Pages 011 to 014
Period I – 1858 to 1873Chapter 1
Organization, The Moving Frontier Line
The line of settlements in the County did not change for several
years, but the force and power of the constantly increasing flow of
human beings from the other States, which was stopped temporarily in
the populated centers by the civil strife and the fear of the
Indiana in the West – could no longer be checked.
The Rev. C. Brashears, who came to the county in the autumn of 1872,
writes of the conditions existing at that time:
“Six families at or near McGough Springs, three families at Mansker
Lake, one settlement at Flannagan’s consisting of a cow-ranch and
one family; another on South Palo Pinto Creek of tow or more
families; these, with two families on the Sabano, three at Ellison’s
Spring, and three or four at Desdemona, made up the entire
population of Eastland County when I came here.
This was a fine stock country. Game was plentiful – such as bear,
wolf, deer, turkey, buffalo, a few panther, wild cat, catamount,
fox, opossum, skunk, and Indian. There were wild horses here at that
time and any number of cattle. This was then a fine country as there
was always a heavy mast.”
When it is remembered that in 1860 there were ninety-nine
inhabitants in Eastland County, and in 1870 on eighty-eight (
including women and children ), the conditions prevailing at that
time in this section will more readily be appreciated.
From Mr. Brashear’s letter it will be seen that the frontier line of
1863 still existed in 1872, one year before the County was
organized, and was marked by Flannagan’s Ranch, McGough Springs, and
Jewell. Although the increase in population in one year was
sufficient to organize the County as recorded in the following
chapter, yet the name of no man has been discovered who located west
of the line above referred to prior to 1872.
It is pleasant to note, however, that once the County was organized
and its possibilities known, a steady influx of people began. In
1873 scarcely the seventy-five required number of votes could be
found; in 1875, when the County Towns was permanently located at
Eastland City, there were one hundred and twenty-three voters, and
in 1880 the census gave four thousand eight hundred and fifty-five
as the population of the County.
On November 25, 1874, the last raid of Indians through this County
occurred*. They came down by the eastern route, and on Barton’s
Creek Mr. Ellison was shot off his horse, and Mr. Leslie killed on
Indian Creek. Messrs. Sam Allen, Silas C. Buck, Tom Gibson and Mack
Singleton were four of eighteen men who chased the Indians one
hundred and fifty miles. During this period, 1873- 1881, the old
line of settlements was wiped out. Six families ( names given
elsewhere), stopped in the Rising Star Country; Major Munn, who had
to go eighteen miles to McGough Springs for his mail ( which
Postmaster Father McGough kept in a shoe box under his bed), settled
at Nimrod, and lives on the land he first purchased; R. F.
Weddington grazed his cattle in the northwestern part of the County,
as also did his neighbors, Charnel Hightower, Billy Stevens, John,
Crowd, Bill, Hilly and Joe Dennis and Joe Funk. Mr. Drake and sons
settled lower down on the Leon.
(* Messrs. Sam Allen, of Van Horn and K. Pemperton, of Stephenville,
are the authority for this statement. Judge Calhoun thinks a raid
into Comanche County, passing through the western part of Eastland,
occurred at a later date, and a little incident related by Mr.
Pemberton might seem to substantiate this opinion. One day Mr. Frank
Roach, who resided in the southern part of Eastland, had gone alone
to mill in Comanche County. On his return he met an acquaintance,
who reined up his horse by Mr. Roach’s wagon. “How is it you are out
alone? Aren’t you afraid of the Indians?” Mr. Roach replied: “No, Me
and the Indians like each other; we get along all right.” Hardly had
these words passed when a squad of Indians sere seen coming around a
thicket straight toward them. The man put spurs to his horse and was
gone. Mr. Roach leaped from his seat, cut one of his fine young
mules from the harness and sprung upon his back. No sooner was this
feat accomplished than the mule, on whose back man had never sat,
began to pitch and to plunge, while the Indians bore down upon the
defenseless man who found himself in such a close place. The mule,
instead of going down the road as Mr. Roach urged him to do, rushed
into a thicket, which the Indians at once surrounded, laughing
uproariously at the antics of the mule, and helped to keep things
interesting to the man by plying him with arrows. Suddenly, however,
the mule made a dash for the road and damages his reputation by
doing exactly as he was desired to do – made tracks so fast that the
Indians were outdistances. The took revenge by burning the wagon and
its contents and carried off the other animal. Mr. Roach lost an eye
in the encounter, but was always able to appreciate the good race
that he made.)
In the Cisco County were Messrs. N. Danvers, W. B. Cobb, Albert
Stephens, Robert and Stuart Cone, N. Turknette, John Davis, Josh and
John Morris, Lacy, Rhoads, Bunson, Townsend, T. E. Johnson, J. J.
Wallace, J. P. Montgomery, John Lane, O. H. Lovelady, Frank Young,
B. L. Pate, J. F. Looney, M. V. Palmer, Jim Caradine and M. B.
Owens. ( These names have been supplied by R. F. Weddington, R. G.
Luse and I. Lamb. Doubtless there are many other names these
gentlemen failed to remember.)
Thus was the frontier line pushed farther and farther west, and the
civilization of the Virginias, Carolinas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania,
Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi found among this moving throng,
tip-toeing to see across and venture on and on as the line strode
westward. |
