A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt

1. Many a River: The Van Zandts of Texas

1  Many a River: The Van Zandts of Texas O F ALL THE SOURCES FROM which Townes Van Zandt drew nourishment and influence, none was more nourishing or more influential than the Texas soil from which he sprang and in which his roots grew so deep. When Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, the Mexican government began to encourage settlement in what was then Mexico’s northernmost province, Coahuila y Tejas. Within a short time, there was a steady flow of norteamericano settlers into the province, led officially by Stephen Austin and his famous colony. By 1830, there were 30,000 American settlers in Texas. Rapidly mounting tensions between the settlers and the Mexican government led to revolution, beginning in 1835 and followed rapidly by Texas’ Declaration of Independence on 7  8 A Deeper Blue: The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt March 2, 1836, then ending the next month with the surrender of Mexican forces and the capture of General Santa Anna on the battlefield at San Jacinto, with Texas thereby established as an independent republic. Throughout the next decade, AngloAmerican settlement of the region continued. From east of the Sabine, more and more men and their families lit out for the new territory, lured by the well-advertised prospect of cheap land and abundant work. Often with little or no notice, these pioneers left their old lives behind them, along with signs saying simply, “Gone to Texas.” One of those pioneers was Isaac Van Zandt, son of Jacob and Mary (Isaacs) Van Zandt. The Van Zandt family originally sailed from Holland prior to the American Revolution, settling in New York then migrating to North Carolina. Jacob took his family to Franklin County, Tennessee, in 1800. Isaac was born there on July 10, 1813.1 When Isaac married Frances Cooke Lipscomb in December 1833, he and his father were proprietors of a store in Maxwell, Tennessee, near Salem. When Jacob died in 1834, the young couple moved to Coffeeville, in northern Mississippi , where Isaac opened his own store. A daughter, Louisa, was born later that year, and a son, Khleber Miller, was born on November 7, 1836. Widespread hard times struck in 1837, and the Van Zandt business failed. The family was struggling and in debt, but Isaac was enterprising and intelligent. Having become somewhat accomplished at public speaking through his membership in a local debating society, Isaac decided to take up the study of law. In 1838 he took his examinations and was admitted to the Mississippi bar, and within the next year he had hung his own “Gone to Texas” sign and moved with his family to a small, one-room log cabin in Elysian Fields, in the Red River District (later part of Harrison County). On January 5, 1840, another son, Isaac Lycurgus, was born. Van Zandt had persuaded a wealthy local landowner to donate land whereon to establish a town and a college, and he became active in laying out the town that was to become Marshall, Texas,  Many a River: The Van Zandts of Texas 9 which he named after the Chief Justice of the United States. Van Zandt was quickly becoming a civic leader when he was elected to represent Harrison and Panola counties in the House of Representatives of the Fifth and Sixth Congresses of the Republic of Texas, where he served from 1840 to 1842. He soon emerged as an influential voice in the House. In 1842, Isaac bought 200 acres in Marshall and moved his family there, including a new baby, Frances Cooke Van Zandt, born in May of that year. Van Zandt was experienced and respected enough as a legislator and politician that in July 1842 Sam Houston, by then President of the independent Republic of Texas, appointed him Chargé d’Affairs to the government of the United States. Isaac took his family to Washington, D.C., and began to work for the annexation of Texas to the Union. The Van Zandts remained in Washington for two years, until that goal was achieved. During their time in the nation’s capital, in May 1844, a daughter, Ida, was born, the last of Isaac and Frances’ five surviving children. The family returned to Texas in time for Isaac to attend the Convention of 1845, where the delegates considered and approved the joint resolution of the U.S. Congress accepting annexation of Texas. Van Zandt and the...