Bell, Bert

Peter Tumlinson (1802-1882), early Texas settler and soldier in the Texas Revolution, was born in North Carolina in 1802. His family settled in Fort Smith, Arkansas, a location that became known as Tumlinson Township. Upon hearing that Stephen F. Austin was recruiting for his first colony, Peter and his parents traveled to Texas in 1825, but soon went back to Arkansas to be nearer to extended family. After Tumlinson married and started a family, he returned to Texas in 1830. He served with a company from San Augustine during the Texas Revolution and later became mail carrier there, from 1845 to 1846. He moved to Atascosa County in 1852, a place he was frequently defending against Indian and Mexican raids. Along with a company of rangers, Tumlinson battled and defeated Juan N. Cortina and his troops in the lower Rio Grande valley in 1859. In 1876 Tumlinson moved to Carrizo Springs and died there in 1882. Tumlinson is the grandfather of renowned Texas fiddler and Carrizo Springs community leader Peter Tumlinson Bell.

Sources : Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. Tumlinson, Peter, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/TT/ftu26.html (accessed August 2, 2010).

Foster, Dan and John Wheat. P. T. Bell. Field Recorders’ Collective. http://www.fieldrecorder.com/docs/notes/bell_foster.htm (accessed August 2, 2010).

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. Cortina, Juan Nepomuceno, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fco73.html (accessed August 2, 2010).