Founder’s Day Celebration slated for May 4 o recognize, celebrate Moses L. Choate

From Enterprise Staff

The Polk County Historical Commission and the City of Livingston will host a Founder’s Day Celebration at 10:30 a.m. May 4 in the Old City Cemetery at the corner of Hwy. 190 and Hwy. 146. Moses L. Choate, the founder of Livingston, will be recognized and celebrated and a newly installed marker on his gravesite will be unveiled.

A reception will follow at the Central Baptist Church Brick House located across the street from the Old City Cemetery.

Following is an excerpt from “Moses L. Choate and His Influence in the Formation of Polk County, Texas” researched, compiled and written by Local Historian Gary B. Davis who serves on the Polk County Historical Commission.

William Moses Livingston Choate was born in Livingston, Tennessee in 1794. He was laid to rest in 1867 in the Old City Cemetery, on the land that he received from the Mexican government in Nacogdoches in 1835. On this land, Choate buried his four-year-old son Josephus who died on August 11, 1840. Choate later, in 1846, buried a 13-year-old son, Rodolphus. The family lived in a cabin on land just to the east of the cemetery in the first house ever to be built in Livingston. From there he could see his children’s graves.

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The earliest account of a Moses L. Choate is found in the 1855 History of Texas from its Annexation to the United States in 1846. The report reads “In 1822, the schooner Revenge, Captain Shires, brought upward of eighty Stephen F. Austin colonists from New Orleans. They landed at Bolivar Point, and they then proceeded up the Trinity Bay and ran aground on Red Fish Bar. The passengers left the vessel and went ashore on the west side of the bay. From this point they proceeded in search of homes. Two of them, Moses L. Choate and Colonel Pettis, went up the San Jacinto River some ten miles above its mouth, where they made, perhaps, the first improvement ever effected on that stream.”

An Early Settler of Texas by W.B. Dewees, compiled by Cara Cardelle in 1852, mentions Choate on page 18. Also, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas by John Henry Brown has the same verbiage, also on page 18, as follows: “According to the notes of Mrs. Briscoe, the first actual settlers arrived in April 1822, of whom Moses L. Choate and William Pettus were the first settlers on the San Jacinto, and a surveyor named Ryder, unmarried, settled on Morgan’s Point, on the bay.”

Yet another account of Moses L. Choate being wrecked on Red Fish Bar came from the October 1, 1906, issue of The Home and State newspaper. This account, written by esteemed Texas historian, James T. Deshields, told of the shipwreck at Boliver but then elaborated that Choate had later moved to Nacogdoches and then in 1837 to Livingston.

At this point it needs to be disclosed that there is no proof that this is “our” Moses L. Choate. We certainly would like to embrace these accounts. Enterprise staff writer Don Hendrix, one of the best Polk County historians, spent much time studying Choate history and found yet another account of the shipwreck story in Harris County, 1822-1845.

“The year 1822 seems to have been the earliest period claimed for any settlements (in Harris County), and it is more probable that the rumor if Austin’s colonization scheme caused them to be made. A few settlers may have come overland from Louisiana, but those of whom record is here made, arrived on shipboard, and were in some instances tossed ashore when their frail boats were wrecked by storms on the reefs and bars of the bay. Numbered among these were Moses L. Choate and Colonel Pettus, on board the Revenge, which was wrecked on Red Fish Bar in April 1822. Their schooner, commanded by Captain Shires, ran aground, and the passengers left the vessel and went up the San Jacinto River where they made homes, probably the first settlement on this river, or in Harris County.”

Mr. Hendrix embraced the Choate shipwreck story and included it in a front-page narrative to commemorate Polk County’s 140th anniversary. The following month, in his Trinity Valley Trivia column he admitted his assumption. Hendrix did a tremendous amount of research on Choate and his documentation of him and our county’s history is immeasurable. Thanks to Don Hendrix (1936-1995).