History of Texas, together with a biographical history of the cities of Houston and Galveston; containing a concise history of the state, with protraits and biographies of prominent citizens of the above named cities, and personal histories of many of the early settlers and leading families, Part 32

Author:
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing co., 1895
Number of Pages: 1532

USA > Texas > Harris County > Houston > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of the cities of Houston and Galveston; containing a concise history of the state, with protraits and biographies of prominent citizens of the above named cities, and personal histories of many of the early settlers and leading families > Part 32
USA > Texas > Galveston County > Galveston > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of the cities of Houston and Galveston; containing a concise history of the state, with protraits and biographies of prominent citizens of the above named cities, and personal histories of many of the early settlers and leading families > Part 32

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pendent on my efforts, gave me strength and perseverance that can be real.zed only by those who have been placed in similar sitna- tions. God in llis bonutiful mercy upheld me in this trying hour and enabled me to perform by task.

" The first person I met was Captain Car- ter of the Fort Houston settlement, who received me kindly, and promptly offerel me all the aid in his power. Hle 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 Captain Carter's about midnight. There we received all the kind attention and relief that our conditions required, and all was done for one 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. PImmmer, reached there also. Ile had given ns np 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 remains now reposo near the site of old Fort Parker. l'oree to their ashes. Unadorned are their graves; not even a slab of marble or a me- mento of any kind has been erceted to tell the traveler where rest the remains of this brave little band of pioneer heroes who wrestled with the savage for the mastery 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, re- mained and traveled together until midnight.

They then halted on open prairie, staked out their horses, placed their piekets and pitched their eamp. Bringing all their prisoners together for the first time, they tied their hands behind them with raw-hide thongs so tiglit 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 nsnal war dance. They danced, sercamed, 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 had to listen to the cries and groans of their tender little children.

" Mrs. Elizabeth Kellogg soon fell into the hands of the Kecchis, from whom, six months after she was captured, she was pnr- chased by a party of Delawares, who carrie.l her to Nacogdoches and delivered hor to General Houston, who paid them $150, the amount they had paid and all they asked.

" Mrs. Rachel Plummer remained a cap- tive abont eighteen months, and to give the reader an idea of her suffering during that period we will give an extract from her diary: ' In July and a portion of Angust 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 my feet. and but very little clothing for my body. 1 had a certain number of buffalo skins to dress every day, and had to mind the horses at night. This kept me employed pretty much all the tithe, 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 dress- ing the skins, but I dared not complain for

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fear of being punished. In October I gave birth to my second son. I say October, but it was all guess work with me, as I had no means of keeping a record of the days as they passed. It was a beantiful and healthy baby, but it was impossible for me to pro- eure suitable comforts for myself and infant. The Indians were not as harsh in their treat- ment 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 be-eech 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 with my work, determined to put it out of the way. One cold morning five or six Indians came where I was sucking my babe. As soon as they eame I felt sick at heart, for my fears were aronsed for the safety of my child. My fears were not ill-grounded. One of the In- dians caught my child by the throat and strangled it until to all appearances 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 np into the air repeatedly and let it fall upon the frozen ground until lifo seemed to bo extinct. They then gave it back to me. I had been weeping inces- santly while they had been murdering my child, but now my grief was so great that the fountain of my tears was dried up. As I gazed on the cheeks of my darling infant I discovered some symptoms of returning 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 time it began to breathe again. But a more heart- rending scene ensned. As soon ne the In-

dians ascertained that the child was still alive, they tore it from my arms and knocked me down. They tied a plaited rope aronnd its neck and threw it into a bunch of prickly pears and then pulled it back ward and for- ward until its tender flesh was literally torn from its body. One of the Indians who was mounted on a horse then tied the end of the rope to his saddle and galloped around in a cirele 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 bnried them.

"'After performning the last sad rites for the lifeless remains of my dear babe, I sat down and gazed with a feeling of relief npon the little grave I had made for it in the wilderness, and could say with David of old, " Yon 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 imputel righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, I feel that my inno- cent 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 realins of eternal bliss !'

