Harold Shirley, Ann Moody McCuistion, General Andrew Jackson, General Sam Houston, , Harold Shirley's fifth great grandmother, wooden keg of gold coins
submitted by: SUP Pioneer Stories Cedar City Chapter March Newsletter
My fifth great grandmother Ann Moody McCuistion had inherited a little wooden keg of gold coins from her grandfather’s bachelor brother. It had been a family legacy handed down from their Norman forebears in Scotland and brought to America by Ann herself. Hearing that the British were approaching, Andrew Jackson, a great-nephew being raised by Ann, helped his aunt carry a little keg of gold coins down to the creek where they let it sink far out of sight among some fallen trees. The keg stayed there until after the war ended. General Cornwallis heard the rumor that the McCuistions owned gold, and he had Ann brought before him. When he questioned her about the gold, she answered, “How perfectly ridiculous,” and swished out of the room. Even though she was not endangered, General Cornwallis ordered his soldiers to rip open all of the feather beds and pillows and make a shambles of her home in their hunt for any possible hiding place for gold.
Since they had been driven out of their home, they took refuge in the smokehouse. A British officer ordered Andrew, then 13, to polish his boots. Andrew refused, and the officer struck him across the cheek with his sword, leaving a lasting scar. Andrew later wrote that “Dear old great-aunt Ann bandaged it.”
Ann Moody McCuistion was the great aunt of General Andrew Jackson, 7th president of the United States. Ann was the 'Dear Old Great Aunt' referred to in Andrew Jackson's writings, who took him in and sent him to school in Guilford. After her husband’s death, Ann moved to what was later called Tennessee where her son Robert and Andrew Jackson ran a grist mill.
A boy of 12 named Sam Houston used to hang around the grist mill. Before she died, Ann gave the little keg of gold coins to her son Robert Newton McCuistion because, she said, “He has Texas in his blood, and he needs an inheritance that he can take to Texas with him.” Robert was a Methodist preacher and a man of great strength and energy in the performance of his work. Robert and Elizabeth moved to Robertson County, Texas in 1835.
In April 1836, Sam Houston’s army won Texas’ independence at the Battle of San Jacinto. Even though the United States was interested in Texas, President Jackson’s closest advisors had been unable to sway Congress to vote any ready money for Texas.
The Republic had been declared, but now Sam Houston was faced with the necessity of establishing a government and paying the bills. Unfortunately, the new Republic of Texas had neither income nor any credit. There seemed to be no available collateral with which to raise hard money. Its only resource was its worthless Texas land. At this time, the Texas dollar was worth two cents in United States currency.
Houston saw that his only chance was to get men with gold to take land in exchange. Sam Houston remembered a story that he had heard Andy Jackson tell around the campfire back in 1812 as they fought the Creek Indians. That night, Jackson had reminisced about the Revolutionary War and about the time when he had helped Aunt Ann hide the keg of gold. Sam remembered Ann Moody McCuistion, and he also knew that it was not likely that a McCuistion had ever parted with a gold coin. What Sam Houston didn’t know was that family tradition says that Ann prided herself that she not only had never taken one coin from her inheritance, but that when she acquired a gold coin, she had always slipped it into the keg. Houston knew seventeen men who had both a profound love for Texas and who owned gold coins. Determined to offer what was considered worthless Texas land in exchange for gold, he dispatched couriers and invited just those seventeen men to a dinner at his home. The courier arrived at Robert’s house in mid-afternoon, but Elizabeth set a meal for the man. He left his tired horse at Robert’s and borrowed a fresh mount from him, picking up his own horse a few days later as he returned from his trip.
When the courier had left, Robert said to Elizabeth, “Texas has no income. Sam is going to ask me for my gold.” The courier had mentioned nothing about gold—only that Robert was invited to dine with General Houston and several other men in two weeks. On the appointed day, his wife had laid out his brown suit but Robert said, “Some of the best men there will only have on buckskin, and Sam won’t care what we are wearing when he gets ready to ask us for our gold.”
The seventeen men assembled at General Houston’s home, and he ordered that no drinks be served. The meal was a solemn occasion, and at its conclusion, Sam Houston arose and laid squarely before his guests the pressing matters, the delinquent accounts, and the bare necessities that had to be provided in order for the government to go forward. The plans that he unfolded before them were sound, but the financial needs were almost insurmountable. Since he knew that the greatest amount of gold represented at the table was Robert McCuistion’s, General Houston turned to Robert and said, “Robert, I know that your gold is an old family legacy. I know the story from Andy Jackson who helped hide it from the British, but these are grave times, and now I have to ask you for it. Texas has no money; Texas has no credit.” Then looking around the table, in an impassioned plea he said, “Gentlemen, Texans, how many of you are willing to give your gold for Texas?’ To a man they sprang to their feet with a shout of “Aye!” (One account has Houston asking “How many of you are willing to give your all for Texas”?)
Over a period of several weeks, the gold coins being given in exchange for “worthless Texas land” by those seventeen men were cautiously taken to Washington-on-the-Brazos in many forms of disguise as a safety measure against robbers. In a letter to his daughter, Robert described how he fitted the little wooden keg in the center of logs of the same circumference in order to conceal it, and thinking that a load of wood would not tempt robbers, transported Ann’s little keg of gold in that manner and handed it over to Texas. During his lifetime, the 10,000 acres was always worthless, and he didn’t even keep control over it, but he said that he had never regretted his gift to Texas. When all of the gold that had been given was assembled, the Texas dollar had risen to a value of ninety-eight cents, United States currency, and the Republic of Texas was here to stay.