Or, Subtitled: Texas Ranger’s Account Casting Light on a Mysterious Disappearance

As the previous posting indicates, though the life of Orlando Newton Hollingsworth (1836-1919?), son of Benjamin Benton Hollingsworth and Joicy Jones, is well-documented in a number of biographies, information about when and where Orlando died seems surprisingly difficult to find. Orlando was a Texas state legislator with a degree from the University of Virginia, a lawyer in Austin, founder of an academy in San Marcos, and was for some years Texas Superintendent for Public Instruction. The high profile he enjoyed as a public figure accounts for the several well-documented biographies written about him. But these biographies either state that his date of death is “unknown”^[1] or that he died in 1919, with the day and month and place of death unspecified.^[2]