Chapter One. In the book written by Dosha Williams and Reneta BYRNE.
Spirits of San Antonio and South Texas.
In downtown San Antonio, settled right beside the old Bexhill County Jail, there is a quaint old-world compound of houses, clearly dating from another era.
The buildings, which are located on South Laredo at West Nuevo Streets, there is a low one story house, a two story corner building, and a small Adobe and limestone 3 room building that is barely visible out back all. Are surrounded by a white fence on the Laredo Street side and a stonewall down the West Nuevo street side.
These buildings comprise the former homestead of a famous Texan Patriot, Jose Antonio Navarro.
One of the two native born Texans, the other being his uncle, to sign the Declaration of Independence, Navarro and his wife Margarita purchased the land in 1832. The plot of 1.2 acres lay between the San Pedro Creek and The old road leading to Laredo. The neighborhood in which the property was located was called. LAREDITO. Or little Laredo because it was situated on the old highway to the border city. At the corner of the property there is a 2 story limestone building that once served as Mr Navarro’s law office. The building is very much as it was when originally built. The exact date the Navarros built their house and office is not known. It was certainly built sometime after 1832 as a two room house with a one room detached kitchen of Adobe brick. The bricks were made of clay, rich soil, lime, and limestone chips of water. Each sun dried brick weighed approximately 35 pounds. At some point, the Navarro’s enlarged both the house and the kitchen. Workers joined three limestone rooms to the original Adobe structure to make an L shaped five room structure.
Mr Navarro was a member of the ill fated Santa Fe Expedition in 1841. General Santa Ana sentenced the Texas patriot to life imprisonment in Mexico, but he was able to finally escape.
He made his way back to San Antonio in 1845. The Navarro’s owned a ranch called. San Geronimo, which was located some forty miles to the east of San Antonio, and they spent most of their time there. They used the townhouse on their visits to San Antonio. In 1853, they sold the ranch and made their permanent residence in town, where they lived until Jose passed away in 1871.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department beautifully maintains the restored complex of house, office, and kitchen.
They’ve even planted a typical kitchen garden of the 1800s outback of the Adobe kitchen. A pleasant porch shades the back portions of that building. Hollyhocks and roses and other old-fashioned plants border the house and adorn the patio where the old covered well is located between the house and kitchen. Along with all this early South Texas charm, there is the opinion among the people who have been closely associated with the House at one time, another Spirits lurked around as well.
David Bowser, author of Mysterious San Antonio and resident of San Antonio, says that the house seems to be the main area of psychic disturbances.
Footsteps have been heard, cold spots have been felt, furniture has been moved and rearranged when there’s no sign of wind or drought or people that have been in the house. David tells the story about the state employee who was working at the house in a restoration. Project and decided to sleep there at the house. He slept in the same room where Navarro died on January 13, 1871. Sometime in the middle of the night, he suddenly awoke feeling very uneasy. Finally, feeling almost panicky, he arose and walked outside of the room onto the porch. He chanced to glance upwards, and there, in one of the upstairs attic dormer windows was a face staring at him. Our friend Sam Nesmith. Who is both a historian and a psychic. Visited the place and had very strange experiences. First, When he entered the house, a large cabinet started to teeter and would have fallen over had not a staff member come to assist him in writing the massive piece of furniture.
Then Sam said he went out of the house and crossed over to the kitchen building there., in a room which he said he believed had been a laundry.
He clearly saw the figure of a young man cowering in the corner. His face was contorted with pain and he seemed to be out of breath. He had been shot in the leg, Sam believed, and was hiding in the room where he finally bled to death. In 1834, Jose Antonio’s brother Eugenio was the victim of a murder. Shot by what was referred to as a vindictive assailant. He was only 34 years old at the time of his death. A lady who visited the Navarro house recently told Fernando Cathedral cemetery number one where she had seen the Navarro name. That is what prompted her to visit the house. They said that as soon as the woman entered the house, she screamed. Oh my God, he’s here. She claimed she could see Eugenio Navarro sitting in one of the chairs in the living room, according to the park Ranger on duty.
