USA > Texas > Wise County > Pioneer history of Wise County; from red men to railroads-twenty years of intrepid history > Part 17
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This put an end to the Indian raids in Texas. Big Tree did not violate his parole, and is now living upon a ranch not far from Lawton, Oklahoma. He has reformed and is a "Christ man" now, so that trial and conviction resulted in putting a stop to Indian raids in Texas."
The statement of Judge Soward explains the steps that were being taken by the civil and military arms to bring the outlawed tribes under submission. These indeed were effective and far- reaching in importance, but additional discouragement to savage invasions were now being presented by the inthronging settlers who pushed in in the face of warfare and added their strength to the defensive efforts of the people.
Certain letters have come into the hands of the writer from which quotations are made which point to improvements which were going forward in the moral and industrial tone of the frontier.
In January, 1870, a Decatur citizen writes that there have been no Indians in the county for three months and "most of our citizens who moved away are moving back again. The county, although on the borders, is establishing three good schools, at Prairie Point, on Deep Creek and at Decatur." A traveler in the county the following year speaks of Boyd's Mill in the south part, a town having been located soon after the war, as now "having a postoffice, steam mill, and two dry goods stores." "While there," continues this observer, "I was in- formed of a new town that had sprung up two miles away and rode by. On the roadside is a handsome new store, kept by Mounts and Stevens, while Young and Woods are constructing another neat dry goods house. This place we propose to christen 'Aurora.'" A Decatur citizen, writing to the Denton Monitor
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in March, 1869, says, among other things: "Since the Indian troubles ended our citizens who moved from the county and those who moved to town during the fall and winter for safety, have returned to their homes and gone to work. They are repair- ing and enlarging their farms and houses, planting orchards, etc. Mechanics, too, have gone to work and our merchants have caught the spirit of the times. Our Charlie, of the enter- prising firm of Cates and Woods, went over with Bob Collins and Billy Mounts when they went 'glimmering' to buy a new and heavy stock of goods. *
* While others are awake, Captain Shoemaker will have some nice things to please our eyes and lighten our pockets. [Captain Shoemaker kept a tav- ern.] The Seminary at this place under the control of the ex- cellent Professor J. D. White, is destined to be one of the fixed institutions of the county. Since the Indian troubles ceased, towns of which we little dreamed twelve months ago are spring- ing up."
The above communication is thought to have been penned by Colonel G. B. Pickett.
Captain Thomas L. Stanfield, now a veteran attorney of Terrell, Texas, in those days a youthful legal light of the county seat, was at this time intervening in the behalf of the citizens for the re-establishment of the much-needed mail lines. The mail continued to be brought from Denton. A line was wanted from Ft. Worth via Decatur to Montague and Gainsville, in order to supply mail facilities to the growing settlements and towns in the north and south parts of the county. In one of his letters to Congressman John C. Conner, beseeching the aid of the latter in efforts to secure mail routes, Captain Stanfield adds the following significant postscript : "Wise County is filling up rapidly with Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia Democrats. Bully for Wise County, don't you say so?" Perhaps it would not have been well for the Republican postmaster general to have seen this latter confession, inasmuch as the writer thereof was supplicating his department for assistance.
The above excerpts are conclusive that in about the year 1870 the people of Wise County had relaxed to the supposition that the black cloud of Indian danger had passed. They are also
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conclusive that the social and industrial interests were swelling and progressing toward newer and brighter prosperity. Immi- grants were pouring in, new settlements starting up and countless acres of virgin soil being upturned for planting.
Outside a few insignificant stealing raids perpetrated by the Indians, these wholesome conditions continued until August, 1874, when like lightning out of a clear sky, the Indians perpe- trated one of the most horrible crimes ever committed in the county. It was their manner of bidding a horrible adieu to the people, for never again did they return for maurauding purposes. This memorable last raid in Wise County is given in detail by Mr. J. D. White in an article contributed to the Wise County Messenger; also by Mr. Bedford in his volume and orally to the writer by Mr. John Wasson and others. There are some differences in smaller details in the statements of these authori- ties, who all are a unit on general features.
