A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 41

Author:
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 954

USA > Texas > Henderson County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 41
USA > Texas > Freestone County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 41
USA > Texas > Leon County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 41
USA > Texas > Anderson County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 41
USA > Texas > Limestone County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 41
USA > Texas > Navarro County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 41

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

" In the book published by James W. Parker, he states that Nixon liberated Mrs. Parker from the Indians and rescued old Granny Parker. Mr. Anglin in his account contradicts or rather corrects this state- ment. He says: ' I positively assert that this is a mistake, and I am willing to be qualified to the statement I here make, and can prove the same by Silas Bates, now living near Groesbeck.'

"The next morning Bates, Anglin and E. Faulkenberry, went back to the fort to get provisions and horses, and look after the dead. On reaching the fort they found five or six horses, a few saddles and some meat, bacon, and honey. Fearing an attack from the Indians who might still be lurk- ing around, they left without burying the dead. Returning to their comrades in the bottom they all concealed themselves until they set out for Fort Honston. Fort Hous. ton, an asylum, on this, as on many other occasions, stood on what has been for many years a farm of a wise statesman, a chivalrous soldier and true patriot, John H. Reagan, two miles south of Palestine. " After wandering around and traveling for six days and nights, during which they suffered much from hunger and thirst, their clothing torn to shreds, their bodies lacerated with briars and thorns, the wom- en and children with unshod and bleed-

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ing feet, the party with James W. Parker reached Fort Houston.

" An account of this wearisome and peril- ous journey through the wilderness, given substantially in Parker's own words, will enable the reader to more fully realize the hardships they had to undergo and the dangers they encountered. The bulk of the party were composed of women and children, principally the latter, and ranging from one to twelve years old. ' We started from the fort,' said Mr. Parker, ' the party consisting of eighteen in all, for Fort Houston, a distance of ninety miles by the route we had to travel. The feelings of the party can be better imagined than described. We were truly a forlorn set, many of us bareheaded and barefooted, a relentless foe on the one hand and on the other a trackless and uninhabited wilder- ness infested with reptiles and wild beasts, entirely destitute of food and no means of procuring it.' Add to this the agoniz- ing grief of the party over the death and capture of dear relatives; that we were momentarily in expectation of meeting a like fate, and some idea may be formed of our pitiable condition. Utter despair almost took possession of us, for the chance of escaping seemed almost an impossibility under the circumstances. * I * * took one of my children on my shoulder and led another. The grown persons followed my example and we began our journey through the thickly tangled under- brush in the direction of Fort Houston. My wife was in bad health; Mrs. Frost was in deep distress for the loss of her husband and son; and all being barefooted except my wife and Mrs. Frost our progress was

slow. Many of the children had nothing on them but their shirts, and their suffer- ings from the briars tearing their little legs and feet were almost beyond human endur- ance.

" We traveled until about three o'clock in the morning, when, the women and chil- dren being worn out with hunger and fatigue, we laid down on the grass and slept until the dawn of day, when we re- sumed our perilous journey. Here we left the river bottom in order to avoid the briars and underbrush, but from the tracks of the Indians on the highlands it was evident they were hunting us, and, like the fox in the fable, we concluded to take the river bottom again, for though the bram- bles might tear our flesh they might at the same time save our lives by hiding us from the cruel savages who were in pursuit of us. The briars did, in fact, tear the legs and feet of the children until they could have been tracked by the blood that flowed from their wounds.

" It was the night of the second day after leaving the fort that all, and espe- cially the women who were nursing their infants, began to suffer intensely from hunger. We were then immediately on the bank of the river, and through the mercy of Providence a pole-cat came near us. I immediately pursued and caught it just as it jumped in the river. The only way that I could kill it was by holding it under the water until it was drowned. Fortu- nately we had the means of striking a fire, and we soon had it cooked and equally di- vided among the party, the share of each being small indeed. This was all we had to eat until the fourth day, when we were

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lucky enough to catch another skunk and two small terrapins, which were also cooked and divided between us. On the evening of the fifth day I found that the women and children were so exhausted from fa- tigue and hunger that it would be impos- sible for them to travel much further. After holding a consultation it was agreed that I should hurry on to Fort Houston for aid, leaving Mr. Dwight in charge of the women and children. Accordingly the next morning I started for the fort (about thirty-five miles distant), which I reached early in the afternoon. I haveoften looked back and wondered how I was able to ac- complish this extraordinary feat. I had not eaten a mouthful for six days, liaving always given my share of the animals mentioned to the children, and yet I walked thirty-five miles in about eight hours. But the thought of the unfortunate sufferers I had left behind dependent on my efforts, gave me strength and perseverance that can be realized only by those who have been placed in similar situations. God in His bountiful mercy upheld me in this try- ing hour and enabled me to perform my task.

