From 1842 to 1844 the Texan Congress held its meetings at Washington on the Brazos—the spot where, a few short years before, the declaration of independence had been adopted.  
The nation born amid the gloom and uncertainty of that stormy time now stood forth proud in the consciousness of growing strength, free and full of hope for the coming years.
 
An armistice was signed with Mexico (1843) which left the Republic at peace. The Indians under the wise rule of the “Big White Chief,” Houston, made but few outbreaks. Year by year more fields were fenced in, more orchards and gardens were planted, more dooryards were set with vine and rose-tree.
 
Immigrants poured in. Many came from “the States”; but others crossed the wide seas to find homes in that fertile Texas whose story of struggle and triumph was in everybody’s mouth. Henry Castro, a French gentleman, who was consul-general for Texas at Paris, obtained in 1842 large grants of land from the Republic, and brought over five hundred families from France. These settled on the Medina River west of San Antonio. Another important colony came from Germany under the leadership of the Prince de Solms, and founded the thrifty town of New Braunfels on the Guadalupe.
 
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The roads were white with westward-traveling wagons which stopped to pass the time of day, as it were, with all the little towns along the way. In those hospitable days small barrels of tar stood as a matter of course on the sidewalks. Long-handled dippers floated in the tar, so that the passing wagoner might help himself and ease his creaking wheels.
 
As for the wayside houses, their doors were always open to the wayworn mover and his family. The women and girls peering out from under the wagon cover, the boys trudging sturdily along by the driver’s side, the dog trotting in the shadow of the feed trough,—all these were to the free-handed pioneers as welcome as kinsmen.
 
 
Old Capitol at Austin (1839).
 
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The newcomers were often struck with amazement at the curious contrasts they saw on the frontier. “You are welcomed,” writes one traveler, “by a figure in a blue flannel shirt and pendant beard, quoting the Latin poets.... You will see fine pictures on log walls; you will drink coffee from tin cups on Dresden china saucers. Seated on a barrel, you will hear a Beethoven symphony played on a rosewood piano. The bookcase may be half full of books and half full of potatoes.”
 
But while the western border thus filling up with settlers was quiet and unmolested, there was serious trouble over on the eastern line. A band composed mostly of rough desperadoes from the old Neutral Ground roamed along the Sabine River, shooting and killing innocent citizens under the pretext of punishing theft, negro-stealing, and other offenses. They called themselves the Regulators. An opposition band, made up of men as reckless as themselves, undertook in turn to punish them, and to administer justice generally. These were known as the Moderators. Between the Moderators and Regulators, Shelby, Harrison, and the neighboring counties were kept in a state of terror. Honest men were afraid to venture out of their own homes; for no one could guess when or upon whom the so-called justice of these bands would fall. Bloody “courts” were held in the swamps, one day by the Regulators, the next, and perhaps on the same spot, by the Moderators, both equally cruel and lawless. Wild stories were told of certain leaders in either gang whose victims were always shot in the left eye; of others again whose weapon was not the rifle, but poison.
 
At one time more than a thousand men were engaged in this feud. In the summer of 1844 the Regulators a............