Texas history

Texas Indian Tribes

Akokisa. The name Akokisa, spelled in various ways, was given by the Spaniards to those Atakapa living in southeastern Texas, between Trinity Bay and Trinity River and Sabine River. (See Atakapa under Louisiana.)

Alabama. Alabama Indians came to Texas early in the nineteenth century, and the largest single body of Alabama still lives there on a State reservation in Polk County. (See Alabama.)

Anadarko. The name of a tribe or band belonging to the Hasinai Confederacy.

Apache. The Jicarilla and other Apache tribes raided across the boundaries of this State on the northwest and west in early times, but the only one of them which may be said to have had its head-quarters inside for any considerable period was the Lipan.

Aranama. The Aranama were associated sometimes with the Karankawa in the Franciscan missions but were said to be distinct from them. Although a small tribe during all of their known history, they held together until comparatively recent times, and Morse (1822) gives them a population of 125. They were remembered by the Tonkawa, when Dr. A. S. Gatschet visited the latter, and he obtained two words of their language, but they are said to have been extinct as a tribe by 1843. While their affiliations are not certainly known, they were undoubtedly with one of the three stocks, Karankawan, Tonkawan, or Coahuiltecan, probably the last mentioned, and will be enumerated provisionally with them. (See Coahuiltecan Tribes.)

Atakapa, see Akokisa above and under Louisiana.

Bidai. Perhaps from a Caddo word signifying "brushwood," and having reference to the Big Thicket near the lower Trinity River about which they lived. Also called:
Quasmigdo, given as their own name by Ker (1816).
Spring Creeks, the name given by Foote (1841).

Connections. From the mission records it appears that the Bidai were of the Atakapan linguistic stock.

Location. On the middle course of Trinity River about Bidai Creek and to the westward and southwestward.

History. The Bidai were living in the region above given when first known to the Europeans and claimed to be aborigines of that territory. The Franciscan mission of San Ildefonso was founded for them and the Akokisa, Deadose, and Patiri. In the latter part of the eighteenth century they are said to have been chief intermediaries between the Spaniards and Apache in the sale of firearms. The attempt to missionize them was soon abandoned. In 1776–77 an epidemic carried away nearly half their number, but they maintained separate existence down to the middle of the nineteenth century, when they were in a village 12 miles from Montgomery. They have now entirely disappeared.

Population. Mooney (1928) estimates for them a population of 500 in 1690. In 1805 there were reported to be about 100.

Connection in which they have become noted. The name is perpetuated in that of a small creek flowing into Trinity River from the west and in a village known as Bedias or Bedais in Grimes County, Tex.

Biloxi. Some Biloxi entered Texas before 1828. In 1846 a band was camped on Little River, a tributary of the Brazos. Afterward they occupied a village on Biloxi Bayou in the present Angelina County, but later either returned to Louisiana or passed north to the present Oklahoma. (See Mississippi.)

Caddo Tribes. Under this head are included the Adai and the Natchitoches Confederacy (see Louisiana); and the Eyeish, the Hasinai Confederacy, and the Kadohadacho Confederacy in Texas.

Cherokee. A band of Cherokee under a chief named Bowl settled in Texas early in the nineteenth century, but they were driven out by the Texans in 1839 and their chief killed. (See Tennessee.)

Choctaw. Morse (1822) reported 1,200 Choctaw on the Sabine and Neches Rivers, and some bands continued to live for a while in eastern Texas. One band in particular, the Yowani Choctaw, was admitted among the Caddo there. All the Choctaw finally re-moved to Oklahoma. (See Mississippi.)

Coahuiltecan Tribes (See Coahuiltecan Tribes)

Comanche Tribes (See Comanche Tribe)

Creeks, (See Muskogee, under Alabama.)

Deadose. An Atakapa tribe or subtribe in south central Texas. (See Louisiana.)

Eyeish, or Haish. Meaning unknown. Also called
   Aays
   Aix
   Aliche
   Yayecha, etc.

Connections. The Eyeish belonged to the Caddoan linguistic stock, their closest relatives probably being the Adai, and next to them the peoples of the Kadohadacho and Hasinai Confederacies, with which, in fact, Lesser and Weltfish (1932) classify them.

