THE NEALE HOUSE: ANOTHER MONUMENT TO SLAVERS LIKE STILLMAN?

By Juan Montoya

Remember the reconstruction of the Charles Stillman Laureles Ranch House that cost the city thousands to move from Corpus Christi where its carcass had ben shunted to a desolate corner of that city's historical museum property?

In fact, despite claims from the family and their supporters that they had the original plans for the structure, there was no existing proof that the ranch house had ever been built to specifications and all that remained was one central section of the structure. In fact, when it arrived in Brownsville no one could believe that it could be restored and looked like an eyesore.  

(The Corpus Christi folks, no fools they, wanted to get rid of the hulk so badly, they gladfully "donated" it to the Brownsville rubes.)

First, the city signed a "Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Transporting Charles Stillman House" through then-City Manager Charlie Cabler and Brownsville Historical Association Director Priscilla Ann Rodriguez on Nov. 9, 2012 that stated that "the city has been given a house once occupied by Charles Stillman known as Los Laureles Ranch House..."

Under the terms of the MOU, the city estimated that the cost of moving the house from Corpus Christi would be about $65,000.

"Because of the historical, educational, and general public importance of having the home of the founder of Brownsville in the city he founded, City is willing to contribute $25,000 to the BHA to (solely and exclusively) assist in relocating the house to Brownsville," the MOU stated.

About three months later, during a presentation by then-Assistant City

Manager for Finance Pete Gonzalez he disclosed that the city had already spent $39,000 without bothering to go to the city commissioner for approval of the funds although it had gone over the $35,000 discretionary limit. 

That money was part of the $3 million awarded to the city from its share of a settlement with American Electric Power Texas Central Co. And – perhaps more importantly – there had been no  item on a city agenda asking the commissioners to approve the outlay from those funds.

Well, the city is up to its bad habit again of spending money on dilapidated homes of the former city "founder," who used legal chicanery with his lawyer friend Samuel Belden to steal the land from its land-grant holders, and now intends to use $190,000 to move a house and restore it for William Neale, a former mayor who was an officer in the confederacy who supported slavery and gained a reputation for being a good hunter of runaway slaves who escaped into Mexico.

It, too, is a rotting hulk of old timber that has undergone countless "renovations" as the city's Art League museum, the American Legion Hall and canteen, and now occupies a space in a dead-end street in front of a section of the border wall built by the Department of Homeland Security against the wishes of the now-defunct University of Texas-Brownsville-Texas Southmost College    

  

But there is a twist to this structure. Even though descendants of the Stillman family pitched in to pay for some of the charges, the bulk of the cost was borne by the taxpayers of the city. The result was a palatial ranch house that looks nothing like the original structure. 

The only difference between the descendants of Charles Stillman and the William Neale is that now the latter's occupy positions of power and politics which will allow the citizens again to carry he financial load of glorifying their family's "legacy." 

John Cowen is now the city's mayor and the Cowens – , Phil, Ralph, etc. – wear the "heritage" of their ancestors on their sleeve. During his campaign, mayor Cowen wrote that "two of my ancestors, William Neale and John S. Ford, served as Mayors of Brownsville in the mid-1800s during the early formation of our city. We are proud of their service and other members of my family that have served in various elected positions."

But idols have been found to have their feet of clay. Neale, for example, made a lucrative living chasing runaway slaves into Mexico and returning them to their owners. His dubious claim to fame is  outlined in "The Twin Cities of the Border," by Lt. W. H. Charfield written in 1893.

According to Chatfield, the captured runaway slaves "in most cases, however, they were glad to return, when their masters followed them to their lairs: and offered to take take them back to the "Old Cabin Home." Oh, yeah, sure.

It is also worth noting that his son, William Peter Neale, was one of the men that Juan Nepomuceno "Cheno" Cortina, had on his hit list when he and 75 followers took over Brownsville in September 1859. According to a pronunciamento, the younger Neale had wantonly killed innocent Mexicans and walked around free with impunity.  When Cortina's raiders found him, he was sleeping at his father's home and took a bullet through a window when he woke suddenly to the sound of gunfire and sat bolt upright in his bed. What remains of the original building is now the Neale House.

And John "Rip" Ford, who was also served as mayor, was an officer in the Confederate States of America, later – as a member of the so-called Golden Circle of seditionists – attempted to establish a separate republic made up of sections of seized northern Mexican states where southern sympathizers could go and slavery would be legal. He said the new republic would then establish an extradition treaty with Texas that would allow them to return runaway slaves to their masters.

In fact, the Cowens have extolled the virtues of these men, especially William Neale, that they convinced the city commission to set aside $190,000 to restore the dilapidated Neale home and set it up in a prominent public place where people can admire and revere the runaway slave catcher's memory.