"The first person I met was Captain Carter of the Fort Houston settlement, who received me kindly and promptly of- fered me all the aid in his power. He soon had five horses saddled, and he and Mr. Jeremiah Courtney went with me to meet our little band of fugitives. We met them just at dark, and placing the women and children on the horses we reached Cap- tain Carter's about midnight. There we received all the kind attention and relief that our conditions required and all was

done for our comfort that sympathetic and benevolent hearts could do. We arrived at Captain Carter's on the 25th of May. The following day my son-in-law, Mr. Plummer, reached there also. He liad given us up for lost and had started to the same settlement that we had.

" In due time the members of the party located temporarily as best suited the re- spective families, most of them returning to Fort Parker soon afterward. A burial party of twelve men from Fort Houston went up and buried the dead. Their re. mains now repose near the site of old Fort Parker. Peace to their ashes. Unadorned are their graves; not even a slab of marble or a memento of any kind has been erected to tell the traveler where rest the remains of this brave little band of pioneer heroes who wrestled with the savage for the mas- tery of his broad domain.

" Of the captives we will briefly trace their checkered career. After leaving the fort the two tribes, the Comanches and Kiowas, remained and traveled together until midnight. They then halted on open prairie, staked out their horses, placed their pickets and pitched their camp. Bringing all their prisoners together for the first time, they tied their hands behind them with raw-hide thongs so tight as to cut the flesh, tied their feet close together and threw them upon their faces. Then the braves gathering round with their yet bloody-dripping scalps, commenced their usual war-dance. They danced, screamed, yelled, stamping upon their prisoners, beat- ing them with blows until their own blood came near strangling them. The remainder of the night these frail women suffered and

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had to listen to the cries and groans of their tender little children.

"Mrs. Elizabeth Kellogg soon fell into the hands of the Keechis, from whom, six months after she was captured, slie was purchased by a party of Delawares, who carried her to Nacogdoches and delivered her to General Houston, who paid them $150, the amount they had paid and all they asked.

" Mrs. Rachel Plummer remained a cap- tive about eighteen months, and to give the reader an idea of her suffering during that period, we will give an extract from her dairy: 'In July and a portion of August we were among some very high mountains on which the snow remains for the greater portion of the year, and I suffered more than I had ever done before in my life. It was very seldom I had any covering for iny feet, and but very little clothing for my body. I had a certain number of buf. falo skins to dress every day, and had to mind the horses at night. This kept me employed pretty much all the time, and often I would take my buffalo skins with me to finish them while I was minding the horses. My feet would often be frost-bitten while I was dressing the skins, bnt I dared not complain for fear of being punished. In October I gave birthi to my second son. I say October, but it was all gness work with me, as I had no means of keeping a record of the days as they passed. It was a beautiful and healthy baby, but it was impossible for me to procure suitable com- forts for myself and infant. The Indians were not as harsh in their treatment toward me as I feared they would be, but I was apprehensive for the safety of my child. I

had been with them six months and had learned their language, and I would often beseecli my mistress to advise me what to do to save my child, but she turned a deaf ear to all my supplications. My child was six months old when my master, thinking I suppose, that it interfered too muchi with my work, determined to put it out of the way. One cold morning five or six Indians came where I was suckling iny babe. As soon as they came I felt sick at heart, for my fears were aroused for the safety of my child. My fears were not ill- grounded. One of the Indians caught my child by the throat and strangled it until to all appearance it was dead. I exerted all my feeble strength to save my child, but the other Indians held me fast. The Indian who had strangled the child then threw it up in the air repeatedly and let it fall upon the frozen ground nntil life seemed to be extinct. They then gave it back to me. I had been weeping inces- santly whilst they had been murdering my child, but now my grief was so great that the fountain of my tears were dried up. As I gazed on the cheeks of my darling infant I discovered some symptoms of re- turning life. I hoped that if it could be resuscitated they would allow me to keep it. I washed the blood from its face and after a tiine it began to breathe again. But a more heart-rending scene ensued. As soon as the Indians ascertained that the child was still alive, they tore it from my arms and knocked me down. They tied a plaited rope around its neck and threw it into.a bunch of prickly pears and then pulled it backward and forward until its tender flesh was literally torn from its body.

