Texas City Museum welcomes new piece of Black cowboy history

TEXAS CITY, Texas (KTRK) — Nestled on 6th Street North in Texas City is a piece of Black cowboy history that will soon be on public display.

It starts with Thomas Caldwell, who was born into slavery near Frierson, Louisiana in DeSoto Parish, at Lands End Plantation.

When he was 13, he was taken from his parents and siblings.

“He was given as a wedding gift to the slave owner’s daughter, and when she got married, he was brought down here to Clear Creek, which is now League City,” Caldwell’s great-grandson, Joel Clouser, explained.

Like the rest of America’s enslaved, Caldwell was treated like chattel, not a human being. Thankfully, a year or so after he arrived in southeast Texas, the Civil War ended, and Caldwell was free.

He decided to stay on at the Butler Ranch and drive cattle along the Chisholm Trail, where he became quite the cowboy.

His saddle and branding iron are now at The Texas City Museum. His family donated them in December.

“Here on the saddle, it’s truly beautiful for it being at least 160 years old, probably older. The level of detail in the designs and even down here to these buckle portions, you can see stars and ornamentation that is just really, really fantastic. So for it to have survived for this long in various different conditions is really fantastic,” Museum Curator, Shelby Rodwell, said.

Caldwell met Sophie Richardson during a stop in Richmond on the Chisolm Trail and married her around 1877. They moved to Hitchcock and had 14 children.

ABC13 was fortunate to speak with one of Caldwell’s oldest living grandchildren, who is 100 years young.

“Thomas Caldwell is my grandfather. He’s my mother’s dad. That saddle is very dear to us. And we wanted it to remain preserved from one museum to the other, if they ever did decide they’re going to shift it around. But wherever Grandpa’s saddle goes, that’s where his history is,” Vera Bell-Gary said.

Several of Caldwell’s daughters married into the 1867 Settlement, the only Reconstruction-era freed-slave settlement in Galveston County. ABC13 has previously reported on the Bell House and its founding families.

As for Caldwell, he maintained his family values even though he was stripped of them so young. He founded a church in Hitchcock and left a legacy for generations to come.

“We would like to encourage the family to come to this museum and see how his history or our history has been preserved. And I think that’s wonderful that Texas City has a museum that’s preserving the history,” Caldwell’s third cousin, Shirley Sewell, said.

Right now, Caldwell’s saddle and branding iron are on limited display at The Texas City Museum, but will go on full, public display in June.

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