The Texas Arcane Fact of the Day: At 308 W. Leona Street in Uvalde stands a small, unassuming building that currently houses a School of Classical Dance (which has a FB page, by the way). Behind that building at the edge of its parking lot is an oak tree that is called The Tombstone Oak. This tree is called The Tombstone Oak because, for 75 years, it marked the gravesite of John King Fisher, one of the most feared and admired bad men in Southwest Texas. At the age of 11, King Fisher left his home at Paint Rock, Texas, and during the next ten years he advanced well on the way to becoming an outstanding bad man. Charges against him included robbery, theft, bribery, perjury, smuggling, blackmail and murder. Less than two months after King married Miss Sallie Vivion, on April 7, 1876, he and nine of his associates were arrested by Texas Ranger Captain L. H. McNelly and taken to Eagle Pass to stand trial. On the trip, Captain McNelly gave the young desperado a talk which apparently caused him to change his evil ways. About 1883, a reformed Fisher moved his family to Uvalde and assumed the duties of deputy sheriff and tax collector. An account of Fishers last days, by the late Reverend Bruce Roberts, who knew the Fisher family well, seems most plausible and in accord with the young lawmans conversion. Leaving Austin after a routine trip to deliver his annual tax report, King boarded the same train as Austins city marshal, Ben Thompson, another famous outlaw-turned-lawman. Thompson was going to San Antonio to settle a grudge with Joe Foster, the partner of a gambler he had killed twenty months earlier. Sensing trouble and having been befriended by Foster some years earlier, King went to the theater with Thompson to affect a reconciliation. Foster and his men were waiting behind a screen at the saloon as King and Thompson entered. Both were killed instantly. When the city of Uvalde put a street through its cemetery, graves on the east side of North Park Street were moved to a new section, which they designated Pioneer Cemetery. King Fishers grave was located only after one of Uvaldes senior citizens remembered marking an old oak tree at the time of Fishers burial. When the grave was opened, Fishers cast-iron coffin with its glass viewing panel and welded lid was still intact. His body and fancy clothing also were well-preserved. An iron fence and marker in Pioneer Cemetery identify the new grave of this remarkable young Texan who died with his law boots on. Heres a current photo of the tree: tfsweb.tamu.edu/uploadedImages/Websites/Famous_Trees_of_Texas/Trees/Tombstone%20Oak(2).jpg By the way, all of this information comes from the fantastic Famous Trees of Texas website: tfsweb.tamu.edu/websites/FamousTreesOfTexas/
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 12:00:01 +0000
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