In 1831 Mary Holley visited her cousin Stephen Austin at his home in Texas. It was her first visit to the region, and her letters home were filled with vivid, if idealized, descriptions of the people and land she encountered there. Her letters were published in 1833, and she later wrote the first English-language history of Texas. Although she never permanently settled in Texas, Holley’s writings attracted many others to the region.
Bolivar, Texas, December, 1831
One’s feelings in Texas are unique and original, and very like a dream or youthful vision realized. Here, as in Eden, man feels alone with the God of nature, and seems, in a peculiar manner, to enjoy the rich bounties of heaven, in common with all created things, The animals, which do not fly from him; the profound stillness; the genial sun and soft air—all are impressive, and are calculated both to delight the imagination and to fill the heart with religious emotions.
With regard to the state of society here, as is natural to expect, there are many incongruities. It will take some time for people gathered from the north and from the south, from the east, and from the west to assimilate and adapt themselves to new situations. The people are universally kind and hospitable, which are redeeming qualities. Everybody’s house is open and table spread to accommodate the traveller. There are no poor people here, and none rich; that is, none who have much money. The poor and the rich, to use the correlatives, where distinction, there is none, get the same quantity of land on arrival, and if they do not continue equal, it is for want of good management on the one part, or superior industry and sagacity on the other. All are happy because busy; and none meddle with the affairs of their neighbours because they have enough to do to take care of their own. They are bound together by a common interest, by sameness of purpose and hopes. As far as I could learn, they have no envyings, no jealousies, no bickerings, through politics or fanaticism. . . .
. . . I should say, industrious farmers will certainly do well, and cannot fail of success; that is to say, if abundant crops and a ready market with high prices will satisfy them. Substantial planters with capital and hands may enlarge their operations here to any extent and with enormous profits. One gentleman, for instance, whom I visited, has ninety-three acres under cultivation by seven hands. His crop this year consists of eighty bales of cotton, two thousand bushels of corn, five hundred bushels of sweet potatoes, besides other articles of minor importance.
Source: Mary Austin Holley, Texas: Observations, Historical, Geographical, and Descriptive, in a Series of Letters, Written during a Visit to Austin’s Colony, with a View of a Permanent Settlement in That Country, in the Autumn of 1831 (Baltimore: Armstrong & Plaskitt, 1833), 127–29.