Note 3 — HOW THE BRAZOS RIVER GOT ITS NAME

It will be noted that Mr. Underwood says nothing of the “mission” that figures so largely in Mrs. Davis’ account. There was no Spanish mission on the Brazos; Nuestra Señora de la Luz was a mission on the not distant Trinity, and at it there was a miraculous escape, but from fire, not from water.3 The mission is but ambiguously hinted in a song entitled “Los Brazos de Dios,”4 written years ago by Mrs. Laura Bryan Parker, formerly of Houston, now of Washington City. Another poetic version,5 printed in 1897, makes use of the mission, but the details of this poem seem to have been taken entirely from Mrs. Davis’ narrative. It may be, after all, that the mission is borrowed from the San Saba, and that the fifth and last version of the legend given in this compilation is the oldest of all versions.