Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-22
INDIAN BUTCHERlES.
SOME OF THE STRUGGLES, DE-
FEATS AND TRIUMPHS
Connected With tho Early Settlement of
Wise County, Related by Some Of
Those Who Participated.
Travelling Correspondence of the Gazette.

DECATUR, WISE COUNTY, TEX, June 49,
A travelling correspondent Of the Fort
Worth GAZETTE, while in Decatur yester-
day, met Capt. J. c. Carpenter. an ex-state
ranger and one of the oldest citizens OF
Wise county. The captain came to this
section in 1855 and participated in the last
great struggle for supremacy between the
whites and Indians. Wise county was the
scene of some of the bloodiest Indian
butcheries recorded in Texas history, and
what we are about to relate has never
appeared in print, save some years ago in a
crude way In an obscure magazine. We
found the captain very pleasant gentle
man, good talker with wonderful mem
DRY, and chock full Of Indian war reminis-
cences. He did not speak altogether from
memory, for he has kept careful record
OF those bloody struggles, and he relates
them with the same vim and determination
that characterized him in those early days,
when it required cool, brave men with
iron nerve and staying qualities to rid this
grand commonwealth of its worst curse.
This long and bloody struggle, which closed
only with the determination of the Indian,
began with the massacre of Mr. Camb-
ron, wife and sons, Mr.. Mason and wife
in May, 1853, in Lost valley, on Mason
creek, in Jack county. The Cambrons and
Masonssyere neighbors.
-! eSt victims of Indian deviltry were
III VIA AdOy AuoWh % vi diiuuud
and Mrs. Lanman, who lived three
miles north of Jacksboro. Mrs. Lam
mans daughter and Mrs. Calvin Gage were
severely wounded, but made their escape to
a distant settlement.
The next victim was George McQuery,
who was butchered by lthe Indians at the
head of Keechi, eight miles south of Jacks
boro, and the next to fall under the cruel
blow of the bloody tomahawk was Joshua
T.awrencn who wac killed On CarrolS cYpel
five miles east of Jacksboro.
A practice, characteristic of Indian devil
try, common among the bloody Kiowas and
Comanches, vast to leave infants unframed
alone with the dead to meet more horrible
death by starvation.
Four days after the massacre of the
Cambron and Mason families, Judge T. J.
Wyatt, ex-mayor and now citizen of De-
cat31y, found little eight year-old girl of
Cambron family, whose given name the
judge could not recall, but she is now mar
ried lady and lives in Parker county. This
little girl lived four days alone with the
dead and subsisted on clabber and sugar.
When found she took the judge and showed
him where her mother and father lay.
For the above facts we are indebted to
Mrs. j. c. Carpenter, who furnished your
correspondent with data. Mrs. Carpenter
is the daughter of DR.. Thomas Stewart,
now of Portland, Oregon, who attended to
the wounded on these occasions.
The balance of this bloody war, to which
we will confine our remarks, was fought
within the borders of Wise county, and
while written without the least exaggera-
ton, shows what the early Rsettlers of our
contend with. The victims of the cruel and
blood thirsty Comanches in 1866 were Jessie
Burres, John Miller, w. D. Hampton, Mrs.
John Babb and Mrs. Russell and four chill
dren, two boys and two girls. Hampton
was an idiotic boy, thirteen years old. He
was roped by the Indians and dragged to
death over the prairie.
The Babbs were among the most prOmi-
inent families of Wise county, and when
Mrs. John Babb was murdered she waf
alone with her small children, boy ami
Swo girls, one of the girls, now young
lady, Miss Marge Babb, teacher in the,
Decatur public schools, was then an infant
at her mothers breast. When found she
was crawling around in the blood of her
dead mother, unconscious of her awful sur
roundings. The other two children, Dot
fANalls. and his sister, now Mrs. B. L.
8en of Henrietta, were carried away by
the Indians, and two years later were ran
somed by their father in Kansas. Cart
ney Babb, an older brother, was on the
frontier and his father was in Kansas at
the time of this misfortune to the family.
Prior to this date, and back as far as 1861,
a number Of foul murders were committed
by the Indians, and among their victims
we're William Bikdwell, Jr., Thomas
Tip Connolly and Thomas
Moore and ten-year-old son. George
Halsell was murdered by the Indians in
1865 while herding cattle near Henrietta
for Capt. Dan Wagner of Decatur.
In 1862 Miss Sallie B. Bowman, beauti-
full young girl of fifteen, was captured by
the Indians near Aurora while driving
home her fathers sheep. She was shame
fully treated, murdered and scalped and
her mutilated body left on the prairie.
Among the deeds of cool bravery that
hAEa,been handed down to US in history of
Aao0dy wars, none shine brighter than one
history has failed to record, but which still
remains fresh in the minds of the old set
tiers of Wise county, and one Of which they
speak with all honor: Bart Armstrong
and his wife, and Jim Owens and his wife,
were the principals in this bloody drama,
and the scene of action was a little stone
house Just northeast of Decatur. Here
this brave Quartette stood off Sixty-five
desperate Indians for four hours. These
two brave men were armed with Spencer
rifles, and these two noble women stood by
loading the guns while their husbands
used them with deadly effect When hope
had almost died in these brave mems hearts,
relief came up and the Indians were dis
persed with the loss of several of their
number, among them their chief, who fell
from his horse with Spencer ball in his
spine He was brought into the little fort
begged piteously for his life, but Capt
Yves Higgins. whose little son had been
previously murdered by the same band,
planted twelve Spencer balls in the old
devils anatomy and turned the carcass
over to the buzzards.
In 1865 the Rev. J. Moffett, a Methodist
was killed while crossing Indian
creek near Decatur. He stopped in the
creek to let his horse drink and was shot
and killed by the Indians.
John Baily, prominent farmer whose
family still live on their farm near Decatur,
was killed in the field by the Indians and
MS team stolen in 1874.
In the same year Mrs. HUH and her two
daughters. aged seventeen and nineteen,
were murdered and scalped in
full view of Mr.. HUFF, who was unable to
render them any assistance. This massacre
occurred two miles east of Alvord, and the |
Did log cabin still stands where the bloody
Iced was committed.
Capt. Carpenter assisted in burying this
mother and her lovely daugh- Z!
.ers. They were all three placed in wagon
box and buried in ravine about two hun
lred yards from the Fort Worth and Den |
YER road.
These were the last victims of this long
md bloody war, that extended over period |
If sixteen years, that gave to the settlers of |
Wise county their beautiful homes, and not |
\ few realize that the price of these homes
the blood OF band of brave people |
l~x, H.