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One of the Indians who was mounted on a horse then tied the end of the rope to his sad- dle and galloped around in a circle until my little innocent was not only dead but torn to pieces. One of them untied the rope and threw the remains of the child into my lap, and I dug a hole in the earth and buried them.

"'After performing the last sad rites for the lifeless remains of my dear babe, I sat down and gazed with a feeling of relief upon the little grave I had made for it in the wilderness, and could say with David of - old, "You can not come to me, but I must go to you;" and then, and even now, as I record the dreadful scene I witnessed, I rejoiced that my babe had passed from the sorrows and sufferings of this world. I shall hear its dying cries no more, and fully believing in and relying on the im- puted righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, I feel that my innocent babe is now with kindred spirits in the eternal world of joys. Oh, that my dear Savior may keep me through life's short journey, and bring me to dwell with my children in realms of eternal bliss!'

" Mrs. Plummer has gone to rest, and no doubt her hopes have been realized.

" After this she was given as a servant to a very cruel old squaw, who treated her in a most brutal manner. Her son had been carried off by another party to the far West, and she supposed her husband and father had been killed in the massacre. Her infant was dead and death to her would have been a sweet relief. Life was a bur- den, and driven almost to desperation she resolved no longer to submit to the intoler- ant old squaw. One day when the two

were some distance from, although still in sight of, the camp, her mistress attempted to beat her with a club. Determined not to submit to this, she wrenched the club from the hands of the squaw and knocked hier down. The Indians, who had witnessed the whole proceedings from their camp, low came running up, shouting at the top of their voice. She fully expected to be killed, but they patted her on the shoulder, crying: Bueno! Bueno !! (Good! Good !! or Well done!). She now fared much bet- ter, and soon became a great favorite, and was known as the 'Fighting Squaw.' She was eventually ransomed through the in- tervention of some Mexican Santa Fé trad- ers, by a noble-hearted American mer- chant of that place, Mr. William Donahue. She was purchased in the Rocky Moun- tains so far north of Santa Fé that seventeen days were consumed in reaching that place. She was at once mnade a member of her benefactor's family, where she received the kindest of care and attention. Ere long she accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Donahue on a visit to Independence, Missouri, where she had the pleasure of meeting and embracing her brother-in-law, L. D. Nixon, and by him was escorted back to her peo- ple in Texas.

"During her stay with the Indians, Mrs. Plummer had many thrilling adven- tures, which she often recounted after lier reclamation. In narrating her reminis- cences, she said that in one of her rambles, after she had been with the Indians some time, she discovered a cave in the mount- ains, and, in company with the old squaw that guarded her, she explored it and found a large diamond, but her mistress immedi-

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ately demanded it, and she was forced to give it up. She said also she saw here in these mountains a bush which had thorns on it resembling fish-looks, which the Indians used to catch fish with and she herself has often caught trout with them in the little mountain streams.

"On the 19th of February, 1838, she reached her father's house, exactly twenty- one months after her capture. She had never seen her little son, James Pratt, since soon after their capture and knew nothing of his fate. She wrote or dictated a thrilling and graphic history of hier cap- ture and the horrors of her captivity, the tortures and hardships she endured, and all the incidents of her life with her cap- tors and observations among the savages. This valuable and little book is now rare, and out of print. The full title of the vol- ume is: 'Narration of the perilous adven- tures, miraculous escapes and sufferings of Rev. James W. Parker, during a frontier residence in Texas of fifteen years. With an important geographical description of the climate, soil, timber, water, etc. of Texas. To which is appended the narration of the capture and subsequent sufferings of Mrs. Rachel Plummer, his daughter, during a captivity of twenty-one months among the Comanche Indians, etc. (18mo., pp. 95- 35; boards. Louisville, 1844).'

