[From J. Marvin Hunter's Frontier Times Magazine, September, 1934]

IT IS DOUBTFUL if St. Patrick could read Spanish, but had he been living in 1830 he would have known that the colony of San Patricio along the banks of the Nueces River some 30 miles from the present city of Corpus Christi, was named in his honor because of its Irish complexion. It was a 100 percent Irishman, James McGloin, who became the impresario of San Patricio. He fostered but one ambition, that to show the world the Irish could get to the top in any situation.

This ambition was shared, it is said, by his partner, John McMullen. So with a charter obtained from the Mexican government in 1828, they had a thriving settlement named after the patron saint of their homeland by 1830. Instead of driving the green snakes out of Ireland, as St . Patrick is credited with having done, they were engaged in subduing the wilderness, fighting off Indians, killing rattlesnakes and trying to make happy homes right up against a Mexican garrison which maintained in the old mission at Lapanticlan, just across the Nueces. But this Mexican garrison proved an advantage in many ways in those early days because of the Indians about and only when Texas started out to acquire independence did it prove a detriment.

The main difference between the Irish of San Patricio and the Irish of Refugio, which was founded about the same time, is that the Refugio Irish all came directly from Ireland, while the Irish of San Patricio were recruited from new arrivals in Kentucky, New York, Louisiana and Ireland. Mexico was not willing that citizens of the State should be brought in at that time as it saw a constant growing menace to the security of Texas as a province of Mexico in the restless and freedom loving disposition of the American citizens who were pushing into the new territory.

But Mexico did not know the Irish or anything of Irish tradition, for if there has ever been a people in history who have invariably kept the word "freedom" uppermost in their minds, no matter where they may have roamed, it certainly is the Irish. Proof of this is found in the fact that at Goliad on Dec. 20, 1835, months before the official declaration of Texas independence, Phillip Dimmit, an Irishman from San Patricio, with many Irish followers from that place and Refugio declared that "Texas ought to be a free, independent and sovereign state," More proof of this assertion is found in the fact that on Nov. 6 of that same year, Ira Westover came over from Refugio with some more Irish, and enlisted a good many more at San Patricio and went over the Nueces to attack the Mexican garrison under Gen. Marcelino Garcia at Lapanticlan. This was one of the very first battles in the Texas struggle for independence and was first cousin to the battle of Gonzales. The Irish ire was at high pitch after the battle and it was following that Irish went to Goliad and decided Texas ought to be free.

According to various histories, both written and in the traditions of old timers, there was more than one cause for the battle of Lapantielan. It seems that two citizens of Refugio who had been making frequent business trips to Mexico proper and had been arrested and imprisoned by the Mexicans, and when they were free reported the malter at Refugio. Westover and his followers at once decided to avenge the act. They came to San Patricio, where McGloin had been having considerable argument with the Mexican garrison. Mexico had demanded the cannon that had been given by the Mexican government to the colonists for protection against the Indians, and like Gonzales, San Patricio did not desire to surrender the cannon. In fact, McGloin said they would not surrender. The word "surrender " was entirely foreign to the Irish way of talking. But this Lieut. Marcelino Garcia was personally well liked by the colonists, was a friend of McGloin's and had no personal interest, in the matter, only that his government had told him to get the cannon . So to make things easier and more peaceful and, most of all, to get around the word "surrender" which was so despicable to the Irish, He told McGloin to just lend them the cannon for practice and when things "blew over" the colonists could have it back.

Now it is tradition with the Irish that you can borrow, almost anything they have, even the clothes off their hacks, but don't try to take them by force. So McGloin "loaned " Garcia the cannon. An attempt had been made get it back and when Westover arrived the double grievance of men imprisoned and Mexicans refusing to return a borrowed cannon was just more than the Irish disposition could endure. So the battle of Lapanticlan took place, as recorded by history, and among the Mexican casualties was the colonists' friend, Marcelino Garcia. The Irish got their cannon, but the way was so muddy they threw it in the river because it was too heavy to take home. Lieut. Garcia was brought over under a flag of truce and was taken to the McGloin home, where he was cared for by rnembers of the family and a much beloved priest of the settlement. He died and was buried in the old graveyard at San Patricio. On his deathbed he gave his horse and saddle to John Lynn of Victoria.

I am going to take time here to relate one of the prettiest ghost stories of all early Texas history. It is that of The Little Lady in Green, "the sweetheart of Lieut. Marcelino Garcia. According to tradition which has come down through the years and is commonly known in and around San Antonio even today, Lieutenant Garcia had a sweetheart he was to have married, but being ordered to the border post, delayed the plans. Her home was in Mexico City and she was reputed to be very beautiful, She was rather small and though not, tall enough to possess a stately bearing, she was a queenly figure, the old-timers aver and with her clear white skin, black hair and talking brown eyes she had won many admirers in the social set of the city, but only the lieutenant. had won her heart and hand. No one in the colonies had seen her, it seems, but the lieutenant had described her to many of his friends.

When in periods of delirium before his death, the lieutenant called the name of his sweetheart frequently and would cry out for her. His anguish was such that it brought tears to the eyes of those about him. They were wishing there was some way she could be brought to him, but such was impossible because of the distance, modes of travel and customs of the times. However, word had been sent to her that her fiance was probably mortally wounded and what happened when she received that word was something for discussion. Hindu philosophers or others who believe the soul can leave the body during life and roam at will, if the person possessing the soul has "control."

