The Man inside the Alamo

Author’s note – How did David Crockett die at the battle of the Alamo? This question has been the catalyst for much rancor among historians, Americans, Mexicans, Texans, and history aficionados. The story below while fictional, offers a plausible explanation of what could have happened that Sunday morning in San Antonio and might well satisfy both sides of the Crockett question. Illustration- by Mack White / Austin, Texas.

The man from Tennessee, tall and well-poised, marched across the Alamo courtyard with long, lively strides. Poet, teacher, attorney, and merchant, a noticeable agitation furrowed his brow this day, and his mouth twisted in brooding expectation as to the reason behind his summoning. He gripped a Kentucky flintlock in his right hand with such force that his knuckles whitened around the walnut stock. Upon each stride, the eight-pound rifle swung forward in such perfect rhythm that man and gun appeared to be one. Beside him, a fellow Tennessean, although considerably shorter, and rounder, matched the man’s brisk stride step-for-step.
As the two men crossed in front of the officers’ quarters, the shorter man inhaled. “Can you believe it?” he said effusively.
The man from Tennessee remained silent.
The two skirted the low wall in front of the chapel and then angled right for the palisade. Behind the breastwork, a parapet rose diagonally to the southeast. Gathered on either side of the parapet were a group of Tennesseans, volunteers to the Texas auxiliary corps. The men urged him forward with frantic hand movements.
“Hurry,” one of the Tennesseans gushed.
“You won’t believe your eyes,” whispered another and pointed at a loophole in the vertical timbers.
The air of the February early afternoon still held the chill of the previous day’s cold front and both men’s breaths frosted in spite of the afternoon sun.
The man ignored the good-natured banter and positioned himself so that he could look through the porthole.
To his left, standing on an earthen footstep, the bear hunter gazed out over the field through a long glass and chuckled. “It be a fair shot, but one well worth the ball and powder.”
The man nodded and slipped the flintlock through the cut out. “We’ll see.”
From behind, one of the volunteers snorted under his breath. “Does he have the steadiness?”
The man turned and looked back at the snorter.
The snorter lifted his shoulders and tightened his lips. “Was only a question.”
The man stared down the hand-blued barrel of his long rifle. “Sounded more like nay-saying skepticism to me.”
A chorus, arising from the others, was directed at the snorter, “Close your pie-hole and let the man work.”
The man hesitated, curled the corners of his mouth down, and then pulled the fox-fur cap from off his head. “That seems to be the best piece of advice I’ve heard since arriving at this place.”
The old bear hunter glanced down at the man. “By the eternal,” he laughed. “Fire that pea shooter, man.”
A crooked smile broke from the corner of the man’s mouth as he placed his cap on one of the vertical timbers. “At your pleasure, Colonel.”
The bear hunter put his eye to the long glass once again and remarked, “Show his Excellency over there just how well a Kentuckian flintlock fires.”
The man pulled the flint-striker to full-cock and looked down the barrel.
“Make him flutter,” the others sang.
The man, inhaled, closed his left eye, and squeezed the trigger. The flint rolled forward and contacted the frizzen.
Sparks flew.
Gunpowder erupted.
The gun bore into the man’s shoulder.
The Tennesseans waited in quiet anticipation.
Two hundred yards away, a foot in front of the Mexican leader, a spate of dust puffed skyward. The general with a titled name longer than the flintlock’s barrel, Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón—his Excellency, stepped back at the dulled detonation—untouched.
The man made a face and marveled at his missed shot.
Santa Anna took a short glance at the raised powdery earth a foot in front of him, shook his head, and then slowly dissolved back into his reconnoitering trooper line.
“Huzzah!” shouted the man’s friends. They slapped the man on his back. Much whooping and hollering followed.
“That seemed to addle his Excellency a’ bit!”
The man lowered the flintlock and scratched at his side-whiskers. “Air’s a ‘might thick this afternoon,” he offered weakly as excuse.
“Maybe,” the bear hunter rejoined, and then added as an afterthought, “Anyhow, I figure you’ve chased him into the thickets for now.”
The man shook his head. “Maybe,” he said and stared out across the palisade toward the massed force of soldados.
“Did you see his Excellency dance?” one volunteer asked.
“Stepped like he was born in Eastern Tennessee,” another uttered.
“He thought he’d gone coon for sure,” still another chortled.
But the man from Tennessee just fixated on the spot where the Mexican general had stood. He recalculated the distance between his gun and his Excellency, and wondered briefly what might have been.

