Vogt-Schoch House and Robert E. Lee House

Vogt-Schoch House and Robert E. Lee House. . , Vogt-Schoch House , Mr. J.G. O'Grady built the Kendall House as an inn and stagecoach stop in the 1850s. It was later replaced with the Vogt-Schoch House. He was a colorful character and leader in settling the area. He originally came from Ireland and fought in the Native American battles in Boerne and Sisterdale. In 1862, Mr. O'Grady helped organize Kendall County and served as Boerne's postmaster from 1866-1869. He contributed information to the Smithsonian for Texas history and wrote about Boerne in the Texas Almanac. You can see in the Vogt-Schoch House between the trees across the Cibolo Creek. , The following excerpt to Texas New Yorker newspaper in 1873 touts the virtues of Texas living with a description of O'Grady. , "[Mr. J.G. O'Grady] has ample means, is a good liver and if he had been ambitious to have accumulated large wealth, might readily have done so. But, O'Grady is a philosopher - and with his good wife, seven children and a farm for each one of them, he quaintly says '[W]hat's the use?'", Robert E. Lee House , In one of Mr. J.G. O'Grady's guest houses, Robert E. Lee is said to have spent the night on his trips from San Antonio to the outer forts when he was the Commander of the Army of Texas before the Civil War., It is told that one night long before Lee was summoned to Washington, he and his aides were spending the night at Boerne. In a discussion which took place around the table, Lee was heard to say that he never would take up arms against the Union, but that he might be forced to carry arms to defend his state. This same statement, which he later wrote in letters to some of his friends was also made to one of his men. The same little girl that sat on his knee in his earlier visits to Texas remembers when her father came home one evening and stated that he had just spent an hour or so with Colonel Lee. The graphic or impressive description that her father gave remains with her until today. Colonel Lee said Warwich Tunstall, at supper, walked up and down the room with tears streaming down his cheeks [sic]. What am I to do? I cannot take arms against my own state, nor can I fight agains the army that I love. I will return to my own state and resign and go to my home to live., Quote by Alice O'Grady in The Gentleman Commander by Merrill Bishop and Joseph Roemer., Captions: , Current House, 2008 , Robert E. Lee Portrait by Rick Timmons , House in Which Robert E. Lee May Have Stayed, 1950s