Scope and Contents "The First Oil Well in Texas and the Southwest" gives an account of the drilling at Oil Springs by Lyne Taliaferro Barret in 1866. The paper includes a description of the drilling techniques and tells of negotiations for financial backing. "Peter Ellis Bean--Man with a Story" is a biographical sketch of Bean. "The History of Melrose" gives family histories of the Hardeman, Mast, Walling, Hall, and other families residing...

Scope and Contents The L. T. Barret Collection compliments the more extensive Lyne Taliaferro Barret Papers (A-5) by adding new documentation of L. T. Barret’s mercantile and farming pursuits, military service, masonry, and community service. While the collection consists primarily of bills, receipts and promissory notes issued and received by L. T. Barret and Thomas Jefferson Johnson, there is also business, family, military, and personal correspondence, advertising, slave contracts and legal documents. ...

Abstract

The Barret Collection contains correspondence, field notes, deeds, receipts, contracts, and promissory notes dating from 1845 to 1914. Materials document Barret's activities and include records concerning the Angelina River clearance, the Confederacy and Reconstruction, the personal papers of T. Jeff and Amanda Johnson, and the Melrose Petroleum Oil Company.