Goliad

Goliad, an unincorporated village and the county-seat of Goliad county, Texas, U.S.A., on the N. bank of the San Antonio river, 85 m. S.E. of San Antonio. Pop. (1900) about 1700. It is served by the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio railway (Southern Pacific System). Situated in the midst of a rich farming and stock-raising country, Goliad has flour mills, cotton gins and cotton-seed oil mills. Here are the interesting ruins of the old Spanish mission of La Bahia, which was removed to this point from the Guadaloupe river in 1747. During the struggle between Mexico and Spain the Mexican leader Bernardo Gutierrez (1778-1814) was besieged here. The name Goliad, probably an anagram of the name of the Mexican patriot Hidalgo (1753-1811), was first used about 1829. On the outbreak of the Texan War of Liberation Goliad was garrisoned by a small force of Mexicans, who surrendered to the Texans in October 1835, and on the 20th of December a preliminary “declaration of independence” was published here, antedating by several months the official Declaration issued at Old Washington, Texas, on the 2nd of March 1836. In 1836, when Santa Anna began his advance against the Texan posts, Goliad was occupied by a force of about 350 Americans under Colonel James W. Fannin (c. 1800-1836), who was overtaken on the Coletta Creek while attempting to carry out orders to withdraw from Goliad and to unite with General Houston; he surrendered after a sharp fight (March 19-20) in which he inflicted a heavy loss on the Mexicans, and was marched back with his force to Goliad, where on the morning of the 27th of March they were shot down by Santa Anna’s orders. Goliad was nearly destroyed by a tornado on the 19th of May 1903.

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