Recollections of Early Texas Read Free Page A

Texas books.
    I received constant encouragement and valuable advice from Mr. J. Frank Dobie, who very graciously wrote the foreword to this book. Words cannot express the deep appreciation I feel for the time he gave to me.

RECOLLECTIONS
    of Early Texas

    R EPUBLIC OF T EXAS. From Stanley Siegel, A Political History of the Texas Republic, 1836–1845, 1956

CHAPTER I
    Austin’s Little Colony
    About the middle of October in the year 1828 1 my father left his old home in Alabama and came west, intending to grow up with the new country—at least in a financial point of view.
    I was then a mere child, but the scenes and incidents of those early times are very clear and distinct in my mind even now, although more than fifty years with many and great changes have worked upon my life since then, and I look around me in vain for those who accompanied us on our journey westward. 2
    One by one they have tired upon the journey of life andhave gone to their long rest, until no signs of the old stirring times are left, except here and there an old man recounts to his children and to his children’s children the many thrilling experiences of the old Texans.
    Standing now and viewing the populous and thriving cities, together with the vast expanses of fields and pastures wrought by man’s hand in this half-century, a description of our State as those early settlers found her seems as a “tale that must be told.”
    The broad prairies covered with rich grass and wild rye and her dense forests teeming with game are indeed a thing of the dead past. Memory recalls her as a proud and happy queen, holding forth her rare treasures of grand and beautiful scenery, and bright prospects to those hardy children who came thus upon her virgin soil, facing so many hardships, deprivations, difficulties, and dangers.
    Surrounding our small band of pioneers was one vast and magnificent solitude with no sight nor sound of human kind, except the wandering tribes of Indians in their raids against each other and against the slow but sure inroads of civilization—which had driven them from their native hunting ground. I can recall many tales of horror concerning Indian cruelty and treachery upon the eastern portions of the Republic of Texas, and as we journeyed we found substantial proof of their truth. Near Captain James Ross’s 3 on the Colorado River, thirty-five miles from Bastrop, which wasthen called “Mina,” 4 we found human bones lying “grim and ghastly on the green grass.” Upon inquiry they were found to be the skeletons of Indians who had come to Captain Ross’s, first under pretense of peace and friendliness, then growing more and more aggressive until they gradually revealed false and murderous designs, until at last for self-protection the whites collected and killed them.
    While here, we heard of a murder by Indians of rather recent date. An old man by the name of Tumlinson* 5 was atwork, tanning or dressing hides some distance from the home. A party of Comanches, finding him there alone and helpless, killed and scalped him with the relentless cruelty which characterized this tribe. Coming on to Woods’ Prairie, 6 we found similar bones, bleaching and seeming to point to coming strife, and possible death. Besides, the few families who had preceded us and were in a measure settled there, could give accounts of many deeds of bold and unwarrantable cruelty by the Indians, who were most evidently resenting the coming of white men upon their hunting grounds. All this would naturally fill the minds of the women and children with terror and alarm, which increased as we came farther westward—for we knew full well that the frontier settlers would be most exposed.
    Continuing on in face of all these tales of danger we at last reached our first home, which was situated on Barton’s Creek, about forty miles below Austin. Here we began life in the Republic of Texas, squatting out on the raw