In the band were about thirty Comanche Indians .* Passing down Sandy Creek from a northwest direction, they left the cross timbers and came onto the prairie near the Newman place, some four or five miles southeast of Decatur. This was at night and the moon was shining brightly. During the night they swept over the regions of Oliver, Sweetwater and Catlett Creeks, and at about daylight or shortly after, crossed that creek into the neighborhood of John W. Hogg's farm and turned up the divide between Catlett and Black Creeks, going northwest, carrying a large number of horses belonging to settlers and Denton and Tarrant County stockmen. These latter ranged their stock in Wise County.
The news of the presence of the Indians began to circulate before day, and already a crowd of ten had started in pursuit from Decatur. A party of Denton and Tarrant stockmen were coming from another direction and Mr. White and his neighbor had started before breakfast, these latter overtaking the party from Decatur within a few miles. Of these last persons, Mr.
* Judge Soward places the number in excess of this, but it is presumable that the Wise County band was one small division of the larger number which left the reservation.
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White can only recall Henry and Tom Jennings, Wm. Hodges, Beavers, Pierce Stevens and John Wasson.
It was now only a few miles to Sandy Creek, the route lying through one of the new settlements that had sprung up. The men spurred up, occasionally seeing the dust ahead stirred by the stolen horses. Mr. White says here: "After they had gone a few more miles we found that they had checked up, and we supposed that they had stopped to give us a fight, but having arrived at the point, we found that they had stopped for a far more dastardly purpose." Before the pursuers stood the crude frontier home of the Huff family, the unchinked cracks . between the logs testifying to its newness, as well as the sense of security felt by its occupants.
The Huff family consisted of Mr. Huff, the father, Sam Huff, a son, the wife and two grown daughters, Molly and Palestine. Mr. White continues: "Mr. Huff and son were away from home; when we reached the house we found the mother lying partly under the floor where she had no doubt attempted to hide. One of the daughters lay near the door on the outside: the other was out about twenty yards from the house. The daughters had evidently tried to save themselves by flight. All were dead and scalped and otherwise horribly mutilated. The shock of this terrible crime halted our men but a moment. Well do I remember the heroic look of Henry Jennings and the fire in his eyes as he pointed forward and exclaimed, "We must catch them before they get to Sandy; come on, boys." The men spurred forward to Sandy Creek and discovered the Indians in ambush on the opposite bank in a dense bottom filled with timber and briars. They stopped on the deep, perpendicular bank of the creek which they could not descend to get across. They turned loose a round of shot into the thicket, but saw nothing or heard nothing. Then they crossed the creek below this point and opposed the Indians from the other side. A few redskins came to the edge of the thicket and fired at the men, the latter holding their positions and returning the fire. While this firing was in progress the remainder of the Indians were preparing to leave. The shooting party of Indians disap-
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peared, and the entire band of Indians sneaked down the creek bed and escaped on choice horses.
The horses were now driven out of the thicket and counted; about 400 were found, a large number of which were turned over to the Denton and Tarrant County men who came up after the fight.
After the encounter the men returned to the Huff house and buried the three unfortunate women in one wagon bed, this being the only convenience found at the time. Some time later a party of neighbors and citizens from Decatur uncovered the remains and gave them burial in separate graves.
RESULT OF THE HUFF MASSACRE-END OF TROUBLES- SUMMING UP.
The system of discipline and watchfulness described by Judge Soward as having been adopted by virtue of the general treaty entered into between the government and the Indians, wherein the chiefs were to be given their liberty and the tribesmen to manifest their daily presence on the reservation by answering to roll call, was facilitated and made possible by the vigorous and effective campaign prosecuted against the Indians by Gen- eral McKinzie, who, following the Salt Creek massacre, marched against the Indians in their strongholds in the Pan Handle and administered such effective punishment as to convince them of the strength and seriousness of the Federal power.
