Artifact of the Month: The Travis Ring

This month, the Alamo’s Associate Curator, Ernesto Rodriguez, shares a very special artifact in the Alamo’s Collection that is connected to William Barret Travis; his cat’s eye ring.

The Travis Ring, The Alamo Collection. Photo Credit: Ernesto Rodgriguez, III. The ring is made of gold and mounts a banded agate, a stone commonly referred to as a cat’s eye.

According to tradition, prior to Santa Anna’s final attack William Barret Travis looped the ring onto a string which he then placed around the neck of Angelina Dickinson, the fourteen month old daughter of Alamo defender Almaron Dickinson and his wife Susanna. Susanna Dickinson reportedly told Travis that she would make sure his son Charles received it.

Angelina Dickinson

Unfortunately the ring never made it into Charles Travis’ hands. Angelina eventually gave the ring to her husband who fought in the Civil War who then presented the ring to his commanding officer as a gift. Members of that family passed the ring down through several generations until 1955 when Douglass McGregor donated the ring to the Alamo. It is an incredible story that an object so small would survive a battle and return to the Alamo over a hundred years later.