Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 8

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922

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After six days of starvation, with their clothing torn into shreds, their bodies lacerated with briars and thorns, the women and children with nnshod and bleeding feet, the party of James W. Parker - 2 men, 19 women and children - reached 'Finnin's, at the old San Antonio and Nacogdoches erossing of the Navasota. Being informed of their approach, Messrs. Carter and Courtney, with five horses, met

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

them some miles away, and thus enabled the women and children to ride. The few people around, though but returned to their deserted homes after the victory of San Jacinto, shared all they had of food and clothing with them. Plum- mer, after six days of wanderings, joined the party the same day. In due time the members of the party located temporarily as best suited the respective families. A party from Fort Houston went up and buried the dead.

The experienced frontiersman of later days will be struck with the apparent lack of leadership or organization among the settlers. Had they cxisted, combined with proper signals, there can be little doubt but that the Indians would have been held at bay.

THE CAPTIVES.

Mrs. Kellogg fell into the hands of the Keechis, from whom, six months after her capture, she was purchased by some Delawares, who carried her into Nacogdoches and delivered her to Gen. Hous- ton, who paid them $150.00, the amount they had paid and all they asked. On the way thence to Fort Houston, escorted by J. W. Parker and others, a hostile Indian was slightly wounded and temporarily disabled by a Mr. Smith. Mrs. Kel- logg instantly recognized him as the savage who had scalped the patriarch, Elder John Parker, whercupon, without judge, jury or court-martial, or even dallying with Judge Lynch, he was invol- untarily hastened on to the happy hunting-ground of his fathers.

Mrs. Rachel Plummer, after a brutal captivity, through the agency of some Mexiean Santa Fe traders, was ransomed by a noble-hearted Amer- ican merchant of that place, Mr. William Donoho. She was purchased in the Rocky Mountains so far north of Santa Fe that seventeen days were con- sumed in reaching that placc. She was at once made a member of her benefactor's family, after a captivity of one and a half years. She, ere long, accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Donolio to Independ- ence, Missouri, and in due time embraced her brother-in-law, Nixon, and by him was escorted back to her people. On the 19th of February, 1838, she reached her father's house, exactly twenty-one months from her capture. She had never scen her infant son, James P., since soon after their capture, and knew nothing of his fate. She wrote, or dictated an account of her sufferings and observations among the savages, and died on the 19th of February, 1839. About six months after her capture she gave birth to a child, but it was cruelly murdered in her presence. As remark-

able coincidences it may be stated that she was born on the 19th, married on the 19th, captured on the 19th, released on the 19th, reached Independence on the 10th, arrived at home on the 19th, and died on the 19th of the month. Her child, James Pratt Plummer, was ransomed and taken to Fort Gibson late in 1842, and reached home in February, in 1843, in charge of his grand- father. He became a respected citizen of Ander- son County. This still left in captivity Cynthia Ann and John Parker, who, as subsequently learned, were held by separate bands. John grew to manhood and became a warrior. In a raid into Mexico he captured a Mexican girl and made her his wife. Afterwards he was seized with small-pox. His tribe fled in dismay, taking his wife and leaving him alone to die ; but she escaped from them and returned to nurse him. He recovered and in dis- gust quit the Indians to go and live with his wife's people, which he did, and when the civil war broke out, he joined a Mexican company in the Confed- erate service. He, however, refused to leave the soil of Texas and would, under no circumstance, cross the Sabine into Louisiana. He was still liv- ing across the Rio Grande a few years ago, but up to that time had never visited any of his Texas cousins.

RECOVERY OF CYNTHIA ANN PARKER.

From May 19th, 1836, to December 18th, 1860, was twenty-four years and seven months. Add to this nine years, her age when captured, and, at the latter date Cynthia Ann Parker was in her thirty- fourth year. During that quarter of a century no reliable tidings had ever been received of her. She had long been given up as dead or irretriev- ably lost to civilization. As a prelude to her reclamation, a few other important events may be narrated.