"In this book she tells the last she saw of Cynthia Ann and John Parker. She died on the 19th of February, 1839, just one year after reaching home. As a re- markable coincidence it may be stated that she was born on the nineteenth, married on the nineteenth, captured on the nine- teenth, released on the nineteenth, reached

Independence on the nineteenth, arrived at home on the nineteenth, and died on the nineteentli of the month!

" Her son, Jaines Plummer, after six long and weary years of captivity and suffering, during which time he had lived among many different tribes, and traveled several thousand miles, was ransomed and taken to Fort Gibson late in 1842, and reached home in 1843, in charge of his grandfather. He became a respected citizen of Ander- son county. Both he and his father are now dead.

"This still left in captivity Cynthia and John Parker, as subsequently heard, were held by separate bands. The brother and sister thus separated gradually forgot the language, manners and customs of their own people, and became thorough Co- manches as the long years stole slowly away. How long the camera of their brains retained the impressions of the old home within the old fort, and the loved faces of their pale kindred, no one knows; though it would appear that the fearful massacre should have stamped an impress indelible while life continued. But the young mind, as the twig, is inclined by present circumstances, and often forced in a way wholly foreign to its native and original bent.

"John grew up with the semi-nude Co- manche boys of his own age, and played at hunter and warrior with the pop-gun, made of elder-stems, or bows and arrows, and often flushed the chapparal for hare and grouse, or entrapped the finny denizens of the mountain brook with the many peculiar and ingenious devices of the wild man for securing for his repast the toothsome trout

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which abounds so plentifully in the ele- vated and delightful region so long in- habited by the lordly Comanches.

" When John arrived at manhood he ac- companied a raiding party down the Rio Grande and into Mexico. Among the cap- tives taken was a young Mexican girl of great beauty, to whom the young warrior felt his heart go out. The affection was reciprocated on the part of the fair Dona Juanita, and the two were engaged to be married so soon as they should arrive at the Comanche village. Each day, as the cavalcade moved leisurely but steadily along, the lovers could be seen riding to- gether and discussing the anticipated pleas- ures of connubial life, when suddenly John was prostrated by a violent attack of small- pox. The cavalcade could not tarry, and so it was decided that the poor fellow should be left all alone, in the vast Llano Estacado to die or recover as fate decreed. But the little Aztec beauty refused to leave her lover, insisting on her captors allowing her to remain and take care of him. To this the Indians reluctantly consented. With Juanita to nurse and cheer him up, John lingered, lived and ultimately re- covered, when, with as little ceremony, perhaps, as consum mated the nuptials of the first pair in Eden, they assumed the inatri- monial relation, and Dona Jnanita's predi- lection for the customs and comforts of civilization were sufficiently strong to in- duce her lord to abandon the wild and nomadic life of a savage for the comforts to be found in a straw-thatched jackal. ' They settled in Texas,' says Mr. Thrall, the historian, of Texas, 'on a stock ranch in the far West.' When the Civil war broke out

John Parker joined a Mexican company in the Confederate service and was noted for his gallantry and daring. He, however, refused to leave the soil' of Texas, and would, under no circumstances, cross the Sabine into Louisiana. He was still on his ranch across the Rio Grande a few years ago, but up to that time had never visited any of his relatives in Texas.

"Of Cynthia Ann Parker, to return. Four long years have elapsed since she was cruelly torn from a mother's embrace and carried into captivity. During this time no tidings have been received of her. Many efforts have been made to find her. whereabouts, but without success; when, in 1840, Colonel Len. Williams, an old and honored Texan, Mr. Stoat, a trader, and an Indian guide, named Jack Harry, packed mules with goods and engaged in an expedi- tion of private traffic with the Indians.

" On the Canadian river they fell in with Pa-ha-n-ka's band of Comanches, with whom they were peacefully conversant. And with this tribe was Cynthia Ann Parker, who, from the day of her capture, had never seen a white person. She was then about fourteen years of age and had been with the Indians about five years.

