BY Norman Rozeff
“Coming to the Valley from Ireland during the Mexican War, James G. Browne was a powerful ally of Stephen Powers. Prospering as a contractor, he became one of the regions’ largest landowners,rendering 113,000 acres for the 1892 Cameron County tax rolls. A staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, Browne served at various times as sheriff, tax assessor-collector, and county commissioner.
“His oldest son, James A., who married Agnes A. Powers, also served as sheriff and as tax assessor-collector. Another son, Mathew, served as sheriff. The Brownes had a strong following in Cameron County, and their support enhanced Stephen Powers’ and James Wells’ political influence.”
To understand how Powers was to obtain significant acreage in the Concepcion de Carricitas Grant, one must go back in time. The Concepcion de Carricitos Grant of approximately 75,000 acres, was initially awarded, on December 12, 1780, to brothers Eugenio and Bartolome Fernandez, both nobleman who had served as distinguished soldiers under the king of Spain. It was Bartolome alone who then paid the $52 fee for the whole grant.
His brother Eugenio later contested the award to Bartolome only but lost his case. Bartolome, in fact, had surveyed and delineated the grant, as was required, in May 1789 and was then declared sole owner of the grant. Upon Bartolome’s death he willed the grant to his wife Dona Rita de la Garza and his two illegitimate children, Joseph Eugenio and Antonio Gertrudis, each receiving one-third. Parts of the grant were later sold to others who were not family.
Powers obtained a sizable portion of the land grant when he acted as attorney for later claimants who were attempting to establish title to their holdings. Powers did in fact secure confirmation of their title by the Supreme Court of Texas and the state legislature. Not being able to pay Powers in cash they paid him with land that was not fronting the river and exclusive of Los Rucias. The value of the grant’s land at that point was a mere 10 cents an acre.
Events evolved into more complications when, in September 1883, son-in-law Benjamin O. Hicks executor of the estate of the now deceased Powers partitioned the court for the partition of the Concepcion de Carricitos Grant, noting that Powers had previously obtained land interests from seven heirs with river-fronting parcels. In his will Powers had left equal shares of these parcels to his daughters Kate Maria Impey Combs, wife of Dr, C. B. Combs, and Annette Pauline Impey Hicks, wife of Benjamin O. Hicks.
These parcels had earlier belonged to Justo Trevino. The Hicks and Landrum land was located in share No. 24.It later became known as the Landrum Plantation, El Rancho Cipres, or the Highland Community. Historian Anne L. McGee researched Landrum’s story in depth and had this to write about him in the book Gift of the Rio (1975) “ William Landrum, James’ father, was born in Georgia but moved to Stockton, California.
While there, he became inspired with the idea that a more durable fiber than silk or cotton was needed. He took a freighter and crew around the Cape of Good Hope to Africa, where he bought some Angora goats, which he brought back to California. Finding his wife ill with tuberculosis, he decided to move to the high, dry climate of Uvalde, Texas, a location favorable for an Angora goat ranch.
His family included four sons and two daughters. In Uvalde the Landrum family chanced to become acquainted with the Stephen Powers family. After his first wife’s death, Powers had married Willa Marion and had two daughters, Annette (Mrs. Ben Hicks) and Frances. Annette was much older than Frances. When Frances was born, her mother died, and she was reared by Annette, who by then was Mrs. Hicks. (For many years all of Frances’ children thought Mrs. Hicks was their grandmother.)
The meeting of the two families took place when a friend invited seventeen-year-old Frances Powers to go with her on a visit to Uvalde, by stage, for a weekend. They stayed at the old hotel where the Powers family always stayed. That weekend there was a big dance at the hotel, and it was there that Frances met William Landrum’s youngest son, James.
During the following year James Landrum made arrangements to visit Frances in Brownsville. Mr. Landrum, through friends, had to secure letters of character and recommendation to take with him on the visit so that he could be introduced in the traditional formal manner. A year later, in 1893, they were married in Brownsville. To celebrate the connection of the two families, Judge Powers, who was strong politically, had William Landrum make a mohair coat for President Taft.
When Mrs. Landrum became very ill in her early forties, Landrum took the whole family in a private railroad car to San Antonio to consult a specialist. They spent at least a month there. The youngest daughter, Frances, was a tiny baby when her mother died of kidney trouble at the age of 43. The two older girls, Mattie and Pauline, were sent to a convent school in Brownsville. Little Frances remained at home and was cared for by a nursemaid and her father and, later, by a stepmother.
