"Think Texas is the Place for Me"

At the end of 1884, Baker White Armstrong was in Texas, having left the employment of George Seals, Druggist, in Baltimore, Maryland for employment in Bryan, Texas, in the drugstore owned by George W. Norrell. There are hints in the letters from family that there were contacts in Bryan before Baker moved there. A letter from his sister Nettie suggests those connections: "I suppose you make a pet of Mrs. Cavitt's little girl. I saw her when she was in Salem and she was certainly an attractive child then. I am very glad you have met Miss Finley, Janie & Fannie seemed to like her very much. Is Clara Cavitt at home now? If you see her give her my love." I found online one early connection between the Armstrongs in Virginia and the Cavitts in Texas: Clara Cavitt had attended Hollins Institute, which all the Armstrong girls except Katie attended. (One of the Cavitt brothers attended Roanoke College, as had the Armstrong boys.) Robert Armstrong was to marry Clara's sister Cora Cavitt, but in 1884-1885, that marriage was in the future, Robert was still in Virginia, and Baker was making himself at home in Bryan, Texas, where he roomed with Gus Finley.

The photograph at top, left, is of Baker Armstrong (seated) and Gus Finley (standing), taken in 1886. Evidently, not long after moving to Bryan, Baker enlisted in a local rifle company. Baker's father Edward mentions the rifle company in a letter dated July 8, 1885: "Your delightful letter to us all, giving us description of your Military trip to Lampasas, was duly received and now that you are safely returned to Bryan, we are all glad you had the recreation and that you enjoyed it so much."

What rifle company was this? The letters do not reveal any specifics, but a quick search on the Internet offers clues. Various rifle companies or military batteries formed in cities or regions of Texas, and were rather loosely associated with one another and known more famously later as the Texas Rangers (See Texas Archival Resources Online.) In May 1885,  there was a State encampment in Lampasas where these military units met and competed (Google search: Year Book for Texas by C. W. Raines, 1903, p. 119). This was surely the "military trip"--or one similar--to which Edward M. Armstrong refers. These military units were called out to administer frontier law and order, breaking railroad strikes and quelling riots, and, previously, fighting Apaches.  There were several such military units associated with Bryan, Texas, including, during the years 1880-1886, the Bryan Rifles.

Mother Louisa was less sanguine about Baker's association with the rifle company. On July 1, 1885, a week earlier than her husband's writing, she had written Baker about her anxiety:

Received your postal from Lampassas and am anxiously awaiting a letter telling me of your trip and your safe arrival in Bryan. I felt quite anxious about you last week--thought much of you and prayed for you. Snakes--tarantulas, sickness & evils of different kinds presented themselves to my mind--but I do hope that you escaped all & by this time are safely at your place again. By the by, if there is the least danger of your being ordered off or have to engage in any fight of any kind, get out of that company. I have had enough of war in my day. I saw by the papers that companies from San Antonio had been ordered off to fight 'the Apaches.' Now be sure to keep out of such things.

Baker was still associated with the rifle company at the end of 1885, for in another letter, dated December 3, 1885, Louisa reveals her misgivings to her son again:

I hope you enjoyed your hunt Thanksgiving day. That rifle company bothers me. I am afraid something might happen that you would be ordered out. You must not get into any trouble of that kind. Resign first, if it does look cowardly. Your life is too precious. You are no Texan & not bound to protect Texas. I never want you to settle in Texas. Lay up your money and when you have enough, come back to Va & invest. There it too little godliness there.

But the "Left-for-Texas" bug had already bitten both Baker and Robert. Though Baker was to return to Virginia to visit and to get a wife, he was never to live there again. Robert was to go back and forth from Virginia to Texas for a few years before finally settling in Bryan and marrying a Texas girl. In a letter dated August 1, 1885, Robert tells his brother that he has abandoned law and had "already written to Uncle James to that effect." (However, he takes up law again and ends up practicing law in Texas.) "I must get a position somewhere," he tells his brother. "I think all my friends except Mother think Texas the place for me.