When, in 1858, Major Earl Van Dorn, United States dragoons, was about leaving Fort Belknap on his famous campaign against the hostile tribes, Lawrence Sullivan Ross (the Gen. "Sul " Ross, a household favorite throughout Texas to-day), then a frontier Texas youth of cighteen, had just returned for vacation from college. He raised aud took command of 135 friendly Waco, Tehuacano, Toncahua and Caddo Indians and tendered their services to Van Dorn, which were gladly accepted. He was sent in advance to " spy out the land," the troops and supply trains following. Reaching the Wichita mountains, Ross sent a confidential Waco and Tehuacano to the Wichita village, 75 miles east of the Washita river, hoping to learn where the

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

hostile Comanches were. On approaching he village these two scouts, to their surprise, found that Buffalo Hump and his band of Comanches, against whom Van Dorn's expedition was intended, were there, trading and gambling with the Wichitas. The scouts lay concealed till night, then stole two Comanche horses and hastily rejoined Ross with the tidings. With some difficulty Ross convinced Van Dorn of the reliability of the scouts and persuaded him to defleet bis course and make a forced march for the village. At sunrise, on the first day of October, they struck the village as a whirlwind, almost annibilating Buffalo Hump and his power- ful band, capturing horses, tents, equipage and numerous prisoners, among whom was the white girl, " Lizzie," never recognized or claimed by kindred, but adopted, educated and tenderly reared by Gen. Ross and subsequently married and died in California. Van Dorn was dangerously wounded ; as was also Ross, by a rifle ball, whose youthful gallantry was such that every United States officer, while yet on the battle field, signed a petition to the President to commission him as an officer in the regular army, and he soon received from Gen. Winfield Scott a most complimentary official recog- nition of his wise and dauntless bearing.

Graduating at college a year later (in 1850), in 1860 and till secession occurred in the beginning of 1861, young Ross was kept, more or less, in the frontier service. In the fall of 1860, under the commission of Governor Sam Houston, he was stationed near Fort Belknap, in command of a com- pany of rangers. Late in November a band of Comanches raided Parker Connty, committed serious depredations and retreated with many horses, creat- ing great excitement among the sparsely settled inhabitants. Ross, in command of a party of his own men, a sergeant and twenty United States cavalry, placed at his service by Capt. N. G. Evans, commanding at Camp Cooper, and seventy citizens from Palo Pinto County, under Capt. Jack Curington, followed the marauders a few days later. Early on the 18th of December near some cedar mountains, on the head waters of Pease river, they suddenly came upon an Indian village, which the occupants, with their horses already packed, were about leaving. Curington's company was several miles behind, and twenty of the rangers were on foot, leading their broken-down horses, the only food for them for several days having been the bark and sprigs of young cottonwoods. With the dragoons and only twenty of his own men, seeing that he was undiscovered, Ross charged the camp, completely surprising the Indians. In less than half an hour he had complete possession of the

camp, their supplies and 350 horses, besides killing many. Two Indians, mounted, attempted to escape to the mountains, about six miles distant. Lieut. Thomas Killiber pursued one; Ross and Lieut. Somerville followed the other. Somerville's heavy weight soon caused fris horse to fail, and Ross pur- sued alone till, in about two miles, he came up with Mohee, chief of the band. After a short combat, Ross triumphed in the death of his adversary, securing his lance, shield, quiver and head-dress, all of which remain to the present time among similar trophies in the State collection at Austin. Very soon Lieut. Killiher joined him in charge of the Indian he had followed, who proved to be a woman, with her girl child, about two and a half years old. On the way back a Comanche boy was picked up by Lieut. Sublett. Ross took charge of him, and he grew up at Waco, bearing the name of Pease, suggested doubtless by the locality of his capture.

It soon became evident that the captured woman was an American, and through a Mexican interpre- ter it became equally certain that she had been cap- tured in childhood -that her husband had been killed in the fight, and that she had two little boys elsewhere among the band to which she belonged. Ross, from all the facts, suspected that she might be one of the long missing Parker children, and on reaching the settlements, sent for the venerable Isaac Parker, of Tarrant County, son and brother respectively of those killed at the Fort in 1836. On his arrival it was soon made manifest that the captured woman was Cynthia Ann Parker, as per- fectly an Indian in habit as if she had been so born. She recognized ber name when distinctly pro- nounced by lier uncle ; otherwise she knew not an English word. She sought every opportunity to escape, and had to be closely watched for some time. Her uncle brought herself and child into his home -then took them to Austin, where the secession convention was in session. Mrs. John Henry Brown and Mrs. N. C. Raymond interested themselves in her, dressed her neatly, and on one occasion took her into the gallery of the hall while the convention was in session. They soon realized that she was greatly alarmed by the belief that the assemblage was a council of chiefs, sitting in judg- ment on her life. Mrs. Brown beckoned to her busband, who was a member of the convention, who appeared and succeeded in reassuring her that she was among friends.

