DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. William C. Swearingen was born in Kentucky, and one January — the twenty-eighth, eighteen thirty-six — he stepped off a schooner called the Pennsylvania onto the shore at Velasco, Texas.
He'd come to fight for the freedom of Texas, and that is exactly what he did. He joined Captain Amasa Turner's company and stood at San Jacinto, one of those men who showed up when showing up meant everything. Now, you'd think a story like that would end with the man riding off into some long and well-earned Texas sunset.
But the marker doesn't give us that. William C. Swearingen died in Houston on December the twenty-fourth, eighteen thirty-nine.
Christmas Eve. The marker lets that date sit there quiet, and so will I. What the marker does give us — and this is the part that'll stay with you long after the road noise fades — is a line from a letter Swearingen wrote to his parents back in Kentucky.
Just one line. 'Kiss William for me and tell him Pappy will be there in the fall and stay with him and that he must be a good boy.' There's a child named William. There's a father who made a promise. There's a fall that, by December the twenty-fourth of eighteen thirty-nine, would never come.
The marker doesn't say another word about it. Doesn't have to.
What the marker says
Born in Kentucky. Arrived at Velasco, January 28, 1836 on the schooner Pennsylvania to fight for the freedom of Texas. A member of Captain Amasa Turner's company at San Jacinto. Died in Houston, December 24, 1839. "Kiss William for me and tell him Pappy will be there in the fall and stay with him and that he must be a good boy." From a letter Mr. Swearingen wrote to his parents in Kentucky.