strength of character made her, before her recent death, one of the conspicuous
figures of the prominent women of Texas.
MRS. WILLIAM H. WHARTON.
Was the daughter of Jared E. Groce, who went to Texas in 1821. Their home, Groce's Retreat, on the Brazos River, near the town of Hempstead, is well-known in Texas. Sarah Groce married when quite young William H. Wharton, a brilliant young lawyer, who had gone to Texas from Nashville, Tennessee, in 1829. He was president of the convention in 1833, held to dissolve the bond which united Texas to Mexico, and two years later was in the Texan Army at San Antonio. He was sent to the general consultation of the United States as one of the three commissioners and the following year was accredited to that Government as Minister from the Republic of Texas. Later he was elected to the Senate of the Republic, where he attained distinction. In 1839 his death was the result of an accident. Mrs. Wharton is remembered as one of the most forceful women in the political and social life of Texas, and some of her letters addressed to the prominent public women in the dark days when the prospects of Texan independence was in doubt are filled with a fervor, patriotism and energy worthy of the women in the heroic days of Carthage, and her appeals for the cause of human liberty were not unheeded and she is to-day believed to have been one of the potent powers of that time. Mrs. Wharton died in the late seventies. She had one son, General John A. Wharton, who served throughout the Civil War in the Confederate Army, but was afterward killed. His only daughter died unmarried, so that no direct descendants survive this pioneer woman.
MISS PETERSON.
Among the heroic women of the early days, we find many instances in those who went to California with the settlers. One of these was Miss Peterson, who aided in saving the lives of some miners who were perishing in the mountains of starvation. On being told of their condition by an Indian, she insisted on going to their rescue.
KATE MOORE.
There is a very interesting incident told of the bravery of one Kate Moore who resided on one of the islands in the south. She was brought to America by Grace Darling. Many disasters had overtaken vessels landing at Montauk Point, so upon taking up her residence near by she was constantly on the alert. She so trained her ear that she could tell the difference between the howling of the storm and the cries for help, and thus direct a boat, which she herself had learned to manage, in the darkest night to the spot where these poor, perishing mariners could be found. She was a person of fine education and great refinement, but adapted herself to her father's humble calling, and no night was too dark, nor storm too severe for her hand to be ready to launch her boat and aid in the rescue, and in fifteen years she had personally saved the lives of twenty-one persons.
