This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/wYX.2ACEB/808.1 Message Board Post: These are just a couple of articles that I have in my files on Galba Fuqua. Hope they help. FUQUA, GALBA (1819-1836). Galba Fuqua, Alamo defender, son of Silas and Sally (Taney) Fuqua, was born in Alabama on March 9, 1819. He was of French Huguenot descent. In the past he was also thought to be of Mexican or Jewish descent. As a resident of Gonzales, Texas, he was enrolled by Byrd Lockhartqv in the Gonzales Ranging Company of Mounted Volunteers on February 23, 1836. He rode to the relief of the Alamo garrison with this group and arrived on March 1, 1836. Susanna W. Dickinsonqv later claimed that during the battle of the Alamoqv Fuqua came to her and tried to tell her something. He was unable to deliver his message because his jaw had been broken in the fighting. He died with the other Alamo defenders on March 6, 1836, three days short of his seventeenth birthday. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Daughters of the American Revolution, The Alamo Heroes and Their Revolutionary Ancestors (San Antonio, 1976). Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Muster Rolls of the Texas Revolution (Austin, 1986). Bill Groneman, Alamo Defenders (Austin: Eakin, 1990). Andrew Jackson Sowell, Rangers and Pioneers of Texas (San Antonio: Shepard, 1884; rpt., New York: Argosy-Antiquarian, 1964). Galba Fuqua, 16, was born in Alabama, a Gonzales resident and Private rifleman in the Gonzales Rangers. The Fuqua family are said to have originated with French immigrant William Fuqua (Farqua) (married Jane) to the American colony of Virginia as early as 1685. According to descendant Gerald Duvall, William Farqua came to America fleeing Catholic persecution, had a son Ralph Fuqua who had a son Joseph, the father of Silas, Benjamin and Ephraim Fuqua. Both Ralph and Joseph served in the American Revolution against the British. Galba Fuqua was the son of Silas and Sally Taney Fuqua. After wife Sally’s death between 1825 and 1828, Silas went to Texas with his children where he died in 1834. A letter to Stephen F. Austin from Silas Fuqua of 28 Mar 1828 expressed satisfaction with Texas and inquired about assistance and information. Silas Fuqua’s land grant was on the east bank of the San Marcos River in current CaldwellCo on the GonzalesCo line. According to h! is land certificate, Silas Fuqua arrived in the DeWitt Colony with a family of 6 on 11 May 1830. Galba Fuqua’s single uncle Benjamin Fuqua also came to the DeWitt Colony in 1830 where he received a quarter sitio of land on the west bank of the San Marcos just north of the Silas Fuqua league. Ben Fuqua was purported to be a mechanic and mercantile business man who owned a structure called "Luna" in inner Gonzales town on his brother Silas Fuqua's town lots. It may have been a blacksmith or mercantile business although some have speculated that it might have been a Grog Shop alluded to by author Edwards in his 1836 Texas which he critically termed "the center of attraction for both young and old of the Texians". Benjamin Fuqua married Nancy King (they had a daughter Mary), older sister of William King, also a member of the Gonzales Relief force. Family legends say that both Galba and Benjamin Fuqua were treated like sons by John and Parmelia King after the death of Sil! as Fuqua and the marriage of Benjamin to Nancy King. Legend says that teenage Relief Force members John Gaston, Galba Fuqua and William King were all good friends as well as the three families. Susannah Dickerson, a survivor of the Alamo related that during the battle Galba Fuqua burst into the Alamo chapel where she was hiding and he tried to tell her something. Because both jaws were broken, she could not understand him before he rushed back to the battle.