James L. Landrum, Jr., son of J. L. Landrum and Mary Talbot Landrum, lives in San Benito with his wife Lois and children. For the first year of their marriage (through the birth and death of their first son) the Landrums lived in Brownsville with the Benjamin Hicks family. In 1894 they moved near the present location of the Landrum home on the Old Military Highway south of San Benito. Frances Powers Landrum had inherited that part of the Powers estate, but the title needed to be cleared.
Meanwhile they lived in a seven-room adobe jacal. They immediately started making plans for building the fine two-story brick home, which still stands. Landrum built a kiln on the plantation and made the bricks for the house. All the lumber used inside and out was cypress (cipres) shipped in by boat from New Orleans and landed at the plantation river dock just behind where the house now stands. The home was completed in 1902. In the meantime, in order to be able to have income off the land, he planted crops and devised a way of getting the land irrigated.
He built cypresswood flumes and a crosswise canvas device with a canvas sail. With a little wind and some priming, the water flowed into the small ditches he had dug. Thus his early crops of cotton, vegetables and hay were grown. Later he also raised grain.
From the beginning, plantation life was interesting. Game of all kinds was plentiful. The main diversion in social life was horseback riding. Trips to Brownsville and Laredo were made by stagecoach at first and later by train. Life was simple but pleasant on the ranch.
In 1904 it was Colonel Sam Robertson’s good fortune to be a guest at the Landrum Plantation home. He stated, “This was the most delightful, hospitable home it was my privilege to enter.”
The Landrums had a dozen servants, well fed, happy and contented, and all loved their dear patron. He was a real father, protective to all his people. For 40 years he never had a lock on his home or storehouse.
Early in his career Landrum identified himself with Robertson and Oliver Hicks in canal and railroad building. In 1910 and 1911, in order to encourage land sales, Robertson built the San Benito and Rio Grande Valley Railroad from Sugarland through Rio Hondo, San Benito, Highlands, La Paloma, Carricitos, Los Indios and Rangerville to Santa Maria, and then on from Madero through Mission to Monte Cristo. This raiload was called the “Spider Web” and the “Back Door Railroad.”
It operated a gasoline motor car for passengers and express and steam locomotives for freight. The little locomotive was known as the “Galloping Goose.” This railroad was later absorbed by the Missouri Pacific. Landrum contributed much to progress with his plantation. When he died in 1936 at the age of 73, he left his estate to his three daughters. (Three other sons had died in infancy. One is buried in the Powers family plot in the old Brownsville cemetery, and the other two in the little family cemetery on the ranch.)
Mrs. Frances Landrum Talbot inherited the home place with something like 2000 acres of land. In all, the Powers Estate had acquired something like 60,000 acres of land, but Landrum had disposed of some of it before his death. Now about 1000 acres of the original plantation is leased out for farming. The Highlands acreage, where the first school was located, is also in cultivation. A large hackberry grove nearby is called Landrum Park. The house has been refurbished and restored in the interior.”
James L. Landrum (1863-1936) was to become a partner in the San Benito Land and Water Company. As the narrative submitted to the Texas Historical Commission for the Spider Web Railroad marker in Hidalgo County recounts “ In 1904 Landrum and his father-in-law, Oliver Hicks received a verbal received a verbal contract from Sam Robinson for the San Benito Project to build the San Benito Canal, the town of San Benito, and the purchase of thousands of acres of land from the old Powers estate.
By November 1906, Robertson had succeeded in raising enough capital to begin construction on the canal. The San Benito Land and Water Company partners raising $500,000 for this entity were Judge R. L. Batta, Ed F. Rowson, William H. Stanger A. C. Swanson, and the three Heywood brothers, O. W., Alba, and Scott. The San Benito and Rio Grande Railway Company organized by Sam Robertson, and later financed by Benjamin F, Yoakum, was affectionately called the “Spider Web” or “Sam Robertson’s Back Door Railroad”. By October 1914 a company schedule noted the distances between stations. On the Landrum Branch distances from San Benito were: Boulevard Junction 1.2 miles; La Paloma 6.6; and Landrum 8.3.”
The City of San Benito is on land purchased by the San Benito Land and Water Company from James L. and Frances E. Landrum, Alba Heywood, and R. F. Batts (assignee of Frederick J. and Joseph K. Combe – Combe ‘s land). During the Bandit Era in 1916 national guard troops were stationed near the Highland School in a measure to protect the Landrum area. Today the Landrum House on the south side of US 281,the Military Highway, is owned by Jesus and Diana Artiaga. Their plans are to fully restore the premise and later periodically open it to the public.