" Mrs. Plmmer 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. Iler son had been carried off by another party to the far West, and slie supposed her husband and father hnd been killed in the massacre. Hler infant was dend and death to her would have been a sweet relief. Life wns a burden, und driven

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almost to desperation she resolved no longer to submit to the intolerant old squaw. One day when the two were some distance from, although still in sight of, the camp, her mis- tress attempted to beat her with a elnb. De- termined not to submit to this, she wrenched the club from the hands of the squaw and knocked her down. The Indians, who had witnessod the whole proceedings from their camp, now came running np, shonting at the top of their voice. She fully expected to be killed, but they patted her on the shoulder, erying: Bueno! Bueno! ! (Goodl Good !! or Well done!), She now fared much better, and soon became a great favorite, and was known as the ' Fighting Squaw.' She was eventually ransomed through the intervention of some Mexican Santa Fe traders, by a noble-hearted American merchant of that place, Mr. William Donahue. She was pur- chased in the Rocky Mountains so far north of Santa Fe that seventeen days were con- smmed in reaching that place. She was at onee made a member of her benefactor's fam- ily, 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 meet- ing and embracing her brother-in-law, L. D). Nixon, and by him was escorted back to her people in Texas.

" During her stay with the Indians, Mrs. Planner had many thrilling adventures, which she often recounted after her reclama- tion. In narrating her reminiseences, she said that in one of her rambles, after she had * been with the Indians some time, she dis- covered a enve in the mountains, and, in com- pany with the old squaw that guarded her, she explored it and found n largo dinmond, but her mistress immediately 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-hooks, which the Indians used to catch fish with and she herself has often caught tront with them in the little mountain streamns.

"On the 19th of February, 1838, she reached her father's honse, 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 dietated a thrilling and graphic history of her capture and the horrors of her captivity, the tortures and hardships she endured, and all the incidents of her life with her captors and observations among the savages. This valuableand little book is now rare, and ont of print. The full title of the volume is: ' Narration of the perilons adven- tures, miraenlous eseapes and sufferings of Rev. James W. Parker, during a frontier residence in Texas of fifteen years. With an important geographieal description of the cli- mate, soil, timber, water, etc., of Texas. To which is appended the narration of the eap- ture and subsequent sufferings of Mrs. Rachel Plmnmer, his daughter, during a captivity of twenty-one months among the Comanche In- dians, etc. (18mo., pp. 95 and 35; boards. Lonisville, 1844).'

" In this book she tells the last she saw of Cynthia Aun and John Parker. She died on the 19th of February, 1839, just one year after reaching home. As a remarkable coin- cidence it may be stated that she was born on the nineteenth, married on the nineteenth. captured on the nineteenth, released on the nineteenth, reached Independence on the nine- teenth, arrived at home on the nineteenth, and died on the nineteenth of the month!

" Her son, Jmnes Plummer, af or six long and weary years of captivity and suffering. during which time he had lived among many

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different tribes, and traveled several thousand miles, was ransomed and taken to Fort Gib- bon late in 1842, and reached home in 1843, in charge of his grandfather. Ho became a respected citizen of Anderson county. Both he and his father are now dead.

"This still left in captivity Cynthia and John Parker, who as subsequently heard were held by separate bands. The brother and sis- ter thus separated gradually, forgot the lan- guage, manners and customs of their own people, and became thorough Comanches as the long years stole slowly away. How long the camorn of their brains retained the im- pressions 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 im- press indelible while life continned. But the young mind, as the twig, is inclined by pres- ont circumstances, and often forced in a way wholly foreign to its native and original bent.

"John grew up with the semi-unde Co- manche boys of his own age, and played at bunter and warrior with the pop-gun, made of eller-stems, or bows and arrows, and often flushed the chapparal for hare and grouse, or entrapped the finny denizens of the monntain brook with the many peenliar and ingenious devices of the wild man for seenring for his repast the toothsome tront which abonnds so plentifully in the elevated and delightful ro- gion so long inhabited by the lordly Co- manches.

