USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. 2 > Part 46
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COL. GEORGE WEBB SLAUGHTER.
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Houston's trusted Lieutenant, GEORGE WEBB SLAUGHTER, delivering a message from Houston to Travis, Bowie and Crockett, advising the Evacuation of the Alamo.
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in a short time 500 armed men met within two miles of Nacogdoches and sent to Col. Piedras, under a flag of truce, a demand for the prisoners' liberation. In reply a company of cavalry came out with a counter demand for the surrender of the whole party. Immediate hostilities followed. The Mex- icans were driven back to town after one or two ineffectual stands, and eventually forced to evacu- ate the fort and seek safety in flight. Quite a num- ber of Mexicans were killed, but only three Ameri- cans, one of whom was G. P. Smith, an uncle of G. W. Slaughter. At that time the Angelina river was swollen with recent rains, its bottom lands flooded and impassable except at one point, some eighteen miles from the fort, where a bridge had been built. Here all the men who were provided with horses were directed to hasten and stop the retreat of the panic-striken Mexicans, while the remainder of the force followed on, thus bringing the enemy between two fires and compelling the entire command to surrender. Col. Piedras was allowed to return to Mexico under promise of cx- cusing the colonist's acts and interceding for their pardon, but he proved false to his trust and his report of the affair at Nacogdoches only still further incensed the government. Mr. Slaughter was under fire for the first time in this skirmish or battle. During the temporary lull which followed previous to the general outbreak of war, he was occupied in freighting between Louisiana and Texas points, and one of his loads --- perhaps the most valuable of them all - consisted of the legal library of Sam. Ilouston, which he hauled to Nacogdoches in 1833. ITe had previously met Houston while attending court at Natchitoches, La., and he men- tions the fact that upon this occasion the future President of the Texas Republic was dressed in Indian garments and decked out in all the glory of sealp-lock, feathers and silver ornaments. Mr. Slaughter was an earnest admirer of Houston and was more than pleased when the latter assumed con- trol of the Texian forces. The company in which he enlisted reported to Houston for duty at San Antonio, and was in several of the engagements which immediately followed, among others the famous " Grass Fight," one of the hottest of the war. Houston then advanced toward Mexico, but halted near Goliad upon intelligence that Santa Anna was approaching with an army of 15,000 men. Col. Fannin with the forces under his command was eneamped in a strong position in a bend of the river below Goliad. Travis was in the Alamo with those gallant spirits who were to remain with him faithful and uncomplaining until death. Houston, safe in the consciousness that on the open prairie
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lay perfeet safety from beleaguermeut, watched the approach of the Mexican army and pleaded with Fansiu and Travis to abandon the fortifications and join him. Mr. Slaughter served as a courier, making several trips to Fannin and Travis in the Alamo. On one of the latter, in obedience to in- structions from Gen. Houston, he delivered into the hands of Col. Travis an order to retreat. After reading it, Travis consulted with his brother officers. acquainted his men with the contents of the mes- sage, and then drew a line in the sand with his sword and called upon all who were willing to re- main with him and fight, if need be, to the death, to cross it. The decision was practically unanimous to defend the fort to the last extremity. Only one of the little band chose to make bis way to the main army ; he was let down from the walls and effected his escape. Travis hoped for reinforcements that would enable him to inflict upon Santa Anna a bloody and decisive repulse that would check him on the outskirts of the settlements, or, failing in this, detain his army a sufficient length of tinie to enable the colonists to mass an adequate foree to meet him successfully in the open field. He fully realized the poril of his situation and concealed nothing from his comrades. They determined to stake their lives upon the hazard and were immo- lated upon the altar of their country.
