Memories and memorabilia of Texas that span centuries
I’ve been interested in history and family lore since I was a kid listening to my dad and uncles entertain each other with stories about growing up on a Central Texas farm in the early decades of the 20th century.
A quick example: At a time when it was customary for a rural school teacher (invariably a young, single woman) to board with local families, my Uncle Clyde discovered late one night a stack of student essays on a parlor table.
Young Clyde, maybe 10 at the time, red-penciled in fake teacher comments, something like, “You dummy, this reads like hell.”
Although those tales, tall and otherwise, seemed like ancient history to a youngster, my family could barely go beyond three gen- erations. Not so with Fontaine Carrington Weems II, a retired commercial real estate developer who, at 85, can go back a long way in memory, memorabilia and family history.
On the walls of his comfortably cluttered Midtown office are maps from the man who bequeathed his name to the hemisphere (Amerigo Vespucci), a 1718 French map that contains for the first time ever the word “Tejas,” the first map of the Pacific as drawn by one of explorer Ferdi-
nand Magellan’s men. His collection of more than 270 maps is one of the largest and most valuable in the country.
He also collects model ships. Dry-docked in glass cases throughout his office are 52 intricately crafted (and very expensive) admiralty-type models that represent the evolution of shipping over the centuries.
“I grew up on the seashore, on Galveston Bay, and I watched the ships go by,” he says. “I also did some sailing in the Caribbean. Being around boats and ships, I couldn’t afford the size ship I’d really like, so I bought models and got deeply involved in collecting.” (Go to http:// weemscollections.com for images.) Historical insights
His family heritage offers insights into the early years of Houston, indeed the nation.
A decades-long resident of a city that often disdains its past — outside his office ’40s-era cottages are giving way to three-story townhouses — Weems maintains a sort of daily contact with his forebears. Portraits of his prominent father and grandfather hang in his office.
“History,” he mentioned the other morning, “helps guide us into what Catch up on Joe Holley’s travels through the Lone Star State at HoustonChronicle.com/nativetexan we do today.”
A friend of this deeply religious man told me that his advancing years and the passing of his wife Mary Ann last month — they were married 55 years — have prompted a period of assessment, a summing up, so to speak. The family mementos offer perspective.
I met Weems when he sent me an email in response to my inaugural column about Founders’ Cemetery near downtown.
He had a question about a cemetery occupant, one John Austin Wharton, Sam Houston’s adjutant general, whose gravestone reads, “the keenest blade of San Jacinto.”
At first, I thought Weems was kin to “the keenest blade.” He’s not, although there is a family connection to the colorful Wharton family.
Wharton’s nephew, also John Austin Wharton, was a lawyer, a Brazoria County plantation owner and a Civil War captain with Company B, Eighth Texas Cavalry.
The group was better known as Terry’s Texas Rangers, a mounted regiment organized in Houston by Benjamin F. Terry, a wealthy sugar planter.
“They were like Indian fighters; a lot of them didn’t wear Confederate uniforms,” Weems mentioned. “They were the fightin’-est group.” Fatal misunderstanding
Wharton eventually commanded the regiment and apparently kept on fighting after the war. Visiting Gen. John B. Magruder’s headquarters at the Fannin Hotel in Houston in 1865, he got into an argument with fellow officer George W. Baylor, an argument that grew out of “an unpleasant misunderstanding over military matters.” Baylor shot and killed Wharton.
Here’s the Weems/ Wharton connection: Benjamin Francis Weems — Carrington Weems’ grandfather — was adjutant general for Terry’s Texas Rangers. After the war, Captain Weems, as he was known, came back to Houston (population about 10,000 at the time), got into banking and had a son he named for the general.
The son, Wharton Ewell Weems, was an original partner in one of Houston’s best-known law firms, Vinson, Elkins, Weems and Searls (today’s V&E). Nick- named Wharky, he was the father of Carrington Weems.
You can tell that Weems is proud of his father, who died in 1961, and proud of his Confederate heritage, but he also has ties to an earlier generation of rebels. His great-great-grandfather was Mason Locke Weems, writer, traveling book salesman, fiddler extraordinaire and an early Episcopal minister. Cherry-tree tale
You and I and the rest of the nation know him best as Parson Weems, the author of the first and immensely popular biography of George Washington.
The parson, who by all accounts was something of a character, is the inventor of the enduring cherrytree myth, a schoolroom staple for more than two centuries.
Reveling in history’s quirks, I’d like to tell you that young Clyde that long-ago night was vandalizing grammar-school essays about the Father of our Country and the famous cherry-tree tale that Weems concocted, but alas I cannot — not after recalling the immortal words of the 6-year-old George. “I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet,” he said — or so Parson Weems said he said.
“True or not, the kids all got taught not to tell a lie,” the parson’s proud descendant says today. “So how important was it?”
joe.holley@chron.com