"Colonel Williams found the Indians into whose family she had been adopted and proposed to redeem her, but the Co- inanche told him all the goods he had would not ransom her, and at the same time ' the firmness of his countenance,' says Colonel Williams, ' warned me of the dan- ger of further mention of the subject.' But old Pa-ha-u-ka prevailed upon him to let them see her. She came and sat down by the root of a tree, and while their

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presence was doubtless a happy event to the poor, stricken captive, who in her dole- fnl captivity had endured everything but death, she refused to speak a word. As she sat there, musing, perhaps, of distant relatives and friends, and the bereavements at the beginnings and progress of her dis- tress, they employed every persuasive art to evoke some expression. They told her of her playmates and relatives, and asked what message she would send to them, but she had doubtless been commanded to silence, and, with no hope or prospect to return, was afraid to appear sad or dejected, and, by a stoical effort in order to prevent future bad treatment, put the best face pos- sible on the matter. But the anxiety of her mind was betrayed by a perceptible opinion on her lip, showing that she was not insensible to the common feelings of humanity.

" As the years rolled by Cynthia Ann speedily developed the charms of woman- hood, as with the dusky maidens of her companionship she performed the menial offices of drudgery to which savage custom consigns woman, or practiced those little arts of coquetry natural to the female heart, whether she be a belle of Madison Square, attired in the most elaborate toi- let from the elite bazaars of Paris, or the half naked savages, with matted locks and claw-like nails.

" Doubtless the heart of more than one warrior was pierced by the Ulyssian darts from the laughing eyes, or cheered by the silvery ripple of her joyous laughter, and laid at her feet the game taken after a long and arduous chase among the antelope hills. Among the number whom her bud-

ding charms brought to her shrine was Peta Nocona, a Coinanche war chief, in prowess and renown the peer of the famons and redoubtable Big Foot, who fell in a desperately contested hand-to-hand en- counter with the veteran ranger and Iu- dian fighter, Captain S. P. Ross, now liv- ing at Waco; and whose wonderful ex- ploits and deeds of daring furnished theme for song and story at the war dance, the council and the camp fire.

"Cynthia Anu, stranger now to every word of her mother tongue save her own name, became the bride of Peta Nocona, performing for her imperious lord all the slavish offices which savagism and Indian custom assigns as the duty of a wife. She bore him children, and, we are assured, loved him with a fierce passion and wifely devotion. 'For some fifteen years after her capture,' says Victor M. Rose, 'a party of white hunters, including some friends of her family, visited the Comanche encamp- ment, and recognizing Cynthia Ann- probably through the mediumn of her name alone-sounded her as to the disagreeable- ness of a return to her people and the haunts of civilization. She shook her head in a sorrowful negative, and pointed to her little naked barbarians sporting at her feet, and to the great. greasy, lazy buck sleeping in the shade near at hand, the locks of a score of sealps dangling at his belt, and whose first utterance on arousing would be a stern command to his ineek, pale-faced wife, though, in truth, exposure to the sun and air had browned the com- plexion of Cynthia Ann almost as in- tensely as those of the native daughters of the plains and forest.'

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"She retained but the vaguest remem- brance of her people-as dim and flitting as the phantom of a dream; she was ac- customed now to the wild life she led, and found in its repulsive features charms in which ' upper-tendom ' would have proven totally deficient. ' I am happily wedded,' she said to these visitors. 'I love my husband, who is good and kind, and my little ones, who, too, are his, and I cannot forsake them.' "

This incident, in all its bearings, is so unique an one that it seems highly war- rantable to follow Cynthia's career to the end. About a score of years passed and young Ross, of Waco, had seemingly si- lenced the Comanches at Antelope hills and Wichita mountains, but it was a false silence, as the writer above quoted shows below:

" For some time after Ross' victory at the Wichita mountains the Comanches were less hostile, seldom penetrating far down into the settlements. But in 1859- '60 the condition of the frontier was truly deplorable. The people were obliged to stand in a continued posture of defense, and were in continnal alarmed hazard of their lives, never daring to stir abroad un- armed, for small bodies of savages, quick- sighted and accustomed to perpetual watchfulness, hovered on the outskirts, and, springing from behind bush or rock, sur- prised his enemy before he was aware of danger, and sent tidings of his presence in the fatal blow, and after execution of the bloody work, by superior knowledge of the country and rapid movements, safely re- tired to their inaccessible deserts.

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Author: Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 954

Author:
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 954