" 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 ont. The affection was reciprocated on the part of the fair Dona Juanita, and the two were engaged to be

married as soon as they should arrive at the Comanche village. Each day, as the caval- cade moved leisurely but steadily along, the lovers could be seen riding together and dis- cussing the anticipated plomures of connubial life, when suddenly Jolin was prostrated by a violent attack of smallpox. 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 beanty refused to leave her lover, insisting on her captors allowing her to remain and take care of him. To this the Indians reluctantly con- sented. With Jnanita to nurse and cheer him up, John lingered, lived and ultimately recovered, when, with as little ceremony, perhaps, as consummated the nuptials of the first pair in Eden, they assumed the matri- monial relation, and Dona Jnanita's predi- lection for the customs and comforts of civi- lization were sufficiently strong to induce her lord to abandon the wild and nomadic life of a savage for the comforts to be found in a straw-thatched house. . They settled in Texas,' says Mr. Thrall, the historian of Texas, ' on a stock ranch in the far West.' When the Civil war broke ont John Parker joined a Mexican company in the Confeder- ate service and was noted for his gallantry and during. Hle, however, refused to leave the soil of Texas, and would under no cir- cumstances cross the Sabine into Louisiana. Ile 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."

OYNTIIIA ANN PARKER.

The following interesting account is a chapter added to the foregoing story: "Four long years have elapsed since she was cruelly

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torn froin 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 withont success, when, in 1840, Colonel Len. Williams, an old and honored Texan, Mr. Stoat, a trader, and an Indian guide named Jack IJarry, packed mules with goods and engaged in an expedition of private traffic with the Indians.

"On the Canadian river they fell in with Pa-ha-u- 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 scen a white person She was then ahont fourteen years of age and had been with the Indians abont five years.

"Colonel Williams found the Indian into whose family she had been adopted and pro- pored to redeem her, but the Comanche told him all the goods he had would not ransom her, and at the same time ' the firmness of his countenance,' snys Colonel Williams, ' warned me of the danger of further men- tion of the subject.' But old Pa-ha-u-ka prevailed upon him to let them see her. She catne and sat down by the root of a tree, and while their presence was doubtless a happy event to the poor, stricken captive, who in her doleful captivity Id 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 urt to evoko some expression. They told her of her playmates and relatives, and asked what message she would send to them, but she Ind doubtless boon 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 possible 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 toilet from the elite bazaars of Paris, or the half-naked sav- ages with matted locks and elaw-like nails.

"Doubtless the heart of more than one warrior was pierced by the Ulyssean darts from the langhing eyes, or cheered by the silvery ripple of her joyous laughter, and laid at her feet the game tuken after a long aud ardnous chase among the antelope hills. Among the number whom her bndding charms brought to her shrine was Peta Nocona, a Comanche war chief, in prowess and renown the peer of the famous and re- doubtalile Big Foot, who fell in a desperately contested hand-to-hand encounter with the veteran ranger and Indian fighter, Captain S. P. Ross, now living nt Waco, and whose wonderful exploits and deeds of daring fur- nished theme for song and story at the war dance, the council and the camp fire.

"Cynthia Ann, stranger now to every word of her mother tongue save her own name, became the bride of Peta Nocona, per- forming for her imperious lord all the slav- ish offices which savagism and Indian enstom ussigus as the duty of a wife. She bore him children, and, we are assured, loved him with a fierce passion and wifely devotion; 'for,

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some fifteen years after her capture,' says Victor M. Rose, 'a party of white hunters, including some friends of her family, visited the Communehe encampment, and recognizing Cynthia Ann - probably through the medium of her name alone-sounded her as to the disagreeableness 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, und to the great, greasy, lazy buck sleep- ing 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 meek, pale-faced wife, thongh, in truth, exposure to the sun and air had browned the complexion of Cynthia Ann almost as intensely as those of the native daughters of the plains and forest.'

"She retained but the vagnest remem- branee of her people-as dim and flitting as the phantom of a dream; she was acenstomed now to the wild life she led, and found in its repulsive features charms in which . npper- tendom' would have proven totally deficient. ' I am happily wedded,' she said to these vis- itors; '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 warrant- able to follow Cynthia's career to the end. Abont a score of years passed and yonng Ross, of Waco, had seemingly silenced 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 con- dition of the frontier was truly deplorable.

The people were obliged to stand in a con- tinned posture of defense, and were in con- tinnal alarm and hazard of their lives, never daring to stir abroad unarmed, for small bodies of snvages, quick-sighted and accus- tomed to perpetual watchfulness, hovered on the outskirts, and, springing from behind bush or rock, surprised their enemy before he was aware of danger, and sent tidings of their presence in the fatal blow, and after exeen- tion of the bloody work, by superior knowl- edge of the country and rapid movements, safely retired to their inaccessible deserts.