Gradually her mother tongue came back, and with it occasional incidents of her childhood, includ- ing a recognition of the venerable Mr. Anglin and perhaps one or two others. She proved to be a

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

sensible and comely woman, and died at her brother's in Anderson County, in 1870, preceded a -Bort time by her sprightly little daughter, " Prairie Flower."

One of the little sons of Cynthia Ann died some years later. The other, now known as Capt. Quanah Parker, born, as he informed me, at Wich- its Falls, in 1854, is a popular and trustworthy chief of the Comanches, on their reservation in the Indian Territory. He speaks English, is consider- ably advanced in civilization, and owns a ranch with considerable live stock and a small farm - withal a fine looking and dignified son of the plains.

Thus ended the sad story begun May 19th, 1836. Various detached accounts have been given of it.

Some years ago I wrote it up from the best data at command. Since then I have used every effort to get more complete details from those best informed, and am persuaded that this narrative states cor- rectly every material fact connected with it.

NOTE. Elder Daniel Parker, a man of strong mental powers, a son of Elder John, does not figure in these events. He signed the Declaration of Iu- dependence in 1836, and preached to his people till his death in Anderson County, in 1845. Ex-Rep- resentative Ben. F. Parker is his son and successor in preaching at the same place. Isaac Parker, before named, another son, long represented Hous- ton and Anderson Counties in the Senate and House, and in 1855 represented Tarrant County. He died in 1884, not far from eighty-eight years of age. Isaac D. Parker of Tarrant is his son.

The Break-up in Bell County in 1836 - Death of Davidson and Crouch - The Childers Family - Orville T. Tyler - Walker, Monroe, Smith, Etc. - 1836.

When the invasion of Santa Anna occurred, from January to April, 1836, there were a few newly located settlers on Little river, now in Bell County. They retreated east, as did the entire population west of the Trinity. Some of these settlers went into the army till after the victory at San Jacinto on the 2Ist of April. Some of them, immediately after that triumph, with the family of Gouldsby Childers, returned to their deserted homes. During the pre- vious winter each head of a family and one or two single men had cleared about four acres of ground on his own land and had planted corn before the retreat. To cultivate this corn and thus have bread was the immediate incentive to an early return. Gouldshy Childers had his cabin and little field on his own league on Little river. Robert Davidson's erwin and league were a little above on the river, both being on the north side. Orville T. Tyler's ongue, cabin and cornfield were on the west side of the Leon in the three forks of Little river, its Smits extending to within a mile of the present Viwh of Belton. Wm. Taylor's league was oppc- vtv that of Tyler, but his cornfield was on the uther land. At this time Henry Walker, Mr. Mon- De. and James (Camel Back) Smith had also :eturned to their abandoned homes, in the edge of the prairie, about eight miles east of the present

town of Cameron, in Milam County, their cabins being only about a hundred yards apart. This was the same James Smith who, in October, 1838, escaped, so severely wounded, from the Surveyor's Fight, in sight of the present town of Dawson, in Navarro County, as narrated in the chapter on that subject.

Nashville, on the Brazos, near the mouth of Little river, was then the nearest settlement and refuge to these people, and the families of those who returned to cultivate their corn in the new settlement, remained in that now extinct village.

