Family Legacy

Montraville Woods (1806–1857)

Montraville Woods, son of Texas pioneer Zadock Woods and Minerva Cottle Woods, was born Nov. 17, 1806, at Woods Fort in what is now Troy, Lincoln County, Missouri. He was the second son of a family already deeply rooted in the westward movement of the early United States.

His father, Zadock Woods, was the son of Jonathan Woods and Keziah Keith of Bridgewater, Massachusetts. His mother, Minerva Cottle, was the daughter of Deacon Joseph Cottle and Azubah Powers Cottle. Both the Woods and Cottle families helped establish the settlement around Woods Fort, which later developed into Troy, Missouri.

In 1824, Zadock Woods moved his family to Texas as part of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred, the original group of colonists in Austin’s first colony. Zadock received a land grant of one league and one labor and settled in what is now Fayette County, where he established a second Woods Fort near present-day West Point in the Woods Prairie area.

Montraville came of age on this Texas frontier.

In June 1826, he fell in love with Isabella Gonzales, the young daughter of Francisco Hidalgo Gonzales and Procopia Hidalgo Valdes. According to the family history, Montraville and Isabella eloped. Because Isabella was only 14, her father insisted that the couple be formally married by a Catholic priest at La Bahía, present-day Goliad. The matter was brought to the attention of Stephen F. Austin through correspondence from James Cummins acting on behalf of Isabella’s father.

Montraville and Isabella later received their own land grant of one league and one labor in Fayette County, adjoining Zadock Woods’ property. Montraville also acted as an agent in Fayette County for his father-in-law, Francisco Hidalgo Gonzales, who himself received land in what is now Victoria County.

The Gonzales family was of Spanish heritage, and family tradition associates the name Hidalgo with a hereditary title of lesser Spanish nobility. That tradition became part of the identity preserved by later descendants of the family.

Montraville and Isabella built a large family together. They had 12 children — 11 daughters and one son:

Mary, born Dec. 8, 1829; Minerva, born March 1, 1832; Amanda M., born Sept. 5, 1833; Madalena R., born July 17, 1836, who married Sylvanus Brown; Sophronia, born April 13, 1838; Mary Ann, born March 1, 1840, who married William Milligan; Isabella, born Dec. 3, 1842; Malinda, born March 11, 1844; Susan, born Jan. 2, 1846; Montraville Zadock, born March 7, 1847, who married Ann Anderson on Jan. 4, 1870; Margaret Eliza, born Jan. 21, 1849; and Emma Ardelia, born Dec. 27, 1851, at Woods Fort in Fayette County, who later married William Hartmann at Yorktown on Jan. 27, 1881.

The Woods family’s history during these years was marked by both settlement and sacrifice. Montraville’s father, Zadock Woods, was killed in the Dawson Massacre near San Antonio on Sept. 18, 1842. His brother Norman Woods was wounded, captured and later died in Perote Prison in Mexico. Another brother, Henry Gonzalvo “Gon” Woods, survived the massacre and later married Norman’s widow, Jane, helping care for Norman’s children.

In 1856, Montraville and his brother Henry Gonzalvo moved their families from Fayette County to DeWitt County. There the brothers continued the frontier life their family had known for generations, establishing ranches and farms in the Shiloh and Yorktown area.

Montraville’s time in DeWitt County was brief. He died on July 15, 1857, only about a year after the move.

After his death, Isabella set aside land beneath the large oak trees at Shiloh as a burial place for her husband. That land became Woods Cemetery, near Yorktown in DeWitt County. Montraville was laid to rest there, beginning a cemetery that would later become the burial place of other members of the Woods family.

His brother Henry Gonzalvo was appointed executor of Montraville’s estate and helped Isabella and her children after Montraville’s death. Henry himself later met a violent end while serving with a sheriff’s posse and was buried near his brother in Woods Cemetery.

Isabella proved remarkably capable in managing the family property after Montraville’s death. With help from her children and later their spouses, she continued caring for the family’s land and livestock. She even registered her own livestock brand and marks in DeWitt County.

She later applied for and received a Texas widow’s pension based on Montraville’s service to the Republic of Texas during the struggle for independence from Mexico.

Isabella survived Montraville by nearly half a century. She died Jan. 28, 1906, at the age of 93 years, 6 months and 16 days, and was buried beside her husband in Woods Cemetery at Shiloh.

Montraville Woods’ life connects several generations of early American and Texas frontier history. Born at the Woods family settlement in Missouri, he came to Texas as a member of an Old Three Hundred family, married into a prominent Spanish-Texas family, received his own colonial land grant, raised a large family and helped extend the Woods family presence from Fayette County into DeWitt County.

His descendants carried forward both the Woods pioneer heritage and the Spanish-Texas heritage of Isabella Gonzales, making Montraville an important link between two of early Texas’ distinctive family traditions.