'Very old Texas': Musician Monte Warden traces his family back to before Austin was Waterloo
Not long ago, Texas Music Hall of Fame musician and songwriter Monte Warden was chatting with Ginny White-Peacock, manager of the Broken Spoke and daughter of late honky-tonk legend James White.
White-Peacock: Our family goes way back in Texas.
Warden: Oh, I bet our family goes back even further.
White-Peacock: We've been here at least seven generations, back to the Texas Revolution.
Warden: Same with my family. Who was your earliest Texas ancestor?
White-Peacock: Jesse F. Burditt, one of seven family members who fought at the Battle of San Jacinto.
Warden: Hey, he's my ancestor, too. Looks like we're related.
White-Peacock: Cousin Monte!
Along with dozens of similarly amusing tales — punctuated judiciously with the correct cuss words — Warden unspooled his family's Texas history over coffee one sunny autumn day in South Austin.
A week later, we met at the half-hidden Fiskville Cemetery in Northeast Austin to visit the grave of ancestor Jesse F. Burditt — who founded Burditt's Prairie, now a part of Montopolis — and his wife, Mildred "Mina" Burditt.
With us were Brandi Warden, a songwriter, music publisher and Monte's equally witty wife; as well as Brooks Warden, their Texas history-loving son, who happens to be an expert automotive mechanic. Monte brought along a lovingly worn guitar with which he had written million-selling songs for the likes of George Strait, Travis Tritt and Josh Turner.
More:Austin music icon James White, Broken Spoke's owner, dies at 81
"My whole life, I was told that we were very old Texas," Monte said. "That several ancestors fought at San Jacinto. I assumed that, because I come from a long line of storytellers, this was more family B.S.
"But a member of an older generation, cousin Glenda Black, said: 'Yes, this is all true.'
"She had stuff that showed the documents. So I spent time in the Texas State Archives and other collections — and everything lined up.
"My family settled here in 1831, fought in the Texas Revolution, lived in Austin since it was still called Waterloo — in 1838 — and helped found the Republic, and later, the state of Texas."
Just who was this Jesse Burditt?
Warden is no mere Sunday history buff.
For years, I have followed his sharp-eyed reports about ancestral research on Twitter. In early November, he announced that the authoritative Handbook of Texas had published his edited and authenticated entry on Jesse Fletcher Burditt (1788-1855).
Born in the Edgefield District in South Carolina, Burditt was the son of Revolutionary War veteran William Burditt and Patience Delacey Hart Burditt. He moved to Tennessee in 1807 and married Mildred "Mina" Crain, daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Joel Crain, in 1808.
They had 12 children.
"Family tradition holds that Jesse Burditt fought in the War of 1812," Warden writes. "At the urging of his friend William Kimbro and Burditt’s eldest son, William Buck Burditt — who moved to Texas in 1831 — Jesse and Mildred Burditt moved to Texas in 1833 and settled in San Augustine County."
Their son, Joel Alan Burditt, Warden's direct ancestor, enlisted in the Texas Army and served at the Siege of Bexar in 1835.
This is where it gets a bit confusing: Warden found affidavits and other discharge papers that prove Jesse; sons William, Giles, Newell and Joel; and two nephews, Joel Burditt Crain and R. T. Crain, all fought at San Jacinto in William Kimbro's company in Col. Sidney Sherman's Second Regiment.
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In addition, official orders from President Sam Houston show that Jesse Burditt served as a Texas Ranger in East Texas in 1836. He sold his more than 900 acres of land in San Augustine County and settled in Travis County in 1841.
Jesse founded Burditt's Prairie Plantation on the south side of the Colorado, while sons Giles, Newell and Jesse Jr. farmed north of the river.
In Central and East Texas, Jesse Burditt served as a mail carrier, a dangerous job in those anarchic times. By the 1850s, he had freed the people enslaved on his plantation and was living upland in the Fiskville area.
