Wood, George T. | December 21, 1847 – December 21, 1849 |
| Bell, Peter Hansbrough | December 21, 1849 – November 23, 1853 |
| Henderson, James W. | November 11, 1853 – December 21, 1853 |
| Pease, Elisha M. | December 21, 1853 – December 21, 1857 |
| Runnels, Hardin R. | December 21, 1857 – December 21, 1859 |
| Houston, Sam | December 21, 1859 – March 16, 1861 |
Petition from citizens of Bosque and McLennan Counties to Gov. EMP, April 14, 1854. Texas Governor Elisha Marshall Pease records of the first two terms, Box 301-23. Image 1, Image 2, and Image 3. Click or tap on image and links to view larger versions.
Governor Pease received many reports of violence, theft, and lawlessness in frontier counties. Some citizens petitioned for aid. This petition from frontier portions of Bosque and McLennan Counties requested a company of Texas Rangers to patrol the border country and protect citizens and property.
Message of EMP to House and Senate, November 30, 1857. Texas Governor Elisha Marshall Pease records of the first two terms, Box 301-26. Image 1, Image 2, and Image 3. Click or tap on image and links to view larger versions.
Toward the end of 1857, hostilities broke out between Mexican and Tejano oxcart drivers and their Anglo competitors in a conflict known as the Cart War. Pease delivered this message to the legislature asking for special appropriations for armed escorts for the cart drivers to end the violence.
Elisha M. Pease, proclamation, August 18, 1854. Texas Governor Elisha Marshall Pease records of the first two terms, Box 301-24.
Call for “six companies of mounted men” to serve on the frontier.
Fort Davis, Texas, Headquarters of the Eighth Infantry, draughtsman sketch, 1861.
Texas Engravings, 1/125-16. Prints and Photographs. Click or tap on image to view larger version.
Fort Davis, located to the east of the Davis Mountains and near Limpia Creek, played a key role in frontier defense against attacks on the San Antonio-El Paso Road. The fort headquartered the Eighth Infantry and had an active military presence from 1854 to 1891.
Letter from Manuel Robles Pezuela to Lewis Cass, translation, July 27, 1857. Texas Governor Elisha Marshall Pease records of the first two terms, Box 301-26. Image 1, Image 2. Click or tap on image and links to view larger versions.
This translated letter from the Foreign Ministry of Mexico informed Secretary of State Lewis Cass of an ongoing border situation on the banks of the Bravo River across from the village of El Paso del Norte, Mexico. He alleged that Mr. James Pagoffin [sic] an American, was attempting to divert the course of the river, thus altering the boundary between the United States and Mexico. [Most likely refers to James Magoffin]
Letter from P.J. Simons to EMP, June 10, 1856. Texas Governor Elisha Marshall Pease records of the first two terms, Box 301-25. Image 1, Image 2. Click or tap on image and links to view larger versions.
Many Texans were eager to assist in their own defense if the state or federal government could supply them. This letter from the leader of a newly formed volunteer militia, the Palestine Riflemen, offered their 68 troops to “the prospective War with Europe.”
The Plaza and Church of El Paso, about 1850s. Western Engravings and Lithographs, 1/036-3.
Prints and Photographs.
The Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey (1848-1855) documented the border region after the Mexican American War (1846-1848) and included depictions of public life. Artist Augustus Guy de Vaudricourt contributed to the survey this hand-colored lithograph of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and plaza in El Paso del Norte, Mexico.
Early Texas governors dealt with many of the same problems from the republic era. There was rarely enough money; Mexico disputed the borders; and skirmishes and outright violence occurred as newcomers settled lands inhabited by diverse groups of indigenous people living in Texas. When war broke out between the United States and Mexico over the southern border in 1846, the governor himself took leave of office to lead a regiment of volunteers. The war ended in 1848, with the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo finally establishing the southern boundary as the Rio Grande River. Slavery, which was legal in Texas, continued to be an issue as the United States sought to balance the number of states that allowed the practice with those that did not. Sam Houston was governor when many in Texas wanted to secede from the Union. Houston was against secession, and when a majority of Texans voted to leave the Union and join the Confederate States of America, he refused to take the required oath to the Confederacy. The Secession Convention removed Houston from office in 1861, and Texas went to war.