TOMBSTONE TUESDAY: Judge Hugh Walker Hawes

TOMBSTONE TUESDAY (April 29, 2025): Judge Hugh Walker Hawes (1798-1883) was born in Caroline County, Virginia on October 20, 1798 and at the age of twelve moved with his family to Kentucky. As a young lawyer, he went to New Orleans, where he joined the law firm of Judge Jean Dominique de Rion, whose only daughter he married. Sometime after 1833, Hugh W. Hawes with his wife Marie Martha Juliette and their two sons, John Richard and Charles Theodore returned to Kentucky. They welcomed a daughter Emma in 1835. Sadly, Marie died after giving birth to their second daughter Juliette, who also died. Hugh then married 18-year-old Corilla Calhoun in 1842. During their 41-year marriage, Corilla gave birth to 5 children in Kentucky and 2 more children after they had moved to Texas.

Hugh was one of the pioneering settlers of Matagorda Island, seeing the area as a potential alternative to New Orleans. He had first traveled to the island from Kentucky in 1839. He was a fairly wealthy man for his time and by the mid 1800’s had established a lucrative receiving and forwarding business on Saluria Bayou on the northeast end of Matagorda Island. 

In November 1852, following approval for the construction of a roadway between Indianola, LaSalle, Alligator Head (today Port O’Connor) and Saluria on Matagorda Island, Hugh petitioned the Calhoun County Commissioners Court for the right to operate ferries and to charge a toll over Pearce and McHenry Bayous. Approval was given and ferry toll rates were set: wagons with 6 oxen or horses -$1.00; wagons with 4 oxen or horses and pleasure carriages - 75 cents; carts, drays or horse and rider – 50 cents; pedestrians - 25 cents; and horses and cattle – 10 cents.

Hugh operated between Kentucky and Texas, gradually increasing his holdings on Matagorda Island, until he sold his Kentucky plantation on the Ohio River in 1853 and moved his growing family to Matagorda Island. His oldest son, John Richard, tragically drowned in Matagorda Bay in 1856 at age 25 when his foot got entangled in an anchor chain.

In 1857, Hugh W. Hawes sold to the United States for the token sum of $1.00, a 50-foot -square block of land on the north bank of McHenry Bayou, opposite the town of Saluria for the construction of the “Saluria Light.” This was a square wooden tower with a wooden lantern which was completed in 1858, along with the Half Moon Reef and Alligator Head Lighthouses. The Saluria Light was destroyed in the Civil War and was not reconstructed.

A January 8, 1859 Victoria Advocate article describes a notice about a “new enterprise” proposed by Judge Hugh W. Hawes and Col. Daniel P. Sparks, owner of one of the wharfs at Indianola. The article states that these two “men of means, experience and energy have determined to get up a line of steamers to run direct from New Orleans to Matagorda Bay to be called ‘The Western Texas and New Orleans Steamship Company.’ Upon this line are not to exceed 60 cents per barrel, cotton $1.50 per bale, nor passage $15.00. They propose to raise the means by subscription. One share of $100 constitutes a man a member of the company and entitles him to vote.” The article states that they had traveled through Victoria for the purpose of soliciting interest in their enterprise. It said that in one day in Indianola $23,000 of stock had been taken and the writers had no doubt that the enterprise will be profitable. 

The enterprise did turn out to be profitable and included two steamships which made regular runs to and from New Orleans. Hugh built a large warehouse and wharf, so that deep-draft ships that did not want to sail into the shallow bay waters could offload their cargo on the island and have it transferred to the mainland. He also established a sheep and cattle ranch, recognizing the big advantage of the Matagorda Island grasses and year-round grazing.

Once Abraham Lincoln was elected President on November 6, 1860, things moved quickly in Indianola and Texas as a whole. On November 21, a mass meeting was held at the courthouse - complete with a night procession and a band and the display of various slogans painted on glass, illuminated by candles and lamps. Such gatherings were common throughout the southern states to whip up sentiment for secession. Hugh was one of five vice presidents chosen to lead the efforts in Indianola. Texas joined the Confederate States of America on March 2, 1861, two days before President Abraham took office. 

On March 30 and again on April 9, Hugh wrote letters to his longtime personal friend John H. Reagan, who had very recently been appointed the postmaster general of the Confederacy, detailing activities of various Navy vessels of the United States lying in Saluria and expressing alarm that the “towns are totally undefended.” During the federal blockade of 1862, when invasion seemed imminent, Saluria inhabitants fled to the mainland and Confederate troops stationed at nearby Fort Esperanza later burned the town, dismantled the lighthouse, and drove most of the cattle off the island. 

After the war ended in April 1865, with his fortune decimated and his home and improvements in ruins, Hugh Walker Hawes regrouped and expanded his ranching operation.

Ten years later, Hugh and his family once again experienced tragedy when on September 16, 1875 a category 3 storm with winds of 115 mph hit the area causing significant damage and loss of life. There was a schooner named “PeeDee” carrying a large load of lumber that had left Calcasieu Louisiana on the morning of September 14 headed for Indianola. By their arrival in Matagorda Bay on the afternoon of the 15th the high seas and strong winds were already foreshadowing the violence to come the following day. According to an account in the book “Indianola – The Mother of Western Texas” by Brownson Malsh, the “PeeDee” began to break up as it approached shore and the loosened lumber on deck began flying in every direction. When the crew reached the land, they found Judge Hawes sitting there with an axe, which he had brought from his residence, thinking it might be needed. Judge Hawes invited the captain and crew members to take shelter with he and his daughter Mary and son-in-law Robert John Horton in their home. One cask of water out of six on the “PeeDee” washed ashore without breaking and provided the group their only source of fresh water for the next three days.

The hurricane caused extensive damage to Upper Saluria, with more than 30 of the approximately 43 residents perishing. Judge Hawes and his family survived due to the higher elevation of their home in Lower Saluria.

Judge Hugh Walker Hawes died on Matagorda Island in 1883 and is buried there near his home. A large white tombstone marks his grave. His descendants continued ranching on Matagorda Island, enduring droughts, blizzards and several hurricanes, sickness and deaths until 1940 when the land was taken from the family by the United States government at the start of WWII. It was never returned to them. You can view a historic map of Calhoun County showing Upper and Lower Saluria and the location of the Saluria Light at the following link: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth88396/m1/1/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=client&utm_content=ark_sidebar&utm_campaign=ark_permanenthttps://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth88396/m1/1/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=client&utm_content=ark_sidebar&utm_campaign=ark_permanenthttps://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth88396/m1/1/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=client&utm_content=ark_sidebar&utm_campaign=ark_permanent https://texashistory.unt.edu/.../67531/metapth88396/m1/1/...

Tombstone Tuesday is written and compiled each week by Jody Weaver and Sheryl Cuellar of the Calhoun County Historical Commission, sharing the people and stories behind Calhoun County's history.