Sarah McClure
by Jeffrey Dane
Like James Bowie, Sarah McClure was born in Kentucky (where she grew up) and died in Texas. Unlike Dilue Rose, however, Sarah was no longer a child but already a young married woman of 25 when she and her family experienced the Texas Revolution. The eventual breadth of her name — Sarah Ann Ashby McClure Braches — seems a very real kind of measure of her well-documented courage and deeds during that era. It was at her home — which still stands, near Gonzales, Texas — that Sam Houston first learned of the fall of the Alamo. The current structure on that site dates only from 1843.
She was the eldest of several children. Pointing up the difficulties faced by the researcher is that some sources say there were seven children in her family, others say nine, and yet others say twelve. The “six of one, half a dozen of the other” discrepancy can cause confusion, and seeking an answer to the same question from ten different scholars or other resources can net twelve different findings, it would appear.
Sarah came from Kentucky to Texas early in 1830 with her parents, John Miller Ashby and Mary Ashby, and her own husband, Judge Bartlett (Bartholomew) Dupree McClure, six years her senior, whom she had married two years earlier. The families settled at a site called Peach Creek, east of Gonzales, a town which played an important role in the Texas Revolution.
When her father died in 1839, the responsibility of both caring for her younger siblings and of administering her father’s estate fell to her. Even in later years, her youngest sister, Euphemia Ashby King, remembered Sarah’s counsel that they live their lives guided by morals, principle, and courage, with reminders of the motto of the Ashby family: “Be just and fear not.”
Three boys and a girl were born to Sarah and Bartlett, all of whom she outlived: her daughter died in infancy, and two of her boys are believed to have perished in the Runaway Scrape. She was widowed in 1841 and her son, Joel, a bachelor, died in 1870. Despite the occasional clear horizons and later-life bright days that brought some delight to her, clearly her existence was bestrewn with some difficulties, obstacles and personal tragedies that would have overwhelmed lesser women. Learning can be easier in our youth when our habits are still being formed, and that Sarah McClure was already an adult with her personal ways already established when she assumed a “Texas pioneer” life is a testament to her worth as a woman of great personal strength.
It was at the home of Sarah and Bartlett McClure that Gen. Houston stopped when he and his troops left the town of Gonzales on their retreat in March, 1836. More than two dozen women, many of whose husbands were away fighting in a town called San Antonio de Bexar, were fleeing the advent of the Mexican army and were also camped at Sarah’s home.
Gen. Houston had sent Henry W. Karnes, Erastus “Deaf” Smith, and Robert E. Handy to San Antonio for news about the status of matters at the Alamo — but enroute, the three of them encountered Susanna Dickinson, with her baby daughter, Angelina, making her way to Gen. Houston. She was the only Anglo woman who survived the final battle, and she told the trio what had happened. It would have been entirely understandable if her account was a tearful one, since her own husband, Almeron Dickinson, had perished in the siege, along with Bowie, Crockett, Travis, and every other Alamo defender.
On March 11, one of the men (some sources say Karnes, some say Smith) arrived back at Gen. Houston’s camp on the McClure property with the news of the Alamo carnage five days before. The Dickinsons had lived in a house at what is today 226 St. James Lane in Gonzales, Texas. Though the original building in which they lived was long ago demolished and the current house is a Victorian structure, a historical marker identifies the place as having been the site of the initial Dickinson home.
One can only imagine the wails of anguish from those unfortunate women on learning of the mission’s fall at the hands of Santa Anna, and that they were now widows. Parenthetically, the opening sequence of the 2004 Disney/Touchstone film The Alamo cinematically represents this very incident, thereby setting the mood for the ensuing feature.
Houston sent Bartlett McClure east to enlist the help of the “Redlanders” from San Augustine, eighty of whom would join Houston’s forces, thereby increasing the Texian army’s strength in anticipation of an encounter with Santa Anna’s troops. While Houston made preparations, Sarah and her people were camped near San Jacinto — within earshot of the Texian forces from whom she heard shouts of “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” during the short but now-historic encounter.
