The Gotcher Trace: 1831-1845
It was the Summer of ’59, and my brothers and I were staying with our grandparents, helping to bring in a late-season cotton crop. We were near the tiny community of Pin Oak, just across the Fayette/Bastrop County line. After a long day in the field, we were standing on a neighbor’s driveway where my Grandfather Andy was telling a story.
Facing south, toward a dry Spaulding Branch, he pointed southeast to a nearby tree-covered hill. “There is where the old Spaulding homestead was located--where as boys, my brother Robert and I would play among the fallen cedar logs,” he said. “You could still see where the gun ports were hand-cut into the old logs.”
It would be almost forty years before I would climb that hill for myself to search for the old cabin/blockhouse site. The land had changed much since my grandfather told that story. Trees had been cleared and in their place were metal towers. The soil had been turned by a plow, but I knew the story.
Per his family’s history, James Gotcher, leaving his wife and children safely in Alabama, made several exploratory trips into Texas as early as 1829. Always moving, his tracks were shallow on the land.
He first came to San Felipe de Austin, the provincial capital of the new Colony. In 1831, the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe approved a petition for the marking and clearing of a “trace” or road between San Felipe and Mina (Bastrop), the far western frontier of the new Colony. As an experienced trailblazer and teamster, Gotcher was up to the task.
I believe that Gotcher built a cabin near the confluence of Pin Oak Creek and Pecan Fork (now Spaulding Branch) and began work on the Trace.
On April 30, 1831, one league of land, including Gotcher’s cabin site, was granted to Charles Edwards of New York, who by all accounts did not live on the land. I can find no documents to prove Gotcher’s legal rights to this land, but the trail of ink hints at another story.
By late 1833, James Gotcher, his wife Nancy, daughter Jane, and sons Sam, Nathanial, James, and William Riley were in Texas. Gotcher and his sons were teamsters, haulers of freight. Business was good. The towns of San Felipe and Mina/Bastrop were growing fast. Two of Gotcher’s sons and Jane’s husband were serving in volunteer units of the Texan Army. Living at the Pin Oak Creek cabin for a time, they soon moved to the “camp house” site on the upper reaches of Rabb’s Creek to work on the Trace just east of present-day Serbin.
Jane’s husband, Lemuel Crawford, lost his life with the fall of the Alamo in March 1836. A handful of days later during the Texas Army retreat, Sam Houston burned the town of San Felipe to the ground as a defensive tactic and the town was abandoned.
The Plains Indians were aware that their two enemies, the Texians and Mexicans, were at war and they struck deep into the heart of the new settlements.
In early 1837, while the Gotchers were working at the “camp house,” Indians attacked and killed James Gotcher, his wife Nancy, sons Sam, Nathanial and another, un-named. Jane Gotcher Crawford, her baby Margaret, and younger brothers James and William Riley were taken captive.
Edward Burleson and a group of Texas Army Volunteers found the bodies and buried them in a wooded valley below the camp house. Search parties were sent out to recover the captives, but the trail had gone cold.
Moving from camp to camp on the open plains, Jane endured untold hardships; but her greatest challenge was keeping the children alive. Later that year, a kindly trapper/frontiersman, Charles Spaulding, redeemed (or purchased) Jane and the family at a trading post near the Red River. They returned to the site of the James Gotcher homestead on Pin Oak Creek, where Spaulding married Jane on February 1, 1838, and brought up the little band as his own..
Many historians, including myself, believe that during the years 1831 to 1845 there were two trails/ traces that provided critical links between Mina/ Bastrop and San Felipe de Austin, with connections to Washington on the Brazos. Both routes were associated with James Gotcher and his family. Both routes make sweeping arcs to the north, attempting to stay on the high ground.
The upper Trace traversed Fayette County near today’s Round Top, where it intersects the La Bahia Road and fords Cummins Creek.
The lower trail, also hidden by the years, crosses over near current-day Warrenton, intersecting the La Bahia Road and breaches Cummins Creek to the southeast. The two paths merge into one before reaching San Felipe.
Today only one of these trails, the upper Trace, bears the name Gotcher Trace for some of its distance. Most of it drivable. A Texas Centennial Marker sits at the site of the Gotcher Massacre just east of present-day Serbin in Lee County, it is on private property but accessible. The faint trail continues eastward to south of Ledbetter, where there is another historical marker.
The lower route, clearly shown on Stephen F. Austin’s “connected map,” dated 1833-1837, connects Bastrop and San Felipe. The Gotcher Spaulding Family Cemetery, adjacent to the original Gotcher cabin site, is on this lower route near the community of Pin Oak in Bastrop County. It is on private property and is not accessible. Please respect the rights of private property owners.
Special thanks to Perry Gotcher, a great researcher and road trip partner.
Please note that you will find various other spellings for James Gotcher’s surname, including Gotier, Goacher, and Goucher.
Sources: Bastrop County Before Statehood, by Kenneth Kesselus; SFA Connected Map, 1833-1837, GLO #88999; Walter Freytag Files, La Grange Library/ Archives; The papers of David O. Emison, a Gotcher descendent; Pawnee Prisoner, the Jane Gotcher Crawford story, by Vivian McCullough
