Note 1 — HOW THE BRAZOS RIVER GOT ITS NAME

According to Miss Eleanor Claire Buckley,1 when the Spaniards of the Aguayo Expedition in 1621 struck what is now called Little River, in Bell County, they called it “Espíritu Santo (Holy Ghost), having reached it on the eve of Pentecost. As will be remembered, the Brazos had, in 1690, been given the name of Espíritu Santo or Colorado by De León, who, however, had struck it before its branching (Diario, entry for May 14). In the next expedition, 1691, Massanet, though he knew that it had been called the Espíritu Santo, named it the San Francisco Solano (Diario, entry for July 24); while Terán, ‘though the natives called it the Colorado,’ named it the San Geronimo (Demarcación, entry for July 25). Espinosa and Ramón, in 1716, crossed Little River just above its junction with the Brazos. The former did not give it any name; the latter called it la Trinidad. Both of them called the Brazos proper la Trinidad, thinking doubtless that it was the river that De León had named thus in 1690 (Diario and Derrotero, entries for June 14). Rivera called it the ‘Colorado o de los Brazos de Dios’ (Diario, entry for August 30).” “It may be noted,” adds Dr. Bolton, “that the name los Brazos de Dios was applied to the Little River and to the main Brazos, and not to the main Brazos and the Little Brazos.”