According to legend, Gen. Houston had situated himself under a large oak tree on the McClure property when he ordered the retreat in the interest of everyone’s safety. That oak tree is still in place today and, like the McClure house itself, is an official historic landmark in Texas. It’s also reported that Santa Anna himself camped at Peach Creek for a time and that during the interim he made the McClure house his own headquarters.
A year or two after Bartlett McClure’s death, Sarah married a man two years her junior: Prussian-born Charles Braches (”a man noted for abilities of a high order, and sterling character”), who the previous year was a member of the Texas Legislature and who had taken an active part in the Revolution. She and Braches lived at Peach Creek and had five children, only one of whom, Mary Frances (called “Mollie”) survived childhood, and lived until 1919, age 73. In addition to courage, Sara McClure also showed good judgement: Charles Braches was described as ” . . . a polished and refined gentleman . . . incapable of a mean or dishonorable act . . . a man of rare personal magnetism, fine address and brilliant talents . . . one of the ablest and most influential citizens of the community and . . . behaved himself with conspicuous gallantry.” He died in 1889, five years before Sarah.
During her colorful life she was considered by many an intrepid woman who would offer shelter to the itinerant. The following episode is indicative of the bravery that characterized her nature. — In the summer of 1838, she and Bartlett, traveling on horseback across the plains, encountered a party of more than two dozen Comanches. As both of them fled from the Indians, she and Bartlett somehow became separated. The Comanches who saw this tried even harder to capture her. She clearly knew she’d have to reach a nearby creek to have a better chance of escaping from this rather serious situation.
When she herself later wrote about this incident, she said, “I didn’t expect [my horse] to be able to jump clear across but I thought he would strike his feet in the opposite bank and I would be able to jump out over his head, but when he landed he managed to scramble up the bank and we galloped away safe and sound.”
The Indians rode up to the place and whooped and whistled and shook their spears at me but they didn’t dare to try to make the leap that I did. Mr. McClure took an opposite direction when we became separated and I thought all along that he was killed, but he succeeded in reaching the crossing above and joined me several miles further on. The Indians had spears which they had fastened to their wrists. These they threw at us several times during the early part of the pursuit, their object being to cripple our horses.”
Even during Sarah McClure’s lifetime, the historian John Henry Brown wrote of her, around 1890, that ” . . . her life is a part of, and interwoven with the most stirring period of Texas history.” Tellingly, he added, “. . . When [the leader] started upon his . . . expedition, Mrs. Braches had beeves killed and dressed, food cooked and a general supply of provisions prepared for the use of his men on their march. He wrote out and tendered her vouchers against the Republic to cover the expense that she had incurred, but these she refused to receive, saying that she considered it a pleasure as well as a duty to aid in a movement designed for the protection of the homes of the settlers to the full extent of her power and that she could not think of receiving pay for such a service.” It’s worth noting that the leader of the expedition in question, and who had written out the vouchers for her, was a man named James Bowie.
Having been born the same year as Franz Liszt (1811) and having died the same year Oscar Wilde brought out his play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1894), Sarah McClure lived during the Romantic era and her life extended clear across the 19th century. Though she had been bedridden for some time when she died at 83 at her Peach Creek home, where she had lived for most of her life, her mind had remained clear and sharp until the end.
“The hardships and dangers of the times in themselves seemed to have had a charm for the bold and hardy spirits who held unflinchingly their ground as an advance skirmish line of civilization.” This quote from a contemporary account of life in that era seems to exemplify in the proverbial nutshell the nature of the times, and the character of the people, as personified in Sarah McClure.
Author’s Bio
Jeffrey Dane is a contributor to Alamo Sentry. Much of his writing appears in print publications (which alas aren’t web-accessible) in the USA and abroad in several languages. Jeffrey does what he loves and loves what he does. Many magazine editors (but few book publishers, it seems) hold his writing in high regard. He and colleague Rod Timanus have co-authored a fairly lengthy book about Texas, for which they are currently seeking a publisher. Jeffrey learned of The Alamo Society from historian Richard Curilla in June, 1995 and crossed the line soon afterward.