The massacre at Parker's Fort on the Navasota, occurred on the 19th of May. In the month of June, but ou what day of the month cannot be stated, two young men named John Beal and Jack Hopson, arrived as messengers from Nashville to advise these people of their great peril, as large bodies of hostile Indians were known to be maraud- ing in the country. On receipt of this intelli- gence immediate preparations were made to retreat in a body to Nashville. Their only vehicle was a wagon to be drawn by a single pair of oxen. They had a few horses but not enough to mount the whole party. The entire party consisted of Capt. Gouldsby Childers, his wife, sons, Robert (now living at Temple), Frank (17 years of age, and

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

killed in Erath's fight with the Indians, on Big Elm, in the same section, in January, 1837), William and Prior Childers, small boys; his two grown daughters, Katherine ( afterwards Mrs. E. Lawrence Stickney ) ; Amanda (afterwards Mrs. John E. Craddock, and still living in Bell County) ; and Caroline, eight years old (now the widow of Orville T. Tyler and the mother of George W. Tyler, liv- ing in Belton), the whole family consisting of nine souls - also an old man named Rhoads, living with the Childers family, - Shackleford, Orville T. Tyler, Parson Crouch and Robert Davidson ( whose families were in Nashville), Ezekiel Roberson and the two messengers, John Beal and Jack Hopson - total souls, seventeen, of whom eleven were able to bear arms, though Mr. Rhoads was old and infirm.

On the evening of the first day they arrived and encamped at the house of Henry Walker, where the families of Monroe and Smith had already taken refuge. It was expected that these three families would join them in the march next morn- ing ; but they were not ready, and the original party, when morning came, moved on. When two or three miles southeast of Walker's house, on the road to Nashville, via Smith's crossing of Little river, Davidson and Crouch being about three hun- dred, and Capt. Childers about one hundred yards ahead and two or three men perhaps two hundred yards behind, driving a few cattle, the latter diseov- ered about two hundred mounted warriors advanc- ing from the rear at full speed. They gave the alarm and rushed forward to the wagon. Capt. Childers, yelling to Crouch and Davidson, hastened baek. They reached the wagon barely in time to present a bold front to the advaneing savages and cause them to change their charge into an eneircle- ment of the apparently doomed party; but in accomplishing this purpose the enemy discovered Messrs. Crouch and Davidson seeking to rejoin their companions. This diverted their attention from the main party to the two unfortunate gentle- men, who, seeing the impossibility of their attempt, endeavored to escape by flight, but being poorly mounted, were speedily surrounded, killed and scalped. Then followed great excitement among the Indians, apparently quarreling over the dispo- sition of the scalps and effects of the two gentle- men. This enabled the main party to reach a grove of timber about four hundred yards distant, where they turned the oxen loose, and only sought to save their lives. At this critical crisis and just as the savages were returning to renew the attack, Beal and Hopson, who had won the friendship of

all by coming as messengers, and by their conduct up to that moment, made their escape from what seemed certain death.

For a little while the Indians galloped around them, yelling, firing and by every artifice seeking to draw a fire from the little band; but they pre- sented a bold front and fired not a gun. Shaekle- ford eould speak the Indian tongue and challenged them to charge and come to close quarters, but the Indians evidently believed they had pistols and extra arms in the wagons and failed to approach nearer than a hundred yards and soon withdrew. In elose order, the besieged retreated changing their route to the raft, four or five miles distant, on Little river, on which they crossed, swimming their horses. Carolina Childers, the child of eight, rode behind hier future husband, Orville T. Tyler, who had a lame foot and was compelled to ride, while others, for want of horses, were compelled to travel on foot. They doubted not the attack would be renewed at some more favorable spot, but it was not. Thus they traveled till night and encamped. They reached Nashville late next day.

During the next day Smith, Monroe and Walker, with their families, arrived. Immediately on leav- ing the former party the Indians had attacked the three families in Walker's house and kept up a fire all day without wounding either of the defenders, who fired deliberately through port-holes whenever opportunity appeared. While not assured of kill- ing a single Indian, they were perfectly certain of having wounded a considerable number. As night came on, the Indians retired, and as soon as satis- fied of their departure, the three families left for Nashville, and arrived without further molestation.

NOTE. Robert Davidson was a man of intelli- gence and merit, and was the father of Wilson T. Davidson and Mrs. Harvey Smith of Belton, Mrs. Francis T. Duffau of Austin, and Justus Davidson of Galveston, all of whom have so lived in the intervening fifty-one years as to refleet honor on their slaughtered father. Of the family of Mr. Crouch I have no knowledge. Mrs. Stiekney died in Coryell County, December 24, 1880. Prior Childers died in Falls County in 1867 or 1868. William Childers died in the Confederate army in 1864, having served from the beginning of the war.