Location. On Ayish Creek, northeastern Texas, between the Sabine and Neches Rivers.

History. In 1542 the Eyeish were visited by the Spaniards under Moscoso, De Soto's successor. They are next noted in 1686–87 by the companions of La Salle. In 1716 the mission of Nuestra Senora de los Dolores was established among them by the Franciscans, abandoned in 1719, reestablished in 1721, and finally given up in 1773, the success of the mission having been very small. Their proximity to the road between the French post at Natchitoches and the Spanish post at Nacogdoches seems to have contributed to their general demoralization. Sibley (1832) reported only 20 individuals in the tribe in 1805 but in 1828 there were said to be 160 families. Soon afterward they joined the other Caddo tribes and followed their for-tunes, and they must have declined very rapidly for only a bare memory of them is preserved.

Population. In 1779, 20 families were reported; in 1785, a total population of 300; in 1805, 20 individuals; in 1828, 160 families. (See Caddo Confederacy, under Louisiana.)

Connection in which they have become noted. Ayish Bayou, a tributary of the Angelina River on which they formerly lived, perpetuates the name of the Eyeish.

Guasco. A tribe or band which attained some prominence from the importance attached to it in the narratives of the De Soto expedition. (See Hasinai Confederacy.)

Hainai. An important band of the Hasinai Confederacy.

Hasinai Confederacy (See Hasinai Confederacy)

Isleta del Sur, see Pueblos under New Mexico.

Jicarilla. The Jicarilla ranged into this State (Texas) at times. (See Colorado.)

Kadohadacho Confederacy (See Kadohadacho Confederacy)

Karankawan Indian Tribe (See Karankawan Indians)

Kichai or (more phonetically) Kitsei. Their own name and said to mean "going in wet sand," but the Pawnee translate their rendering of it as "water turtle." Also called:

Gfts'ajl, Kansa name.
Ki-0i'-tcac, Omaha name.
Kietsash, Wichita name.
Ki'-tchesh, Caddo name.
Quichais, Spanish variant.
Quidehais, from French sources (La Harpe, 1831).

Connections. The Kichai were a tribe of the Caddoan stock whose language lay midway between Wichita and Pawnee.

Location. On the upper waters of Trinity River, and between that stream and Red River. (See also Oklahoma.)

History. It is probable that in the prehistoric period the Kichai lived north of Red River but they had gotten south of it by 1701 when the French penetrated that country and they continued in the same general region until 1855. They were then assigned to a small reservation on Brazos River, along with several other small tribes. In 1858, however, alarmed at threats of extermination on the part of the neighboring Whites, they fled to the present Oklahoma, where they joined the Wichita. They have remained with them ever since.

Population. Mooney (1928) estimates a total Kichai population of 500 in 1690. In 1772 the main Kichai village contained 30 houses and there were estimated in it 80 warriors, most of whom were young. In 1778 the number of Kichai fighting men was estimated at 100. The census of 1910 returned a total population of only 10, and that of 1930 included them with the Wichita, the figure for the two tribes, nearly all Wichita however, being 300.

Connection in which they have become noted. Their name Kichai is perpetuated in the Keeche Hills, Okla.; Keechi Creek, Tex.; a branch of the Trinity, Keechi; a post hamlet of Leon County, Tex.; and perhaps Kechi, a post township of Sedgwick County, Kans.

Kiowa. This tribe hunted in and raided across northern Texas. (See Kansas.)
Koasati. Early in the nineteenth century bands of Koasati had worked over from Louisiana into Texas, settling first on the Sabine and later on the Neches and the Trinity. In 1850 the bulk of the entire tribe was in Texas but later, partly it is said on account of a pestilence, they suffered heavy losses and most of the survivors returned to Louisiana, where the largest single body of Koasati is living. Among the Alabama in Polk County, Tex., there were in 1912 about 10 of this tribe. (See Alabama and Louisiana.)

