A True Women Timeline

A Chronology of Texas and Seguin History

1492 Columbus lands in America.
1521 Cortez conquers Aztecs.
1607 English settle at Jamestown.
1718 Spanish found Mission San Antonio de Valero, later known as the Alamo.
1776 July 4, American Declaration of Independence.
1781 English surrender at Yorktown, war ends, colonies free.
1789 George Washington becomes President.
1805 Bartlett McClure born in Woodford County, Kentucky
1811 March 11, Sarah Ann Ashby born in Lexington, Kentucky.
1821 Mexico, including Texas, wins independence from Spain.
1823 Stephen F. Austin establishes first Anglo-American colony in Texas.
1829 Sarah Ashby marries Bartlett McClure in Shelby, Kentucky
1831 Sarah and Bartlett McClure move to Texas. October 6, Euphemia born at
Peach Creek. January 31, Georgia Lawshe born in Fort Hawkins, Georgia.
1835 October 2, Texas Revolution begins at Gonzales.
1836 March 2, Texas declares independence from Mexico.
March 6, the Alamo falls to Santa Anna after a 13-day siege.

The novel True Women begins

March 14, the Runaway Scrape:

Thousands of women and children flee Santa Anna's approaching army
after the fall of the Alamo.  Sarah Ashby McClure, pregnant and
accompanied by her infant son, Johnnie, and little sister, Euphemia,
lead the refugees across swollen rivers. Both Sarah's infant son and 
her unborn child die during this tumultuous ordeal.

April 21, Sam Houston defeats Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. 
1837 Republic of Texas is officially recognized by the United States
1838 August 12, town of Seguin founded.

The Trail of Tears. Peaceful Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole Indians are
brutally forced out of Georgia, their villages are raided and destroyed --   sanctioned by presidential decree. Over 4,000 men, women, and children die.

Comanches raid Anglo settlements as far as Linnville on Matagorda Bay.

Sarah escapes from Comanches by jumping the creek, later faces down Tarantula and his band of warriors.

Euphemia's friend Matilda Lockhart is abducted by Comanches.
1840 The Council House Massacre occurs during peace negotiations between
the Comanches and the Texas government in San Antonio.

Euphemia's friend Matilda Lockhart is freed.

Comanches are defeated by the Texas Rangers of the Battle of Plum Creek 
1841 Bartlett McClure, Sarah's husband, dies in Gonzales County.
1844 Samuel Morse sends first telegram.
1845 December 29, Texas becomes a U.S. state. The Republic of Texas is no more.
1846 Georgia Lawshe marries Dr. Peter Cavanaugh Woods.
1850 Euphemia marries William King in a woodframe church in Seguin.

Georgia and her family move to Texas, acquire thousands of acres of land
and establish a plantation.
1861 Abraham Lincoln becomes President of the United States.

Texas secedes from the Union and joins the Confederacy.

April 12, the Civil War begins.

Euphemia's husband, William King, enlists in the Confederate Army
as a quartermaster with the rank of Major.

Georgia's husband, Peter C. Woods, is elected Colonel by a regiment of Confederate volunteers who train at a camp near Staples.
1862 Georgia visits her husband stationed near the Rio Grande. Months later 
she takes a wagon train of cotton to Mexico, to avoid the Union Blockade.
1863 Emancipation Proclamation -- Lincoln frees the slaves in the Confederacy.
1865 April 9, Robert E. Lee surrenders Confederate troops to Ulysses S. Grant
at the Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia

The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, is ratified.

Georgia's daughter, Sweet, shoots at the Yankees from the balcony as they march towards the Woods' home to make their occupation headquarters.
1867 October 13, Bettie Moss born on a Capote Road farm.
1868 Texas Reconstruction Convention prepares a new constitution. A clause is proposed to extend the right to vote to women but the measure is defeated.
1869 Captain Haller is killed.
1870 Texas is readmitted to the Union.
1872 October 20, Georgia Lawshe Woods dies at her San Marcos home.
1875 Tornado spawned by a hurricane kills the Braddock family, neighbors of
young Bettie Moss, and she guards their bodies through the night.
1877 Compromise of 1877 ends Reconstruction.
1887 November 00, Brother T.J. Dodson marries Bettie Moss to Henry King in
a double wedding ceremony with her sister Nuge and her husband Tom Lay.  Bettie and Mr. Henry move into their newly built home.

Euphemia and William King move from their log cabin into their new home.
1893 Texas Equal Rights Association is formed to fight for women's suffrage.
1894 October 17, Sarah Ashby McClure dies at Peach Creek.
1894 Bettie Moss King feeds a hungry member of Coxey's Army on his way to Washington to protest against widespread unemployment.
1895 September 27, electric lighting installed in the Courthouse.
1904 February 15, Euphemia Texas Ashby King dies in Seguin.
1910 Mr. Henry is crippled by a fall when his wagon loaded with cotton overturns.
1914 World War I begins in Europe.
1918 World War I ends.
1918 Texas women win the right to vote in primary elections.
1920 August 26, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving women the right to vote.
1922 Congressman Harry Wurzbach faces tough re-election battle. Alone among
the Texas delegation, he voted for a bill to outlaw lynching. He speaks before a crowd gathered at where Capote Road crosses the Guadalupe River.
1929 Stock Market Crash signals beginning of the Great Depression.
1939 World War II begins in Europe.
1941 Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, bringing U.S. into the war.
1943 George Henry King, grandson of Bettie Moss King, wounded at Guadalcanal, nearly dies, but recovers to fight again.
1945 George Henry King killed at Okinawa, the last battle of World War II.

Japan surrenders, World War II ends.

Body of George Henry King brought home to the depot at Seguin.
1946 September 15, Bettie Moss King dies in Seguin.

The novel True Women ends.
Sources:  Texas Almanac, The Timetables of History, Bernard Grun
  
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