O. T. Tyler was born in Massachusetts, August 28, 1810; landed in Texas in February, 1835; married Caroline Childers in 1850; was the first chief-justiee of Coryell County, and filled various other public stations; and full of years and the honors of a well-spent life, died at his elegant home in Belton, April 17th, 1886. His son, Senator George W. Tyler, of Belton, was the first white child born in Coryell County.

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

The Murder of the Douglas and Dougherty Families - 1836.

The month of March, 1836, ranks overwhelmingly as the bloodiest and yet, in one respect, the brightest in the annals of Texas. On the second day of that month, at Washington on the Brazos, the chosen delegates of the people, fifty-two being present, unanimously declared Texas to be a free, sovereign and independent Republic, according to Gen. Sam Houston, their most distinguished colleague, the opportunity of subscribing his name to the solemn declaration, the second of its kind in the history of the human family, on his birthday, an event not dreamed of by his noble mother when in Rockbridge County, Virginia, on the second day of March, 1793, she first clasped him to her bosom. On the 4th of March, Gen. Houston was elected commander-in- chief of the armies of the Republic, as he had been in the previous November of the armies of the Pro- visional, or inchoate, government. On the 11th, Henry Smith, the Provisional Governor, one of the grandest characters adorning the history of Texas and to whom more than to any one man, the cause of Independence was indebted for its triumph, sur- rendered his functions to the representatives of the people. On the 2d, Dr. Grant and his party, beyond the Nueces, were slaughtered by Urrea's dra- goons, one man only escaping massacre, to be held long in Mexican dungeons and then escape, to survive at least fifty-five years, with the fervent hope by hosts of friends that he may yet be spared many years to see a commercial city arise where he has resided for over half a century. The veteran gentlemau referred to is Col. Reuben R. Brown, of Velasco, at the mouth of the Brazos. On the 6th the Alamo and its 182 defenders went down to immortality under the oft-repulsed but surging columns of Santa Anna. On the 19th Fannin capitulated to Urrea on the plains of Coleto. On the 27th he and his followers, to the number of about 480, were massacred in cold blood, under the specific orders of that arch traitor and apostate to Liberty, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, whose life, twenty-four days later, when a prisoner in their hands, was spared through a magnanimity unsur- ¡ assed in the world's history, by the lion-hearted defenders of a people then and ever since, by prej- u liced fanatics and superficial scribblers, charac- Berized as largely composed of outlaws and quasi- barbarians, instead of being representatives, as they were, of the highest type of American chivalry, American civilization and American liberty.

While these grand events were transpiring, the American settlers on the Guadalupe, the Lavaca and farther east were removing their families east- wardly, flying from the legions of Santa Anna as from wild beasts. Many had no vehicles and used horses, oxeu, sleds or whatever could be improvised to transport the women, children, bedding and food. Among those thus situated were two isolated families, living on Douglas' or Clark's creek, about twelve miles southwest of Hallettsville, in Lavaca County. These were John Douglas, wife aud children, and - Dougherty, a widower, with three children. The parents were natives of Ireland, but had lived and probably married in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, where their children were born and from which they came to Texas in 1832. They were worthy and useful citizens, and lived together. They prepared sleds on which to transport their effects, but when these were com- pleted the few people in that section had already left for the east. On the morning of the 4th of March Augustine Douglas, aged fifteen, and Thad- eus Douglas, aged thirteen, were sent out by their father to find and bring in the oxen designed to draw the sleds. Returning in the afternoon, at a short distance from home, they saw that the cabins were on fire, and heard such screams and war whoops as to admonish them that their parents and kindred were being butchered; but they were . unarmed and powerless and realized that to save their own lives they must seek a hiding-place. This they found in a thicket near by, and there remained concealed till night. When dark came they cautiously approached the smoldering ruins and found that the savages had left. A brief examination revealed to them the dead and scalped bodies of their father, mother, sister and little brother and of Mr. Dougherty, one son and two daughters, lying naked in the yard - eight. souls thus brutally snatched from earth. Iuagination, especially when assured that those two boys were noted for gentle and affectionate natures, as per- sonally known to the writer for a number of years, may depict the forlorn anguish piercing their young hearts. It was a scene over which angels weep.

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Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 8

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895 Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel] Number of Pages: 922

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922