Lipan. Adapted from Ipa-n'de, apparently a personal name; n'de meaning "people." Also called:

A-tagui, Kiowa name, meaning "timber Apache"; used also for Mescalero. Cances, Caddo name, meaning "deceivers."
Hu-ta'-ci, Comanche name, meaning "forest Apache" (Ten Kate, 1884, in Hodge, 1907).
Huxul, Tonkawa name. (See Uxul.)
Na-izh ..'fi, own name, meaning "ours," "our kind."
Nav6ne, Comanche name (Gatschet, MS., B. A. E.).
Shi'Tni, former Mescalero name, meaning "summer people"(?).
Tu-tsan-nde, Mescalero name, meaning "great water people."
Uxul, Tonkawa name, meaning a spiral shell and applied to this tribe because of their coiled hair.
Yabipai Lipan, so called by Garces in 1776.

Connections. T his is one of the tribes of the Athapascan linguistic stock to which the general name Apache was applied. Their closest relations politically were with the Jicarilla, with whom they formed one linguistic group.

Location. The Lipan formerly ranged from the Rio Grande in New Mexico over the eastern part of the latter State and western Texas southeastward as far as the Gulf of Mexico. (See also New Mexico and Oklahoma.)

Subdivisions. The Lipan were reported during the early part of the nineteenth century to consist of three bands, probably the same which Orozco y Berra (1864) calls Lipanjenne, Lipanes de Arriba, and Lipanes Abajo.

History. The position of the Lipan prior to the eighteenth century is somewhat obscure, but during that century and the early part of the nineteenth they ranged over the region just indicated. In 1757 the San Saba mission was established for them, but it was broken up by their enemies, the Comanche and Wichita. In 1761–62 the missions of San Lorenzo and Candelaria were organized for the same purpose but met a similar fate in 1767. In 1839 the Lipan sided with the Texans against the Comanche but suffered severely from the Whites between 1845 and 1856, when most of them were driven into Coahuila, Mexico. They remained in Coahuila until October 1903, when the 19 survivors were taken to northwest Chihauhua, and remained there until 1905. In that year they were brought to the United States and placed on the Mescalero Reservation, N. Mex., where they now live. A few Lipan were also incorporated with the Tonkawa and the Kiowa Apache.

Population. Mooney (1928) estimates that the Lipan numbered 500 in 1690. In 1805 the three bands were reported to number 300, 350, and 100 men respectively, which would seem to be a too liberal allowance. The census of 1910 returned 28.

Connection in which they have become noted. The Lipan were noted as persistent raiders into Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico. Their name has been given to a post village in Hood County, Tex.

Muskogee. A few Muskogee came to Texas in the nineteenth century, most belonging to the Pakana division. Two or three individuals lived until recently near Livingston, Tex. (See Alabama.)

Nabedache, Nacachau, Nacanish, Nacogdoche, Nadaco, Namidish, Nechaui, Neches, and one section of the Nasoni. Small tribes or bands belonging to the Hasinai Confederacy.

Nanatsoho, Nasoni (Upper). Small tribes or bands connected with the Kadohadacho Confederacy.

Pakana. A Muskogee division. (See Muskogee above and also under Alabama.)

Pascagoula. Bands belonging to the Pascagoula, entered Texas from Louisiana early in the nineteenth century, and one band lived on Biloxi Bayou, a branch of the Neches, for a considerable period, together with some Biloxi Indians. All had disappeared in 1912 except two Indians, only half Pascagoula, living with the Alabama in Polk County. (See Mississippi).

Patiri. A tribe associated with the Akokisa, Bidai, and Deadose in the mission of San Ildefonso west of Trinity River. Since related tribes are said to have been put in the same mission in that period (1748-49), it is believed that the Patiri spoke an Atakapan language. Their former home is thought to have been along Caney Creek.

Pueblos. There were two late settlements of Pueblo Indians, Isleta del Sur and Senecfi del Sur, near El Paso, Tex., composed principally of Indians brought back by Governor Otermin in 1681 after an unsuccessful attempt to subdue the Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande. Senecii del Sur was, however, actually in Chihuahua, Mexico. The people of these pueblos are now almost completely Mexicanized. (See New Mexico.)

Quapaw. Between 1823 and 1833 the Quapaw lived with the Caddo Indians in northwestern Louisiana and northeastern Texas, and one band of them known as Imaha were reckoned as a constituent element of the Caddo Confederacy. (See Arkansas.)

Senecli del Sur. (See Pueblos above.)

Shawnee. A band of Shawnee entered eastern Texas for a brief period during the middle of the nineteenth century. They were afterward moved to Oklahoma. (See Tennessee.)

