"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.

Baker W. Armstrong: "You have a desire for roaming"

As brothers Baker and Robert Armstrong grew into young adulthood, they began casting about for lucrative jobs. For years they had evidently worked in the mercantile and druggist business, associated with the grocery store and pharmacy owned by their older half-brothers David Gibson Armstrong and William Dillon Armstrong. Their father's choices after the Civil War did not lead to the money-making enterprise Edward had hoped for, and the boys felt increasingly responsible for the family. Both boys had probably attended Roanoke College, for among the family papers are references to that college. (And if the amount of material here were not so overwhelming, I could put my finger on those references. I'll post more information later. ) But I am taking up the story here after Robert and Baker were finished with school and looking for employment. Various letters from druggist and mercantile businesses suggest that Baker was looking for opportunities elsewhere. The image above (click on it for a better view) is a reproduction of a note sent to William Dillon Armstrong from a wholesale druggist in Baltimore, Maryland. This was most likely a person with whom William Armstrong did some regular business, for he evidently had written Thomsen & Muth a letter of introduction for his younger half-brother, Baker.

Three months later, February 15, 1881, Baker received a letter from his Uncle James Dillon Armstrong (lawyer who served in the Virginia Senate before the Civil War and later became Judge of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit of West Virginia) which indicates that Baker had thought of pursuing medicine:

I am much pleased with your desire to be a physician but I doubt if your plan of becoming a commercial traveller for a Drug House in Baltimore is the best. You will lose time by it, and you have none to lose. Would it not be better to stay awhile longer with the Dr. and study all you can. How much will it cost for you to attend the lectures as long as you and the Dr. think necessary, and how much of that will you have. Let me know. I am anxious you should get to practicing as quick as possible. I wish you were ready to come here now. There is a fine opening.

Baker seems not to have followed his uncle's advice, according to all the clues in the family papers, for some time in 1883, he moved to Baltimore and found work there with George B. Seal, Druggist. That he continued to desire a position where he could make more money is apparent in the letters exchanged with his brother Robert.  What placed Baker on the course he was to take, as a druggist and as a traveling wholesaler? We can't know for sure, but perhaps there is a clue in a letter he received from a friend whose identity may forever remain a mystery, for the letter is signed simply: "your most sincere friend, B. R. A." The letter is dated January 29, 1881, and it's written on paper with this letterhead: Office of J. C. Russell & Co., Wholesale Grocers, Agents for Laflin & Rand Powder Co. and the Celebrated Kelley Plows, Clarksville, Texas.

My Dear Friend
I have just received your letter and being at leisure just at present I will give you an example of promptitude. Words can scarcely express the pleasure your letter afforded me. If you will send me yours I will see if I can find you a photo. I perceive from your letter, you have a desire for roaming, a feeling every young man has at our age. If you should chance to ever wander this way, you must be shure (sic) to stop in our little burg. I sometimes wish you were with me, in some of my trips on horseback across the state which is I believe about 500 miles square. I have crossed it east and west on different routes four times. Going on horseback is the only way to learn the true caracter (sic) and disposition of the people and it is said they are peculiar. I have almost quit hunting. While I was travling last summer I bought a one 1/2 and 1/2 blud (sic) and red bone hound that would run horse cow or man or anything else.

Before I left the farm I cought (sic) nineteen coons and about 52 opossums and other varmints. He is the best dog I ever saw, can trail a track 24 hours old.

Jack is well and doing well & sends his kindest greetings. I am the green clerk at present but have not entirely quit the cattle business. Yet I remain as ever
your most sincere friend

The letter writer and Baker were obviously acquainted. Were they related, too? Whatever the relationship between the two, it is tempting to conclude that perhaps this letter planted the seed for Baker's leaving Virginia for Texas, for by the end of 1884, Baker White Armstrong was in Bryan, Texas.

 

Photo of drugstore--may be the one in which Baker worked in Bryan, Texas

 

Click on images for larger view