***

Six days later, the rocket illuminations, soft across the early morning March sky, coalesced and fell gently upon the Alamo. Sleeping soundly below the palisade wall for the first night since the Mexican Army’s arrival, the man slapped at his ear to dislodge the annoyance and squinted to remove the flicker of red dancing in front of his closed eyelid.
From above him, a familiar voice sounded, though distant and faint, “Wake up, sirs, the fights begun.”
The man blinked his eyes open and dragged a rough tongue around the inside of his mouth. The charcoal shadow of the bear hunter lingered over him.
“The Mexicans are on the walls,” the bear hunter said. His rifle rested in a loophole.
The man rubbed at his eyes. “Whaa…?”
The bear hunter looked south from the palisade and pulled his flint to full-cock. “I’d consider arising quick now if you want to be in the fight.”
Somewhere, on the other side of mission, the shouts and screams of men under attack caused the man to spring to his feet. He grabbed his flintlock with his right hand and patted the pistol in his waistbelt with his left. “You must not have slept,” he said.
There was no reply, only the sound of powder flash.
Across the courtyard, an eight-pounder boomed. The man threw a quick glance at the northwest corner just as the second eight-pounder exploded and exposed the wall in an eerie light.
The other volunteers were on their feet now. The man could feel them around him. He pushed the barrel of his long rifle through a cut out and fired.
The screams and curses of the desperately determined issued from every corner of the fortress.
The man yelled out encouragement to his companions, but the noise and smoke and darkness simply drowned his words away.
And in that instant, in this place, Texas, a soul-rattling revelation shook the man—that in the dark-veiled chaos of the Alamo, no matter the numbers of men struggling beside him; every man was left to his own fighting and his own dying.
The man shook the thoughts from his head and pressed his shoulder back into the rifle. And then, methodically began the process of firing and reloading. After four rounds were expended, the attackers backed away.
“They’re foundering,” the man yelled, relieved.
“Don’t be sure!” the bear hunter screamed. “Behind us!”
The man turned, and though he could not see individual enemy combatants, he saw the black surge filling the main plaza. A brief, paralyzing fear held him in a cold grip and prickled his spine. Movement flashed beside him.
The bear hunter was up and running. “To the low wall!” he screamed. “We have to keep them from the chapel, boys!”
The man watched in fascination at the quickness of the fifty-year-old.
“Well, come on, now!” the bear hunter shouted.
The man blinked, shook off his palsy, and ran crouched-over for the wall directly in front of the church.
The battle’s closeness nudged against the man. They were all now fighting under a thick cloud of gunpowder smoke. A companion backed into him, screamed, and then pitched forward, slashing at the fume with a butcher knife.
Some defenders coughed in the suffocating cloud.
Some screamed in both fear and anger.
Others just cursed, both Mexicans and God.
The man lowered the flintlock and fumbled to reload amidst the confusion and death.
Out of the chaos, the bear hunter shouted orders again, “Fall back to the chapel!” And then turned to point at the church. “We’ll be able to reload behind the doors!”
“Yes!” the man screamed. “And the powder’s there, too!”
The bear hunter nodded and lowering his shoulders, began to back up toward the safety of the chapel while firing into the plaza beyond the low wall.
The remaining six Tennesseans huddled tight and followed en masse.
The man, his back to the church door, shuddered at the fast approaching carnage. The screams of desperate men choked the air in two languages. The man glanced over his shoulder. The bear hunter was gone. “Colonel?” he shouted.
No answer followed.
Then suddenly, the man stumbled and fell over a lump of darkness. He rolled on the ground before righting himself on all fours. Beneath him, on the hard soil, the bear hunter lay on his back, eyes opened.
Shot.
Dead.
And then the man’s fear fought its way forward again.
The bear hunter was dead?
He looked away, panicked and scared. He fumbled the pistol from his waistbelt and fired without aim into the surging dark snarl.
“Come on, man!” the others pleaded. “For here they come!”
The man ignored his companions’ pleas and glanced back into the bear hunter’s face. The once gentle visage was blackened beyond recognition with the soot and grease of battle. The sounds of the attack lapsed away.
“We’re shuttin’ the doors!”
The man swallowed and rolled the bear hunter’s familiar leather-billed round cap from his head. He rose, cap in hand, and watched in dismay as the chapel doors swung shut.
Then the battle returned, and with it, all of the loudness and disorder of conflicted struggle. He grimaced at the chapel doors, looked left, and in the bedlam, raced untouched for the long barracks.
Inside, the man joined a small group of defenders, but he couldn’t dismiss the thought that if such a man as the bear hunter could die so effortlessly, what possible hope could any of the rest of them expect?

