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[Illustration: CYNTHIA ANN PARKER.]
CYNTHIA ANN PARKER.
THE STORY OF HER CAPTURE
At the Massacre of the Inmates of Parker’s Fort; of her Quarter
of a Century Spent Among the Comanches, as the Wife of the War
Chief, Peta Nocona; and of her Recapture at the Battle of Pease
River, by Captain L. S. Ross, of the Texian Rangers.
--BY--
JAMES T. DeSHIELDS,
Author of “Frontier Sketches,” Etc.
“Truth is Stranger than Fiction.”
ILLUSTRATED.
ST. LOUIS:
Printed for the Author,
1886.
Copyright 1886 by
JAMES T. DeSHIELDS.
All Rights Reserved.
CHAS. S. WOODWARD
Printing and Book Manufacturing Co.,
ST. LOUIS.
DEDICATED
(By Permission)
--TO--
GENL. L. S. ROSS,
--OF--
WACO, TEXAS.
PREFACE.
In the month of June, 1884, there appeared in the columns of the Forth
Worth _Gazette_ an advertisement signed by the Comanche chief, Quanah
Parker, and dated from the reservation near Fort Sill, in the Indian
Territory, enquiring for a photograph of his late mother, Cynthia Ann
Parker, which served to revive interest in a tragedy which has always
been enveloped in a greater degree of mournful romance and pathos than
any of the soul-stirring episodes of our pioneer life, so fruitful of
incidents of an adventurous nature.
From the valued narratives kindly furnished us by Victor M. Ross,
Major John Henry Brown and Gen. L. S. Ross, supplemented by the Jas.
W. Parker book and copious notes from Hon. Ben. F. Parker, together
with most of the numerous partial accounts of the fall of Parker’s
Fort and subsequent relative events, published during the past fifty
years; and after a careful investigation and study of the whole, we
have laboriously and with much pains-taking, sifted out and evolved the
foregoing narrative of plain, unvarnished facts, which form a part of
the romantic history of Texas.
In the preparation of our little volume the thanks of the youthful
author are due to Gen. L. S. Ross, of Waco; Major John Henry Brown
of Dallas; Gen. Walter P. Lane of Marshall; Col. John S. Ford of San
Antonio; Rev. Homer S. Thrall--the eminent historian of Texas; Mr. A.
F. Corning of Waco; Capt. Lee Hall, Indian Agent, I. T., and Mrs. C. A.
Westbrook of Lorena, for valuable assistance rendered.
To Victor M. Ross of Laredo, Texas, the author has been placed under
many and lasting obligations for valuable data so generously placed at
his disposal, and that too at considerable sacrifice to the donor.
From this source we have obtained much of the matter for our narrative.
In submitting our little work--the first efforts of the youthful
author--we assure the reader that while there are, doubtless, many
defects and imperfections, he is not reading fiction, but facts which
form only a part of the tragic and romantic history of the Lone Star
State.
JAMES T. DeSHIELDS,
BELTON, Texas, May 19, 1886.
CONTENTS.
Page.
PREFACE 5
CHAPTER I.
THE PARKER FORT MASSACRE, ETC. 9-21
CHAPTER II.
THE CAPTIVES--CYNTHIA ANN AND JOHN PARKER 22-35
CHAPTER III.
THE BATTLE OF “ANTELOPE HILLS” 36-46
CHAPTER IV.
GENL. L. S. ROSS.--BATTLE OF THE WICHITA 47-57
CHAPTER V.
BATTLE OF PEASE RIVER.--RECAPTURE OF CYNTHIA
ANN PARKER 58-68
CHAPTER VI.
CYNTHIA ANN PARKER.--QUANAH PARKER 69-80
CYNTHIA ANN PARKER.
CHAPTER I.
The Parker Fort Massacre, Etc.
Contemporary with, and among the earliest of the daring and hardy
pioneers that penetrated the eastern portion of the Mexican province
of Texas, were the “Parker family,” who immigrated from Cole county,
Illinois, in the fall of the year 1833, settling on the west side of
the Navasota creek, near the site of the present town of Groesbeck, in
Limestone county, one or two of the family coming a little earlier and
some a little later.
The elder John Parker was a native of Virginia, resided for a time
in Elbert county, Georgia, but chiefly reared his family in Bedford
county, Tennessee, whence in 1818 he removed to Illinois.
The family, with perhaps one or two exceptions, belonged to one branch
of the primitive Baptist church, commonly designated as “two seed,” or
“hard shell” Baptists.
In the spring of 1834 the colonist erected Parker’s Fort,[1] a kind of
wooden barricade, or wall around their cabins, which served as a means
of better protecting themselves against the numerous predatory bands of
Indians into that, then, sparsely settled section.
