Halloween Experts

In the classic, early American tale, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving, we encounter the fearsome Headless Horseman, who frightens our hero, Ichabod Crane, nearly to death. Even though we know the specter is fictional, the idea of a decapitated Hessian soldier riding toward us waving his rapier and hoisting the Jack O’Lantern that substitutes for his own missing head, sends a shiver up the spine. Mr. Irving created a truly memorable character. Or did he?

The legends of headless horsemen actually date back centuries earlier, when beheading was a common form of capital punishment. One of the original stories is probably a German legend, and reports of sightings of this horseman date from the 1600’s. Again in the late 18th century, a headless horseman reportedly roamed the countryside of France, frightening travelers and residents alike. This unfortunate soul was very likely the victim of the guillotine, the invention that turned the French Revolution into a frantic and hysterical bloodbath.

The United States, aside from being the fictional location of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, was also the site of another frightening tale, that had it’s origins in fact. The brush country of south Texas in the 1800’s was a dangerous place. Prior to statehood in 1849, it was the frequent hideout for notorious western murderers and thieves. Lawmen who lost track of their prey would often mark their files “GT” for “Gone to Texas”. Raids on homesteads and ranches were frequent, from these lawless men, as well as Indians and Mexican bandits. It was the Texas Rangers, established in 1823 by Stephen Austin, that stood between citizens and the bad men. Rustlers and horse thieves were dealt with particularly harshly, because their targets were the livelihood of Texans.

It seemed that no amount of public punishment or swift justice deterred these thieves, and the Rangers were frustrated in their efforts to put an end to them. One such group of horse thieves was led by a Mexican bandit named Vidal. When Rangers Creed Taylor and “Big Foot” Anderson caught up with him and his band of raiders, they killed them on the spot. With Taylor’s blessing, Anderson severed Vidal’s head, and lashed it to the horn of the saddle of a charcoal colored mustang. He secured Vidal’s body upright in the saddle, and turned the horse loose to roam the countryside as a warning to other would-be thieves and raiders. Little did they realize that the corpse would ride the brush country for many years, until finally, captured at a watering hole, the horse gave up the shriveled body, bullet riddled and full of Indian arrows.

It would seem, however, that burying Vidal’s body did not end his torment. Soldiers and scouts from Fort Inge reported seeing the headless horseman on his endless ride up until the Fort closed in 1869. At the turn of the century, a headless rider reportedly passed through a wagon team near Old San Patricio, and a headless horseman is still said to travel the road to Dead Man’s Lake near the Texas community of San Diego. “El Muerto”, the Dead One, was spotted by a posse on a modern day manhunt in 1969. Rumors still abound of sightings in the lonely brush country, making this a living legend of terror in Texas.