***

Near sunrise, a Mexican General stood in front of a raised mattress covering the doorway to one of the barracks rooms. He spoke reassuringly to the six men hidden behind the pad. One of the men stuck his long rifle over the top of the cover. A dirty sock was tied around the gun’s barrel.
From behind the mattress, a tired voice asked, “How do we know you can be trusted?”
The general stiffened and smoothed his jacket. “I am General Manuel Fernandez de Castrillón. I am a career soldier and an officer of the Mexican Army. As such, I offer you my word and my protection.”

***

General Castrillón marched the six across the main plaza of the Alamo and secured the men in a small cannonade structure on the north end of the west wall. “Please remain here,” he said. “His Excellency will arrive from the north battery soon, and when he does, I will intercede on your behalf.” The general then turned to exit the small enclosure.
The man from Tennessee, his face darkened and blued with gunpowder, pushed the bear hunter’s cap toward the back of his head and cleared his throat.
Castrillón paused and looked back at the tall man. “Yes, Colonel Crockett?”
“I…that is, we…” The man’s voice faltered.
Castrillón raised his brow. “Yes, Colonel?”
The man looked at the five standing with him and bowed his head. “Just want to thank you.”
Castrillón nodded, started to leave again, slowed, and with pause, pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger.
The man from Tennessee waited, uncertain.
“Colonel?” the general finally asked. “Is it true that you have killed close to a hundred bears in your lifetime?”
The man cast his tired eyes in the direction of the chapel—to where the bear hunter lay dead—to Tennessee and its mountains, and its rivers and fertile valleys, and of a wife
and three children. The absurdity of the morn struck him. Here were two men from different lands in a small fort carrying on a civil conversation as if the carnage and destruction that permeated every foot of earth around them did not exist.
“Colonel?”
The man turned his attention back to Castrillón and after a reflective pause exhaled a short breath before answering, “I reckon the figure to be closer to a hundred and twenty-five, General.”

The Man inside the Alamo copyright 2010 Mike Kearby

Texas Rock Art in The Taken

Texas holds many well preserved examples of Indian rock art. Some of the most notable rock art sites are found in Val Verde County (Lower Pecos River style rock art), in El Paso County, (Hueco Tanks pictographs), and in Concho County, near Paint Rock. The Paint Rock site holds thousands of pictographs painted on the limestone cliffs above the Concho River. The Paint Rock pictographs date back 6000 years. One of the Paint Rock pictographs is said to describe the abduction of 13 year-old, Alice Todd in 1865. (Photo- From Pecos River Rock Art, Jim Zintgraff, Solveig A. Turpin)

In The Taken, (Release Date November 2010 Dorchester Publishing), a pictograph legend serves as the impetus for the abduction of William Barret Kensing, age 5 from his Texas home.

The novel opens:

- In an older, darker time, a great prophet of the People journeyed to the sacred cliff home of the Day Father. There he wove together branches of oak and cedar and burned them as offering to the Great Spirit. And when the wood transformed to ash, the prophet threw himself into the blistering residue. Refusing to cry out, even as his flesh melted into hot grease, the great prophet prayed for a messiah. One who would battle the People's great enemy, an evil spirit known as the tai-vo-tovt.

The Day Father heard the prophet's prayer and was pleased by the shaman's strength and humility and being a just and benevolent spirit, he granted the prophet a brief glimpse of the saviour he would one day send down to earth. After the Great Spirit's vision departed, the prophet gathered up the melted grease of his flesh and forever preserved the People's saviour onto the sacred cliff wall.

And when he had completed his painting, he looked upon the image and proclaimed, "Behold, this is the avenger of the People. This is the tai-vo-tovt killer."

