Ghosts along the Texas Coast (13 page)

In the 1850s and early '60s Chipita Rodriguez lived on the Aransas River not far from the town of San Patricio. Her story is a very sad one and has resulted in her tormented spirit returning again and again to the scenes of her sorrows.

By far the best accounting of Chipita, her life, death, and continued returns to haunt the site of her death, is by Keith Guthrie, a writer from Taft, Texas, whose work,
The Legend of Chipita
, is outstanding.

Quite likely Chipita was a nickname. More than likely her real name was Josefa. She was the daughter of a hard-working Mexican named Pedro Rodriguez who left his Mexican homeland to seek shelter in Texas, away from the dictatorial Santa Anna. Pedro's young wife soon died of a fever, leaving him with a small daughter to raise.

Chipita's father used to tell her stories of her ancestors, the Aztecs. He spoke of the Aztec chief Cuauhtemoc, and his bravery when Cortes was plundering the village. The old chief chose death over telling the Spaniard where the Aztec treasures were hidden. Pedro told little Chepita over and over again as she grew up that to avoid trouble she must learn to “keep silent” just as the Aztec chief had done. Pedro eventually joined the Texas cause during the fight for independence from Mexico and was killed. This left young Chipita to fend for herself. “Be as quiet as the still water” became her watchword as she tried to remain true to her ancestors. Quiet and secretive, no one ever knew much about Chipita.

Somewhere along the way an outlaw took advantage of her. She became his common-law wife. Soon after she bore the man a son, he left her, taking the baby with him. All alone, she was left to make her way in the world as best she could.

Nothing much is known of what happened to her for a number of years until she turned up owning and running a small “inn,” which was little more than a shack on the banks of the Aransas River. Her place, called Chipita's Inn, stood by Aldrete Crossing, which was a fairly busy
ford crossing back in the 1850s and '60s. All she could offer was a place to sleep and a meager meal, but to weary traveler John Savage, one day in August of 1863, that was enough. Savage was a horse trader. He had just turned a profitable deal up in San Antonio and had $600 in gold in his saddlebags as he headed south to buy more stock. He had ridden hard, and he was tired. Chipita gave him a plate of hot food and pointed to the cot on the front porch of her little shack. He ate and then stretched out to sleep, his gun still strapped to his waist.

The John Welder ranch was about a mile from Chipita's place. The morning after Savage spent the night at the inn, a couple of Welder servants, and Welder's little daughter, Dora, set out in a wagon down to the banks of the Aransas River to gather up some firewood. One of the servants noticed a gunnysack lodged against a log a few feet from shore. She hooked the sack with a stick, but it was heavy and she had to call the other servant to help her. Together they could not move the gunnysack and whatever it held, but as they prodded it with a stick a portion of the material tore, revealing a man's arm to them. They rushed back to get Mr. Welder at the ranch, and he brought some men down to the river. The sack revealed a grisly find, indeed. The dismembered body of John Savage, his head cleaved apart by an ax, was in the sack. His pockets revealed a few coins, some matches and tobacco, and a pocketknife. No one knows whether Savage was buried there on the riverbank, or whether the Welders took the remains off to be buried somewhere on their place.

Savage's last known whereabouts were traced to Chipita's place. And the sheriff's men found bloodstains on her front porch, which Chipita said was chicken blood. No ax was found, either at her place or in the river.

Robbery was considered the motive for the killing. Strangely enough, some time later the $600 in gold, still in Savage's saddlebags, turned up downstream from Chipita's inn. Sheriff William B. Means was sure Chipita was to blame, and he showed up at her place soon after, leading a horse with an empty saddle. When they left, Chipita occupied the saddle.

Chipita was rapidly tried and convicted of the murder of John Savage. Her friend and neighbor Juan Silvera was later arrested as an accomplice. Chipita swore that she was innocent of the crime of killing John Savage. Many believed her, but they did think she knew, but would not tell, who had killed the horse trader.

