The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, December 16, 1986, Image 3

Texas A&M Newspaper Collection

The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, December 16, 1986, Image 3

Newspaper Page TextTuesday, December 16, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3 State and Local -CS area, A&M owe existence to Boonville $y Carolyn Garcia Staff Writer exaS A&M, College Station and in owe their existence and suc- pritiurily to the railroad, the ivej of Daniel Boone and partic- ly to a pioneer whose sharp or- tional abilities put him before e in the unsettled West. tpan, often called the Father razos County, was Harvey ell - patriarch of Boonville. [itchdl and his family, along with rela ives of Boone and a hand- mother pioneers, settled in the munity they named Boonville in or of the explorer. ■jel Boone was really a hero to pioneers,” said Margaret Lips Ba' el, author of “Birth and of Boonville: First town of bs County.” He opened up the West by laying a load over the Cumberland |which is a pass over the Appa- ians.” she said. ■ for Boonville were drawn H841 by Hiram Hanover, a lerfrom Maine who came to the Jtry and make a fortune in J-transfer business, le new town had no money — a ition that would not change so the first courthouse was in the center of town by volun- Bor. Judge R.E. Baylor pre- Bjudge of the district and, at Buragement, a jail was built Ians he had drawn up him- One prisoner of the jail who man aged to escape turned himself back in and pleaded with the judge to try him because anything — even hang ing — was preferable to the flea-in fested dungeon, the book says. Because it was a cashless society, the construction of the jail was paid for with land, which became a com mon form of payment. Mitchell handled much of the town’s business transactions himself, and while he lived in Boonville, he served the community as hotel man ager, store clerk, blacksmith, post master and gristmill operator. He even took a term as county judge, and served as the first Brazos County teacher, offering the pi oneers’ children a variety of courses. Children were especially vulnera ble to diseases that swept the area, and Mitchell and his wife lost four daughters to spinal meningitis within two months. Boonville settlers nearly were wiped out by a plague of dysentery in 1844. The residents lived on poor diets, since pioneer women didn’t have time to grow adequate gardens. What they did manage to grow had to be protected from wild animals. But life in Boonville could be as good as it was bad. The second courthouse was a large one-room building with a smooth pine floor — perfect for dancing. It also was used for church services, school classes, a dance school and a place for singing les sons. Quilting bees and barn raisings were included in the social activities of the community. In 1852, only two families actually lived in the town — one being the Mitchells — because the settlers found it easier to live on their home steads outside of town. A census taken two years earlier had put the population of the area at 614. Following the Civil War, the rail road became interested in the area and everything began to change. Boonville began to die. So, 25 years after the birth of Boonville, residents changed the county seat to Bryan. “Many of the residents of Boon ville took their cabins apart and moved them by wagon to be near the railroad,” van Bavel said. “Harvey Mitchell became a real estate broker in Bryan. He went to Houston to meet a committee to establish the site for the land grant college and per suaded them to establish it here. . . . “They established it (the college) six miles from Bryan because they were afraid for the morals of the stu dents, because Bryan was a real wild- West town. It had saloons on every corner because of the railroad wor kers.” The Boonville cemetery is now all that is left of the town. The tall mon- The town of Boonville was established in 1841 as the first town in Brazos County. Photo by Bill Hughes uments stand as quiet reminders of what was. The grave markers, ordered from Europe and delivered to Galveston, were brought to Boonville by ox cart, van Bavel said, and although four Boone men and their families helped establish Boonville, there are no “Boones” buried in any Brazos County pioneer cemetery. “The Boonville cemetery is the only part of the town that is public land,” she said, “therefore the most historic place in Brazos County.” Van Bavel is organizing a commit tee which hopes to raise $25,000 to clean up the cemetery and erect an ornamental fence. ipropriatcs i the audieral ( him the l — or even e had tosa 1 1*’ By Russell Pulliam wed Piertfi® Reporter ■ hearing/ jespiie recent emphasis on drunken nority ed- ting, neither the percentage of alcohol- ire. Hiatal accidents nor the degree of in- Hjbn of those drivers killed in Texas asn't rivettt"Bf :i rec ^ uce d significantly, a Texas i ,he a* “ s p sa y s - ny effortbvi-’H research, conducted by A&M’s to recruit iaiH Trans P ortation Institute for the , jlHepartment of Highways and Public grams , *w | (®» )rtat i on studied 1,742 driver fatali- ir institution lfroni 1983 to 1985> n as ourasii Hlood alcohol concentration test results, icy get I of discrii between t the real athy than ant Alcohol remains factor in Texas traffic deaths taken from a sample of fatally injured driv ers in 10 Texas counties, reveal half of the drivers were legally drunk when they died. The counties that participated in the study were Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Galves ton, Harris, Johnson, Nueces, Tarrant, Travis and Wichita. “Since we were able to obtain test results for only 65 percent of the driver fatalities in the 10 counties, these results do not nec essarily provide an accurate estimate of al cohol involvement among all drivers killed in motor vehicle collisions,” TTI researcher Nancy Hatfield said. But this data does suggest an answer to what may be happening across the state in terms of the drinking and driving problem, Hatfield said. While blood alcohol concentrations that are equal to or greater than the legal limit of .10 percent were found in half of all the drivers sampled, the survey says more than 60 percent of the drivers had at least some measurable amount of alcohol in their sys tems. The data also shows that among the 50 percent whose blood alcohol concentration designated them as legally intoxicated, the average concentration was .21 percent — more than twice the legal limit. front “The fact that average levels among all drivers who had been drinking . . . ap proached twice the legal limit suggests that it is more than just the social drinker who is involved in these fatal accidents,” Hatfield said. The level of intoxication among the le gally drunk drivers did not vary signifi cantly between sexes, she said, nor was age of the drivers or time of the accident a dis tinguishing factor. Several demographic distinctions uncov ered by the research show that most fatali ties occurred between 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. and involved 21- to 25-year-old males. The data also shows that all males surveyed had an average blood alcohol concentratrion of. 12 percent as compared to .06 percent for fe males. The study also found discrepancies be tween blood alcohol concentration test re sults and the reporting of alcohol involve ment in police officers’ accident reports. Comparisons between the accidents and police reports of those accidents revealed only 31 percent of the reports for legally in toxicated drivers cited alcohol as a contrib uting factor to the accident. Celebrate 0 HaBreSSh rt . u ^ Cotton Bowl 6 ^ dless drift! ited to hear (urna/tf® attalioD' owntown Countdown ’87 -m Live on Channel 8 at the corner of Young St. and Lamar St. in downtown Dallas 8pm-1:30am ow .. "Gi# tires ir borhoiz 1 have mo' It ya r(|e Insistmf! ling h^l iming oS Bands: The Byrds Wood rinW here's 2 "i ■ do^ 11 ;ultur e ' odno'°Jl idtir^ 1 ' cen idl<'l| in." ; v a^ Herman’s Hermits National Young o> CD Plus Spectacular Fire Works over Dallas at Midnight Food, Soft Drinks and Beer Available $2. 50 Admission ($2. 00 with A&M ID) Midnight Yell 12:10-12:40 Entertainment continues after Yell Practcie

Texas A&M Newspaper Collection

Texas A&M Newspaper Collection

The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, December 16, 1986, Image 3

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