- A legend of the People

The Last Comanche Raid into Texas

On December 15, 1876, a band of Kwahadi Comanche, under the war chief, Black Horse, left the Fort Sill reservation to hunt buffalo on the staked plains. Black Horse's party soon began making war on any white hunters they found on the trail, stealing horses from Skelton Glenn and Pat Garrett, and killing and scalping Marshall Sewell. Garrett later earned notoriety as the killer of Billy the Kid. (Photo- Black Horse - Fort Marion, Florida)

White revenge followed quickly as a group of forty-six hunters operating out of Rath City, Texas tracked the Comanche raiding party to Yellow House Canyon. The ensuing battle, fueled by a barrel of whiskey, lasted all day before the hunters retreated to nearby Buffalo Spring. One hunter and thirty-five Comanche died during the fight. The battle and ensuing engagements were know as The Staked Plains War or The Buffalo Hunters' War.

In early May, the Tenth Cavalry buffalo soldiers, under Captain P.L. Lee overtook the Black Horse's band near Quemado Lake in Cochran County and returned them to the Fort Sill reservation thus ending the last Comanche raid into Texas.

Herman Lehmann, a notable white captive, who later authored a book about his captivity, Nine Years Among the Indians, was wounded during the battle.

The Comanche leader, Black Horse, died at Cache, Oklahoma around 1900.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

Blood Feuds

In my upcoming novel, A Hundred Miles to Water, a blood feud between Texas ranching families serves as the catalyst for all of the book's conflict. And fittingly, both protagonist and antagonist families arrive in Texas from Kentucky.

Kentucky is well recognized as the home to some of the bloodiest feuds in the United States. One of the better-known feuds, the Hatfields and McCoys, began when Floyd Hatfield penned a number of wild hogs he captured in the forest. Sometime later, Randolph McCoy passed the pen and claimed the hogs as his. Other well known feuds in the state were the Tolliver-Martin-Logan vendetta, the French-Eversole war, the Howard-Turner feud, and Bloody Breathitt, which included the Little-Strong and the Hargis-Marcum feuds. (Photo- The Hatfields circa 1897)

Clay County, Kentucky, is located in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains. In late 1775, the county’s first settler, James Collins, tracked game to a large salt lick located on Goose Creek, a tributary of the south fork of the Kentucky River. The value of salt in frontier America soon became apparent as settlers who followed Collins into the area began to sink salt wells up and down "Goose Creek".

One of the longest running feuds in Clay County began in 1844 when Abner Baker, a man thought to have suffered from mental illness, shot his friend, Daniel Bates in the back. Baker and his wife, Susan (White) Baker lived in the Bates home. It is thought that Abner believed his wife and Bates were engaged in an affair.

Before he died, Bates dictated his last will and testament, in which he instructed his son to take revenge on his killer. A local magistrate, T.T. Garrard, joined sides when he refused to turn over the unstable Baker to the sheriff or the Bates.

Enraged, both the Whites and the Bates joined forces and persuaded the Commonwealth to indict Baker for murder. A jury found Baker guilty. He was hanged in 1845. Baker’s hanging caused lines to be drawn among the families with the Bates and Whites on one side and the Bakers and Garrards on the other.

The feud lasted fifty-plus years and by some estimates took over one hundred lives.

Some well known Texas feuds were: The Horrell-Higgins feud in Lampasas County in 1877, the Hoodoo War or Mason County War of 1875, and the Jaybird-Woodpecker War of 1889 in Fort Bend County.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

The Kwahadi and The Battle of Adobe Walls

In the spring of 1874, A.C. "Charlie" Myers packed up his mercantile business in Kansas and followed buffalo hunters, such as Josiah Wright Mooar, Billy Dixon and William Barclay "Bat" Masterson to the Texas Panhandle. The move was one of financial necessity as there were few buffalo remaining in Kansas by late 1873. A seasoned businessman, Myers understood the need for a supply post that could solve the hunter's problems of traversing the 150 mile trek between Texas and Kansas to re-supply their camps and also dispose of their hides. Myers built one of four "soddies" that eventually comprised Adobe Walls. (A soddie was a line of timber logs placed upright in a trench and then packed with sod.)

The "new" Adobe Walls was located about a mile from the Adobe Wall's ruins where Kit Carson and three hundred men battled a thousand Indians in 1864.