According to Guthrie's book, numerous women of San Patricio felt sorry for Chipita and did not think she was guilty. They would come to the little jail and bring her food and visit with her. The day before she was sentenced to be hanged, she told her friend Kate McCumber, who had come to bring her some food and visit with her, that she had something she wanted to tell her. She made Kate promise she would not tell another soul for “many years.” Kate kept her promise, and it was forty years to the day before she told her daughter what Chipita had told her back on November 12, 1863. Chipita told her she did not kill John Savage. She said after Savage fell asleep she took a little walk along the riverbank as she often did in the evenings. Hearing a commotion at the inn, she returned to her home to see by the dim light a figure of a man stooped over a prostrate body on the ground. The face of the man was revealed in the pale moonlight. It reminded her of her late father. Then she knew. The man who had killed John Savage was her son, whom she had not seen since he was an infant. The son took Savage's horse and the saddlebags of gold, leaving Chipita with a dead man on her front porch. She didn't know what to do. She was small, and Savage was a big man. She ran to get her friend Juan Silvera, who lived on the Aldrete Ranch across the river. She was sure he would help her dispose of the body.

Juan came to help his friend and together they dragged the body, which they had wrapped in gunnysacking, down to the river, which is where the party from the Welder ranch found it the next day.

Chipita swore to Kate that she was innocent, but she could not reveal her son as the killer even if it meant she would hang. If the story she told Kate McCumber was true, an innocent woman was hanged on Friday, November 13, 1863. She became the only woman ever to be hanged in Texas.

There were two other kindly women of the town, sisters Rachel and Eliza Sullivan, who believed in Chipita's innocence. They came early in the morning the day she was to be hanged, bringing warm water so she could bathe herself. Rachel brought her one of her own favorite dresses of blue and white organdy to wear. The sisters combed and braided Chipita's long hair before they departed.

At last the time arrived, and Chipita was taken by wagon down to the riverbanks where a grave had been dug near the mesquite tree on whose limbs she would hang. She had to sit on her own crudely made coffin as the wagon bounced along over a rutted road. She turned down
the offer of a blindfold, calmly facing her fate, and still said, “
libre de culpa
” (not guilty) to the hangman. Her face remained without emotion, but she did ask, “
cigarillo
?” Deputy John Gilpin is said to have taken a corn shuck and some tobacco from his pocket, rolled a crude cigarette and handed it, along with a match, to Chipita. She took a long pull, let the smoke slowly ease out of her nostrils, and then a gust of wind blew the smoke into her eyes. But her face remained expressionless.

The rope was placed around her slender neck, and Deputy Gilpin whipped the horses out from under her. Her feet thrashed about as she strangled, as the weight of her small, frail body had failed to break her neck. There was no cover over her face to keep the horrors of her strangulation away from the witnesses who had followed the wagon to the hanging tree. As soon as Deputy Gilpin was convinced she must be dead, he cut the rope and dumped her little body into the coffin, which was then lowered into the waiting open grave. A bystander, Jack McGowan, added more details to the gruesome story. He said he heard a thump, and then a groan, coming from within the coffin! He said he didn't stop running until he reached his home, almost a mile away.

Since that grim day in 1863, Chipita's ghost has been seen by many people in the San Patricio vicinity. She is most often seen when a woman in Texas is being accused of a crime she did not commit. The ghost of Chipita is most always seen on nights when the full moon is waning and a low ground mist or fog turns the Nueces River bottom into a very eerie place. She comes to the place where she hung, and where her body was placed in an unmarked, unconsecrated grave. Mr. Guthrie told me in a recent telephone conversation that her apparition still appears on dark nights when the moon is on the wane.

Remember, Chipita was the only woman ever hanged for a crime in Texas. And she more than likely hung for a crime she did not commit. No wonder her spirit cannot rest in peace.

Not very far from the Texas coast, in Wharton County, is the quiet little community of Egypt. It was so named by very religious early settlers, because farmers from surrounding areas would come there during drought seasons to purchase seed. The fertile area supplied grain seeds to many farmers, who recalled how Jacob had purchased seed from Pharoah in the Bible story (Acts 7:12), and so they named their own fertile spot Egypt.

