History of Kemah (From the Kipp Collection)
KEMAH, GALVESTON COUNTY, TEXAS
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KEMAH, GALVESTON COUNTY, TEXAS
John Flanders was also listed among the dead at the Alamo. [1]He was one of thirty-two men, commanded by Captain George Kimball, who entered the Alamo on March 1 from Gonzales. Why he was with men from Gonzales is unknown, although the 1934 Southwestern Historical Quarterly says he was a resident of Gonzales. Flanders was a private, 36 years old, unmarried, and had immigrated to Texas from Massachusetts by way of New Orleans. He was the son of Levi and Mary (Sargent) Flanders and was born in Salisbury, Massachusetts. John had been in business with his father whom he had a disagreement over a mortgage held by John on a piece of property owned by a widow. John wished to foreclose and his father opposed it. The disagreement developed into bad feelings and John left home and never communicated thereafter with his family. [2] Austin listed Flanders as a farmer from New Hampshire and it is unclear which of these accounts is the true one. It is possible that he went from Massachusetts to New Hampshire and then to Texas, but this cannot be verified.
In 1841 Allen Vince, of Vince’s Bayou in Harris County, was named administrator of the John Flanders estate. The estate was said to consist of only the labor of land at the mouth of Clear Creek on the Southwest side. A petition for sale of the land, to satisfy debts, was requested May 28, 1844. Money was owing for lawyer fees (in the case of Sawyer vs. Vince in District Court), and to the estate of William Vince, who had sold Flanders the property, and was the deceased brother of Allen Vince. The land was appraised at $2.00 per acre and sold to Jonathan D. Waters on July 2, 1844 for $354.00. [3]
[1] William Moses Jones, Texas History Carved in Stone. (Houston, TX: Monument Publishing Co., 1958). 403.
[2] Amelia Williams, “A Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly. (April, 1934), XXXVII, 161, 259.
[3] Walter, Prescott Webb, ed. The Handbook of Texas, II. (Austin, TX: The Texas State Historical Association, 1952), 844; Harris County Probate Records, Book A, Page 7, 91; Book C, Page 321, 336, 472.