Evelyn,

Thank you for the nice post.

Yes, there can almost always be serious doubts about anything in history, or even current things in the news.

I have found in many cases that even long-held opinions of mine, as well those of others who are intellectually honest, have been changed by newly-found data. Fixed opinions are sometimes not as fixed as we presently believe.

I have been disappointed over the years by people who "colored historical facts" to their own liking, and were pretty noisy about it, so I appreciate it when persons like you and Alan cite facts,or at least what you perceive to be facts from others, instead of just quoting your own views.

The book to which I alluded, the two elderly residents who told me thirty years ago that Pat Cleburne's mother had moved to Navasota and was buried there, that they remembered visitors who came from distant places to see her grave, the staff members at the Strecker and Layland Museums who said that the saddle and its provenance are genuine, and the saddle which I saw with my own two eyes.....each and all of these could indeed be based on misinformation...as many things are, and will be. On the other hand, one cannot disallow, out of hand, verbal histories that at first seem to contradict those of better known experts.

I do not vouch for the authenticity of the saddle. I know only what I have already related in my posts.

Surely there is a mystery here. I will post what I will have learned, after I see the exhibit.

By the way, amateur archaeologists uncovered, in 1994, after digging for more than 30 years in caves by the Brazos, the skeleton of a man with a child on his back. The entire find was donated to the Smithsonian. Here is a mystery: tests have shown conclusively that the skeleton is not that of a native american, asian, caucasian, negro, or a member of any other kind of racial or ethnic group known to man.

Isn't that an intrigue? This is not fiction, but real life. Conjecture is the only thing open to us at this time in this case.

Roger