Well-known is the history of Lake Creek Settlement in the early years
of the community of Montgomery. Less well known is the exciting
history of the environs of Lake Creek 18 miles north of that
community. Let’s explore that excitement with a review of happenings
linked to the areas just east and west of “Upper Lake Creek.”
Allen Vince received a half league survey bordering Upper Lake Creek
on the west in May 1831. Earlier, in 1822, Vince had established a
homesite adjoining the site of the “Battle of San Jacinto” on April
21, 1836. Entering that battle ground, Mexican troops crossed “Vince’s
Bayou” while Vince built the bridge which Sam Houston destroyed over
nearby Sims Bayou. Furthermore, after that battle Mexican General and
President, Santa Anna, escaped on Vince’s black stallion only to
suffer captivity, all the while on Allen Vince’s property.
By 1847, Vince’s property on Upper Lake Creek had become part of the
huge plantation of James Scott, who came to Texas from Mississippi in
1839. Scott’s headquarters lay eight miles further west of Upper Lake
Creek, while his slave settlement was only a mile or so west on the
site of the present community of Richards. In 1845 James Scott
represented his district at the convention birthing Texas’s move from
a Republic to a State of the United States, only to meet his death at
sea in 1856.
Meanwhile, a son of James Scott, John, assumed executive control
of the eastern fringes of the Scott Plantation some two miles east of
Upper Lake Creek with headquarters at a site which John later named
Long Street to honor his commander in the Civil War. Beginning with
the era of that war, multiple were the legends which harbor thoughts
such as Wild Bill Hickok and Deadwood, South Dakota. Let’s address
a few “for instances”:
Just preceding that great war between the states, a citizen of what
would become Long Street named Kit Hall gained historical remembrance
stemming from a visit to Huntsville. There he overheard plans of some
slave traders to come to Long Street seeking to purchase slaves.
Hence Kit ambushed and killed them just south of that community and
took the gold with which they planned their purchases. However, on
failing to bury the bodies, buzzards revealed how Kit was able to
immediately show off his gold. This led to his hanging just east of
Long Street on what has since been called “Kit Hall Branch.”
Later, the two stepsisters of Kit Hall, the Alston Sisters, married
brothers in Waller County who each lost their lives in a gunfight,
only to return to Longstreet where their new husbands also lost their
lives in a gun battle, one with their brother, Nathaniel Alston, Jr..
The environs of Upper Lake Creek, enchanted are the memories.
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