"In early April 1855, he fell seriously ill and told the family he hoped to hold on to San Jacinto Day," Warden writes. "He just made it and passed away on April 21, 1855."
Making Texas history personal
At the coffee shop and the graveyard, Warden, whose mother's side of the family immigrated from Eastern Europe, spoke at a rapid pace in an entertaining voice that echoes the singing in his longtime country band, the Wagoneers, and his newer jazz outfit, the Dangerous Few.
At the cemetery, wife Brandi made well-timed side comments, while son Brooks traced out links among the graves that can be found at the end of a narrow road off Rundberg Lane.
"Jesse's son Giles served as Travis County's first sheriff," he quipped, "and the first to resign in disgrace."
Giles is also buried at Fiskville. Jesse Jr. was laid to rest at the Hornsby Bend Cemetery in East Austin. Newell, a San Jacinto veteran, is there, too.
Warden has linked another Burditt offspring to the famous Austin serial murders in the 1880s.
"Jesse's son, also buried at Fiskville, was member of the rear-guard at San Jacinto at 16 — affectionately called 'Capt. Burditt' for being so small and enthusiastic about his duties," Warden said. "He was the grandfather of Eula Burditt, the final victim of the Midnight Assassin."
Why aren't all these Texas pioneers now at the Texas State Cemetery?
"The family voted unanimously they were at the places that they had picked," Warden said. "Moving them to the State Cemetery would be more about us than about them."
Chasing down original documents thrilled Warden. Along the way, he found some connective material at findagrave.com and ancestry.com.
His smile widens: "You learn that, just because it's on ancestry.com, doesn't make it true."
He ran across some supporting documents from the 1835 Siege of Bexar in musician Phil Collins' Alamo collection.
"It was all there," Warden said. "Joel Burditt was right there at the six-week siege. Then he just went home."
That was not uncommon. Soldiers showed up on the muster one day, then not a week later.
Warden became acutely aware that, if his direct ancestors had served at the Alamo in 1836, where almost everyone on the Texas side died, "I wouldn't be here."
'I like a good balance of of legend, truth and fact'
In an era when Black descendants of enslaved persons and white descendants of enslavers are actively seeking out each other's stories, Warden notes that, before his death, Jesse emancipated the people enslaved at Burditt's Prairie Plantation, creating one of the largest communities of freedmen in the Austin area prior to the Civil War.
In his own research, Warden finds that Black descendants tend to spell their last names "Burdette," which is also the way his ancestor, William Burdette, who lived in pre-Austin Waterloo, spelled his name.
Years ago, I wrote a column about the tiny hamlet of Waterloo, which stood above the Colorado River on land that is now part of downtown. Some historians had suggested that Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar changed the name of the intended capital because his middle name was "Bonaparte." Others insisted he just wanted to honor the original leaders of the American colonists in Texas.
Warden shared an even more interesting family twist on the hamlet's naming.
"Santa Anna fashioned himself the 'Napoleon of the West,'" Warden said. "Like Sam Houston, he was always thinking about posterity. I think that they called this place Waterloo as a poke in his eye."
He thinks the recent tussles over the Alamo — the place and the legend — are partly due to the fact that, in any version, it's crackling good story.
"I like a good balance of of legend, truth and fact," he says. "Along with a healthy sense of humor."
He is aware that the Anglo presence in Texas was at best a mixed blessing — often much worse — for what was once a chaotic, multi-racial society in the early 19th century.
"I do not take credit or take blame for what they did," he says. "But there are few Anglo families as old as mine in Texas.
"You know, my people had a good life in Tennessee. They just left. Being Catholic was one reason, and qualifying for free land in Mexico. You can see it over and over again in the Tennessee census records, written in the margins: G.T.T.
"Gone to Texas."
Michael Barnes writes about the people, places, culture and history of Austin and Texas. He can be reached at mbarnes@statesman.com. Sign up for the free weekly digital newsletter, Think, Texas at statesman.com/newsletters.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin musician Monte Warden discovers the truth about Texas ancestors