[1] The reader will understand by this term, not only a place
of defense, but the residence of a small number of families
belonging to the same neighborhood. As the Indian mode of
warfare was an indiscriminate slaughter of all ages, and both
sexes, it was as requisite to provide for the safety of the
women and children as for that of the men.
Dodridge’s faithful pen picture of early pioneer forts, will
perhaps give the reader a glimps of old Fort Parker in the
dark and bloody period of its existence. He says:
“The _fort_ consisted of cabins, blockhouses, and stockades. A
range of cabins commonly formed on one side at least of the
fort. Divisions, or portions of logs, separated the cabins
from each other. The walls on the outside were ten or twelve
feet high, the slope of the roof being turned wholly inward.
A very few of these cabins had puncheon floors, the greater
part were earthen. The blockhouses were built at the angles
of the fort. They projected about two feet beyond the outer
walls of the cabins and stockades. Their upper stories
were about eighteen inches every way larger in dimension
than the under one, leaving an opening at the commencement
of the second to prevent the enemy from making a lodgment
under their walls. In some forts, instead of blockhouses the
angles of the fort were furnished with bastions. A large
folding gate, made of thick slabs, nearest the spring, closed
the fort. The stockades, bastions, cabins, and blockhouse
walls, were furnished with port-holes at proper heights
and distances. The whole of the outside was completely
bullet-proof.
It may be truly said that “necessity is the mother of
invention”; for the whole of this work was made without the
aid of a single nail or spike of iron; and for this reason
such things were not to be had. In some places, less exposed,
a single blockhouse, with a cabin or two, constituted the
whole fort. Such places of refuge may appear very trifling
to those who have been in the habit of seeing the formidable
military garrisons of Europe and America, but they answered
the purpose, as the Indians had no artillery. They seldom
attacked, and scarcely ever took one of them.”
As early as 1829 the “Prairie Indians” had declared war against
the settlers, and were now actively hostile, constantly committing
depredations in different localities.
Parker’s colony at this time consisted of only some eight or nine
families, viz: Elder John Parker, patriarch of the family, and his
wife; his son James W. Parker, wife, four single children and his
daughter, Mrs. Rachel Plummer, her husband, L. M. T. Plummer, and
infant son, fifteen months old; Mrs. Sarah Nixon, another daughter, and
her husband L. D. Nixon; Silas M. Parker (another son of Elder John),
his wife and four children; Benjamin F. Parker, an unmarried son of
the Elder[2]; Mrs. Nixon, sr., mother of Mrs. James W. Parker; Mrs.
Elizabeth Kellogg, daughter of Mrs. Nixon; Mrs. ---- Duty; Samuel M.
Frost, wife and two children; G. E. Dwight, wife and two children; in
all thirty-four persons.
[2] Elder Daniel Parker, a man of strong mental powers, a son
of Elder John, does not figure in these events. He signed
the Declaration of Independence in 1836, and preached to
his people till his death in Anderson county in 1845.
Ex-Representative Ben. F. Parker, is his son and successor in
preaching at the same place. Isaac Parker, above mentioned,
another son, long represented Houston and Anderson counties
in Senate and House, and in 1855 represented Tarrant county.
He died in Parker county, not long since, not far from 88
years of age. Isaac D. Parker of Tarrant is his son.
Besides those above mentioned, old man ---- Lunn, David Faulkenberry
and his son Evan, Silas Bates, and Abram Anglin, a boy, had erected
cabins a mile or two distant from the fort, where they resided.
These families were truly the advance guard of civilization of that
part of our frontier. Fort Houston, in Anderson county, being the
nearest protection, except their own trusty rifles.
Here the struggling colonist remained, engaged in the avocations of
a rural life, tilling the soil, hunting buffalo, bear, deer, turkeys
and smaller game, which served abundantly to supply their larder at
all times with fresh meat, in the enjoyment of a life of Arcadian
simplicity, virtue and contentment, until the latter part of the
year 1835, when the Indians and Mexicans forced the little band of
compatriots to abandon their homes, and flee with many others before
the invading army from Mexico.
On arriving at the Trinity river they were compelled to halt in
consequence of an overflow. Before they could cross the swollen stream
the sudden and unexpected news reached them that Santa Anna and his
vandal hordes had been confronted and defeated at San Jacinto, that
sanguinary engagement which gave birth to the new sovereignty of Texas,
and that TEXAS WAS FREE FROM MEXICAN TYRANNY.
On receipt of this news the fleeing settlers were overjoyed, and at
once returned to their abandoned homes.
The Parker colony now retraced their steps, first going to Fort
Houston, where they remained a few days in order to procure supplies,
after which they made their way back to Fort Parker to look after their
stock and to prepare for a crop.
