DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Now, there are trees, and then there are trees. Most of them just stand there, minding their business, making shade.
But out here in Goliad County, there is one tree that carried a different kind of weight altogether. They call it the Hanging Tree, and that name was earned. From 1846 to 1870, this site served as a place for court sessions at various times.
The law came here, such as it was, and when that law handed down a capital sentence, well — they didn't schedule anything for a later date. The sentence was carried out immediately, by means of a rope and a convenient limb. No delay.
No appeals whispered into the wind. Just the creak of that branch, and then silence. But the courts — as grim as they were — account for only part of what this tree witnessed.
In 1857, something broke loose along the Indianola–Goliad–San Antonio Road that history remembers as the cart war. It was a series of attacks made by Texas freighters against Mexican drivers working that same road. The violence spread, and it spread ugly.
About seventy men were killed before it was over. Some of them were killed right here, on this tree — not by any court's order, not by any sentence read aloud in the open air, but by the kind of fury that doesn't wait on procedure. It took the Texas Rangers to halt it.
Seventy men. One road. One tree.
Some places hold history in their stones, or their foundations, or their old painted signs. This one holds it in its branches — and the branches remember everything.
What the marker says
Site for court sessions at various times from 1846 to 1870. Capital sentences called for by the courts were carried out immediately, by means of a rope and a convenient limb. Hangings not called for by regular courts occurred here during the 1857 "cart war"--a series of attacks made by Texas freighters against Mexican drivers along the Indianola - Goliad - San Antonio Road. About 70 men were killed, some of them on this tree, before the war was halted by Texas Rangers. (1964)