If the city is true to form, it's going to sink cash into making the slummy-looking carcass of the building look like the Taj Mahal just as they did with the carcass of Charles Stillman's love crib – another slave owner – Laureles Ranch "house."

(That's the 1860 Census of Cameron and Hidalgo counties at right showing Stillman "owned" a female slave.)

In fact, other studies have pegged the entire cost of restoration of what's left of the Neale house closer to $900,000 and the city's planning department recommended three places where it could be moved, including a space in the Linear Park where his fellow slaver Stillman's ranch house now stands.

William Neale arrived in Matamoros in 1834 and began a stage route from the landing at Puerto Bagdad, Tamaulipas, where ocean-going ships had to unload freight and passengers, to the river port of Matamoros. 

When Zachary Taylor defeated the Mexican army under Gen. Pedro Ampudia in May 1846 , his stages or "hacks" were used to remove the Mexican wounded after the Battle of Palo Alto. 

Neale and his family were part of the frantic congestion of civilians and fleeing Mexican soldiers trying to cross the Rio Grande after the defeat of Mexican troops at the Battle of Resaca de la Palma. In other words, he had allegiance to Mexico. He switched allegiances as often as a working girl her skivvies.

During his years on the Mexican border Neale made money locating runaway slaves (referred to as "property") from upstate Texas and the confederate states, and when steamboats began going directly to Matamoros, Neale discontinued his Bagdad stage line and established a mercantile business at a steamboat landing twenty-five miles upriver from Brownsville at Nealeville (also called Santa Maria).

When the federal troops occupied Brownsville – Neale, a second lieutenant in the Third Texas Infantry Regiment for the Confederacy in 1863 – returned to Matamoros to live. He finally settled in Brownsville in 1865 after the Union prevailed, took an oath to the USA, (another change of undies) and then went on to serve as mayor from 1858–59, and then again from 1866 to 1869. 

He died in Brownsville on April 6, 1896, and his home was given to the Brownsville Art League in 1950 and was moved to a location south of the United States Customs House. 

The Cowens have ridden that tired historical nag into the ground and embellished the settler narrative  even more. In a Brownsville Herald article some years ago, Philip Cowen, a former Brownsville Independent School District board member, also claims to be a direct descendant to John "Rip" Ford, one of the confederacy's "heroes" and champions of slavery. 

He credits his ancestor as the founder of the murderous Texas Rangers, whose indiscriminate genocide of Mexicans and Mexican-American citizens in South Texas has long been covered up in Texas history.

Cowen lauds his ancestor, his great great grandfather Ford for starting the Texas Rangers, and thrashing the yankees at Palmito Hill in what is hailed as the last battle of the Civil War even though the rebel surrender had happened more than a month earlier.

Cowen, however, credits his ancestor with signing a truce six months later with two union generals to "end the war." 

Wasn't some guy named Ulysses S. Grant and some other guy named Robert E. Lee involved in signing some kind of document at a place called the Appomattox Court House, in Virginia that ended the Civil War?

Now, after regaining a seat on the city commission, former commissioner Nurith Galonsky – who championed the Neale House restoration – is back for more. 

If the city stays true to form in its history of  moving and restoration of historical buildings, the house will probably be converted to some fantasized version that is nothing like the original structure. The Neale House served as the canteen for the American Legion where vets told lies and drank the night away.

The Cowens' continued efforts to keep the glorious memories of the "Lost Cause" alive stretch across the centuries. One of the descendants – city commissioner and now mayor John Ford Cowen – bears the confederate officer's name. Now, did Cowen vote to award the $190,000 in public money to restore the home of one of his family's ancestors? 

Look at how the city got the Stillman shack and – after pouring thousands into the restoration – how it looks now. The same will probably happen to the Neal structure, which is literally rotting where it stands.

Polyester tarpaulins have been draped over the holes on the roof and the patio overhead has caved in, requiring a complete restoration at a considerable cost to the local taxpayer who have no ties whatsoever to this obscure racist. 

We have glorified the men who stole the land from their rightful owners (Stillman and Belden) by naming one a founder and restoring his ranch whore house, the other by naming a bike and hike trail  after him. 

This, ironically, on the very land they stole and where descendants of their dispossessed victims still live.

And now we are spending $190,000 (and eventually close to $1 million) to praise the memory of a traitor to his country, a man who profited by denying human beings their freedom for money, and making him out to be a spiritual and historical pillar of our community.

Let the rotting structure, treason, white supremacy, slavery, and the confederacy and robber barons stay where they belong: in the dust bin of history.