Thursday, October 27, 2011

Emily Morgan and San Antonio

We are back from our trip to San Antonio this past Sunday through Tuesday.  We stayed at the Emily Morgan hotel.  It was very nice and so beautiful.  Our room overlooked the courtyard of the Alamo.  That gave us some chills thinking about the battle of the Alamo 175 years ago.

Emily D. West was a free woman of color who was born in New Haven, Ct.  She signed on with James Morgan to be the housekeeper at his hotel.  She took the name Morgan as many did who were indentured. 

According to legend she caught the eye of Santa Anna, the Mexican general who won the battle of the Alamo.  According to one source I've read in the past few days she was a Texian spy and had gotten word to Sam Houston's army about where Santa Anna was.  The battle of San Jacinto, where Santa Anna was, only lasted between 18 and 45 minutes according to some sources.  I'm wondering who had the stopwatch.  After the battle of San Jacinto Emily West Morgan wanted to return to the US, and who could blame her.  However, her papers showing she was a free woman had been lost at San Jacinto.  She asked a Mr. Moreland to ask for a replacement passport for her to be able to return to New York.  This time period was before the Civil War.  The legend goes that she is "The Yellow Rose of Texas".

Will post some pictures when we get them downloaded from the camera.

5 comments:

  1. I had not heard the about Emily Morgan, nor the legend. Interesting!

    We are slowly getting our strength back. Heart medicine still doing relatively well. I am still research what to do if I need an ablation as Dr. I was referred to does not accept Medicare assignment.

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  2. That is quite interesting. The only memories I have of San Antonio, are of Lackland Air Force Base. I was there for basic training.
    Glad you enjoyed your vacation.
    Kat

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  3. NW1,
    Have you discussed with your primary about the need for a great doc who takes Medicare? It would be frightfully expensive to pay for yourself...the surgery.

    Kat,
    Wow! What beautiful pictures and I envy you your trip.

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  4. Patty and I stayed there when we went to San Antonio. I liked to eat breakfast there. A lot of history was recorded there in the hotel but I forget most of it now.

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  5. It is supposed to be haunted, but we had nary a boo all night.

    I'm all about room service for breakfast and enjoying the part about sliding gently into the day.

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