Victorian lady on the Texas frontier;: The journal of Ann Raney Coleman

Ann Raney Coleman, pioneer, was born on November 10, 1810, in Whitehaven, England, daughter of John Raney, a prosperous landowner and banker who went bankrupt and attempted to make a fresh start in Texas. In 1829 he sailed with his younger son for Austin's colony, where he became a teacher for James Briton Bailey's family near Brazoria. Ann and her mother and sister joined him in 1832, after a harrowing sea voyage during which they hid in a closet while pirates ransacked the ship off the coast of Cuba. They arrived in Texas in time for Ann to help the Texans in the battle of Velasco by making bullets and patches and carrying them fifteen miles on horseback to a hiding place in a hollow tree. After outrunning two Mexican spies on the return journey, she attended the reconciliation ball and was said to have so charmed Stephen F. Austin as a dancing partner that he granted her father an additional league of land.This is the journal of the lady described above...Quite a lady.