Abraham Zuber, merchant or farmer?

Abraham Zuber, before coming to Texas in the early 1830s, seemed to be a foot loose merchant relocating in different states about every 2 years. So why did he come to Texas as a farmer securing a land grant in the very eastern edge of what would become Grimes County? He acquired his grant March 4, 1833. A footnote on page 166 of E. L. Blair’s “Early History of Grimes County” relating the Abraham Zuber early years in Texas, refers to Zuber’s son stating the reason “his father changed from a merchant to a farmer in 1816 was that his wife, Mary Ann Mann, whom he married, Feb. 16, 1816, inherited from her grandfather, Robert Deshazo, a ‘lot of valuable negroes,’ which enabled his father to become a farmer of considerable importance.”

Zuber’s son, William P. Zuber, who as he approached his 100th year of age, wrote that ‘telling’ item in his book “Ancestry and Kindred of W. P. Zuber.” William was a young 13-year old when he landed with the Zuber family on a survey near what is now Shiro, once called Prairie Plains or Red Top. During the 1836 Republic of Texas San Jacinto Campaign William served from March 1 to June 1, 1836. By 1827, the Zuber family was in nearby Louisiana. Abraham visited Texas in the next three years, before relocating to Harrisburg on Buffalo Bayou in 1831. It appears he intended to use Harrisburg as a base until locating a suitable league of land. The ensuing year found him on a farm on the east edge of the Brazos Bottom of Brazoria. However, the surveyor mistakenly included much land of another man’s previously acquired grant. Abraham’s land search then sent him north of Harrisburg where he was granted a league in what then was Montgomery County. It was partially located on an abandoned Kickapoo Indian village. There were several patches where the Kickapoos had planted corn and had also left standing several Indian cabins. Zuber moved his family into the cabins in 1833, the year he was granted the league. The cabins were used by the family until about 1839, when Abraham, also a skilled carpenter, completed a new house. It was a double-room log building that stood well east of the Indian cabins. Blair states that Zuber was loaned a cook and several other slaves by Jared E. Groce, until he could supply himself with servants of his own. This counters what his son, William P., writes decades later about his wife’s inheritance of slaves. Zuber apparently blended into the sparse community to be named the first District Clerk of Montgomery County that organized in 1836 after the just declared independence from Mexico of the Republic of Texas. A Texas State Historical Association article on Zuber reports that Abraham and his wife, along with daughter, Mary Ann Deshazo, fled eastward during the Runaway Scrape. Upon their return they found the thistle and briar injured Moses Rose at their household after escaping from the Alamo. Rose, a Frenchman who as a young man had fought with Napoleon, had made his way during those Scrape days to Zuber’s home as he had known Abraham at Nacogdoches.

Zuber died at the age of 68 in Nov. 1848. His wife Mary Ann lived until Oct. 1879. Their daughter, Mary Ann, married Dr. Rush Edwards. They lived on the Zuber homestead through their lifetimes. They are all buried in the small Zuber Family Cemetery on the homestead.

(Written by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation. See www.tworiversheritagefoundation. org for more information and membership).