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The tangible past though can be found written on tombstones.

Following independence, when it became a de-facto Border outpost at the edge of the notorious Nueces Strip, San Patricio was all but abandoned for a decade, Texian and Mexican bridgands causing what Indian raids had not. The "new' cemetery behind the church dates from the resettlement in the 1870's.

Still, a lot of sad history is written in the tombstones. Mother and infant, 1888....



Ya wont find the old 1830's cemetery unless you ask around, it sits on a low hill along a back road maybe a mile away, up an unmarked track through a hayfield.





I wonder if Larry McMurty had passed this way; McFall from Scotland.....



...and a listing of those either from San Patricio and/or those who were killed elsewhere in the War of Independence...



I have to say it seemed a fine thing to find so many Irish names there among what tombstones remained. The Sullivan's are there, and the Dougherties too who legend had it were plagued by a banshee. James McGloin, Irish Emprasario and founder of the Irish colony there, died of a fever in 1856 but his grave for what ever reason was not marked with stone and is lost today.

His children however, plainly took root....



Not so with Lewis Ayers, who figures prominently in the tale. Tragically all four of their children are likely buried in unmarked graves there too, carried off in the space of a single week by infectious strep (scarlet fever), which may explain why the Ayers left the state shortly thereafter, never to return.

OK, enough graves.....