More on Dr. Amos Pollard
Elsewhere in this blog, my article "The Texas Residency of Doctor Amos Pollard" appears. It was written initially for a college communications course I took in order to receive teacher certification and shortly thereafter was published in The Alamo Journal, the official publication of the Alamo Society, in the issue of February 1995 (#95). The main objective of the article was to disprove the erroneous assertion that in Texas Dr. Pollard was a resident of Gonzales, Texas. He was not, and my article lists and discusses a wealth of reliable sources which prove that Dr. Pollard resided in or very near Columbia (present-day West Columbia), Texas. To this list of proofs can now be added, thanks to Michael Bailey, curator of the Brazoria County Historical Museum, Angleton, Texas, a letter by Dr. Pollard addressed "Columbia, (Texas, Mexico)," and dated "Feb. 15th, 1835."
In my article concerning Pollard's residency in Texas, I mention a notation that abolitionist Benjamin Lundy made in his journal on 30 August 1834 while at Bexar, Texas: "I met today Dr. Amos Pollard, lately of New York but now of Columbia, Texas. He is a decided friend of our cause." Dr. Pollard's letter to William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the weekly abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, is shown here. It provides further sound evidence that Pollard was a resident of the Municipality of Columbia. It has long been known that he had practiced medicine in New York, but another biographical gem provided by the letter is that he had also practiced medicine in Boston.
Feb. 15th, 1835.
I am, your obedient servant,
AMOS POLLARD, M. D.