These hardy sons of toil spent their nights in the fort, repairing to
their farms early each morning.
On the night of May 18, 1836, all slept at the fort, James W. Parker,
Nixon and Plummer repairing to their field a mile distant on the
Navasota, early next morning, little thinking of the great calamity
that was soon to befall them.
About 9 o’clock a. m. the fort was visited by several hundred[3]
Comanche and Kiowa Indians. On approaching to within about three
hundred yards of the fort the Indians halted in the prairie, presenting
a white flag; at the same time making signs of friendship.
[3] Different accounts have variously estimated the number of
Indians at from 300 to 700. One account says 300, another
500, and still another 700. There were perhaps about 500
warriors.
At this time there were only six men in the fort, three having gone
out to work in the field as above stated. Of the six men remaining,
only five were able to bear arms, viz: Elder John Parker, Benjamin and
Silas Parker, Samuel and Robert Frost. There were ten women and fifteen
children.
The Indians, artfully feigning the treacherous semblance of friendship,
pretented that they were looking for a suitable camping place, and
enquired as to the exact locality of a water-hole in the vicinity, at
the same time asking for a beef to appease their hungry--a want always
felt by an Indian, when the promise of fresh meat loomed up in the
distant perspective; and he would make such pleas with all the servile
sicophancy of a slave, like the Italian who embraces his victim ere
plunging the poniard into his heart.
Not daring to resent so formidable a body of savages, or refuse to
comply with their requests, Mr. Benjamin F. Parker went out to them,
had a talk and returned, expressing the opinion that the Indians were
hostile and intented to fight, but added that he would go back and
try to avert it. His brother Silas remonstrated, but he persisted in
going, and was immediately surrounded and killed, whereupon the whole
force--their savage instincts aroused by the sight of blood--charged
upon the works, uttering the most terrific and unearthly yells that
ever greeted the ears of mortals. Cries and confusion reigned. The
sickening and bloody tragedy was soon enacted. Brave Silas M. Parker
fell on the outside of the fort, while he was gallantly fighting to
save Mrs. Plummer. Mrs. Plummer made a most manful resistance, but was
soon overpowered, knocked down with a hoe and made captive. Samuel M.
Frost and his son Robert met their fate while heroically defending
the women and children inside the stockade. Old Granny Parker was
outraged, stabbed and left for dead. Elder John Parker, wife and Mrs.
Kellogg attempted to make their escape, and in the effort had gone
about three-fourths of a mile, when they were overtaken and driven
back near to the fort where the old gentleman was stripped, murdered,
scalped and horribly mutilated. Mrs. Parker was stripped, speared and
left for dead, but by feigning death escaped, as will be seen further
on. Mrs. Kellogg was spared as a captive.
The result summed up, was as follows:
Killed--Elder John Parker, aged seventy-nine; Silas M. and Benjamin F.
Parker; Samuel M. and his son Robert Frost.
Wounded dangerously--Mrs. John Parker; Old Granny Parker and Mrs. ----
Duty.
Captured--Mrs. Rachel Plummer, (daughter of James W. Parker), and her
son James Pratt Plummer, two years of age; Mrs. Elizabeth Kellogg;
Cynthia Ann Parker, nine years old, and her little brother John Parker,
aged six years, children of Silas M. Parker. The remainder of the
inmates making their escape, as we shall narrate.
When the attack on the fort first commenced, Mrs. Sarah Nixon made her
escape and hastened to the field to advise her father, husband and
Plummer. On her arrival, Plummer hurried on horseback to inform the
Faulkenberrys, Lunn, Bates and Anglin. Parker and Nixon started to the
fort, but the former met his family on the way, and carried them some
five miles down the Navasota, secreting them in the bottom. Nixon,
though unarmed, continued on towards the fort, and met Mrs. Lucy,
wife of the dead Silas Parker, with her four children, just as they
were intercepted by a small party of mounted and foot Indians. They
compelled the mother to lift behind two mounted warriors her daughter
Cynthia Ann, and her little son John. The foot Indians now took Mrs.
Parker, her two youngest children and Nixon back to the fort.
Just as the Indians were about to kill Nixon, David Faulkenberry
appeared with his rifle, and caused them to fall back. Nixon, after his
narrow escape from death, seemed very much excited, and immediately
left in search of his wife, soon falling in with Dwight, with his own
and Frost’s family. Dwight and party soon overtook J. W. Parker and
went with him to the hiding place in the bottom.