Butterfield Overland Mail

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The Butterfield Overland Mail, also known as the Oxbow Route, the Butterfield Overland Stage, or the Butterfield Stage, was a stagecoach route in the United States, operating from 1857 to 1861. It was a conduit for the United States mail from St. Louis, Missouri through Arkansas, Indian Territory, New Mexico, and Arizona, ending in San Francisco, California,

Contents
[hide]

1 Origins and history
2 Route discontinued
3 Route
4 Stations in Indian Territory
5 Modern remnants
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Origins and history

The stage was an early operation of American Express and Wells Fargo.

The Butterfield Overland Mail Company had the government mail contract from September 15, 1857. Originally all of the Overland Stage owners had submitted routes with relay stations and frontier forts that were north of Albuquerque, New Mexico territory; they had no knowledge of what was called the ox bow route.^{[citation needed]}

John Warren Butterfield (who was in a partnership with the principals of Wells Fargo for the American Express company) was paid $600,000 (USD) to get the mail between St. Louis and San Francisco in 25 days.^{[citation needed]} At that time it was the largest land-mail contract ever awarded in the US.^{[citation needed]} It was required by contract to go through El Paso, Texas and through Fort Yuma near present day Yuma, Arizona—the so-called "Oxbow Route". The western fare one way was $200 with most stages arriving 22 days later at its final destination.^{[citation needed]}

This route was an extra 600 miles further than the central and northern routes through Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah. However the southern route was free of snow.

With the American Civil War looming the competing Pony Express was formed in 1860 to deliver mail faster and on a central/northern route away from the volatile southern route. The Pony Express was to succeed in delivering the mail in 10 days. But the Pony Express failed to get the mail contract.

Butterfield's assets as well as those of the Pony Express were to wind up with the Wells Fargo partners.^{[citation needed]}

A correspondent for the New York Herald, Waterman Ormsby, remarked after his 2,812 mile trek through the western US to San Francisco on a Butterfield Stagecoach thus: "Had I not just come out over the route, I would be perfectly willing to go back, but I now know what Hell is like. I've just had 24 days of it."^{[citation needed]}

Employing over 800 at its peak, it used 250 Concord Stagecoaches and 1800 head of stock, horses and mules and 139 relay stations or frontier forts in its heyday. The last Oxbow Route run was made March 21, 1861 at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Route discontinued

An Act of Congress, approved March 2, 1861, discontinued this route and service ceased June 30, 1861. On the same date the central route from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Placerville, California, went into effect. This new route was called the Central Overland California Route.^[1]

Under the Confederate States of America, the Butterfield route operated with limited success from 1861 until early 1862 using former Butterfield employees.^{[citation needed]} Wells Fargo continued its stagecoach runs to mining camps in more northern locations until the coming of the US Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.

[edit] Route

The Harrowing Life and Times of Elizabeth Ann Bishop

by Maggie Van Ostrand

O ne of the Texas frontier women who taught the wilderness to quit howling and behave itself was Elizabeth Ann Bishop. Any time you might be thinking you're having troubles, no matter if they're small or very, very big, compare them to the trials and tribulations of Elizabeth Ann. What she endured is testament to the strength of frontier women.

Historians write and talk a lot about the brave men of the Old West, their adventures, their fortitude, their foresight, and the things they write and talk a lot about are true enough. After all, men had cattle, horses, and each other to be boisterous buddies with.

And they're portrayed in movies by such studly men as John Wayne, Sam Elliott and Clint Eastwood.

Little is written about the frontier women of the Old West whose duties included raising families, growing food, and the steadfast support of their men. They supplied doctoring (gunshot wounds, snake bites, broken bones) and offered the stability of religion and serenity. It doesn't sound that interesting when the women are lumped together but taken individually, there are quite a few standouts. One was Elizabeth Ann Bishop, born March 19, 1825 in Alabama.

She gave the phrase "cutting edge" new dimensions way back nearly two hundred years ago when she married Alexander Joseph Carter, a free black man. It takes guts to be "different" today; can you imagine what it took back then?