The first settler in the area around 1830 was Captain William James Elliot Heard.

According to
1001 Texas Place Names
, by Fred Tarpley, the population of Egypt in 1902 was only twenty-six people. To that number, we must also add, “and at least one ghost!”

I recently spoke with Anita Northington, who is the widow of George Heard Northington, III, a descendant of Captain Heard. She lives in the old Texas plantation-style home that Captain Heard built for his wife, America, and their children, in 1850.

Numerous Heards and Northingtons have resided in the house, which was constructed of handmade brick made on the place. It has a broad front porch and is of the “dog-trot” type of construction that was so often used by early settlers.

According to Mrs. Northington, many ghost stories have circulated through the various generations, and she readily admits she has what she considers to be a friendly spirit. She sometimes hears “thuds . . . or thumps,” like something hitting the side of the house, and what might be footsteps on the inside. She doesn't seem to be the least bit afraid or disturbed, and in fact, she told me she feels a whole lot safer living alone in her old country house with a ghost for company than she would feel living in a big city with the crime that seems to be running rampant today.

In the 1930s, when Will and Essie Northington had the place, a man who once worked for them on the plantation came back for a visit. He
was very ill and knew he might not live too long, and he wanted to make one last visit to the place that held so many fond memories. During his visit it was reported a large, heavy marble-topped table had moved around the living room by itself. Various other things of unexplainable nature occurred during his visit, convincing him the place was haunted.

Once when Anita's son and daughter-in-law and a party of young people who were all friends of theirs came for an overnight visit, there just weren't enough beds to go around. Some of the guests slept in the living room on bedrolls. One young man, a visitor from Russia, when asked what he thought of the old house, commented, “It is a very strange place.” He went on to say that he had strongly felt the presence of “something” watching him all night long.

Anita told me that one time the cook got really spooked. It was her usual custom to ring a bell to summon hired hands, guests, and family members in for meals. This particular day she didn't. She came running out of the kitchen, hollering, “Miz 'Nita . . . that ghost done got me!” Then she went on to explain that she first noticed all the clocks had stopped running at straight up twelve noon. Then she saw the figure of a man without a head coming slowly down the stairs! It was pretty hard to get her calmed down and back in the kitchen that day!

Anita said one elderly man who once worked on the place told her, “You don't ever need to be afraid, Miss 'Nita. Nobody ain't ever going to bother you with that ghost around!”

Now who is the ghost that is said to haunt the old Heard-Northington country home there in Egypt? Anita believes it might be the spirit of a Confederate soldier who passed away in an upstairs bedroom. She was always told that two soldiers had been sheltered there for a time, and one of them had died there. They may have been among a number of soldiers evacuated from other parts of the Deep South after Sherman made his sweeping march through the area. There were no hospitals, and few homes, left standing in which to treat the wounded, so they were evacuated to Texas, many of them coming to the area around El Campo and Egypt.

Anita said that some Federal troops had moved into an area not far from Egypt that was called Post Bernard. Since the post was only about 8 or 10 miles from the house, there was need for hiding, as well as treating, the wounded soldiers.

According to family records, one of the soldiers had a wooden leg. Anita believes he is the one who died. She was also of the opinion he
might have been a Presbyterian minister who had served with the Confederate forces as a chaplain during the war.

Mrs. Northington said that some former residents of the house had reported seeing apparitions, and some had reported seeing balls of fire running through the house, but she has never seen or heard anything that really frightened her. In fact, she believes her ghostly visitor is both friendly and protective.

The old landmark is open for tours, and Anita Northington welcomes visitors to her charming, historic home. If you would like to visit her, she would be happy for you to call her at (409) 677-3562 for information and directions.

The Spanish explorer Alonzo de Pineda discovered a beautiful, broad, sheltered bay on Corpus Christi Day, in the year 1519. The bay was named Corpus Christi in honor of that special day.