The June 1874 battle of Adobe Walls was a motivating factor in General Phillip H. Sheridan's July 27, 1874 "solution" sent to President Ulysses Simpson Grant. Sheridan's plan gave the Southern Plains bands seven days to enroll at their respective agencies, declare themselves friendly, and answer unannounced roll calls. Any members who did not present themselves to the agencies by August 3, 1874 would be considered as hostile and hunted down and killed.

The Kwahadi, "Antelopes," were also known by kwah-heeher kennuh, Kwahada, Quahadi, and by other bands as "Sun-shades-on-their-backs" for their habit of using buffalo-hide parasols when riding on the staked plains. The Kwahadi were the most remote and fierce of the Comanche bands. The Kwahadi avoided many of the epidemic disasters that befell other bands simply by their remoteness and refusal to have any dealings with whites.

Parra-O-Coom, "Bull Bear," was a Kwahadi leader of great celebrity. Parra-O-Coom was best known for never signing a treaty with whites and is said to have repeatedly proclaimed he would never do so until the horse soldiers came to the Staked Plains and "whooped him." Parra-O-Coom contracted pneumonia during the planning of the 1874 Battle of Adobe Walls. Due to the illness, Quanah Parker was then chosen to lead the war party on the buffalo hunters. Parra-O-Coom died while the fighting raged and was buried on the banks of Elk Creek in 1874.

Kobay, "Wild Horse," succeeded Parra-O-Coom as "token" head chief of the Kwahadi. Kobay was killed during the second charge on the buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls in 1874.

By 1874, the Kwahadi shaman, Esa-tai, "Coyote Droppings" or "Hind End of a Wolf," had become a much needed messiah figure to the oppressed Comanche. Esa-tai was also known as the Wolf Prophet. His keen observation skills allowed him to predict weather patterns and other solar occurrences. After he correctly predicted the occurrence of an 1873 comet that would appear in the skies for five days and then be followed by a drought, the bands began to believe his power would deliver them from their white enemies. Esa-tai assembled all of the bands in early June 1874 to perform the Sun Dance. This sacred ritual of the Kiowa and Cheyenne had never been performed by the Comanche in their entire history as a people. Esa-tai used the Sun Dance to proclaim that a "great spirit" had instructed him to attack the hide hunters at Adobe Walls. The Wolf Prophet proclaimed that the hide hunters would all be killed in their sleep and no Cheyenne, Kiowa, Arapaho or Comanche warrior would be harmed because he would furnish them with magic paint that would deflect the copper bullets of the whites. After fifteen warriors were killed during the second charge, the assembled warriors realized that Esa-tai's "puha" was flawed. Wilbur Nye wrote in his book, Carbine and Lance, that sixty years after the battle, Esa-tai was simply known by the Comanche as "that comical fellow."

Mike Kearby's Texas Copyright 2010

Women of the Texas Frontier

Women of the Texas frontier, collectively portrayed by Sarah Kensing in my upcoming novel, The Taken, were unsung stalwarts of the new and expanding civilization.

It is typical of most warrior-based societies to portray women members as one-dimensional contributors to the band, tribe or family. A woman's contribution is invariably characterized in writing, song, and stories as that of "mother." This depiction was of course valued on the frontier as settlers were desirous of children, especially male children. It is, however, important to note that a woman's societal dictates went far beyond just producing children. Texas women were required to possess a multitude of desirable qualities that could be called upon and acted out no matter the circumstance.

As a result, a frontier woman was expected to not only be a mother, but also a pioneer, a homemaker, a warrior, a protector, a teacher, a preacher, a wife, a lover, a doctor, and a patriot. Therefore, the frontier woman had to at all times display the virtuous characteristics of strength, consideration, tolerance, forbearance, love, courage and faith.

In short, Texas women such as Margaret "Peggy" McCormick, Pamelia Mann, Francisca Panchita Alavez, Parmelia Parchman King, Susannah Wilkerson Dickinson, and Louis Cottle Jackson were just a few of many, who along with their frontier male companions, struggled mightily to afford future generations the luxury of an independent existence.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

Juan Nepomuceno Seguín

Only one company of Houston's assembled troops at San Jacinto were composed of native Texians (Tejanos). These men were under the command of thirty-year-old, Captain Juan Seguín.

