Bucareli, Texas, Madison County Spanish Ghost Settlement. (original) (raw)

History in a Pecan Shell

The settlement was made up of unhappy colonists who had been uprooted from their home at Los Adaes (in present day Louisiana) and ordered to move to San Antonio in 1773.

After deciding that life in San Antonio didn�t suit them, they appealed to Spanish Viceroy Antonio Maria de Bucareli who was sympathetic and granted them permission to return to East Texas.

The site they chose was on the Old San Antonio Road where it crossed the Trinity River. The thankful colonists named it Nuestra Se�ora del Pilar de Bucareli. It was officially founded in September of 1774 and was given a ten year waiver on taxes. The settlers renewed their former (illegal) trade ties with the French and it appeared that they would thrive. But an epidemic in 1777 and raids by Comanches the following year doomed the settlement. Without waiting for official permission, the inhabitants abandoned Bucarelli and went north to found what would become Nacogdoches.

Today a historical marker on the west side of the Trinity River tells Bucareli�s story.

Historical Marker
Hwy 21 about 4 Miles E of Midway. Just W of Trinity Bridge.

Bucareli

In this vicinity, at Paso Tomas on the Trinity, was the Spanish town Nuestra Senora del Pilar De. Bucareli (1774-1779) Indian troubles had caused Spain to move Louisiana colonists to Bexar (San Antonio). These people, however, pled to return to East Texas, and secured the consent of Viceroy Antonio Maria Bucarelo. Led by Gil Ybarbo (1729-1809), they built at the Trinity crossing a church, plaza, and wooden houses, and grew to a town of 345 people. But ill luck with crops, a few Comanche raids, and river floods sent the settlers farther east. Again led by Ybarbo, they rebuilt the old town of Nacogdoches, 1779.

Bucareli, Texas Forum

• Subject: "Mexican cemetery"
  I believe that we have a cemetery that the old timers called a "Mexican cemetery" on our sanctuaries in San Jacinto County that may be related to Bucareli. The grave stones were virtually impossible to reach through the vegetation so I have been working to mark and expose the stones. It is my theory that some of the inhabitants of Bucareli that was a short distance up the Trinity River in Madison County, dispersed into safer parts of East Texas and that the graves are Spanish and not Mexican. To prove or disprove my theory I would like for there to be a formal archaeological investigation and a DNA test of one or more of the skeletal remains. - George H. Russell, March 24, 2013

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