George Fisher (settler)

Template:Short description {{#invoke:Other people|otherPeople}} Template:Infobox military person

Đorđe Šagić (Template:Langx; April 30, 1795 – June 11, 1873), also known as George (Jorge) Fisher, was a customs officer and early leader of the Texas Revolution.

Biography

Fisher was originally named Đorđe Šagić,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and also known as Đorđe Ribar (Template:Langx), which translated into English as George Fisher.<ref name="tsha">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was born to Serbian parents in Székesfehérvár, Hungary in April 1795.<ref name="tsha"/> Following his father's death Đorđe was sent to the Serbian Orthodox Church seminary in Sremski Karlovci, to train as a priest.<ref name="tsha"/> He left in 1813 to join the Serbian revolutionary forces during the First Serbian Uprising. After the failed revolution, he emigrated to Philadelphia in the United States in 1814 before heading to Mexico.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1825, Fisher helped found the first York Rite Masonic Lodge in Mexico.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He became a naturalized Mexican citizen in 1829 and contracted to settle five hundred families on lands in Texas formerly held by Haden Edwards.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Fisher later was in charge of a customs house at the far north end of Galveston Bay. Fisher demanded that all ships landing at the mouth of the Brazos River pay their customs duties to him at Anahuac.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This was a great hardship to area boat captains due to the great distances between that port and other Texas seaports. Fisher was forced to resign his post in early 1832 after a military confrontation with Texian settlers.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Later that year, Fisher began publishing the liberal newspaper Mercurio del Puerto de Matamoros in Matamoros.<ref name="tsha">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On October 13, 1835, Fisher and José Antonio Mexía organized a movement in New Orleans to attack Tampico and instigate a revolt among the eastern states of Mexico.

In 1837, he became a commission agent in Houston, in the Republic of Texas, and served as justice of the peace in 1839.<ref name="tsha" /> Fisher was admitted to the bar in 1840 and was elected to the Houston city council. In 1843 he became a major in the Texas militia.<ref name="tsha" />

He traveled to Panama in 1850 and on to California in 1851. In 1853 while he was still Secretary for the California Land Commission, he may have gone to Washington. For there was printed in two and later three volumes "Portraits and Memoirs of Eminent Americans", in which a biographical sketch of Fisher appears as the sole entry from the state of California. It was written by the editor John Livingston, a New York lawyer.

Fisher's story aroused interest also in Europe as evidenced by many articles published in several European countries. The well-known Munich magazine of the epoch Das Ausland, of July, 1843, using material out of John Lloyd Stephens book which had appeared in London at the beginning of 1843 published several articles in sequence on this "adventurous Serb."

Fisher continued to serve in various civic and administrative posts in San Francisco from 1860 to 1870 until retirement. Soon after retiring, he was appointed by the King of Greece as Consul for that nation.Template:Sfn

Fisher was married four times. He died in San Francisco on June 11, 1873.<ref name="tsha" />

File:George Fisher, oil on canvas, late 1830s, early 1840s.jpg

Portrait of George Fisher, oil on canvas, late 1830s or early 1840s

See also

• List of Serbian Revolutionaries

Sources

• Template:Cite book

External links

• Sons of Dewitt Colony Texas
• The Immigrant. The Judge Fisher StoryTemplate:Dead link
• Obituary Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco), June 18, 1873 http://www.holy-trinity.org/history/1873/06.18.EveningBulletin.html