Seguín’s company participated in the ouster of General Cos from San Antonio in December 1835 and entered the Alamo with Travis and others in February 1836. Seguin left the Alamo as a courier on February 25 escaping the fate of seven of his men. ( Image - Juan Nepomuceno Seguín)

After the battle, it fell to Seguin to inter the ashes of the heroes of the Alamo.

At San Jacinto, Seguín and his company were attached to Sidney Sherman's Second Regiment and wore white pasteboard in their hats to distinguish themselves from enemy combatants during the battle.

Seguín served in the Second, Third, and Fourth Congress of the new republic as a senator, he was the only Tejano Texian in the legislature. In 1841, Seguin was elected Mayor of San Antonio. The city of Seguin in Guadalupe County, Texas is named after Juan Nepomuceno Seguín.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

Enrique Esparza

In the late afternoon of February 23, 1836, José María ‘Gregorio’ Esparza, a tejano soldier in the Plácido Benavides’ company, brought his wife, Ana Salazar Esparza, his step-daughter, María de Jesús Castro Esparza, his oldest son, Enrique, and two younger sons, Francisco and Manuel, to the Alamo for protection. Enrique was eight-years-old at the time of the siege. Sixty-six years later, as the only remaining living survivor of the Alamo, Enrique’s recollections were told for the first time in the San Antonio Light after being interviewed by Adina de Zavala, granddaughter of the first vice-president of the Republic of Texas, Lorenzo de Zavala. (Illustration -Mack White - Austin, Texas)

Enrique spent most of his time during the thirteen day siege in the church with his mother and siblings. One of Enrique’s recollections involved a young Anglo boy, about his age, that awoke during the storming of the church. As the boy rose to his feet, he gathered a blanket around his shoulders and was immediately shot and killed by advancing Mexican soldiers.

Enrique’s father, Gregorio, was killed during the battle. His uncle, Francisco, fought on the Centralist side. In the battle’s aftermath, Francisco obtained permission from Santa Anna to bury Gregorio’s body in the local cemetery, San Fernando Campo Santo. Gregorio was the only defender at the Alamo to avoid cremation in the funeral pyres that burned on either side of the Alameda.

Later, Enrique, Francisco, and Manuel moved to Atascosa County to farm and ranch on the land grant given the family for Gregorio’s service to the Republic. The brothers were responsible for the construction of the church in San Augustine, Texas.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

The Cowboy Code

The cowboy "code" is a mixture of principle and honor that can be found in literature dating from medieval times. The “code” is a descendent of the chivalry practiced by the Knights of the Round Table which still stands as a standard for good behavior.

During the cattle drive period in American history, the “code” was a necessary and guiding rule for cowboys. These were men who more often than not worked in isolated and dangerous conditions. The “code” guaranteed help and protection to any cowboy riding for a brand who was of a need. Unfortunately, during the rise of the cowboy and those early cattle towns, the “code” also protected bad behavior. A cowboy’s first obligation was to his fellow cowboy, no matter that cowboy’s disposition to his own desires and no matter the rules of conventional society.

In 2005, authors, James P. Owen and David R. Stoecklein wrote, Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West. Some of the “code” rules to live by listed in the book are: (1) Be tough, but fair. (2) Ride for the brand. And (3) Do what has to be done.

Today, many ranches in the West still practice the “code”. Code cowboys of the twenty-first century still work cattle as their predecessors did in the nineteenth century, from rounding up cattle on horseback, to the use of lariats and branding irons in the field.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

Nancy Hill's Hanging

The Texas frontier, distantly removed from most societal institutions, became a refuge for people of 'suspect character'. As lawlessness grew on the frontier, secret groups formed with the express purpose of ridding their communities of these unwanted types. Lord Acton's words, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." rang true in his time, and certainly spoke true of most vigilante groups who more often than not degenerated over time to administering self-serving vengeance. In some Texas communities, counter-vigilante groups emerged to watch over the vigilance committees.

In 1873, a vigilante group operating in Parker County pursued and hanged horse thief, Nancy Hill in Montague County. Hill is notable as the only woman ever hanged in Montague County. After Hill's demise, vigilantes grabbed Nancy's sisters, Katherine and Martha and hung both three miles south of Springtown. The vigilantes then proceeded to burn the Hill farm and pursue the remaining family members. Nancy's mother, Dusky, and sisters, Adeline and Eliza, were captured, shot, and killed.

