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Community leader foresees her own death
On this day in 1874 Susanna O'Docharty, pioneer woman and community
leader, asked a priest to prepare her for death. Although she was ill,
the padre saw no signs of death. "This is why I sent for you, I die
tonight," she told him curtly, which she did. The Indiana native, born
in 1804, moved with her husband to Texas sometime before 1831 to join
the McMullen-McGloin colony, where they helped establish the town of San
Patricio. Susanna helped establish a meeting between the people of
Matamoros and the San Patricio colonists in 1832 at Banquete Creek. This
grew into an annual festive occasion called El Lugar del Banquete. Mrs.
O'Docharty became a leader of a group of San Patricio residents loyal to
the Centralist Mexican government and influenced several other families
to move with her family to Matamoros, where they lived until 1845, when
Gen. Zachary Taylor's army brought a semblance of law and order back to
the old city of San Patricio. Upon her family's return, she returned to
her role of community leader and began teaching in her home when the
community school closed. She gave her two sons a basic law background
that enabled them to become respected lawyers and judges in San Patricio
and Nueces counties. Tales of her strong character still exist,
including that of how she retrieved her infant daughter's remains from
Mexico. About a year after returning to Texas, she enlisted the aid of
twelve-year-old Hubert Timon, and the two disappeared early one morning
riding south. Two weeks later they reappeared with Susanna balancing a
small coffin on her saddle horn.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- O'DOCHARTY, SUSANNA DOUGHARTY
- MCMULLEN-MCGLOIN COLONY
- SAN PATRICIO, TX
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Aaron Burr acquitted of charge of treason (1807)
- In letter to king of Spain, Coronado is first to describe Llano Estacado (1541)
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