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Asa Columbus Mitchell of Brazoria and San Antonio, 1795 to 1865

On November 7, 1835, at San Felipe de Austin, an Asa Mitchell signed the Consultation's declaration of grievances for the Municipality of Washington. The Handbook of Texas says he was Asa Columbus Mitchell, a man who had come a long way to be there. In the family tree he is the great-grandfather of Ruth Joyce Kelso Clarkson, the wife of Herbert Slayden Clarkson: his daughter Laura Mitchell was the mother of May Joyce Kelso, Ruth's mother. Each of those links is Confirmed.

From Pennsylvania to the Brazos

Asa Columbus Mitchell was born December 1, 1795, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, to Louis and Rhoda (Abrams) Mitchell, according to the Handbook. Its account follows him to present-day Brazoria County, where he received title to land in 1824 (Likely), and to the Battle of Velasco in 1832.

The Handbook names Charlotte Woodmancy as his first wife, says they married in 1816 and had a son, Nathan, and places her death at Velasco on September 17, 1830. Charlotte and their son, Nathan Mitchell, are now on the family tree.

Brazoria, 1832

On July 4, 1832, three men wrote from the Brazoria area to the Standing Committee at Brazoria. Their letter, in the Mirabeau B. Lamar Papers at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, says they had advised the firm of Mitchell & Chase to move something out of the area (one word naming what was to be moved is illegible), so that, if the Mexicans retook it, they could be starved out. The letter calls the need urgent and asks for help.

The signatures read "Wm Brown," "Asa Mitchell" and "Wm H Wharton." The Asa Mitchell who signed was probably Asa Columbus Mitchell; the name, place and date fit, but the letter gives no middle name or title. The firm of Mitchell & Chase was the party being advised; whether Asa was its Mitchell is not known.

The Consultation, 1835

On April 8, 1835, in Austin County, according to the Handbook, Asa married his second wife, Emily Brisbin. In July, by the same account, he was elected regidor, a member of the town council, of the Municipality of Washington.

On November 7, 1835, the Consultation at San Felipe de Austin adopted the "Declaracion del Pueblo de Tejas," a declaration of grievances and intent. The printed broadside, a copy of which the Texas State Library and Archives Commission shows online, names Asa Mitchell as a signer for the Municipality of Washington alongside Philip Coe, Elijah Collard, Jesse Grimes and "A. Hoxie" (Asa Hoxey). The Handbook identifies Asa Columbus Mitchell as Washington's representative and a signer of that declaration, matching both the document and the municipality; that the signer was this man is unconfirmed.

This is not the Texas Declaration of Independence of March 2, 1836, which was signed by a later convention with a different list of signers.

San Jacinto and later life

After the Consultation, by the Handbook's account, he served on the General Council and as a sergeant in Company B, First Regiment of Volunteers, at San Jacinto. In October 2026 the Texas State Library and Archives' reference staff searched the San Jacinto list in the Republic of Texas military rolls at our request and found a "Sergeant A. Mitchell" in Company B of the 1st Regular Texas Volunteers. The General Land Office's copy of the same San Jacinto List, a later fair copy, shows him in "Comp. B. 1st Regt. Volunteers" under Captain R. Roman, listed among the sergeants, and names "Nathan'l Mitchell" in Company H, Captain William W. Hill's company, commanded that day by Robert Stevenson because Hill was sick (Republic of Texas Muster Roll, General Land Office, pp. 31 and 35-36). The list gives Asa's initial only, so that the sergeant was Asa is Likely, not Confirmed. Hill was the captain under whom Asa served as a ranger that summer. He later worked as a salt refiner and merchant, preached as a Methodist lay preacher and directed the San Antonio Vigilance Committee during the Civil War. Mitchell County, Texas, was named for him and his brother Eli. He died November 6, 1865, at San Antonio. The Handbook counts fourteen children across his two marriages.

His claims on the Republic

Asa's own claims against the Republic, kept by the Comptroller and now online in the Texas Digital Archive, show what else he did in those years. He was paid $76 for twelve days as Washington's delegate to the Consultation in November 1835, and $42.60 for eleven days on the General Council, December 15 to 25, 1835. In the fall of 1835 he gave cash, pork, beef and provisions to volunteer companies marching to the army at San Antonio: Captain Thomas H. Breece's New Orleans Greys, who received a beef "for the use of the company on the road to San Antonio," Captain A. B. King's Alabama volunteers, and the San Augustine companies of Captains English and Bradley.

From July 3 to October 3, 1836, after San Jacinto, he served as a private in Captain William W. Hill's company "in the ranging service on the frontier," and was discharged at Hickory Point by order of General Thomas J. Rusk. That is the service behind his bounty land certificate. In September 1836, at Montville, he sold a mule to Colonel R. M. Coleman's ranger regiment, hauled for it, and boarded one of its assistant quartermasters, sick, for sixteen days at his house; in June 1837 he furnished provisions to Captain William M. Eastland's rangers there (Texas Comptroller's Office, audited Republic claims 373, 855, 1443 and 7589, Texas State Library and Archives Commission). None of the claims mentions San Jacinto.

His ancestry in a 1958 application

In 1958 a descendant of Asa's son Wallace applied to the Louisiana Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (national number 83349). The application gives Asa's birth as December 1, 1795 in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and his death as November 6, 1865 at San Antonio. It names his parents as Lewis Mitchell, born in 1769, and Rhoda Abrams, and his second wife as Emily Brisbane, born at St. Louis in 1818. It traces the line to Lewis's father, James Mitchell, born in Ireland in 1719, who settled at Turkey Foot, Pennsylvania, and served as an Associator in Captain Noah Abraham's company of the Cumberland County militia in April 1779. The application is a descendant's compilation, not a record of Asa's own time.

Family papers at the Briscoe Center

The University of Texas's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History holds the papers of Asa's son Nathan Mitchell (1817-1897): five items, a watch, photographs, notes and a bound narrative. The library's catalog describes Nathan as arriving in Texas in 1822 "as a young boy with his father, Asa Mitchell (1795-1865) and mother, Charlotte Woodmancy Mitchell." The same note says Nathan fought at San Jacinto in Capt. Robert Stevenson's Infantry Company H of the 1st Regiment, was a second lieutenant of a mounted gun company in December 1836, and later served in the quartermaster corps in the Mexican War, giving no year for that service; no muster roll has been checked for him either. The center also holds the James Mitchell Papers, 1837-1897, correspondence, reminiscences and biographical sketches of the Mitchell family in nineteenth-century Texas, and a petition Asa Mitchell made in 1843 for a writ of attachment on Edwin Waller's property, from the Eberstadt Collection.

What we're still looking for

The Briscoe Center's finding aid for Nathan's papers points to a separate "Mitchell (Asa) Family Bible, undated," held there; its family pages have not been seen. One account describes such a Bible as a 1933 donation by a granddaughter descended through a daughter of Asa's, but nothing found so far names the donor or confirms the year.

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