Tragedy in South Texas Reading Black Unionist George Washington Wall Confederate. (original) (raw)

At about this same time in Canada, George Washington (Tom) Wall and his family were beginning to get the itch to come to Texas. In 1856 Tom with his family and the Duncan Wall family set out for new beginnings. Somewhere along the way they teamed up with the family of John Leakey, the founder of the town of Leakey, Texas.

With the desire to make their funds stretch as far as possible Black purchased a league and a labor near the head of the Leona River, the future site of the city of Uvalde, Texas. He established a store, built a home, and laid out the future town. He became a prominent member of the community both financially and politically. His political beliefs caused him to have exile in Mexico until the end of the Civil War. He established himself in Mexico and returned to Uvalde in 1866.

The Wall�s and Leakey�s settled in and around the Uvalde area in the Sabinal Canyon. In 1855 John Leakey was involved in an argument over an irrigation ditch that ultimately ended in the death of a man. Leakey was tried and acquitted. But things heated up for him and he decided to leave the Patterson Settlement, but before the family could get packed and outta there, John was involved in his famous battle with the Indians which only made him want to leave the area that much faster.

Recovered from his wounds he during the Indian skirmish, along with his friends, Tip Stanford, Duncan Wall and Tom Wall, moved to the Frio Canyon and established a shingle making and freight business.

In 1864, Tom Wall�s wife, Kessiah passed away and was laid to rest on their place north of Leakey. At this time Tom was in the trade operation between Texas and Mexico so he farmed his children out to neighbors in order to continue his business.

In 1867, he married Amelda McKinney, the sister-in-law of one Reading Black of Uvalde, Texas. This would be the beginning of what would later become a tragic event for the now connected families. The distance between Uvalde and Leakey is about forty miles.

Texas was slow to mend the division caused by the war and Reading�s political opinions and his representations made him as easy target and may have played a part in his demise or maybe not. However it may be, Reading and the new family member, Tom Wall became partners in livestock and Tom loaned Reading money to open a store. Reading would run the store and tend the stock while Tom ran the trade routes. Monies were co-mingled and the partnership was stretched.

One family member on the Wall side tells that Tom, in 1867, returned from one of his trips to find that the partnership stock had been sold and the money put into the store. Tom tried to collect the loan or the money from the livestock sale but in the end he and Reading quarreled and Tom walked out stating that he would be back the next day to kill Reading or to collect the money. This was in the day when a man�s word was true.

Several of Reading�s friends offered to bail him out but Reading seemed unconcerned probably thinking that the family ties and a good sleep would cure Tom�s rage, a bad decision on his part because the next morning, bright and early Tom rode into Uvalde on his gray horse.

Reading was spending a usual morning in the store visiting with customers when Wall walked up to him demanding the one hundred dollars. When Reading refused and made a move for a gun Tom Wall shot him dead on the spot. Tom was out the door in an instant, heading old gray south for Mexico. He remained in Mexico, part of the time confined to a jail but bought his freedom in 1868.