MacLeods of Texas
   
William Alexander MacLeod

1820-1888

  

Family History submitted by Don Mack McLeod

 
  Second son of Daniel Macleod and his wife, Catherine Evans Macleod.  He was born 20 Jan 1820, in Marlboro, South Carolina.  He married Mary Ann Alford.  He brought up his family in Marlboro Co. S.C., to a large extent, as did his father before him.  Many interesting things are told concerning him.  He had unusual physical strength and once vied with a man in his regiment in lifting an extraordinary weight.  He was the first man in his locality to volunteer for service in the Confederate Army.  Immediately following the War between the States he came to Texas by boat to Galveston.  He had with him $2,800 which he wished to invest.  He did not like the section and instead of investing his money, spent it on strong drink for the pleasure of himself and friends.  He returned home and moved with his family to North Carolina, after selling his farm in South Carolina.  He lived in Robertson County, NC for only a short while, then returned to Marlboro County.  In 1877 he moved with his family to Cherokee County, Texas (near Alto), where he settled.  Eight years later he moved with part of his family to Brown County Texas, where he passed away in 1888.  His wife lived until 1903.  He is buried in North Brown Cemetery, Brown, County, while his wife is buried in Cleburne, Texas.  Their issue was as follows:

 

 1.  Hector McKennon Macleod, born in 1849.  He married Carrie Gregory of Alto, TX.  He taught school and was probably a free thinker. Unfortunately, his colleciton of books was destroyed by fire.  He died in 1906 and is buried in Keen, TX.  His wife is still living at this writing.  Their issue follows:

     A. Jessie, (1884-1933) Married Wm. O. Bohnfeld.  Issue

     B. Sallie (born: 1887) Married Edward Brown; 2nd husband Harry Dowell.  Issue

     C.  Mary (born: 1889) Married Wm. McCowan.  Issue

     D.  Lena (1894-1897); Never married.

     E.  Charles M. (born: Nov. 19, 1891) Married Edith Kelly.  Their issue follows:

          1.  Mary Caroline (born: 1915) Married

          2.  Edith Auvergne (born: 1916) Not married

          3.  Hazel Elizabeth (born: 1918) Not married

          4.  Charles Kelly (born: 1922) Not married

2.  Alford Evans Macleod, born: 1851 in Marlboro County, SC; Died 1871, buried in Parnassus Cemetery, Marlboro County, SC.

3.  Wm. Alexander Macleod, Jr. born in Marlboro County, SC in 1856
   
McLeod, TX Town of McLeod, Texas is in the Rodessa oilfield on Farm Road 125 thirteen  miles southeast of Atlanta in southeastern Cass County.
   
Hugh MacLeod

1814 - 1862

 

 soldier and legislator of the Republic of Texas,qv was born on August 1, 1814, in New York City, the son of Hugh and Isabella (Douglas) McLeod. The family soon moved to Macon, Georgia. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point on September 1, 1831, and graduated last in a class of fifty-six in 1835. He was brevetted second lieutenant in the Third United States Infantry on September 18, 1835, and ordered to Fort Jesup, Louisiana. On his way to his first posting, however, he visited Macon and there fell in with the Georgia Battalionqv-volunteers for the Texas army-and accompanied it as far as Columbus, Georgia. Ardent in his desire to join the Texans, he resigned his United States Army commission, effective June 30, 1836. In Texas McLeod advanced rapidly in rank, becoming adjutant general in the Army of the Republic of Texasqv in December 1837 and adjutant and inspector general in 1840. He served against the Caddos and Kickapoos in 1838, fought the Cherokees in 1839, and was wounded at the battle of the Nueces.qv He was appointed one of two negotiators with the Comanches before the Council House Fightqv in San Antonio in 1840. His official report on the fight is appended to the Journal of the Fifth Legislature of the Republic of Texas.

During this period he studied law and began practice in 1839. After his tenure as adjutant general ended on January 18, 1841, McLeod was commissioned a brigadier general on June 17 and appointed commander of the military component of the Texan Santa Fe expeditionqv by President Mirabeau B. Lamar.qv McLeod's illness delayed the expedition somewhat and was perhaps a contributing factor in its failure. He was captured with the rest of the expedition and interned at Perote Prisonqv through the summer of 1842. As an important prisoner, he was reported to have been treated well by his Mexican captors. Later that year he married Rebecca Johnson Lamar, a cousin of President Lamar. The couple had two children: a daughter, who died in infancy, and a son. Upon his return to Texas McLeod was appointed to the House of Representatives of the Seventh Congress (1842-43) from Bexar County, to fill the seat Samuel A. Maverickqv was forced to vacate when he was captured and taken to Mexico by Adrián Woll'sqv raiders in September 1842. In 1844 he was returned to the House, again representing Bexar County, in the Ninth Congress (1844-45). In national politics McLeod was a Democrat except for a brief flirtation with the Know-Nothing party (or American partyqv) in the mid-1850s, but locally he was a member of the anti-Houston faction. Before the Mexican Warqv McLeod was once again appointed adjutant general of Texas.

He subsequently retired from public life and in 1850 became involved in the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway, the first railroad company in Texas. In 1855 he was a delegate to the southern commercial convention in New Orleans. McLeod was commissioned a lieutenant colonel of state troops at the time of secessionqv from the Union and participated in the capture of the federal forts on the lower Rio Grande. During the Civil Warqv he was elected lieutenant colonel of the First Texas Infantry Regiment of what was later became Hood's Texas Brigade.qv When the regimental commander, Louis T. Wigfall,qv was promoted to brigadier general, McLeod was promoted to colonel and assigned to command of the regiment. He died of pneumonia near Dumfries, Virginia, on January 2, 1862. His body was returned to Texas and is buried in the State Cemeteryqv in Austin. McLeod was characterized as a "fat, jovial man" and said to have been popular, in spite of his violent attacks on Sam Houston.qv

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dictionary of American Biography. Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1903; rpt., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965). Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832-1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941). Marcus J. Wright, comp., and Harold B. Simpson, ed., Texas in the War, 1861-1865 (Hillsboro, Texas: Hill Junior College Press, 1965).

Thomas W. Cutrer

 
   
   
 
 

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