It seems that only a week or two before the lieutenant's death, just after his sweetheart had word of his wounds, that those in the room with him were startled to see a beautiful Spanish girl enter the room bend over his bed and kiss his fevered brow. Some even say, so tradition goes, that he awoke, recognized her and sought to grasp her hand but it was not there. He even called her name and exclaimed, "You have come to me, my love, my all." The girl was gowned in a green silk dress with black polka dots made in the style of the day, so the story goes, but the startling thing about it all is that instead of having a mantilla over her head, she wore a cocky little black hat with a red plume and had a mantilla around her shoulders.

Everyone present was startled by her beauty and her sweet, sorrowful expression. Tenderly she stroked the forehead of her dying lover hour after hour, coming in through closed doors, if needs be, at different hours of the day and night. Some attempted to follow her when she left, they say but as she departed from the house she would always give a backward glance, as if to see if all was well, and then vanish as if into air—just disappear, that's all. Those who tried to talk to the lady in green could never attract her attention. Neither did the words of her lover seem to reach her ears. She never spoke. But she centered all attention upon the dying man and when he died, they say, she was sitting beside him, hand on his brow.

After several years the occupants of the house noticed that the Little Lady in Green failed to come on her visits any more. Then in a few weeks they had word from Mexico City that the sweetheart of Lieutenant Garcia had passed away, still unmarried, grieving until the last for her lover. So at her death, the visits ceased.

But going back to the everyday life of the San Patricio colonists one finds that they suffered many hardships. Crop failures, Indian raids and much illness beset them. It appears to be the opinion among some of the descendants of those early settlers, that the Irish were never intended as pioneers. "You can put the Irish in an established city and they will soon dominate it," one of the descendants said, "for soon they will be the policemen, the contractors, the politicians and perhaps the judges of the city. But they are not trailblazers. Who ever heard of a successful Irish farmer in this country during colonial times."

The Irish that McGloin brought from the States where they had not yet become American citizens, as well as those from Ireland, were highly educated for that period, and were of the best type of citizens, it is said, but entirely unfit for colonization purposes. It is asserted that there were engineers contractors, teachers, lawyers and other types of those from higher ranks of life among the colonists, but not one good farmer. They even dressed for dinner, and it was not unusual to see men and women sitting down to dinner in the log cabins attired in evening dress.

Not one of the original buildings yet stands in San Patricio. Naturally the structures were all of logs, in the beginning, but in the late fifties and early sixties colonists began shipping lumber from Pensacola, Fla., to the nearest seaports and freighting it to San Patricio to build homes. Today some splendid structures of the lumber period are still there. Among these is the large building of Saint Paul's Academy which was founded in 1876 by Robert Dougherty who received his education in the Jesuit College at Bardstown, Ky. He served on the Courier-Journal with George D. Prentiss and then came to San Patricio, where he founded the academy. The building is now used as the Dougherty ranch home, being the seat of that well-known South Texas family, many of whose members have been prominent in the life of the section for years.

Considerable mystery surrounds the death of John McMullen, who went into partnership with James McGloin to found the colony. He sold out to McGloin when the colony first got under way and some writer has said that he went to California and won fortune during the gold rush of 1849, but this is not true, according to some authentic history. McMullen was killed, it is claimed, in San Antonio by a Mexican boy he had helped raise. He was killed at Market and South Presa streets on the lot where the library now stands. Details of the killing are meager.

In 1855 Impressario John McGloin had lumber sent from Pensacola and built a substantial home on Hound Lake, about a mile and a half from the original log cabin which was near "Constitutional Square" in San Patricio. The next year he died and was buried in the old graveyard, but his grave has been lost. It is said there are scores of early Texas pioneers and heroes buried there, but during the time the colonists had to flee front the Indians, or other causes, and through neglect, many of the grave-markers were destroyed.

The only person living now who attended the Impressario's funeral is Miss Elizabeth Sullivan, who resides with her nieces at the Dougherty ranch. [She] was only four years old when she attended the funeral and in later years when she tried to locate the grave she could not. There are a good many piles of stone, or decaying tombs in the long abandoned graveyard that have no markers, and people living today do not know the names of all who are buried there. However, an effort is being made to determine the burial place of McGloin and other early settlers and mark them properly.

There is nothing left of the old mission fort at Lapanticlan, but a marker has been placed where it stood. It occupied a natural fort position on a little hill in the bend of a creek, but the logs of which the mission was built have long since decayed. At one time the spot was the home village of the Lipan Indians, who were fearless and warlike for many years, but who subsequently became domesticated. In the early days of the colony the banks of the natural round lake where St. Paul's Academy was later built were covered with wigwams of the Indians who camped there to fish and hunt. The headstones in the old graveyard at San Patricio on which names and dates are still legible, show that almost all buried there were born in Ireland, although there were a few from Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. Some Spaniards also were in the colony, but the Irish outnumbered by far all others combined.

Many of the original colonists were killed with Fannin at Goliad, some died at San Jacinto and the Civil War took its toll of others. But at no time during that stirring period of history did the Irish fail to do their duty as citizens, and even though unfit for the kind of a task they undertook they made the best of it and never had the word "surrender" in their vocabulary.

Sister Mary Agnes, who has a school at 2123 West Houston Street, San Antonio, is a granddaughter of James McGloin and like her distinguished ancestor, she refused to surrender when confronted with such a demand from Mexico. She had been in Mexico 35 years and had one of the most exclusive convents in the republic, at Puebla, when in 1928 Mexico demanded she surrender the property and come under the strict regulations the Mexican government demanded of the church schools. But Sister Mary Agnes would not comply with the requests and instead came to the United States and to San Antonio. During her 35 years in Mexico she had been back in the States only once.

Edward McGloin of Live Oak county and James McGloin of Corpus Christi are grandsons of the founder of San Patricio. Miss Elizabeth McGloin, who resides on her ranch near Sinton, is a granddaughter and two other McGloin granddaughters were named Agnes and Alma, sisters of Edward and James.

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