The Man Who Would Not Die
Play • 6 min

There is a true story in Texas that has taken on the form of a legend—it’s the tale known as “The Man Who Would Not Die.”

Josiah Wilbarger was born in the United States in 1801. At age 26 he moved to Mexican Texas from Missouri as part of Stephen F. Austin’s colony. Wilbarger married and in 1830 was granted a league of land. For those of you who don’t measure land in leagues, that’s 4,428 acres. Wilbarger’s league was located on the Colorado River near Austin, where the town of Bastrop is now located. However, at the time, the Wilbargers were on the very edge of the frontier, their nearest neighbor 75 miles away. By summer of 1832, another settler, Ruben Hornsby, had moved his family to a nearby land grant. The following year, Josiah Wilbarger, (who was known as a land surveyor) and four young men who were staying with Hornsby—Christian, Strother, Standifer and Haynie—rode out together to look at Texas land.

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