Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Juan Huisar, buried at the San Jose Mission in San Antonio, Texas

This tombstone was photographed at the National Historical Park of the San Jose Mission in San Antonio, Texas, next to the mission church.


E. D. P. 
JUAN HUISAR
Fallecio
el dia 30 Marco 1893
A LA EDAD DE
59 Anos.

translation:

R. I. P. [E.D.P. translates to "in peace, rest" or "en paz, descanse"]
Juan Huisar
Died
on the day 30 March 1893
At the age of
59 years




This gravestone is in the small burial plot by the front door of the mission church of San Jose and San Miguel inside the Mission San Jose in San Antonio, Texas.  This small plot is all that is left when the mission was restored by Works Progress Administration workers during the Great Depression.  The dead buried here long ago were removed to another location during the restoration, but two grave markers remain to mark the burial ground.  One is unmarked except for an iron cross, and the other is this stone for Juan Huisar.

The famous Rose Window inside the mission church was created by Native American Pedro Huizar.  The gravestone of Juan Huizar is believed to be the grandson of the stained glass window artist.  According to a tree found at Ancestry.com, Juan Huizar was born 8 March 1833 in Texas, son of Serefino Huizar (b. 1807) and Olalia Flores Trinidad Garcia*.  He was the grandson of Jose Antonio Pedro Huzar (1740 – 1798) and Maria Francisca Teodora Guerrero.   “Pedro, according to the Bexar archives, 1789, was Spanish Alcalde of the Concepcion Mission in 1795.  His survey for irrigation from the San Antonio River is mentioned in the Nacogdoches Archives, March 26, 1791.  The Census reports for 1792 and 1793, Bexar Archives, mention Pedro Huizar, the carpenter, who was born in 1740, at Aguascalientes…” [from With the Makers of San Antonio, Genealogies of the early Latin, Anglo-American, and German Families,  1937, page 137, available to read online at Ancestry.com]  

Juan Huisar married Justa Gomez Aguilar in Bexar County, Texas on 12 February 1854.  They had three daughters:  Trinidad, Melchora and Catarina.  Records of the Confederate Civil War Soldiers in Texas show a Juan Huisa mustered in as a private in Ragsdale’s Battalion of the Texas Cavalry.  This might be the same man.


“San Antonio Missions preserve Native American history in Texas’s first World Heritage Site”, by Tracy L. Barnett, March 10, 2016, Washington Post  accessed April 1, 2016  https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/san-antonio-missions-preserve-native-american-history-at-the-nations-newest-world-heritage-site/2016/03/10/69356002-deed-11e5-8d98-4b3d9215ade1_story.html

* UPDATED 9 October 2016 - see the comment below by "EC"


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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~ Juan Huisar, buried at the San Jose Mission in San Antonio, Texas", Nutfield Genealogy, posted April 26, 2016, (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/04/tombstone-tuesday-juan-huisar-buried-at.html: accessed [access date]).

2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed your article. It was nice seeing the photo of the headstones. One small correction.
    Juan de Dios Huisar (1833 - ?) was the only child of Seferino Huisar and Trinidad Garcia. Seferino's second wife was Oalia Flores. They had 9 children. Juan and his half brother Vicente (1844 - 1910) my gggrandfather both served in Ragsdale's.

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  2. Hi EC, Actually, Juan Huisar also had an older sister Dolores (Born 1832. One of my 2nd Great Grand Mothers). I have copies of the land records from the San Jose mission where property owned by Juan's father (Seferino) were deeded to Dolores's children of 3 marriages. She was widowed three times. Her first husband (Rosaleo Guerrero) my 2nd great grand father also served on the Union Side during the civil war (1st Texas Cav). Juan and Rosaleo (Brother-in-law against Brother-in law). Juan's wife Justa Aguilar De Huizar is also listed in the same land record owning property next to the property left to the children. Trinidad Guerrero daughter of Dolores is my Great Grand Mother.

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