Mr. Slaughter returned to headquarters and re- ported the result of his mission. Later while on a hazardous trip to the Alamo, then known to be invested with Santa Anna's army, he encountered Mrs. Dickinson and her negro slave, survivors of the massacre. who had been released by the Mexi- can commandant and instructed to proceed to Gen. Houston with tidings of Travis' fate. The butchery of Fannin and his men followed shortly after, and Santa Anna pressed on after Gen. Houston, who had retreated to the cast side of the Brazos. Meantime Mr. Sboughter was employed in carrying messages and in procuring subsistence for the army, accepting many dangerous missions and performing them all to the satisfaction of his com- manding officer. History relates how Houston rotreated and how the Mexican army followed until they were led into the trap at San Jacinto, where the tables were turned and Santa Anna defeated and captured ; Lis troops slaughtered, and his inva- sion brought to an ignominious end. The victory at San Jacinto was not the end of hostilities ; but, fol- lowing it, there came a breathing spell, of which Mr. Slaughter hastened to take advantage. Gain- ing a leave of absence, under promise of returning at once in case he was needed, he hastened to hi- home, and on the 12th day of the following October
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he was married to Miss Sarah Mason, to whom he had been engaged for some time. The ceremony was on'y deferred to this date because under the disorganized state of the country there was no officer with legal authority to perform it. The marriage of Mr. Slaughter was the first ceremony of the kind under the sanction of the Republic which he had been . instrumental in establishing. The newly wedded couple settled in Sabine County, and Mr. Slaughter resumed freighting for a liveli- hood, engaging in the employ of the new govern- ment.
At the time of the Cherokee troubles, in 1839, the eastern counties organized companies in pur-
fork of the Trinity, three or four days march, by companies of Capts. Slaughter and Todd.
The need which had prompted the organization of an armed force now no longer existing, the men disbanded, and Mr. Slaughter returned to the labors and attendant comforts of home life. In 1852 he moved to Freestone County, intending to turn his attention to stock-raising. He brought with him ninety-two head of cattle and established a ranch near the old town of Butler, and in the five years he resided there increased his herd to 600 head. Mr. Slaughter believed there were better opportunities to be gained by removal further west, and in 1857 drove his herds to Palo Pinto County,
COL. C. C. SLAUGHTER.
suance of President Houston's orders, and Mr. Slaughter was elected Captain of the company organized in Sabine. The newly recruited forces assembled at Nacogdoches, and in a boly marched to reinforce Gen. Rusk, who was stationed with a small force on the Neches river. near where Chief Bowles was encamped with 1,000 Cherokees. Two days were spent in an ineffectual attempt to arrange a treaty and the Indians dropped back from their position, but were followed and a fight ensued in which the Cherokees lost eleven killed and the whites only three, though fourteen of their number were wounded. The Indians again retreated and the following day there was a general battle; Chief Bowles was killed, with several hundred of his fol- lowers, while the remainder of the Cherokees fed to the westward, being followed to the Bois d'Are
locating five miles north of the town of that name, at that time known as Golconda. He bought here 2,000 seres of land and located by certificate 960 seres more, and the ranch located at that time was thereafter his home, though his residence at this point was not continuous. In 1858-59 Mr. Slaughter was occupied in raising stock and running a small farm, but the following year moved his stock to Young County, at a point near the Ross Indian Reservation. He had then 1,200 head of cattle and a small bunch of horses, but lost forty head of the latter through theft by Indians in 1860, and for these and other property stolen, he later filed claims against the government aggregating $6,500.
Mr. Slaughter's holdings of cattle had increased in 1867-68 to such an extent that he decided to soll
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the greater portion of them, and he accordingly dis- posed of 12,000 to James Loving and Charles Rivers at a uniform price of $6.00. Rivers was afterwards killed by Indians while in eamp in Jaek- son County, in June, 1871. Following the sale of bis cattle, Mr. Slaughter formed a partnership with bis son, C. C. Slaughter, and began driving cattle through to Kansas. The first drove only consisted of 800 head, but they brought the neat little sum of $32,000. For the seven years up to and includ- ing 1875, the herds of Slaughter & Son were driven to Kansas points and from thenee shipped to St. Louis and Chieago. The drove in 1870 was proba- bly the largest, numbering 3,000 head, and the
C. C., taking into business with him another son, Peter, and in 1878 they sold and shipped 4,000 cattle. Six years later, on account of deelining health, Mr. Slaughter disposed of his eattle inter- ests and afterwards devoted his time to the care of his raneh and other property. He had at his Palo Pinto ranch 1,280 acres of land, and owned 1,300 aeres in other portions of the State, besides town property in Mineral Wells. Seenring his land when nearly the entire country was open for selection, Mr. Slaughter had one of the most desirable locations in the country, and prized it more highly in remem- brance of the hardships and dangers attendant upon its settlement. During the first few years of his
MRS. C. C. SLAUGHTER.