General MeKinzie, a man highly commended by writers of the period, forced the Indians into a state of subjection by capturing their prized horses and killing them before their eyes, after which they were driven onto the reservation at Ft. Sill. The Indians were then sufficiently humbled and subdued to enter into the above agreement described by Judge Soward.
As referred specifically to Wise County, the savages kept the peace for a year or so, and the people had partially returned to a normal sense of comfort and safety, when, like an electrical shock, they were again precipitated into an abyss of gloom by the foul murder of the Huff women.
But the few months of repose and freedom from attack pre-
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ceeding this occurrence had brought renewed strength and courage to the invalid community. Intelligence of the safe and peaceful conditions here, traveling abroad, had influenced a rapid inthronging of new settlers and the return of many who had fled at the approach of danger. The new, and the strengthened and encouraged old now joined arms and prepared to wage a robust and determined warfare against the cowardly foc. There was to be no further flight from danger, no further pause of arms, no indifference, and no quarter given, but in their stead a relentless and bloody retaliation and defense.
Simultaneously with this growth of confidence and courage, the two government forces enlarged and intensified their efforts at restraint and punishment. Following the Huff murder, the Federal power exacted a full expiation of the penalty provided in the aforementioned treaty, resulting in the banishment and confinement of the guilty Indians as described by Judge Soward. The state encouraged and equipped its flying ranger forces and so stationed them about the frontier as to make watchfulness and interception of the Indians most thorough and complete.
Mr. Paddock states that "the effective and active campaign of the regulars and rangers forced the Indians to silence on their reservations in the territory or to roam further away from civil- ization on the uninhabited plains with the buffalo;" and "in 1874 the state sent a battalion of rangers to assist the regular troops in repelling the incursions of the savages; this was one of the moves which brought the long and harassing game bo- tween the red man and the white man to a close. The last In- dian war-whoop was still vivid in memory when the welcome whistle of the locomotive pierced the frontier country and an- nounced forover civilized dominion."
In the latter connection Mr. Bedford reflects the rejuvenated feeling obtaining after the abatement of the savage warfare. He says: "I well remember how every one who had been living about us in such terrible dread, when this end had been accom- plished by MeKinzie, took new courage, and ranch property soon doubled and trebled in value. People who had abandoned their homes soon returned to them, and in the short space of a few years prosperity, as a wave, swept all along our whole
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frontier, and those who had borne with such patience and fortitude the privations and trials of this terrible ordeal felt most its invigorating influence, and many of them are today living in comfort and enjoying the peace and pleasures purchased by their suffering, as well as by the blood and tears of many noble people who had fallen victims to arrows, lances, scalping knives and other cruelties of these red demons."
The Indian menace passed like a horrid dream in the night. The suffocating weight lifted from its prey and the prostrate form of the country lapsed into that soft sleep following pro- longed and exhaustive efforts at vigilance and defense. Wise County, torn, crippled, shredded, ransacked, by nearly twenty years of civil war and barbarian devastation, breathed now the first few breaths that come as the faint returning signs of restora- tion to life. But ere long, such was the resourcefulness of the land and people that the breath of life grew more rapid and the pulse-beats more strong and turgid. Industries revived, life grew tranquil and normal, and the people, without fear or re- striction of any kind, began to participate in the full enjoyments of their sphere and station in life.
" Oh! these were hours when thrilling joys repaid A long, long course of darkness, doubts, and fears- The heartsick faintness of the hope delayed, The waste, the woe, the bloodshed and the tears, That traeked with terror twenty rolling years." -Scott: Lord of the Isles.
The foregoing chapters reflect the twenty years of tempestuous life through which Wise County passed. It is now 1874 and the year of the culmination of all her trials and afflictions inherent in the pioneer state. The peculiar nature of the events in suspension at this date resolve the latter into one which marks the transformation of the county from a state of virgin crudity to one bearing the distinguishing features of civilization's be- ginnings. Here pioneerism fades gradually in modernism. Let us have a brief resume of the country's troubles and changing epochs: first, the difficulty of subjugating the raw land; next, inherent pioneer hardships; thirdly, prolonged drouth and insect
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pests; fourth, the withering touch of civil war; fifth, the ter- rible blight of Indian rapacity and earnage of many years' dura- tion. The last of these spent its force in 1874-since that date the county has had to deal with factors and forces of no such violence as characterized any of the severest of the above cata- logue of afflictions. Contrarywise, its later existence has grown smoothly and constantly toward peace and development.