The Carters had two children, Joe and Mildred, and lived with Alexander's parents in Red River and Navarro counties before moving west to Fort Belknap in Young County. Frontier women of that time were generally middle-class easterners enjoying good health (otherwise they would've died on the trail west), had awesome responsibilities (you try skinning and frying a rabbit in the middle of a rainstorm) and were subject to great loneliness (due to scarcity of other women to talk to). Even then, it was probably not so easy to talk to a man who isn't listening. One of the only social outlets for a woman then, and it would have to have been a relatively large settlement, was the quilting bee. Nothing dramatic or romantic, just women chatting with one another as they quilted. Even when they were having "fun," they were working.

The Carters raised stock and farmed, with Elizabeth managing the ranch owned by her father-in-law who also owned a cargo transportation business. Elizabeth paid no attention to the fact that she was both illiterate and epileptic as proven by the fact that she also ran a boarding house (the Carter Trading House) as well.

It is at this point in Elizabeth Ann's life that mysterious things commenced happening, and her future, once bright and predictable, became a nightmare of hardship and heartbreak.

I n 1857, person or persons unknown murdered both her husband and her father-in-law. Her children inherited the boarding house and business from their late grandpappy, she got nothing, unless you count despair and calluses. She did, however, continue to operate the boarding house and manage the ranch.

A rare bit of good fortune came Elizabeth's way in 1858 when the Butterfield Overland Mail began stopping in Fort Belknap which was very good for business. She became one of the most successful women on the frontier, but her good fortune was short-lived.

The following year, she did the only thing an illiterate frontier woman could do for protection, she married again. This time she hooked up with an Army officer, Lt. Owen A. Sprague, but luck failed her again and Lt. Sprague disappeared eight months later. Nobody knew if he ran off or got shot or was kidnapped by hostile Indians. It remains a mystery.

Undaunted, in 1862, Elizabeth Ann married Thomas FitzPatrick, a cowhand who worked on the ranch. He, too, met his fatal finish, possibly at the hand of a Union soldier. Another mystery.

If you think all this was pretty tragic, you ain't heard nothin' yet.

D uring the latter days of 1864, the people were suffering from the effects of a long and bitter war. Furthermore the year brought one of the most devastating draughts ever witnessed in West Texas. Indian pillaging and plundering had made life miserable and the despondent citizens were already living in despair.

On October 13, 1864, as Confederate forces vanquished the Union army on Darbytown Road in Virginia with 950 lives lost, Elizabeth was fighting a battle for her own life in her Texas hometown.

The FitzPatrick ranch, as it was now called, about nine miles west of the present town of Newcastle, was attacked in the Elm Creek Raid, one of the largest raids ever made in West Texas, reportedly by between 600 and a thousand wildly painted savages who called out in English that they were friendly to whites. "But the arrows still sticking in several of the dogs that had run to them for their protection, gave the lie to all such assertions" writes J.W. Wilbarger in his book "Indian Depredations in Texas."

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E lizabeth was taken captive by Comanche Chief, Little Buffalo, after first refusing to go with him. Her 21-year-old daughter, widow Mildred Durgan, fired away with her shotgun as Indians broke down the door. She was thrown to the ground "while one Indian split her skull and scalped her, another Indian struck Mrs. Fitzpatrick with his spear to force her to look upon her daughter's torture," writes David Paul Smith in "Frontier Defense in the Civil War." Mrs. Durgan's infant son was also slaughtered, and the Indians took Elizabeth's 13-year-old son, Joe Carter, and two other granddaughters, Lottie (5) and Milly (2). Shortly after the raid, the Indians saw that young Joe Carter was too ill to sit up and travel, so "they tied the boy to a brush heap, set fire to it, and forced his mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, to watch him die."

Marker Title: Indian Raid on Elm Creek, C.S.A
Address: US 380, W of Newcastle
City: Newcastle
Year Marker Erected: 1964
Marker Location: From Newcastle, take US 380 West about 8 mi.
Photo by Susan Dial
Courtesy of TexasBeyondHistory.net.

Elizabeth was held in captivity by Kiowa Indian Chief Sun Boy in northwestern Kansas on the Arkansas River. It is believed that her granddaughter Milly was held in Comanche Chief Iron Mountain's camp and froze to death there, while Lottie spent nine months as captive, and was tattooed on her arms and forehead by Comanche who later released her.

