William Tell, who originally hailed from Bürglen, was known as an expert marksman with the crossbow. At the time, the Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking to dominate Uri. Hermann Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf, raised a pole in the village's central square, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the local townsfolk bow before the hat. When Tell passed by the hat without bowing to it, he was arrested. He received the punishment of being forced to shoot an apple off the head of his son, Walter, or else both would be executed. Tell had been promised freedom if he successfully shot the apple.
On 18 November 1307, Tell split the fruit with a single bolt from his crossbow, without mishap. When Gessler queried him about the purpose of a second bolt in his quiver, Tell answered that if he had killed his son, he would have turned the crossbow on Gessler himself. Gessler became enraged at that comment, and had Tell bound and brought to his ship to be taken to his castle at Küssnacht. But when a storm broke on Lake Lucerne, Tell managed to escape. On land, he went to Küssnacht, and when Gessler arrived, Tell shot him with his crossbow.
Tell's defiance of Gessler sparked a rebellion, in which Tell himself acted out a leading part, leading to the formation of the Swiss Confederation.
Tell fought in the Battle of Morgarten in 1315. He died in 1354 while trying to save a child from drowning in the Schächenbach, an alpine river in Uri.[1] A fresco in a chapel in Bürglen, which dates to 1582, depicts this scene.[2]