The sixth great evil operating with deterrent force against the development of the county up to this date was the sub-division of the county into large tracts and bodies of land, held in pos- session by outside citizens and political and railroad corpora- tions. By virtue of the act of the legislature granting large tracts of the public domain to the individual counties for school purposes, Wise County was entered previous to the time of her becoming an organized county and nearly three-fourths of her territory filed upon to be held until the legislature granted such counties authority to convert same into bonds or money.
The legislature withheld this authority for years and thus three-fourths of Wise County lands were unavailable for settle- ment. The large railroad surveys, principal of which, perhaps, was the B. B. B. & Co., the original venture of the kind in the state, remained solidified against division. Colonel W. H. Hunt retained possession over almost the whole of western Wise County, which holdings, upon being entangled in legal proceed- ings, were withdrawn from settlement. But along in the early seventies these restrictions melted away. Upon gaining au- thority from the legislature, the counties holding school lands here, some of which were Cooke, Grayson, Bell, Hunt and Matagorda, and many others, hastened to put their lands on the market, at the same time advertising their offerings, which induced the rapid immigration which is another of the significant occurrences distinguishing this particular time. Then it was that the "Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama Democrats" began to pour in. Such lands as described were obtainable on terms of $3.00 per acre upon payment of one-tenth of the principal at purchase, and one-tenth and interest annually until the debt was liquidated.
A period distinguished by pioneer hardships, drouth, pests,
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war, Indian troubles and land difficulties all came to a happy conclusion in about the year 1874, the era being still further brightened by the defeat of the despot Davis and the election of the good, brave Coke to the governorship of Texas.
Thus most auspiciously ended the true pioneer troubles of Wise County, and bravely had a small band of her patriotic citizens stood shoulder to shoulder together to ward off the foe, who, hurling defiance in every conceivable form, remained only to surrender and give way to an irresistible race-the sturdy, honest, brave, rugged pioneer mothers and fathers of Wise County.
SECTION FOUR.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
"History is the essence of innumerable Biographies". Carlyle.
The following sketches and photographs represent a majority of the pioneer people of Wise County who attained to distinc- tion and places of prominence in the affairs of the pioneer county. A sprinkling of their descendants is also included. There are some well-known subjects who have not been included in this honored company-this because it has been found inconvenient to obtain the essential facts of their lives.
The aim of the compiler has been to perpetuate the memory of the citizens who befriended the county throughout the period of its greatest struggles; a second aim has been to transmit to · posterity the noble examples of their lives and a record of the resplendent virtues which they represented.
The space to be allotted is limited and the list of those to be portrayed is long; it is therefore in the interest of economy that only the essential facts are given. But that these worthy faces and brief facts may eling in the minds of those who contemplate these pages is the object of their being placed here.
ABSALOM BISHOP.
The successive events of Colonel Absalom Bishop's life began on May 4, 1804, when he was born in Pendleton District, South Carolina. He came from rugged farmer stock, having a mixture of Scotch, Irish and Welsh blood in his veins. He was married to Mary Tippen, born in the same distriet, January 25, 1808, and to the union six children were born, the last surviving member being Mrs. Edward Blythe, who died in Wise County
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May 28, 1907. Of the family in Wise County there only remain now the two sons of Mrs. Blythe, Ed and Bob.