In November 1865, General J.H. Leavenworth rescued Elizabeth and took her to the Kaw Mission at Council Grove, Kansas, where she was put to work caring for another recently released woman and her children. For almost a year, Elizabeth nursed, cooked, and sewed for a growing number of newly released women, and was paid $3.00 a week. She became spokeswoman for the released captives, complaining that adequate and safe transportation back to their homes was taking too long and more should be done to free those still held captive.

Elizabeth continued to speak up for them until August 27, 1866, when she and several others began their long trek home. She was reunited with freed granddaughter Lottie in Parker County. It was time to start looking for another husband.

In 1869, Elizabeth married Isaiah Clifton, a Parker County farmer and widower, though some say they never actually married since no marriage license was ever found. Let's give Elizabeth a break and say they were, even though Clifton's children did not acknowledge her as their father's wife. The Cliftons moved to Fort Griffin with granddaughter Lottie and Clifton's youngest four children, to manage what remained of the land left to Lottie after her mother's murder during the Elm Creek Raid.

In 1880, Isaiah Clifton died of natural causes and was buried in the oldest cemetery in Shakelford County. Elizabeth herself died just two years later at the age of 57, still believing that her other granddaughter, Millie, might be alive.

After years of backbreaking labor, unbearable personal losses, and monumental suffering at the hands of savages, Elizabeth Ann Bishop Carter Sprague FitzPatrick Clifton died, alone and penniless.

Copyright Maggie Van Ostrand
"A Balloon In Cactus"
August 15, 2007 column

NOTE 1: The devastating Elm Creek Raid has been immortalized in several movies including John Ford's The Searchers starring John Wayne and Black Fox starring Christopher Reeve.

NOTE 2: The spelling of Mildred Durgan's name shows up several ways, Durkin, Durgen and Durgan

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Sources:
http://texannusa36.us

Texas Myths and Legends: Stories of the Frontier, John C. Ferguson

Handbook of Texas Online

Fort Belknap Frontier Saga: Indians, Negroes and Anglo-Americans on the Texas Frontier (Burnet, Texas: Eakin Press, 1982) Barbara A. Neal Ledbetter

americancivilwar.com/statepic/va/va078.html

www.forttours.com/pages/elmcreekraid.asp

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Statehood
The Establishment of Fort Worth

Tarrant County, Texas

In 1845, Isaac Spence and a partner obtained the rights to open a trading house on the Trinity. A.G. Kimbell and partner had previously established a post somewhere between Fort Worth's hospital district and the Botanical Gardens, which was operated for about a year by Edward Terrell and John P. Lusk until they were temporarily captured by hostile Indians. In September, Spence reported to officials in Austin that Ranger Colonel Smith and two Indian chiefs helped him select the site called Marrow Bone Spring.

…the most suitable place for the Trading House and the one where all the Indians wish it to be placed. I have put up a House 36 feet long by 16 feet wide with a frame roof, covered with two foot boards nailed and enclosed with half logs as pickets fastened together in a substantial manner, I am putting up some other necessary outbuildings for our convenience comfort and security all of which I am having enclosed with strong and substantial pickets.

Map of Imperial Texas from the book, Blood & Treasure, by Donald S. Frazier

Texans were divided on the issue of statehood. Pioneers wanted all the border protection they could get but generally were against surrendering control to any government, much less one as distant as Washington on the Potomac. Many Texans believed if there was to be an alliance with a distant power, it should be Britain, who coveted San Francisco and offered expansion of Texas territory to the Pacific.

Andrew Jackson

Acquiring Texas had long been one of Andrew Jackson's dreams. He sent his protégé, Sam Houston, there in 1832 to cool the Indians in the name of the United States. The hero of the Battle of New Orleans could hardly sit still for a British Texas. He spurred another protégé, James Polk, into the presidency on the platform of immediate Texas annexation. Liberal conditions included the U.S. delivery of cash, soldiers and forts while Texas retained all its public land, the right to fly its flag at the same height as the stars and stripes and divide itself into six states. That is, assuming of course, there could ever be an agreement on which state would get the Alamo.

