Our first meeting of the year is the last Monday in August at 10:00 a.m. We will celebrate Constitution Day on September 17, 2016. Other meetings are on the first Monday of the month at 10:00 a.m.
Asa Underwood, for whom
Asa Underwood Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution is named, was
born at Woburn, Massachusetts, on August 30, 1752. Asa, like many of
the men who made up the army of the Revolution, was not a soldier by
trade, but a peaceful, landowning farmer who laid aside the plow to
fight for his country’s freedom. When a campaign ended, he would return
to till the soil so dearly bought, only to march again to war when the
need arose. He was 23 when he marched with Col. Davis Green’s regiment
on the alarm of April 19, 1775, at Cambridge, and afterward saw service
at intervals thereafter throughout the war.
Asa Underwood was twice
married and fathered 13 children. He died at Dracut, Massachusetts, on
October 3, 1834, and is buried there. One of his sons, Ammon, emigrated
to Texas in 1834 where he settled at East Columbia, then called Marion,
and conducted a successful mercantile business. He took part in the
fight for Texas Independence and in the affairs of the young republic.
The Asa Underwood
Chapter was organized on November 24, 1941, by his great-granddaughter,
Laura Underwood. Eight of his descendants are past or present members
of the chapter which bears his name. The Ammon Underwood home still
stands in East Columbia and is open for tours by appointment.
West Columbia is known
as the First Capitol of Texas and a replica of the first capitol
building can be found there. An original cistern belonging to the time
period was recently found, and the area has been made into the Capital
of Texas Park. The new park, in the heart of West Columbia, was
dedicated in the spring of 2009. Each September, our Asa Underwood
Chapter helps host the Constitution Week DAR celebration "Bells Across
America" there.
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