Tombstone in yard reveals lost part of history.
Buffalo Soldier’s grave marker unearthed in East Side man’s yard
When Cassell Jones took on a cleanup job at an East Side resident’s home, he didn’t know he was about to unearth a lost chapter of San Antonio history.
Hired by Tommie Hinton Jr., Jones was clearing an overgrown corner of Hinton’s backyard to make room for a larger storage shed. With tools and gloved hands, Jones diligently scraped away cloying vines, wild grass and weeds.
Then he tripped over something hard: a rustic, coralcolored block of stone embedded deep in the ground. As Jones cleared away the dirt and debris, he was shocked to see an inscription on the stone:
489, U.S.C.T., JAS Green. “I knew it was a tombstone,” Jones, 61, said. “I was worried that it was a graveyard.”
He called Hinton, who was floored by the news. Hinton, 34, wondered whether there might be remains buried beneath the marker and whether the discovery would require excavation of his property.
It turned out there wasn’t anything under the tombstone. Which made its presence in a stranger’s backyard all the more mysterious.
“Every answer just led to more questions,” Hinton said,
recalling the moment in December. “As relieved as I am that there’s no body back here, I’m still, like, why is this headstone even here?”
The many questions eventually led to a tantalizing glimpse into the past, as clues to the mystery revealed a Buffalo Soldier who once lived in San Antonio.
Hinton and Jones learned more from the descendants of Cpl. James Green — that’s whose grave marker Jones uncovered — at Hinton’s home during a recent visit.
It was dusk when Robert James Jr., 51, his wife, Denise James, 49, and his brother Rodney James, 42 arrived at Hinton’s home with Jack James, 81, the grandson who never knew his military grandfather.
Cpl. Green died on Nov. 17, 1917.
City Archaeologist Matthew T. Elverson was there, along with Claudia Espinosa and Ken Stewart from the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum. Hinton’s father, Tommie Hinton Sr., 64, and Jones also stopped by.
Hinton walked the James family to his backyard, where they squeezed between a fence and shed to examine their ancestor’s marker, still lodged deep in the ground. Jack James had just learned about the discovery that morning when his nephew Robert called him with the news.
“At first it shocked me,” Jack James said. “I couldn’t say anything.”
The archaeologist began delving into the mystery of Green’s identity in December, after Hinton’s father contacted him. He pored through census records, death certificates, military files, phone directories and county deed records. His initial foray into researching deed records and documents came up short.
Then he focused on the number on the headstone. Following a hunch, he visited the San Antonio National Cemetery at 517 Paso Hondo St. and found what he was looking for: Between markers 488 and 490 was another Green headstone.
Elverson’s research yielded Green’s storied military history and explained the seemingly coded tombstone inscription. JAS stood for James. The soldier was born in Maryland in 1845; someone paid Green to enlist in the Army in his stead in Baltimore. Elverson said the U.S.C.T. on his headstone stood for “United States Colored Troops.”
Green served in the 39th Infantry, Company D and fought in the Civil War on behalf of the Union.
The archaeologist found the corporal also served in the 24th Infantry, associated with the Buffalo Soldiers stationed at Fort Duncan in Eagle Pass. Elverson said that assignment is how Green ended up living in Texas. Records showed the veteran resided in San Antonio at a home near Callaghan Street before his death.
“A big part of what we do is archival research,” Elverson said. “We focus on the investigation, the excavation, the identification of artifacts, and features. Then you have to put it in context. Archaeology in general is a subdiscipline to anthropology. To be a good archaeologist you have to be a good anthropologist and understand how people lived and what they lived through.”
The unearthed tombstone in Hinton’s yard was the first marker commissioned for Green. The archaeologist believes the home’s previous owner, Vernon Crane, a white man, took the marker into his possession when a second tombstone was made for Green.
There isn’t a record of how or why Crane, a World War II and Korean War veteran who died in 1999, had the grave marker.
Hinton believed it could have been a case of Crane not wanting to see a fellow veteran’s monument cast away.
“It had been boggling my mind for months now,” he said. “Why he wanted it heaven only knows.”
The city archaeologist’s research revealed a series of coincidences between Hinton and Green.
Both men served in the Army. When Elverson called Hinton to give him a little more news, that Green had died from nephritis, inflammation of the kidney, the East Side home owner almost drove off the side of the road.
After 12 years of service in the U.S. Army, Hinton was medically discharged in 2017 for the same condition.
Hinton’s work for the Veterans Administration takes him to sites around Texas. During a stop in South Texas he made a detour to see Fort Duncan with his parents and a friend. When they returned to San Antonio, they visited Green’s gravesite at the East Side cemetery on Paso Hondo.
“Although I’m not related to this man by blood, it felt as if I was visiting a relative,” Hinton said.
The hallowed ground at Paso Hondo is also the resting place of Brig. Gen. John L. Bullis, several Indian scouts, numerous Chinese civilians who accompanied Gen. John Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force from Mexico and more than 200 Buffalo Soldiers.
Green’s original headstone remains lodged in Hinton’s backyard where it was found. Jones is still hard at work on the shed project, clearing space near the historic stone he scraped into the 21st century.
Hinton plans to work with the archives and museum organization to possibly put the tombstone in a public exhibit. Elverson said sharing the marker would highlight the headstone, and inform the world about James Green, whose life and times are an important chapter of the city and the county.
The evening sky was darkening as Hinton stood in his front yard for photos with the James family. They posed with a faded American flag staked on parched grass and Hinton’s new blue Jeep.
In honor of the late Army veteran, Hinton christened the jeep “Cpl. Green.”