Including and Such As
Texans
FDC Lessons www.fdclessons.com
SUSANNA WIL
Including and Such As Texans
As the student reads each biography, ask her/him to take notes based on the “Five W’s and H”.
For example,
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Who is the focus of the biography?
Where did they live in Texas, or help establish?
If he/she isn’t a native Texan, where did he/she come from, and why did they come to
Texas?
What leadership characteristics did he/she possess?
What contribution did he/she make to Texas history?
When did that contribution take place?
Why is he/she important to Texas history?
How did he/she influence society or Texas history?
After reading and discussing the biography with a partner or the entire class;
• Assign students to complete a “quick write” in which they either identify or explain the
contribution that individual made to Texas history,
• Assign students to create an Acrostic poem using the individual’s last name,
o For example using Davy Crockett for a poem
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o C ongressman from Tennessee
o R oamed from Tennessee to Texas
o O ath of allegiance to the provisional government of Texas
o C andidate for Texas hero
o K illed by Santa Anna’s army
o E ver ready with his rifle
o T ennessee born
o T exan at death
Assign students to draw a “mosaic” in their notebook that contains at least three
divisions,
three words, three pictures and three colors. For example,
SUSANNA WILKERSON DICKINSON
(ca. 1814–1883), survivor of the Alamo, was born about 1814 in Tennessee. Her first
name has also been recorded as Susan, Susana, and Suzanna; her maiden name is
sometimes given as Wilkinson. On May 24, 1829, she married Almeron Dickinson
before a justice of the peace in Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tennessee. The couple
remained in the vicinity through the end of 1830. The Dickinsons arrived at Gonzales,
Texas, on February 20, 1831, in company with fifty-four other settlers, after a trip by
schooner from New Orleans. On May 5 Dickinson received a league of land from Green
DeWitt on the San Marcos River in what became Caldwell County. He received ten
more lots in and around Gonzales in 1833 and 1834. The Dickinsons lived on a lot just
above the town on the San Marcos River, where Susanna took in at least one boarder.
A map of Gonzales in 1836 shows a Dickinson and Kimble hat factory in Gonzales.
Susanna's only child, Angelina Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 14, 1834.
In early October 1835, when Mexican troops from San Antonio demanded the
return of an old cannon lent to Gonzales four years earlier, Susanna and her daughter
may have joined other families hiding in the timber along the Guadalupe River. The
resulting skirmish, the battle of Gonzales, was the first fight of the Texas Revolution.
Susanna said goodbye to her husband on October 13 as the volunteers left for San
Antonio under command of Stephen F. Austin. She remained in Gonzales through
November, when newly arriving Mexican troops looted her home. Susanna and
Angelina joined her husband in San Antonio, probably in December 1835, and lodged in
Ramon Musquizʼs home. On February 23, 1836, the family moved into the Alamo for
protection. When the Mexican army overran the Alamo on March 6, Almeron Dickinson
died along with all the other Texas soldiers. When searching the Alamo, Mexican
soldiers found Suzanna and Angelina-some accounts say in the powder magazine,
others in the church-, along with the other women and children, and took them to
Músquiz's home.
In a statement Susanna gave for Texas state records, she said,
"After the fall I was approached by a Colonel Black, an Englishman who was an officer in
the Mexican service. He sheltered me from Mexican injury and took me in a buggy to Mr.
Musquez, a merchant in where I stayed until the next day. Then I was carried before Santa Anna
who wanted to take me to Mexico with my child. I was later told to depart to my home in
Gonzales."
Santa Anna sent Susanna and her daughter, accompanied by Juan N. Almonteʼs
servant Ben, to General Sam Houston with a letter of warning dated March 7. The party
met up with Erastus (Deaf) Smith and Henry Wax Karnes, who guided them to General
Houston in Gonzales, arriving about March 12. Susanna Dickinson probably followed
the army eastward in company with the other Gonzales women who constantly
questioned her about their Alamo husband/soldiers.
At the end of the war, Susanna was a single parent, with no other family in Texas.
She petitioned the new government meeting at Columbia in October 1836 for a
donation, but the proposed $500 was not awarded. Susanna tried matrimony four more
times before settling into a stable relationship. She married Joseph William Hannig (or
Hannag), a native of Germany living in Lockhart, in 1857. Susanna sold the original
acreage claimed by Almernon Dickinson. She and Joseph used that money to set up a
successful cabinet shop/furniture store and undertaker parlor in Austin. Susanna
became ill in February 1883 and died on October 7 of that year. Hannig buried her in
Oakwood Cemetery, and even though he married again, he was buried next to Susanna
after his death in 1890
Upon her death The Austin Statesman wrote
"On Sunday October 7th there died, in this city, the lady whose name heads this article.
Mrs. Hannig was at one time Mrs. Dickinson, a name indelibly attached to the bloodiest
page of Texas history. She watched the advance of the bloodthirsty enemy from early
dawn, when they advanced upon the fort, until its last defender fell; she saw it all; heard
the bugles give the signal for advance; listened to the terrific rattle of musketry as the
Texans, from the ramparts of the fort, poured volley into advancing Mexican lines; heard
the moans of the dead and dying, the repeated calls of Castrillon for advance; she
watched the scalers and heard the awful crash that opened the breach in the walls
through which the Mexicans poured to do their deadly work; she saw Travis fall at the
head of the fight; looked on the immortal Crockett while he weeded down Mexicans with
his ponderous blade until he fell upon a hillock of victims. She heard the brave defense
of Bowie, as almost helpless he rose from his sick bed, and with the expiring spirit of a
patriot and a demigod, met his foes and gave more than one of them death. Mrs.
Hannig often repeated the terrible scenes of which she was an eye witness on that
awful day, when Texas gave up to immortality the last one of these brave defenders,
and as often as they were so repeated, tears of woe coursed down her cheeks. But few
women have passed through such scenes, and in the centuries to come, none,
probably, will ever witness such another; certainly none will perform any part in any act
where greater heroism may be displayed."
Image from www.humanitiestexas.org/programs/tx-originals/list/susanna-dickinson