Due to the violence shown the Hill family, most historians believe their murders were the result of prejudices that labeled the family as "Yankee Sympathizers." Father, Allen Hill, was killed ten years earlier over the considered prejudices and eldest brother, Jack Hill, was killed in early 1873 after an argument with Aaron Bloomer.

Only the two youngest Hill children, Belle, (12) and Allen Jr. (11) were spared the mob's wrath. Belle and Allen Jr. were turned over to "Good Samaritan" citizens in Springtown, Texas. After that, both Belle and Allen Jr. become lost in history.

None of the murdered Hill women were buried as citizens feared the vigilante mobs who had hanged or shot the family. Sometime later, it was reported that former Texas Rangers, Al Thompson and Dock Maupin defied the watchmen and buried the decaying bodies of the women in Springtown.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

Charles Stillman

In 1849 Charles Stillman, a steamship magnate who founded Brownsville, challenged one south Texas ranchero, Rafael Garcia Cavazos, an heir to the 1781 Spanish grant, El Agostadero del Espiritu Santo, in court. Stillman claimed land title based on his purchase of squatter's land in the Espiritu Santo grant. After years of legal battles, Cavazos prevailed, but was forced to sell to Stillman's lawyers several months later after the attorneys threatened to appeal the court verdict. Cavazos relented, as he could not finance further legal battles. Stillman later purchased the disputed land from his attorneys.

The Espiritu Santo litigation was indicative of the struggles of many Hispanic landowners in south Texas. Most historians believe that Juan Nepomuceno Cortina's rise as a bandit was a direct result of the Espiritu Santo court battle. Cortina's mother was one of the heirs to the El Agostadero del Espiritu Santo grant. Cortina protested the loss of Mexican land to Anglos by rustling cattle from ranches in south Texas. Cortina, a common thief to Texans, and a hero to Mexicans, was also known as, "the Red Robber of the Rio Grande"

In 1850, the Bourland-Miller Commission was established to consider all claims in the Nueces Territory and establish procedures for claimants. By 1852, the legislature approved the majority of claims in favor of the Spanish and Mexican applicants.

Stillman's son, James, had two daughters, both of whom married into the William Rockefeller family.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

The South Texas Plains

The brush country of south Texas, also referred to as the brasada, is home to numerous and varied species of plant life, each equipped with its own armament of thorns and barbs. The brasada of 1878 was thick with prickly-pear, cats-claw, Spanish dagger, black chaparral, twisted acacia, all-thorn, wild currant, and mesquite. Photo- Longhorns in the South Texas Brasada

The brasada required that a brush cowboy’s equipment be suited to working in these dense and dogged thickets. Every brush hand’s armor included toe-fenders on his stirrups, leather leggins that covered his legs all the way to his waist, (no respectable brush cowboy ever referred to his leggins as chaps), gloves that extended past his wrists, and a wide-brimmed hat that could be tied around his chin.

J. Frank Dobie wrote in A Vaquero in the Brush Country, that, “In running in the brush a man rides not so much on the back of the horse as under and alongside. He just hangs on, dodging limbs as if he were dodging bullets, back, forward, over, under, half of the time trusting his horse to course right on this or that side of a bush or tree. If he shuts his eyes to dodge, he is lost. Whether he shuts them or not, he will, if he runs true to form, get his head rammed or raked. Patches of the brush hand’s bandana hanging on thorns and stobs sometimes mark his trail. The bandana of red is his emblem.”

The brasada was also home to Texas and Mexican bandits and desperadoes. In the parlance of the time, they were known as owl hoots, bad men who rustled, robbed, and murdered at their own will. Texas and Mexican bandits used the brasada as an exchange point. The Texas rustlers often had Mexican cattle to dispose of that carried no known state brand and contrariwise.

Mike Kearby's Texas Copyright 2010

The First Caudillo

The word, caudillo, as used in Mexico, came to mean a political-military leader. Caudillo, translated into English as “leader,” or “chief,” but as in most peasant societies, the word came to express a dictator or potentate. The Merrimam-Webster dictionary defines caudillo as “a Spanish or Latin-America military dictator.” Image -
Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Aramburu

One of the best known caudillos in Mexican history was José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, also known as Pancho Villa. Villa was a provisional governor of the Mexican state of Chihuahua from 1913-1914.

