OUCH!!! = I was afraid that someone would ask me for PRIME SOURCES.
(YES, I have a considerable number of "Xerox copies" of letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings & other period sources about Emily Morgan that I collected as thesis research BUT they are "in deep storage" at Mother's place, 8+ hours by road from here.)
Let me tell you what I know (and remember) about "The Yellow Rose", from my research.
(You & other readers are welcome to accept or NOT accept whatever portion of the following "bits of information" that you choose.)
Things that I'm "convinced of" from my reading:
1. Emily was born a slave and (HIGHLY likely) was her owner's own natural child, by a "comely slave girl", whose first name was PROBABLY "Julia".
(John Morgan evidently manumitted her when she was a young teenager & she called herself EMILY MORGAN for most of the rest of her known life.)
2. Using MORE than ONE surname was commonplace in Texas, well into the 20th Century.- That FACT is what makes amateur/professional genealogists "crazy" when researching Texas families. - MUCH of what I know about Mother's side of the family in TX is "more or less educated guesses", as some members of our family, who fled to TX after TWBTS, were "under sentence of death" by Union Army tribunals & therefore used "more than one name" to avoid arrest/punishment.
(My 96yo mother has often said that, "Even in my girlhood of the early 1920s, a SURE way to start an ugly fist-fight was to ask a stranger, 'What was your name back in The States', as Texas was a place to 'start again, with a clean slate', if you had a rather shady past elsewhere." = One of my grandfather's most "well-regarded & loyal sawmill workers", for at least 20 years, was "known to be an escapee from a GA chain-gang" & I once asked my uncle about him & my uncle said, "To my knowledge, Clete never killed nobody in Texas, that didn't need killin'.")
3. After the Revolution, Emily was "a friend & frequent house-guest of" Harriet Potter & her husband Robert, at their home on the shore of Caddo lake in what is now near KARNACK, TX.
(Harriett Potter, "our very own East Texas Wildcat, reputed witch, markswoman & huntress of note" was "popularly said to be the MOST beautiful woman in all of Texas" & Emily was said to be "second in beauty only to Mrs. Potter", in period writings.)
4. I believe that she was literally "a spy in Santa Anna's bed" for GEN Houston, based on some bits of known period data BUT that is NOT "proven".
5. Emily "chose" her 640 acres of "rich bottom land" in what is now COOKE County, on the south bank of the Red River, according to tax records at the county courthouse in Gainesville, thus I believe that the "grant of land for service to Texas", by the RoT Congress, is GENUINE. = The tax-man always "gets his pound of flesh".
(In 1850, there was some sort of "domicile" on that piece of property, though nothing more is known to me about that house, other than it was "valued at 600 dollars". = Did she have a house built? - I simply don't know.)
6. At various times in her adult life, Emily claimed that her "married name" was: WEST, CARPENTER, WALLS, SIMPKINS & PETERS.
(Whether or not that Emily was ever lawfully married to anybody is UNKNOWN.)
NOTE TO "Non-Texan" READERS: A Texas woman may lawfully use ANY name that she chooses after she marries. = One of my college chum's bride changed her legal name from GERTRUDE MAE F__________ to JULIA ELIZABETH PATRICIA G_____________ when they married in 1976, as "I always hated my name & insisted that my friends called me 'Pumpkin' from 1st grade onwards."
7. Cooke & Grayson criminal court records indicate that at least 5 men died as a result of fights over "the favor of Emily Morgan" & 4 other men, over the next decade after our Revolution, evidently committed suicide because she "spurned their entreaty to marry".
(Not only was Emily described as a woman of "STUNNING & SEDUCTIVE BEAUTY" well into middle age, but she owned a large farm that a man might get control of upon marriage.)
8. Emily evidently owned a good-sized general store on the bank of the Red River & "near unto" the Grayson County line. = NOT PROVEN, though a circa 1860 news paper account mentions the store/trading post.
and
9. Emily probably passed away from some unknown fever, on a trip to CAPTAIN SHREVE'S PORT, when she was 40-45YO. - Captain Shreve's Port is "the former name" of: SHREVEPORT, LA.
SORRY, that's all that I'm reasonably is accurate, reference "The Yellow Rose".
(Emily is "one of my interests" & YES, I'm still looking for more information about her.)
yours, satx