returns from this herd footed up $105,000. In 1870 Mr. Slaughter moved his family to Emporia, Kan., in order that his children might have the advantage of the superior educational facilities at that point, but in 1875 he returned to Texas and resumed operations on his oll raneh in Palo Pinto County. The number of eattle handled and the money received from their sale can be expressed in round figures, as follows : --
1868, 800 head, $32,000.00; 1869, 2,000 head, $90,000.00 ; 1870,3,000 head, $105,000 ; 1871, 2.000 Lead, $66,000.00; 1873, 2,000 head, $66,000.00; 1874, 2,000 head, 800,000.00; 1865, 1,000 head, $15,000.00. Such figures as these go a long way toward impressing the reader with the importance of the cattle business twenty years ago. In 1876 Mr. Slaughter dissolved partnership with his son,
residence in Palo Pinto County the Indians were very troublesome, and Mr. Slaughter could relate many incidents of border warfare from the standpoint of an eye-witness and partic- ipant. In 1864 he had a skirmish with seven Indians on Cedar ereek, in Palo Pinto County, several shots were exchanged, but the Indians were finally frightened away. Three years later the In- dians made a raid on his raneh and stole all the horses, and John Slaughter, a son, received a bullet wound in the breast. Skirmishes with the red-skins were then of too common oeeurrenee to attract much attention beyond the immediate neighborhood. The entire Texas border was a battle-field, and those who lived on the Upper Brazos had to guard themselves as best they could. In 1866 Mr. Slaughter was driving a small buneh
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of cattle on Dry creek, near Graham, when he was attacked by thirteen Indians, but his carbine and revolver proved too muel for their courage, and they retreated after he had wounded one of their . was likewise armed. He never permitted busi- number. In the month of April, 1869, a bunch of Indians surrounded and massaered thirteen gov- ernment teamsters near Flat Top Mountain, in Young County. Mr. Slaughter was within two He first united with the Methodist Church in . 1831, but in 1842 joined the Baptist Church and in 1844 was ordained to preach. He studied and practieed medieine, and was for a number of years the only physician in Palo Pinto County. It would be impossible to overrate his usefulness during those long years, wlien the citizens of the nortli- western counties were practically isolated from the world and dependent upon each other for comfort and aid in times of extremity. Ever thoughtful and kind, Mr. Slaughter gave freely of his time and money to the poor of his community. miles of this place. eamped with fourteen men, holding 800 head of cattle which he had gathered. The Indians attacked them, and they only escaped through strategy. Six of the men were sent with the cattle in the direction of Sand ereek, and the remainder of them, including Mr. Slaughter and his son C. C., made a breastwork of the horses and awaited an attack. Profiting by a deep ravine at hand, some of the men erept cautiously away, and suddenly appearing at another point, made a charge upon the Indians, who supposed there were re-in- forcements coming, and beat a retreat.
Mr. Slaughter was an earnest worker all his life, and few men proved themselves so useful in so many and varied capacities. He was for many years a minister of the Baptist Church. During his minis- try he baptized over 3,000 persons and helped to ordain more preachers and organize more ehurelies than any other person in the State of Texas. When Rev. Mr. Slaughter first eame to Palo Pinto County, in starting out to fill his appointments as minister, he would saddle his horse, fill his saddle bags with provisions, take along his pieket rope and arm himself with two six-shooters and his trusty carbine. The distance between the places where he preached being sometimes as great as sixty miles, it was often necessary for him to camp over night by him- self. Twiee he was attacked by Indians, but es- caped uninjured. On one occasion, while he was preaching in the village of Palo Pinto, the county was so filled with hostile Indians and wrongbt up
to such a pitch that Mr. Slaughter kept his six- shooter and his carbine at his side during the ser- mon, and every member of his congregation ness or fear of the Indians to interfere with his pastoral work, and always made it a point to keep his engagements.
Eleven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Slaughter, six boys and five girls. Seven of them are still living, as follows :-
C. C., Peter E., J. B., W. B., Fannie, Sarah Jane, and Millie. Mrs. Slaughter died on the 6th of January, 1894.
He died at his home, six miles north of Palo Pinto, Texas, at 11 p. m., March 19, 1895. Dur- ing his last illness he had the eonsolation of bav- ing with him his three sons, C. C., J. B., and W. B. Slaughter ; his three daughters, Mrs. Jennie Harris, Mrs. Millie Dalton, and Miss Fannie Slaughter, and also his long-cherished friend, Rev. Rufus C. Burleson, of Waeo, and a number of neighbors and other friends. His end was peaee- ful and in keeping with his Christian life. Just before he died, he expressed his willingness to obey the summons, his trust in God, and his belief in a happy immortality.