Colonel Bishop's early life was spent in merchandising in Spring Place and other places in the State of Georgia. Here he also became active in politics, and in 1837 entered the Semi- nole War in Florida. He went in as a captain of militia, and it is perhaps due to promotions that the title of Colonel was gained. Some experiences are related of him in this campaign : one is that he, with nine of his men, captured and confined seventy-five outlaw Indians; another is that he intercepted and held the noted writer of the song, "Home, Sweet Home," John Howard Payne, who for some unexplained reason, appeared on the frontier of Florida at a time when the government was detaining all unknown or suspicious characters. Payne in his memoirs afterwards referred to Bishop as the "Smooth and silky Absalom."
Colonel Bishop was very active in that phase of polities which surrounded the enforced removal of the Indians of Georgia to reservations, and during the very earliest inception of slavery agitation made the acquaintance of Robert Tombs and other leading pro-slavery agitators. His later manifestations of fiery rebelism in Texas may be ascribed to these early influences. In polities he finally became so radical as to necessitate his removal from Georgia, and he is then found seeking a residence in the North for a number of years. At Washington city he spent some time prosecuting certain cases for Georgia land elaimants, and later on is living in New York city, engaged in the business of a jeweler and the manufacturing of gold pens. For three and a half years he lived here and then removed to Rochester, New · York, where he formed a partnership with Codding, who is ac- counted with having invented the fountain pen. Bishop and Codding were awarded a beautiful silver medal by the New York State Agricultural Society for the exhibition of a "case of su- perior new fountain pens."
Colonel Bishop's residence in the centers of civilization was doubtless a probationary one resulting in the realization of his predilection for frontier life. Accordingly he came to Hopkins County, Texas, in 1852, and for three years conducted a saw-
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mill. In 1855 he joined the first comers to Wise County, arriv- ing and settling on Sweetwater Creek with the Blythe family in that year. At this point the narrative of Colonel Bishop's life is taken up and concluded in the foregoing pages, with the exception of the date of his death, which occurred at the resi- denee of Colonel J. W. Booth, whither he had been brought from his farm, in Decatur, on November 30, 1883. Mrs. Bishop died January 29, 1879. As Colonel Bishop's portrait reflects, he was rugged and masterful. His mental and physical courage and determination was exhibited on countless occasions. Im- mediately on arriving in Wise County, he set about to bring the territory into organized existence and never rested short of the accomplishment of his task. He also looked on the prairie- topped eminence resting near the center of the county, and decided that it was the place for the county seat. The long, hot war waged in its behalf has been described.
By common consent, Bishop "ran things" as these were re- lated to the organization of the county and the location of the county capital. By all considerations of justice, he is en- titled to be named the county's best friend and the Father of Decatur.
Colonel Bishop had settled in Decatur by the time the issues of civil strife became manifest. True to his former teachings, he became the fuming, sputtering fuse of rebellion that ignited all combustible materials within his reach. He was a fiery Southern loyalist and egged on the enthusiasm of defense in Wise County. He fervently addressed the county secession convention and was doubtless one of the direct causes of the volunteering for service of such an unusual number of young men from a sparsely settled frontier county. When the war began he was in business on the northwest corner of the square in Decatur, and as a means of displaying openly his sentiments he had a large Confederate flag painted in bright colors across his store front. When Lee surrendered and the country was filled with Federal guards and soldiers, it became necessary to obliterate this emblem of rebel glory. Doubtless it was one of the saddest days of Bishop's life when he went to paint out, cover up and hide the Southern flag. One application of paint
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BIOGRAPHICAL.
refused to conceal the outlines, and another and still another was required. Like the Southern armies and the virtues of the Southern cause, more than one drubbing was required to van- quish them from the contemplation of men.
Colonel Bishop's broad experience and metropolitan training peculiarly fitted him for the task of converting a raw territory into an organized form of government, as well as for assisting to mold the rough elements of a frontier life into the shapings of civilization, and we who delight in present attainments glance backward to him for their genesis.
WILLIAM HUDSON HUNT.
Like Bishop in one respect, the subject of this sketch brought with him to Wise County the garnered experiences of broad con- taet with life, and in addition thereto a collegiate training which enabled him to observe with a systematic and trained mind, all the large issues and transactions with which he had come in contact.
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