Villa led a 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico, which resulted in a year-long expedition by General John J. Pershing to find the “bandit.” Pershing’s pursuit proved unsuccessful.
Pancho Villa was assassinated in 1920 by seven gunmen outside of Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Other historically famous Mexican caudillos were Antonio López de Santa Anna Pérez de Lebrón, Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Aramburu, José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori, and Álvaro Obregón Salido.

Iturbide marched troops into Mexico City on September 27, 1821. The following day, Mexico was declared an independent empire. Iturbide is known as Mexico’s first caudillo.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

The Marlow Brothers

In 1888, Deputy Marshall Ed Johnson of Graham labeled five Young County men, the Marlow brothers, as rustlers and murderers. Many historians believe Johnson concocted the story against the brothers as a means of gaining favor with the powerful cattleman's association. Johnson's work for the association, had failed to apprehend any of the known rustlers working in the county.

Sheriff Marion Wallace of Graham tried to serve papers on the Marlow's at the behest of Johnson on December 17, 1888. Wallace was shot by Boone Marlow and died a week later. Boone Marlow claimed that Deputy Tom Collier, who accompanied Wallace that evening, fired the first shots inside his house and then fled outside. Boone said he pursued Collier and seeing a man approaching, gun in hand, shot and mistakenly killed Wallace. Boone took flight, but brothers, George, Epp, Alfred, and Charley were arrested and jailed in Graham.

On January 14, 1889, the captured brothers dug out of their jail cell, but were recaptured the next day outside of their ranch. Tom Collier, now sheriff, shackled the men together in pairs to prevent any further attempts at escape. A vigilante group mobbed
the jail on the night of January 17 in an attempt to extricate the Marlow's to a suitable place for lynching, but the brothers thwarted their assailants. George struck one vigilante, Robert Hill, so hard that the man died of his injuries two days later.

The next morning, a concocted story made its way through Graham saying that the jailhouse ruckus had been caused by Boone Marlow's attempt to free his brothers and only the jailer's bravery prevented such escape. A telegraph sent to United States Marshall, William Cabell in Dallas repeated the fabrication. Cabell immediately ordered his deputy, Ed Johnson, to move the brothers to Weatherford for safekeeping.

The day of the transport, outside of Graham, on Dry Creek, the vigilantes attacked the brothers once again. At the fight's conclusion, three vigilantes lay dead, as well as Alfred and Epp Marlow.
Boone Marlow was killed in Indian Territory on January 28, 1889.
In 1892, damage suits brought against their attackers awarded Charley Marlow $1950.00 and George Marlow $1000.00.

The movie, The Sons of Katie Elder, was based on the Marlow brother's story.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

The Dictator and Thomas Adams

Thomas Adams (1818-1905) was the first person in the United States to manufacture chewing gum that had chicle as the base ingredient. Image - Thomas Adams.

Large quantities of chicle, which comes from the sapodilla tree in Central America, had been given Adams by friends of General Antonio López de Santa Anna. The former Mexican dictator was in exile at the time and spent time at Adams’ house on Staten Island. Santa Anna persuaded Adams that the inexpensive chicle could be compounded with the more expensive rubber to make an economical alternative for carriage tires.

Adams tried for a year but was unsuccessful at every attempt to accomplish the ex-dictator’s “get-rich” scheme. One day, after yet another rubber failure, Adams is reported to have popped a piece of chicle into his mouth. He remembered that Santa Anna enjoyed chewing chicle gum. Adams realized that the softer chicle gum was superior to the paraffin wax gum that was popular at the time in the United States.

Shortly after that, Adams and his oldest son, Thomas Jr., made up “penny sticks” of the gum and distributed them to a local drugstore. The chicle gum was an instant hit. Adams sold his chicle gum with the slogan "Adams' New York Gum No. 1 - Snapping and Stretching."

In 1888, Adams’ Tutti-Frutti flavored gum was the first gum to be sold in a vending machine. By 1899, Adams Sons and Company had become the largest and most profitable chewing gum company in the United States. In that same year, Adams and five other chewing gum companies joined forces as the American Chicle Company. Thomas Jr. was named chairman of the board of directors for the new company.

Thomas Adams Sr. died in 1905.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2009