Sam Houston

It was the public land issue that caused the United States trouble in its negotiations with the Indians. It promised but couldn't deliver Texas soil to the Comanches, nor could anything do much to curb western expansion. Following the treaty at Bird's Fort when Houston was confronted with Comanche complaints about the absence of a permanent border, he sadly shook his head and said, "If I could build a wall from the Red River to the Rio Grande, so high that no Indian could scale it, the white people would go crazy trying to devise a means to get beyond it."

On December 29, 1845, Texas became a state, sparking a war with Mexico. As the armies moved to the south, the frontier was left unprotected and the governor ordered new Ranger companies to protect the settlements. Companies were sent to Bryant's Station, about eighteen miles south of today's Temple, Torrey's Trading House near today's Waco and stationed at the trading house at Marrow Bone Springs. Captain Andrew Stapp's company from Collin County took charge of the Marrow Bone Station. He subsequently split his force, ordering William Fitzhugh to establish an outpost on the Elm Fork of the Trinity, about ten miles south of the Red River. (An 1852 Peters Colony map indicates the outpost to be about three miles southeast of Gainesville off of Farm Road 372.) Stapp's men were ordered to maintain contact with Fort Washita, located near Durant, Oklahoma about forty-five miles northeast of Fitzhugh Station. Enlistments ran out in February of 1847 and the reorganized company was given to Fitzhugh, along with a promotion. He sent part of his men thirty miles south to Hickory Creek where they built a post on the edge of Denton. (The Peters Colony map shows the Hickory Creek Station about one mile northeast of Pilot Knob or about two hundred yards southwest of where I-35W crosses Hickory Creek.)

Map from the book, The Fort in Fort Worth, by Clay Perkins

In the summer of 1847, Lieutenant Colonel Peter H. Bell was overall commander of the Ranger companies on the frontier including Middleton Tate Johnson's. They were stationed near Torrey's on the Brazos and Captain Shapley Ross' was ordered to establish a post on the North Bosque, fifteen miles above Torrey's. In January of 1848, Johnson was ordered to move his company to Marrow Bone Springs which they renamed Kaufman Station but was widely known as Johnson Station.

Indian agent Neighbors argued against these moves because along with a lax policy, they encouraged white settlement far to the west. (Dillingham Prairie in southern Jack County was first cultivated in 1847.) In May of 1848, Captain John Conner led his company to Smith Station on Richland Creek, about four miles west of today's Milford. Early in 1849, most of the companies were mustered out and the army was to station dragoons in their place. Colonel Johnson claimed Marrow Bone Springs, as the last of the Peter Colony contract had expired. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that the army was only manning Torrey's and Conner's Station, which left him and countless other settlers on the northwestern frontier unprotected. The army responded by establishing Fort Worth.

Samuel H. "Paddy" Starr

Major Arnold and his dragoons built the original post at Cold Springs and then reestablished it on the bluff of the Trinity where Tarrant County Courthouse now stands. Major Starr arrived on Christmas Day, 1849 with badly needed reinforcements. They had come up the Trinity as far as the port at Buffalo on the steamboat, Jack Hays. Together the soldiers completed the newly designated "Fort" Worth the next year. During the next few years, Arnold and Starr organized and conducted vigorous patrols and occasionally punitive strikes between the fort and the Red River. Starr went on to earn a heroic record and the loss of an arm during the Civil War, after which he returned to the North Texas frontier and established the post at Jacksboro in 1866.

It's always gratifying to find dedicated people involved with our pioneer history. Lea Ann and I were on a field trip to the reenactment at Fort Richardson the Fall of 2001 where we spotted Willard Thomas being assisted in adorning a sash which topped off his Dragoon General's uniform. Unfortunately, we are having trouble getting the pictures on the web at this time but just the same, meeting Willard was a fortunate occurrence. He gave us a tour of the Heritage Room in the courthouse as well as Heritage Park, just to the northwest, which overlooks the Trinity where the traildrivers used to bed down their herds. We then visited the Pioneer Rest Cemetery and admired the new memorials installed honoring the unknown soldiers who are now known thanks to Willard's dedicated efforts. I also include Willard's short history of the fort in Fort Worth.

Click here for Julia Kathryn Garrett's description of Fort Worth history from her book, Fort Worth, A Frontier Triumph. She was a legendary history teacher at Arlington Heights High School and an invaluable figure in the preservation of Texas History.

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