#TBT: Sam Houston called this pioneer South Texas woman 'Mother of Texas'
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Margaret Wright, one of the early Anglo settlers in South Texas, lived an interesting life. While there are gaps in her life that historians can’t verify, certain items stand out. She saved a number of survivors of the Goliad Massacre during the Texas Revolution in 1836. Sam Houston referred to her as the “Mother of Texas” in a gubernatorial speech. And she is likely the first woman granted a divorce by the Texas Supreme Court.
Marguerite Theresa Robertson was born in 1789 in New Orleans. When she arrived in Texas around 1825, she’d already had five children and was twice widowed. Historians suspect she settled in the DeWitt Colony, one of the original Texas colonies granted by the Mexican government, but by 1827 was settled in the De León Colony centered around Victoria, Texas. She applied for a league of land along the west bank of the Guadalupe River and settled there. Soon after, she married John David Wright, a Tennessee native, who moved to her land settlement.
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Wright was the wrong choice for Margaret. The couple had two daughters together but were often estranged and lived apart. He somehow gained the title to her land claim at one point and then disappeared to live in the Rio Grande Valley to avoid an old debt from Tennessee.
It was during this time that Margaret Wright came to the aid of the Texas Revolution. She lived and raised cattle on her land near Mission Valley, and in March 1836, soldiers who had escaped the Goliad Massacre turned up on her land. She was able to provide them food and medicine, and when Mexican troops camped along the river searching for the escapees, she was able to convince them she knew nothing of the soldiers.
In 1848, Wright filed for divorce from her husband, citing abuse, theft of her land claim and murdering her son, Peter Hays. Hays had been ambushed and killed in the Rio Grande Valley in 1847, and Wright suspected her husband of the death because of a separate land dispute between the two.
In 1985, one of Wright’s descendants, Bettye Wellborn Cole, released a book of research on her fifth great-grandmother, “The Passing of the Seasons: The Story of Marguerite Wright.” Cole had 153 pages of court documents from the divorce, which eventually made it to the Texas Supreme Court before being granted in 1851.
Wright continued to live in Victoria but became impoverished in her later years. When her daughter and son-in-law were murdered in Eagle Pass in 1878, the Victoria Advocate reported on the tragedy, expressing hope that Wright would inherit her daughter’s estate to help with her care. The editor reminded readers of her earlier help during the revolution.
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“Many a Texas veteran will remember Mrs. Wright, for in the dark and trying days of ’36 she, with zeal and courage commendable even in those times, aided in many ways the cause for which Houston and his compatriots fought.”
Wright died in October 1878 and is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Victoria.
In an article about her death, the Victoria Advocate wrote, “From a wilderness she lived to see the country grow into civilization and prosperity. She lived a long life conspicuously marked with many charities and has now passed to a sphere where care and neglect is never known.”
You can learn more about Margaret Wright from researcher Walter Scogin at 1 p.m. Thursday during the annual Toast to Texas event at the Nueces County Courthouse’s Central Jury Room. The Nueces County Historical Commission, the Nueces County Historical Society and the Clara Driscoll Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas hold the event every year to celebrate Texas Independence Day.
Allison Ehrlich writes about things to do in South Texas and has a weekly Throwback Thursday column on local history.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Sam Houston called this pioneer South Texas woman 'Mother of Texas'
