Texas Now Magazine March 2015 | Page 26

On March 16, fifteen men were executed; King and the remnants of
his company, and several of Ward's men. Juan José Holzinger, a German-Mexican officer, saw fit to save Lewis T. Ayers, Francis Dieterich,
Benjamin Odlum and eight men from local families. The remaining
fifteen men were spared to serve the Mexican army as blacksmiths,
wheelwrights or mechanics. On the next day the victims again were
led out. At a spot about a mile north of the mission, Captain King and
the other prisoners were shot. Their bodies were left unburied on the
prairie.
Sometime after the battle of San Jacinto a party of Refugio citizens
headed by John Haynes gathered the bones and relics of King's men
and buried them. The place of sepulture was forgotten until May 9,
1934, when a grave containing sixteen skeletons was discovered by accident in Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery near Refugio. The bones
were identified as those of King's men, and on June 17, 1934, they were
reinterred in the cemetery with appropriate religious and military ceremonies. For the Texas Centennial in 1936 the state of Texas erected two
memorials to King and his men, one in Refugio and another at Mount
Calvary Cemetery. Tradition has it that another grave in the vicinity of
the cemetery contains the bones of the other victims.
In the public square across the street from the county courthouse in
Refugio, the King Monument by artist Raoul Josset stands as an honor
to Captain King and his men. Raoul Jean Josset (1899-1957) was an
admired and well respected French born American sculptor. Much of
his finest work can be viewed in Texas.

taken from Raoul Josset's
obituary, written by Jack
Sheridan in the Lubbock
Avalanche-Journal.
"...Raoul Josset was born
in France and received his
early training at the Beaux
Arts School, the Lycee
of Lyons and Paris and
studied under the noted
Antoine Bourdelle. In his
working time in France
he created more than 15
memorials between 1920
and 1926. It was then that
he turned his eyes to the
United States.

Dallas Womens Museum
Photo by Andreas Praefcke

In 1933 he executed two 45-foot Indians in grey granite for the pylons
of the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge in Vincennes, Ind. There
were two major works in Chicago the following year. He then came to

To give a better understanding of the importance of the King Monument and the artist who created it, the following paragraphs were

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