MAHAN, PATRICK (?-1843). Patrick Mahan (Maher, Mahon, Mahar), a participant in the Mier expedition^qv who died in the Black Bean Episode,^qv was a native of Ireland and a resident of Victoria, Texas. Sometime between March 2 and September 9, 1839, he was reported as a deserter from Capt. J. P. Ownsby's company of Col. D. J. Woodlief's militia regiment. He served in the San Patricio Minute Men from July 27 through August 25, 1841, first under Capt. A. T. Miles and later under Capt. W. J. Cairns. Mahan was captured at the battle of Mier and was one of the seventeen Texans who drew a black bean and was executed by the Mexicans after an abortive escape attempt by the Mier prisoners at Salado, Mexico, on March 25, 1843. Mahan's body, along with those of the other victims, was recovered during the Mexican War^qv and returned to Texas in 1848. It was buried at Monument Hill (see MONUMENT HILL-KREISCHE BREWERY STATE HISTORIC SITE) near La Grange, beside the victims of the Dawson Massacre^qv of 1842.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. A. Duewall, The Story of Monument Hill (La Grange, Texas: La Grange Journal, 1955). Thomas J. Green, Journal of the Texian Expedition Against Mier (New York: Harper, 1845; rpt., Austin: Steck, 1935). Joseph Milton Nance, After San Jacinto: The Texas-Mexican Frontier, 1836-1841 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1963).

Thomas W. Cutrer