"In the antumn of 1860 the indomitable and fearless Peta Nocona led a raiding party of Commanches through Parker county, so named in honor of the family of his wife, Cynthia Ann, committing great depredations as they passed through. The venerable Isaac Parker was at that time a resident of Weath- erford, the county seat; and little did he imagine that the chief of the ruthless savages who spread desolation and death on every side as far as their arms could reach, was the husband of his long-lost niece, and that the commingled blood of the murdered Parkers and the atrocious Comanche now coursed in the veins of a second generation-bound equally by the ties of consanguinity to mur- derer and murdered; that the son of Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker would be- come the chief of the proud Comanches, whose boast it is that their constitutional set- tlement of government is the purest demnoc- racy ever originated or administered among men. It certainly conserved the object of its institution -. the protection and happiness of the people-for a longer period and much more satisfactorily than has thut of any other Indian tribe. The Comanches claimed a superiority over the other Texan tribes; and they unquestionably were more intelligent

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and courageons. The reservation policy- necessary though it be-brings them all to an abject level, the plane of lazy beggars and thieves. The Comanche is most qualified by nature to receive education and for adapting himself to the requirements of civilization of all the Sonthern tribes, not excepting even the Cherokees, with their churches, school- houses and farms. The Comanches, after waging an unceasing war for over fifty years against the United States, Texas and Mexico, still number 16,000 souls-a far better show- ing than any other tribe cau make, though not one but has enjoyed privileges to which the Comanche was a stranger. It is a shame to the civilization of the age that a people so susceptible of a high degree of development should be allowed to grovel in the depths of heathenism and savagery. But we are di- gressing.

"The loud and clamorous crics of the set- tlers along the frontier for protection induced the Government to organize and send out a regiment under Colonel M. T. Johnson, to take the field for public defense. But thesc efforts proved of small service. The expedi- tion, though at great expense to the State, failed to find an Indian until, returning, the command was followed by the wily Com- anches, their horses stampoded at night, and most of the inen compelled to reach the set- tlements on foot, under great suffering and exposure.

"Captain 'Sul' Ross, who had just gradu- ated from Florence Wesleyan University, of Alabama, and returned to Texas, was com- missioned a captain of rangers by Governor Sair Ilouston, and directed to organize a company of sixty men, with orders to repair to Fort Belknap, receive from Colonel John- son all government property, as his regiment was disbanded, and take the field against the

redoubtable Captain Peta Nocona, and afford the frontier such protection as was possible with his small force. The necessity of vigor- ons measures soon became so pressing that Captain Ross soon determined to attempt to curb the insolence of these implacable ene mies of Texas by following them into their fastnesscs and carry the war into their own homes. In his graphic narration of this campaign, General L. S. Ross says: 'As I could take but forty of my men from my post, I requested Captain N. G. Evans, in command of the United States troops at Camp Cooper, to send me a detachment of the Second Cavalry. We had been intimately connected on the Van Dorn campaign, during which I was the recipient of unch kindness from Captain Evans, while I was suffering from a severe wound received from an Indian in the battle of the Wichita. Ile promptly sent me a sergeant and twenty-one men weil mounted. My force was still further aug- mented by some seventy volunteer citizens. under the command of the brave old frontiers- man, Captain Jack Cureton, of Bosque county. These self-sacrificing patriots, without the hope of pay or regard, left their defenseless homes and families to avenge the sufferings of the frontier people. With pack mnles laden down with necessary supplies, the ex pedition marched for the Indian country. ,

"On the 18th of December, 1860, while marching. up Peace river, I had suspicions that Indians were in the vicinity, by reason of the buffalo that came running in great numbers from the north toward us, and while my command moved in the low ground 1 visited all neighboring high points to make discoveries. On one of these sand hills I found four fresh pony tracks, and, being satisfied that Indian vedettes had just gone. I galloped forward about a mile to a higher

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Author: Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing co., 1895 Number of Pages: 1532

Author:
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing co., 1895
Number of Pages: 1532