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Post by Jim Boylston on May 23, 2007 13:35:30 GMT -5
I don't think that's the case. The story does read more like a human interest piece, but it implies that something recent spurred the interest and that Herff is supplying details. His story may not have been taken seriously (as Stuart suggests) because there may have been no knowledge of a previous interrment. I don't think it's logical to assume that there was no interest in the find (if, in fact, there was a find), especially since the report is from 1935...remember, the Centennial celebration of the battle was coming on fast. I wonder too, if bones were found, if they couldn't have been from the mission era. I need to take another look at Jake Ivey's work as well. I think he unearthed some bones in the area of the north wall, but that's off the top of my head, which is always suspect. Jim
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Post by stuart on May 23, 2007 13:44:14 GMT -5
You're missing the heading here. There very clearly had been some kind of a discovery, and Herff just came forward with his own take on it.
Remember once again that in 1935 everybody knew that the Alamo defenders had been cremated and so there wouldn't be an automatic association of some old bones with the battle.
One other thing which occurs to me reading over the posts is the question of numbers. Herff refers to 13 or 14 bodies being found in the 1880s, while the 1935 article suggests that the new finds were additional. Our friend Filisola did mention there were 20 Bexarenos in the Alamo; did he know that because that's how many were executed afterwards?
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Post by Herb on May 23, 2007 13:44:20 GMT -5
Hmmn, I vaguely remember that. Wasn't it just a skull?
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Post by stuart on May 23, 2007 13:46:23 GMT -5
Vaguely too, I've a lurking memory it was a piece of skull with a nasty cut in it, but it was found in some rubble infill
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Post by TRK on May 23, 2007 14:14:47 GMT -5
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Post by Jim Boylston on May 23, 2007 15:02:41 GMT -5
That's not how I read it. It seems to me that something has been discovered that prompted Herff to come forward with his story to explain the find. He seems to me to be explaining what was found based on an earlier unearthing 50 years previously. This would lead me to believe that the bones that are being discussed were reinterred at the site of their original discovery, then unearthed again in he 1930's (if any of this really happened). Same site, same bones, Herff says, "I know what those are!!" I agree that we need to access some SA newspapers from around the same time and see what prompted Herff's statement. If remains were uncovered, then we go further back to see if there were reports of an earlier find. If we can find corroboration for the remains, we still won't know for sure if the bones are Tejanos, mission Indians, or defenders, but at least we'll know that there's more to Herff's story than a tall tale! Jim
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Post by stuart on May 23, 2007 15:10:36 GMT -5
From the tone of the 1935 article and its headline its very obvious that its discussing the discovery of a number of bones on a building site at that time. That's clearly a given fact.
Herff's only involvement is in effect to come forward and say that the bones just discovered must be Alamo defenders because he remembers chatting to Loyosa and the others about some headless bodies that were discovered there 50 years earlier.
Unless there is a news item sometime in August (and I'd expect TRL to have turned it up), I'd guess that what's being discussed are a scattering of disturbed bones left over from that earlier discover rather than the much more newsworthy complete bodies
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Post by Jim Boylston on May 23, 2007 15:15:02 GMT -5
Yes, Stuart, that sounds right to me as well. One would think though, that an earlier story had been posted, since there's an assumption that the reader is in on the story. It's curious. Jim
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Post by stuart on May 23, 2007 15:21:42 GMT -5
Not necessarily, in modern terms we're still talking small town. It could simply be common knowledge - something people knew about and were talking about without necessarily having been broken to them by a newspaper.
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Post by Jim Boylston on May 23, 2007 15:34:59 GMT -5
Not necessarily, in modern terms we're still talking small town. It could simply be common knowledge - something people knew about and were talking about without necessarily having been broken to them by a newspaper. You're talking 1930's? San Antonio's population was pushing a quarter million, if my stats are correct. Jim
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Post by Jim Boylston on May 26, 2007 15:07:00 GMT -5
I found something in Hansen, p. 539, that may add a twist to this Herff business. In a March 26, 1911 story about the funeral pyres from the San Antonio Express, this: "The other pyre, which was of equal width, was about 80 feet long and was laid out in the same direction, but was on the opposite side and on property now owned by Dr. Ferdinand Herff, Sr., about 250 yards southeast of the first pyre, the property being known as the site of the old Post House or the Springfield House." (emphasis mine) Could be that Charles Herff has his 1935 story confused with this earlier report. Perhaps his later mention of the "post office" is confused with "Post House" in this earlier incident, that was apparently on Herff property. The 1911 report also mentions bones from the pyres being moved, etc. If remains were turned up in 1935 during post office construction (something we have yet to verify), Herff's explanation might have been based on a faulty recollection of this earlier story. Jim
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Post by mexicanjoe on Mar 21, 2010 21:06:59 GMT -5
Is there a map (or aerial view overlays) showing the estimated sites of the Funeral Pyres?
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Post by garyzaboly on Apr 7, 2010 13:46:20 GMT -5
According to the Overview of Alamo Archaeology section here, there were 37 Native American skeletons uncovered at the Post Office site in the 1930s.
This almost matches the number of Comanches killed in the 1840 Council House Fight---35.
According to some sources, a Russian surgeon in San Antonio at the time was allowed to BEHEAD at least two of these Indians, for phrenological study! I'm just wondering if this connection is an apt one. How do we know that any beheaded body was anything other than a Native American?
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Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 7, 2010 14:26:59 GMT -5
I haven't a clue Gary. Do DNA tests identify race, or have I been watching too much CSI?
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Post by TRK on Apr 7, 2010 14:40:40 GMT -5
I'm not sure that scenario works, Gary. Although there were 35 Comanches killed in the Council House fight (30 braves, 3 women, and 2 children), Dr. Edmund Weideman claimed two complete bodies so he could have the skeletons, and also took two other skulls. That leaves 33 bodies, four short of the 37 found in the 1930s. Also, why go to the trouble of carting the bodies all the way from Main Plaza to the north side of the Alamo compound when there were doubtless closer places they could have been disposed at?
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