Montgomery, Cora, 1807-1878

Journalist, author, promoter, and unofficial diplomat, Jane Maria Eliza McManus Storms Cazneau (1807-1878) wrote under the pen name Cora or Corinne Montgomery. Born in Troy, New York, she was the daughter of U. S. Congressman William T. McManus and his wife Catharina, née Coons. In 1825, she married Allen Storms (or Storm), with whom she had a son, but they divorced six years later. She later married politician William Leslie Cazneau in 1849.

In the 1830s, Cazneau began her affiliation with Texas, after the Mexican government granted her land in Texas to bring families as part of Stephen F. Austin’s colony. Although the plan failed, her family eventually moved to Matagorda. During the Texas Revolution, Cazneau pledged money to the Independence movement after moving back to New York, and in the 1840s she advocated the annexation of Texas to the U.S. in her columns for the New York Sun . Cazneau moved in 1850 to Eagle Pass, Texas, a town her husband helped to establish, and became closely associated with her husband’s friend former Texas president Mirabeau B. Lamar.

...