NEW ORLEANS

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that "relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but everywhere and always." Handbook of Texas readers have long been familiar with such geographic interconnections, but the online edition of the Handbook allows us to examine these relationships more closely.

Texas Connections features articles drawn from the Handbook of Texas Online that illustrate the extent to which Texas has influenced and been influenced by other places, thus helping place the history of the state in a national and even global context. In this installment, we examine Texas's interactions with the Crescent City, New Orleans.

The "Big Easy" has played an important role in Texas history thanks to its prominence as a principal port on the Gulf of Mexico. The following is only a partial list of biographies in the Online Handbook of figures who were born, lived, worked, and/or had some other significant connection to New Orleans.

Ames, Harriet A. Moore Page Potter

memoirist and subject of an early community-property case (?–?)

Anderson, Edward Ewell

novelist (1905–1969)

Aury, Louis Michel

pirate (ca. 1788–1821)

Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss

Union general (1816–1894)

Bernardi, Prospero

participant in the Texas Revolution (1794–ca. 1837)

Binkley, William Campbell

historian and teacher (1889–1970)

Cabet, Étienne

utopian socialist (1788–1856)

Canaday, John Edwin

art critic (1907–1985)

Casa Calva, Marqués de

Spanish military officer (1751–?)

Curtis, Doris S. Malkin

geologist (1914–1991)

Davage, Matthew Simpson

black educator and Methodist churchman (1879–1976)

Davis, Mollie Evelyn Moore

poet (1844–1909)

Dyer, Isadore

dermatologist (1865–1920)

Emanuel, Albert

early Jewish settler (1808–1851)

Fortier, Honoré

merchant and Spanish viceregal emissary (1764–1826)

Gallagher, Peter

stonemason, explorer, and land developer (1812–1878)

Gálvez, Bernardo de

Spanish governor of Louisiana (1746–1786)

Glasscock, Lucille Freeman

philanthropist, rancher, and author (1898–1991)

Griffin, Corinne Mae

actress (1895?–1979)

Hawkins, Joseph H.

friend and partner of Stephen F. Austin (?–?)

Hogan, William Ransom

historian (1908–1971)

Holland, John Henry

lawyer and Masonic leader (ca. 1785–1864)

Hood, John Bell

Confederate Army officer (1831–1879)

Johns, Edward

Texas Navy midshipman (1824?–ca. 1906)

Johnson, "Blind Willie"

blues singer (ca. 1902–ca. 1950)

Kalteyer, George Henry

chemist, pharmacist, and industrialist (1849–1897)

Kendall, George Wilkins

journalist and pioneer Texas sheepman (1809–1867)

King, Valentine Overton

physician and historian (1833–1917)

Kleiber, Joseph

real estate and railroad developer (1833–1877)

Labatt, Abraham Cohen

founder of the first Jewish Reform congregation in the United States (1802–1899)

Laffite, Jean

pirate (1780?–1825?)

Lavender, Eugenie Etiennette Aubenel

painter (1817–1898)

Lawler, Ruth Curry

teacher and preservationist (1900–1990)

Lombardi, Cesar Maurice

publisher, grain merchant, and Houston civic leader (1845–1919)

Lubbock, Francis Richard

governor of Texas (1815–1905)

Lubbock, Thomas Saltus

soldier (1817–1862)

Mallet, Pierre Antoine

French Canadian explorer (1700–?)

McHenry, John

sailor and settler (1798–1878)

Millard, Henry

founder of Beaumont (1796?–1844)

Molyneaux, Peter

journalist (1882–1953)

Nolan, Philip

mustanger and filibuster (1771–1801)

Odin, Jean Marie

first Catholic bishop of Galveston (1800–1870)

Onderdonk, Gilbert

pioneer pomologist (1829–1920)

Oswald, Lee Harvey

presidential assassin (1939–1963)

Paine, John Fannin Young

first dean of University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (1840–1912)

Power, James

empresario and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence (1788?–1852)

Rankin, Melinda

Presbyterian missionary and teacher (1811–1888)

Rigaud, Antoine

Napoleonic general and officer at Champ d’Asile (1758–1820)

Ruby, George Thompson

black politician (1841–1882)

Salmon, Richard

Episcopalian priest and colonizer (1797–1849)

Scott, William Thomas

legislator and planter (1811–1887)

Thompson, Thomas M. (Mexico)

naval officer (?–?)

Titche, Edward

philanthropist and department store cofounder (1866–1944)

Walker, Juan Pedro (John)

pioneer cartographer (1781–ca. 1828)

Welch, Stanley

lawyer and "silver-tongued orator of Southwest Texas" (1846–1906)

Wheelock, Edwin Miller

minister, abolitionist, and educator (1829–1901)

White, James Taylor

"Cattle King of Southeast Texas" (1789–1852)

Wooldridge, Alexander Penn

attorney, bank president, and Austin mayor (1847–1930)

Wrede, Friedrich Wilhelm von, Sr.

author of an early Texas travel account (1786–1845)

Wright, Margaret Theresa Robertson

Texas pioneer and patriot (1789–1878)