ISAAC PARKS,
ANDERSON,
A native of Georgia and for many years a promi- nent citizen of Chambers County, Ala., eame to Texas in 1853, and located two miles east of Ander- son, in Grimes County, where he continued plant- ing in, which he had been formerly engaged. He married first, on April 1st, 1834, Miss Lucinda
Chipman, and after her death married, on January 16th, 1844, Miss Martha S. Stoneham, daughter of Joseph Stoneham, and a nieee of the venerable Bryant Stoneham, of Stoneham Station, Grimes County, Texas. He brought to Texas with him a family of six children, four of whom were by his
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first wife and two by his second. Of these children three were daughters, all of whom married. They are all deceased. A son, W. Il. Parks, D. D., is a clergyman of the Baptist Church, stationed at Ennis, Texas. The Stonehams were among the earliest settlers on Grimes Prairie, in Grimes County.
By Mr. Parks' second marriage, there were six sons and two daughters. Two sons, Eldridge and Terrill, are deceased. The four surviving sons are : Joseph F., of Bryan; Erastus, of Anderson ; Charles, of Brenham ; and Edwin L., of Stoneham, Texas. The two daughters are: Carrie, now Mrs. W. G. Hatfield, of Ennis ; and Laura, wife of L. S. Coffey, of Navasota. Mr. Parks dicd June 14, 1877, at sixty-eight years of age, and Mrs. Parks in 1884, at fifty-eight years of age, both at Ander- son.
Joseph F. Parks is one of Bryan's successful business men. He was born at Oak Bowery, Chambers County, Ala., February 17, 1846. He
was reared on his father's farm and resided there until 1869. He spent two years in the Confederate army as a member of Chisholm's regiment, in Major's brigade of Texas cavalry, and was attached to Green's division in the Trans-Mississippi Depart- ment. He was later transferred to Walker's divis- ion (infantry), and was finally detailed as a clerk in the commissary department of his ( Waterhouse's) brigade and served in that capacity until the end of the war, when he returned to Anderson, where he was employed for two years as manager of his father's farm. In September, 1869, he married Miss Helen Garrett, a daughter of Judge O. H. P. Garrett, one of the original settlers of the historic old county of Washington. He farmed during the year of 1870 in Washington County. Late in that year he engaged in the livery business, which he has since followed, first in Navasota, then in Bren- ham and, since 1885, in Bryan. Mr. and Mrs. Parks have five children, viz. : Ernest F., Joseph F., Eugene, Lilian, and Nannie.
G. W. GAYLE,
COLUMBIA,
Was born in Dallas County, Ala., in 1840. He received his education at Auburn, Ala., and came to Texas in 1860. He returned shortly afterward to his native State, however, and enlisted for the war in the Third Alabama Regiment. He served through the war and surrendered with Gen. Lee's army. In 1866 he returned to Texas and engaged in steamboating on the Trinity river. This busi- ness was followed with gratifying financial success during those exciting and troublesome times. when transportation facilities were so meager in Texas.
In 1873 he settled in Brazoria County, and steam- boat navigation on the Brazos engaged his atten- tion for quite a while. In 1888 he was elected County Clerk of his county, and his great popu- larity is attested by the fact that he has been re- elected at cach succeeding election. He lived in Columbia and has a most interesting family. He has been an indefatigable worker for the upbuild- ing of the section of the State in which he resides, and few of his fellow-citizens are more widely useful or influential.
