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- William Little Brown Vance was born on 26 Nov 1816 in Clarksville, Montgomery County, Tennessee and died on 13 Nov 1888 in Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee, at age 71.
Life events: In 1825, William moved with his mother to Nashville, Tennessee where she remained. William attended Cumberland College and later, Nashville University where he graduated in October, 1834. In February, 1835, he left home on the steamer, Tobacco Plant, bound for New Orleans, but before arriving obtained temporary employment in Memphis as a clerk. He remained there until early July when he received news of the death of his oldest sister, Margaret Vance Childress, in Nashville. After returning to Nashville, his widowed brother-in-law, George C. Childress, invited him to join him along with George's younger brother, Jack Childress, and Elliott Fletcher on a horseback expedition to the Mexican Territory of Texas. In November 1835, they traveled down the Mississippi River to Nachitoches, Louisiana. From there, they traveled west to Robertson's Colony to the Falls of the Brazos River in the Texas territory. At the Falls, the presidio of the colony, they found the empressario, Sterling Robertson, the uncle of George Childress.
The Mexican government had granted a huge concession of many hundreds of thousands of acres to be granted in bodies of a square league (4,444 acres) to each settler of the colony. Because those who had settled in this territory were cash poor and willing to sell up to one quarter to one half of their portions of their land grants, William Vance and his brother, Jack Vance, and George Childress and Fletcher bought up as much land as they could afford between themselves and friends back home. They bought huge amounts of land at prices as low as eight cents an acre. After the independence of Texas, William sold 10,000 acres of this land for one dollar per acre making a sizable profit.
When word of Texas independence became known, William and George rode south to the town of Washington on the west bank of the Brazos River, some seventy miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. There George Childress became a delegate along with his uncle, Sterling Roberson, to the Revolutionary Convention from their colony. William Vance was present at the convention meeting when George Childress proposed wording for the document to be later known as the Texas Declaration of Independence. The fateful fall of the Alamo had occurred only a few weeks prior to the convention. Before the close of the convention, George Childress was elected as the new Texas Minister to the United States with William L. Vance elected as Secretary of the delegation. On April 12, 1835, Washington DC newspapers announced the arrival of the new Texas Minister, George Childress and the Texas delegation. General Andrew Jackson was President and was old friends and neighbors with George's father, John Childress. Although no official recognition was given the independence of Texas the delegation of Childress and Vance was warmly welcomed. While on this diplomatic tour, Texas won its independence from Mexico.
William ultimately made his home in Memphis, Tennessee where he was partners on many land speculations in the Memphis area with his brother-in-law, Robertson Topp, who was married to his sister, Elizabeth Little Vance. Although he was against succession, William did have to seek the help of President Lincoln to keep from having his lands confiscated by federal troops near the close of the civil war. With the help of introductions by Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden and a successful meeting and discussion with the President, Lincoln allowed William to retain his land holdings. Still another amazing occassion occurred when William Vance was attending Ford's theatre purely by chance on the night that President Lincoln was assasinated.
Following the end of the Civil War, the Memphis area and William Vance prospered greatly due to the fact that Memphis became the military center for activity in the Southwest.
(source: unsourced Ancestry member submission)
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1815 - 1888 (72 years)
, d. UNKNOWN