Faulkenberry, thus left with Mrs. Parker and her two children, bade
her to follow him. With the infant in her arms and leading the other
child she obeyed. Seeing them leave the fort, the Indians made several
feints, but were held in check by the brave man’s rifle. Several
mounted warriors, armed with bows and arrows strung and drawn, and with
terrific yells would charge them, but as Faulkenberry would present
his gun they would halt, throw up their shields, right about, wheel
and retire to a safe distance. This continued for some distance, until
they had passed through a prairie of some forty or fifty acres. Just
as they were entering the woods, the Indians made a desperate charge,
when one warrior, more daring than the others, dashed up so near that
Mrs. Parker’s faithful dog seized his horse by the nose, whereupon both
horse and rider somersaulted, alighting on their backs in a ravine.
Just at this moment Silas Bates, Abram Anglin and Evan Faulkenberry,
armed, and Plummer unarmed, came up, causing the Indians to retire,
after which the party made their way unmolested.
As they were passing through the field where the three men had been at
work in the morning, Plummer, as if aroused from a dream, demanded to
know what had become of his wife and child. Armed only with a butcher
knife, he left the party, in search of his loved ones, and was seen no
more for six days.
The Faulkenberrys, Lunn, with Mrs. Parker and children, secreted
themselves in a small creek bottom, some distance from the first party,
each unconcious of the other’s whereabouts.
At twilight Abraham Anglin and Evan Faulkenberry started back to the
fort to succor the wounded and those who might have escaped. On their
way, and just as they were passing Faulkenberry’s cabin, Anglin saw
his first and only ghost. He says, “It was dressed in white with long,
white hair streaming down its back. I admit that I was worse scared at
this moment than when the Indians were yelling and charging us. Seeing
me hesitate, my ghost now beckoned me to come on. Approaching the
object it proved to be old Granny Parker, whom the Indians had wounded
and stripped, with the exception of her underwear. She had made her way
to the house from the fort by crawling the entire distance. I took some
bed clothing, and carrying her some distance from the house, made her a
bed, covered her up and left her until we should return from the fort.
On arriving at the fort we could not see a single individual alive
or hear a human sound. But the dogs were barking, the cattle lowing,
the horses neighing and the hogs squealing, making a hideous and
strange meadly of sounds. Mrs. Parker had told me where she had left
some silver, $106.50. This I found under a hickory bush by moonlight.
Finding no one at the fort we returned to where I had hid Granny
Parker. On taking her up behind me, we made our way back to our hiding
place in the bottom, where we found Nixon, whom we had not seen since
his cowardly flight at the time he was rescued by Faulkenberry from the
Indians.”[4]
[4]--In the book published by James W. Parker on pages ten and
eleven, he states that Nixon liberated Mrs. Parker from the
Indians and rescued old Granny Parker. Mr. Anglin, in his
account contradicts, or rather corrects this statement. He
says: “I positively assert that this is a mistake and I am
willing to be qualified to the statement I here make and can
prove the same by Silas H. Bates, now living near Graesbeck.”
On the next morning, Bates, Anglin and E. Faulkenberry went back to
the fort to get provisions and horses and to look after the dead. On
reaching the fort they found five or six horses, a few saddles and some
meal, bacon and honey. Fearing an attack from the red devils who might
still be lurking around, they left without burying the dead. Returning
to their comrades in the bottom, they all concealed themselves until
the next night, when they started through the woods to Fort Houston,
which place they reached without material suffering.
Fort Houston, an asylum on this as on many other occasions, stood on
what has been for many years the farm of a wise statesman, a chivalrous
soldier and a true patriot--John H. Reagan--two miles west of Palestine.
After wandering around and traveling for six days and nights, during
which time they suffered much from hunger and thirst, with their
clothing torn into shreads, their bodies lacerated with briars and
thorns, the women and children with unshod and bleeding feet, the party
of James W. Parker ---- men, and ----[5] women and children--reached
Tinnin’s, at the old San Antonio and Nacogdoches crossing of the
Navasota. Being informed of their approach, Messrs. Carter and
Courtney, with five horses, met them some miles away, and thus enabled
the women and children to ride. The few people around, though but
returned to their deserted homes after the victory of San Jacinto,
shared all they had of food and clothing with them.
[5] We are unable to ascertain the exact number. Different
accounts variously estimate the number from 10 to 20.
Plummer, after six days of wanderings alone in the wilderness, arrived
at the fort the same day.
In due time the members of the party located temporarily as best suited
the respective families, most of them returning to Fort Parker soon
afterwards.
A burrial party of twelve men from Fort Houston went up and burried
the dead. Their remains now repose near the site of old Fort Parker.
Peace to their memories. Unadorned are their graves; not even a slab of
marble or a memento of any kind has been erected to tell the traveler
where rests the remains of this brave little band of pioneer heroes who
wrestled with the savage for the mastery of this proud domain.
After the massacre the savages retired with their booty to their own
wild haunts amid the hills and valleys of the beautiful Canadian and
Pease rivers.