WILEY MANGUM IMBODEN,
RUSK,
Was born in Louisiana, in 1861, and in 1863 was brought to Texas with his parents, who located in Cherokee County, Texas. Hle received the benefit of a thorough education in the primary and acade- mic schools of Texas and then read law and was
admitted to the bar. For a number of years he was actively identified with Texas journalism as a newspaper owner and an editorial writer of rare force and elegance. Ile was then. as he has since been, a prominent figure and gallant and effective
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fighter in the political arena, contending against taken an active and influential part in the counsels of his party, has filled positions of honor in its ranks and has done yeoman service ; he is recog- nized as one of the brightest and truest blades that Texas Democracy can boast. This year (1896) he was nominated, and has just been elected a presi- dential elector upon the Bryan and Sewall ticket all comers for the continued ascendency of the Democratic party in this State and the establish- ment and maintenance of good government. He was elected and served as Journal Clerk of the Texas Senate of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Legislatures and upon the assembling of the Twen- tieth-first Legislature was elected Chief Clerk of . and will have the pleasure of voting for the re- the House of Representatives of that body. In establishment of this government as a government of the people. He has inherited the stature and features of his illustrious ancestor, Wiley P. Mangum, for a long time Senator of the United States from North Carolina. the years that have followed he has been repeatedly elected a member of the Legislature, serving with distinction both in the Senate and House of Repre- sentatives. For the past decade or more, he has
GEORGE T. JESTER,
CORSICANA.
Hon. George T. Jester, ex-member of the State Legislature, in which he made an unusually brilliant record, and now Lieutenant-Governor of the State of Texas, was born in Macoupin County, Ill., August 23, 1847. His father died in 1858, leaving the mother and six children a small amount of prop- erty that served to support the family until Charles W. and George T. Jester were old enough to con- tribute to the maintenance of the family.
Hampton Mckinney, related to the Hamptons of South Carolina and maternal grandfather of the subject of this memoir, moved to Texas in 1847 and built the first house - a log cabin - on the site now occupied by the thriving city of Corsicana. On the death of his father in 1858, his mother and six children made their way to Mckinney's home, traveling the long distance from Macoupin County, Ill., to Corsicana, in a two-horse wagon. Soon after their arrival the county commenced the construction of a courthouse, the first brick building erected in that part of the State. George T. Jester and his elder brother, Charles W., secured employment, at fifty cents a day, and earned a support for their mother and sisters.
At seventeen years of age he began reading law, but abandoned its study, and the following year (the fourth of the war) joined Hood's Fourth Texas Regiment. Before it reached Richmond, however, Lee had surrendered. Returning home, the neces- sities of the family were such that he could not prosecute his studies to admission to the bar. Ile worked hard and earned money enough to purchase
a wagon and horses and for two years followed trading and buying hides on a small scale.
He next secured a position in a dry goods store in Corsicana at twenty dollars per month and clerked three years, his salary being increased until it reached one hundred and twenty-five dollars per month.
He then began business on his own account and merchandised from 1870 to 1880, meeting with suc- cess. During five years of this time he was engaged in buying cotton from farmers and shipping it direct to spinners, the system now in vogue, and which he has the honor of having introduced into Texas. In 1881 he retired from merchandising and cotton- buying and embarked in the banking business with his brothers, C. W. and L. L. Jester, under the firm name of Jester Brothers. In 1887 the bank was converted into the Corsicana National Bank, with a capital and surplus of $125,000.00. Hon. George T. Jester is president and manager of this institu- tion.
He is as largely (perhaps more largely ) inter- ested in farming and stock-raising than in bank- ing. The breeding and introduction of fine stock and scientific farming is a passion with him. The most highly enjoyed of his leisure hours are spent at his pleasant country home.
He has been twice married : in 1871 to Miss Alice Bates, who died in 1875, leaving two children ( son, Claude W., and a daughter, named for her mother, Alice Bates Jester) ; and in 1880, five years after the death of his first wife, to Miss Fannie P'.
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Gordon, by whom he has one child, Charles G. Jester.
Mr. Jester is a member of the Methodist Episco- pal Church South and has been sent as a lay dele- gate to several important sessions of the General Conference, the highest body known to that church. He is a director and treasurer of the Navarro Bible Society, a member of the Corsicana Relief Association, Navarro County Fair Association and Corsicana Board of Trade, and is a stockholder in the Corsicana Street Railway Company and Corsi- cana Manufacturing Company.
In 1890 he was nominated by acclamation by the Democratic Convention of the Sixtieth District, and, at the ensuing election, in November, was elected to the House of Representatives of the Twenty-second Legislature, without opposition. In that body he served as a member of several im- portant committees, helped frame and assisted in passing the Railroad Commission Bill, introduced several measures of far-reaching importance, took
an active part in the legislation of the session, won the confidenee and esteem of his fellow-members and earned a State-wide reputation as a man of uncommon ability and a faithful servant of the people.
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