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Michael Young and his family gave their name to Young’s Settlement and Perryville at Hogeyewhen the post office was established in 1849.
The post office was discontinued in 1872 when the H&TC Railroad was constructed through Elgin and many businesses and people moved to the new town. Perry Young, born in 1834, was a son of Michael Young. Perry became a merchant, a justice of the peace, and from 1858 to 1861, Perry served as postmaster.
Michael Young, a son of Perygrene “Perry” Young, was born in Georgia on May 24, 1802. His birthplace was near that of the Standifer home and not far from the Savannah River and the border to South Carolina.
Michael Young, his wife, Rachel, two sons, Michael’s sister, Emily and her husband, Silas Jones, along with Elizabeth Standifer and her family, traveled by ox team to Texas in 1828. Originally from Georgia, their 700-mile journey began in Alabama where they had all settled.
Travel by ox team was long and arduous, but they got there. The same could not be said about the 20 male colonists who sailed on the schooner Lively from New Orleans in November 1821. Stephen F. Austin and his partner, Joseph H. Hawkins, had bought the Lively for $600 and outfitted the 30-ton sail ship with supplies for the Old Three Hundred. The vessel, however, encountered a gale enroute and arrived at the Brazos rather than the Colorado, just the beginning of a number of calamities.
Articles 1 and 3 of this series need to be amended slightly because the Young-Standifer group traveled to Texas, but not to Bastrop County. Their journey was to Michael Young’s league in Fort Bend County.
Fort Bend was on a large bend of the Brazos River. It was named for a large blockhouse that was built to protect Austin’s Old Three Hundred colonists from Native American raids. Fort Bend is about 60 miles upriver from the mouth of the Brazos near Freeport.
The land there was fertile, and the river was navigable for 250 miles. The river could, and did, flood. In 1833 while the Young family was living in Fort Bend County, the area was smitten with cholera. Nevertheless, the area was prime agricultural land and the colonists could grow sugar cane, rice and cotton. And, they could develop large impressive plantations.
Several Young siblings, besides Emily Jones, joined Michael. Anna and her husband Hugh McDowell Lawhon came from Alabama in 1854. Hugh was an older brother of David Ervin Lawhon, pioneer, printer, and publisher, who is buried in the Lawhon-Gardner Cemetery near Beaukiss. Another Young brother, Joseph, arrived the same year. According to Ruth Crowson, yet another brother, Francis, arrived in 1861.
About 1868, Michael Young and two of his sons, Anderson and Perry, along with their families, left Bastrop County for Bell County. They established Youngsport, a community on the Lampassas River, 9 miles south of Killeen.
Michael Young died at age 73. He had received a severe wound when an arrow struck him in his breast in 1841, perhaps contributing to his death many years later. The Bastrop Advertiser wrote that he died of an abscess of the liver.
Next issue will be about Elizabeth James Standifer and her marriage to Leman Barker.
Charlene Hanson Jordan wrote the above narrative as the fourth of a weekly column. Her newest book, “Notes & Recollections: Post Oak Island & Elgin, Texas,” is available at the Elgin Depot Museum where exhibits, photographs and books on local history are also available. The museum is open on Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. “Notes & Recollections” may also be purchased from the Niswanders at the Elgin Farmers Market, Veterans Memorial Park, every Thursday, 4 to 7 p.m. The book may also be purchased at the Elgin Courier office, 105 N. Main Street in Elgin, which can be reached at 512-285-3333 during business hours all week, or from her directly at [email protected] or 512-856-2562.
