HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
Site of the 1863 Hanging of Chipita Rodriguez
Main St (FM 666) at McGloin St, San Patricio, TX 78368
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free roadside historical marker. The marker and adjacent mesquite grove are visible from public roads.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Roadside marker; grass and gravel surroundings
Equipment
Photos OK
Last Woman Legally Executed in Texas Until 1998 · 1829 Irish Catholic Colony · 1985 Texas Legislative Exoneration · Texas Historical Commission Marker
San Patricio de Hibernia was founded in 1829 when Irish empresarios James McGloin and John McMullen received a Mexican land grant to settle Catholic Irish immigrants on the Nueces River. The town became the seat of San Patricio County when Texas organized counties after statehood, though the county seat later moved to Sinton. Old San Patricio remains a small community along the Cotton Road, a 19th-century trade route that crossed the Aransas River nearby.
Josepha Rodriguez, known as Chipita, ran a roadside hostel along the Cotton Road where travelers could rent a cot on her porch in exchange for a modest fee. In August 1863, John Savage, a horse trader, lodged at her property and was later found dead in the Nueces River in a burlap bag; gold belonging to him was recovered separately downstream. Chipita and her son Juan Silvera were indicted on circumstantial evidence. The jury found her guilty of first-degree murder but recommended mercy on account of her age and the limited evidence. Judge Benjamin F. Neal overrode the jury's recommendation and ordered her executed on November 13, 1863; local tradition places the hanging at the San Patricio Courthouse. Period accounts describe the hanging as poorly executed, with Chipita reported to have died slowly by strangulation.
The Texas Legislature passed a resolution in 1985 formally absolving Josepha Rodriguez of the murder. A Texas Historical Commission marker was erected in 2008. Local tradition identifies a grove of mesquite trees as the hanging site, but most court records were lost and the exact locations cannot be confirmed.
Sources
The Chipita Rodriguez legend is among the oldest sustained ghost narratives in the Texas Coastal Bend. Local oral tradition, beginning in the immediate aftermath of her 1863 execution, describes a moan reported from her closed coffin during burial. Subsequent retellings recorded in Texas folklore collections describe a woman with a rope around her neck seen in the mesquite grove near the former courthouse, particularly around the November 13 anniversary of the hanging.
The legend gained renewed regional attention after the Texas Legislature's 1985 resolution exonerating Chipita, which formally framed her case as a miscarriage of justice. A 2008 historical marker has made the location a regular stop on Texas Coastal Bend historical tours, including programming around Day of the Dead and the November anniversary.
Reports from visitors range from the visual to the auditory: a faint figure seen at dusk among the mesquite, distant sobbing, and the sense of being watched from the grove. The framing in most regional accounts emphasizes Chipita as a wronged woman whose persistent presence is interpreted as historical witness rather than as a threatening apparition.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Read the Texas Historical Commission marker, erected in 2008, for Josepha Chipita Rodriguez, who was hanged in 1863. Local tradition places the hanging at the former San Patricio County Courthouse and near a mesquite grove, but most court records were lost and the exact locations cannot be confirmed.
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