I came across this, found it very interesting and thought I would share it.
The Texas Bone ManIt was 1928, just about the time of the season's first norther.
The bones of Robert Potter, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, were taken from the ground beneath a copse of tall trees where his beloved Harriet had covered his murdered form with earth and tears four score and six years before.
That same year, the bones of Edwin Waller, also a signer of the declaration, were dug from his resting place in the Waller family cemetery.
The following year, 1929, the same happened to Richard Ellis, Jesse Grimes, and William Bennett Scates, signers all. Their graves were opened and their bones spirited away.
John Wheeler Bunton was taken from Robinson Cemetery near Mountain City in 1932. Yes, he was a signer as well.
Then things were quiet for the signers until 1935, when the Bone Man took Sterling Robertson.
The centennial year of 1936 was the Bone Man's busiest. William Menefee, Bailey Hardeman, William Crawford and the ol' "Ring Tailed Panther" Martin Parmer were pulled from the good earth.
In 1937, Andrew Briscoe and Thomas Jefferson Gazley met that same fate.
Thirteen signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence had been dug up and carted away.
Who was responsible for this?
The Bone Man was Louis Wiltz Kemp, a Texaco executive, and a man deeply in love with Texas history.
The parade of bones he created led to the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
Lou Kemp believed these men should all rest in this place of honor, where we, the heirs of the nation they created, could pay our respects.
Lou Kemp also honored the founding fathers of Texas by writing about them. He left us a fascinating book.
The Texas founders were not a powdered wig crowd.
They were men with the bark on, their passions and foibles unhidden (except maybe to themselves.)
In other words, they were very real people, just like you and me.
Shakespeare wrote in Twelfth Night, "Some men are born great, some men achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
Our fifty-nine signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence can be divided into those same categories, but you would find a disproportionate number tallied in the third column.
Most of them had left the settled country to start new lives here in the land of second chances.
Lou Kemp's book contains a detailed biography of each of these fifty-nine signers of the Declaration.
"
To my knowledge, no other person did more during his lifetime to preserve the great heritage of Texas than did Lou Kemp." - Governor Price Daniel
He tracked each signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence from his earliest days, to his arrival in Texas, his work at the convention and during the Texas Revolution, and all the way to his last days on Earth.
Here they are...
Maybe you've come across some of these names in your reading.
Maybe you're descended from one:
Jesse B. Badgett --- George Washington Barnett --- Thomas Barnett
Stephen W. Blount --- John W. Bower --- Asa Brigham
Andrew Briscoe --- John Wheeler Bunton --- John S. D. Byrom
Mathew Caldwell --- Samuel P. Carson --- George C. Childress
William Clark, Jr. --- Robert M. Coleman --- James Collinsworth
Edward Conrad --- William Carroll Crawford --- Richard Ellis
Stephen H. Everett --- John Fisher --- Samuel Rhoads Fisher
James Gaines --- Thomas J. Gazley --- Benjamin Briggs Goodrich
Jesse Grimes --- Robert Hamilton --- Bailey Hardeman
Augustine B. Hardin --- Sam Houston --- William D. Lacy
Albert Hamilton Latimer --- Edwin O. Legrand --- Samuel A. Maverick Collin McKinney --- Michel B. Menard --- William Menefee
John W. Moore --- William Mottley --- José Antonio Navarro
Martin Parmer --- Sydney O. Pennington --- Robert Potter
James Power --- John S. Roberts --- Sterling C. Robertson
José Francisco Ruiz --- Thomas Jefferson Rusk --- William. B. Scates Erastus 'Deaf' Smith --- George W. Smyth --- Elijah Stapp
Charles B. Stewart --- James G. Swisher --- Charles S. Taylor
David Thomas --- John Turner --- Edwin Waller --- Claiborne West
James B. Woods --- Lorenzo de Zavala
Russ...
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