This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Doyle,McArthur, Patton, Crenshaw, Overton, Davidson,Patton,Simnacher Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/IcT.2ACIB/2005 Message Board Post: Saturday, June 17, 2006 This weekend, as Central Texans commemorate the freeing of slaves in Texas 141 years ago, a unique Juneteenth event will also acknowledge the legacy of a slaveholding couple. James and Mary Doyle settled on a league of land (about 4,400 acres) in western Bastrop County TX in 1835, when Texas still belonged to Mexico. The Doyles moved to Austin TX in the 1840s and prospered, acquiring more property and living near what is now St. Edward's University in Austin,TX Sunday morning, about 100 descendents of the Doyles and their freed slaves are expected to worship together in an interdenominational service at St. Edward's. The event was organized by Sandra Crenshaw of Dallas, a former City Council member who is a consultant for African American communities and whose family has ties to the Doyles. Crenshaw sees the service as part of an effort to recognize both Mary Doyle's generosity and the historical relationships that have linked extended families, black and white, since the earliest days of Texas. Mary Doyle, who outlived both her husband and her only child, was devoutly Catholic. When she died in 1873, she bequeathed most of her land holdings to the Catholic church and the former slaves who still lived on Doyle property. These freedmen and women, less than a dozen in all, received more than 1,700 acres in Bastrop County, TX a surprising largesse for people barely out of slavery. Their land became known as St. Mary's Colony. "These were decent people, these Irish Catholics who were involved in slavery. They chose a compassionate route to slavery, and it's evidenced by the continued relationships after slavery," said Joseph Collins, a GTech Holdings Corp. call center employee and a history buff who's writing a book about the Doyles and their freed slaves. "A lot of whites held us as slaves and turned us loose with nothing," former St. Mary's resident Benjamine Thompson, told the Austin American-Statesman in 1979. "Old lady Doyle didn't do that. She gave that land to her colored slaves, and their ancestors grew up to have families," said Thompson, who was 99 at the time. "The young ones done got rid of that land, sold it and messed up." Because slaves often took their owners' names, today there are African American Doyles and Anglo Doyles. James and Mary Doyle's only child, Lodeska, married a man named Nicholas McArthur and had several children before she died at the age of 30; the McArthurs owned slaves, so there are McArthurs of both races, too. Surnames such as Patton, Crenshaw and Overton figure prominently in family trees with roots in St. Mary's Colony. Some became well-known citizens, such as Volma Overton, an Austin civil rights leader and education advocate who died last fall. Today, St. Mary's descendents will gather at the colony for their annual Juneteenth reunion, which dates back to 1873, according to Crenshaw. In its heyday, it was home to about 300 people, but St. Mary's is now a shadow of its former self. Without irrigation, the land was difficult to farm; not until the late1970s did the colony finally get running water, through the efforts of the late U.S. Rep. Jake Pickle. By then, most of the original families had either sold their land or lost it to back taxes or other debts. Crenshaw suspects that some uneducated landowners who lacked knowledge about financial matters may have lost their property through illegal means, and she wants to research what happened to the parcels. "We will know where every inch of that property went through tax records," she said. Over the years, many details of the families' conjoined histories have also been lost, to time and memory. But what no one disputes is the good heart and business acumen of Mary Doyle. Her husband, a stonemason, was the superintendent of construction for the first state Capitol building. Doyle slaves helped build the limestone structure, which later burned. After Doyle's death in 1866, his widow proved adept at managing and improving their considerable holdings. Before her health failed, she made sure her family was comfortably fixed. Then she turned to others. In addition to bequeathing the acreage that became St. Mary's Colony, her will carefully divvied up various gifts to her "farm people." To former slave Jennie Davidson, she gave property in the town of Bastrop; to James and Milton Patton went the milk cows and calves; to Isom McArthur, her wagon and team of oxen. The Congregation of Holy Cross, founders of St. Edward's University, received from Mary Doyle her 398-acre farm in South Austin, known for generations as the Catholic Farm. It would become one of the university's most valuable endowments. In 1962, a portion of the Doyle farm sold for a reported $1.3 million. The regional Internal Revenue Service center was later built on part of the farm. "That was Mary Doyle, a strong-willed businesswoman with a big heart. A lot of people, a lot of Catholics owe a lot of thanks to Mary Doyle," said Fannie Simnacher, 93, Doyle's great-great-great-granddaughter, who still lives on her family's farm in the Del Valle TX area and faithfully attends Dolores Catholic Church. "I still pray for her. She was a good person." Simnacher grew up the 1850s-era farmhouse, most of which still lacks air conditioning, and learned to swim in a creek that flows into the Colorado River, about a quarter of a mile away. She plans to attend Sunday's ceremony at St. Edward's. Crenshaw, too, will be there. The Doyles, she believes, are part of the key to her own family's history. Her blue-eyed grandfather John Crenshaw, who was listed as a mulatto in the 1880 census records for Austin, lived on land owned by Nicholas McArthur's descendents. "It is said that history is recorded by those who write it. Right now there's very little history written about slaves because they were listed as property. They didn't have last names until the 1870s," Crenshaw said. "By connecting with the white slave owners, only then can we begin to document history of slaves," she said. "We must know the pain of the past to understand the pain of the present to erase the pain in the future."