Traces of Tx (today)

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader John Miller was nice enough to submit this DYNAMITE piece of Texas history. This is the grave of Barnabus Burch, who, along with 40 other Union loyalists, was hanged on October 19, 1862 in the "Great Hanging" in Gainesville, Texas. The Great Hanging is still the largest mass hanging in the history of the United States.
From a family history: "Barnabus Burch was an old man in his seventies and almost 'bed ridden with rhymatiz', what we now call arthritis. He was one of the two or three men who were hauled to Gainesville in a wagon because he could not mount a horse. The Burch family lived just north of what is now Burns City.
At the mock trial, Barnabus Burch made the statement: 'one night recently I had a dream, I thought this was a needless war. I thought the North over ran the South. This disheartened me. Truly, old men shall see visions and young men dream dreams." He was found guilty and hanged. All of the men who were hanged had signed the Montgomery Act.
After Barnabus Burch was hanged, his body, with all of the others who were hanged, was thrown in a warehouse, on the square, that was owned by James Bourland. The next day Burch's wife and daughter, Elizabeth Ann (Burch) Neely went to Gainesville and brought his body back to his farm. The two women dug the deepest grave they could and buried him in a fence row, near Wade Lake. It is now the Marvin Cason place…
The irony of all this is that the son-in-law of Barnabus Burch, James Neely, Jr. was away fighting for the Confederacy when the hangings occurred. James Martin Neely, Jr. was in Morgan’s Battalion and saw action in Arkansas and Louisiana."
Barnabus Burch had moved to Hood County, Texas, from Missouri about 1850, then to Cooke County by 1860. He was approximately seventy years of age, and crippled with arthritis, when he paid twelve cents in taxes on his personal property in 1862. His name is penciled in above that of “Thomas Burch” on the 1862 tax roll for Cooke County.
Thank you, John Miller. What an off-the-beaten-path Texas history find!

[MuddyWaters62]

The local college, some actors, volunteers from the local theater put on a local renactment of the Great Hanging. The local libraries and museum helped with the historical facts. The event was an all day affair with the conclusion at the actual hanging site. Several narrators gave talks at various places that were involved with actual events of that day. This was in October 2012. I fancy myself as a history buff, but I had to work my day job. The 150th Anniversary of "The Great Hanging" was a well attended event. I am not aware if an another event will happen.

Muddy Waters69

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Chino Chapa thoughtfully sent in this nifty shot of cattle driver & soon to be famous-outlaw Sam Bass posing for a portrait in Dallas with 3 other cowboys in 1876. This is the only known AUTHENTICATED photo of Bass, who is standing on the right.
Bass and his friends were cattle drivers when this Dallas studio portrait was taken while on a stopover on the Shawnee Trail (possibly ... it might be that they were on the Chisholm Trail). He became a wanted man after he and Joel Collins, holding gun, pocketed a rancher's profits after a successful cattle drive to Kansas and then went on to Deadwood to become train robbers.
Bass and his gang would then pull off the largest heist in Union Pacific history with the famous Big Springs train robbery in Nebraska. He came back to hide out in Texas, where he robbed four more trains and stagecoaches around Dallas before finally being shot and killed in Round Rock on his 27th birthday in 1878.
In this photo, left to right clockwise are: John E. Gardner and Bass, standing, then seated, Joel Collins, with finger on the trigger pointing gun at his brother, Joe Collins.
I know that some of y'all are going to post other photos of Sam Bass but from everything I can gather after researching for a good portion of this afternoon this is the only one that shows Bass with certainty. And many of the other photos do not look like the Sam Bass shown here, so I don't believe that they are the same man shown in this photo.
Thank you, Chino! Excellent photo!

[Shakey Jake]

The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:
Herman Lehmann, the man shown in this photo, was born in 1859 in Loyal Valley, Texas, which is 23 miles north of Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country. In May 1870, when he had never been to school and spoke only German, Herman, who was almost eleven years of age, and a younger brother, Willie, were captured by raiding Apaches; two younger sisters who were with them were not taken.
Willie escaped and returned home in about nine days. Herman was adopted by his Apache captor, Carnoviste, and initiated into the rigors of Indian life. He underwent harsh tribal training and initiation, became a warrior, and took part in expeditions against the Texas Rangers, Comanches, Mexicans, and White settlers, ranging with the tribe from the Guadalupe Mountains in New Mexico down into the Mason County-San Saba region and into Mexico.
After Carnoviste was killed and Lehmann himself had killed an Apache medicine man, he spent a year alone on the plains of West Texas before joining the Comanches, to whom he was known as Montechena (Montechina); he had also been called at various times En Da and Alamán. With the Comanches he fought the Tonkawas and United States Cavalry, and he again took part in Indian raids. He was with the last Quahadi remnant that joined the reservation at Fort Sill in what is now Oklahoma. He was adopted by Quanah Parker but was ultimately recognized as a White captive and forced to return in May 1878 to his Texas family, who had thought him dead for the eight years he lived with the Indians.
At home he refused to eat pork or sleep in a bed, and he embarrassed his family by sometimes appearing before his mother's hotel guests with his body painted, dressed only in leggings, breech clout, and feathers. He startled a revival meeting with an Indian dance, thinking the congregation was praying for rain. His brother Willie kept him from killing the neighbors' calves and hogs and from stealing horses from adjoining farms. He relearned German, learned English, engaged in numerous odd jobs, tried for a single day to attend school, and worked as a trail driver.
Although he never fully adjusted to White society fully, Herman did accept his role in the Loyal Valley community, and his easygoing nature and good humor seem to have made him many friends. After an unhappy earlier marriage ended in divorce, he married Miss Fannie Light in 1890, and the couple had two sons and three daughters. Later, as a Comanche, he was given Oklahoma lands by the United States government, and he spent much of his time there.
He was a local celebrity throughout the Texas Hill Country, where he gave many public exhibitions of skill at riding, roping, and archery. To thrill audiences, such as he did in 1925 at the Old Settlers Reunion in Mason County, he would chase a calf around an arena, kill it with arrows, jump off his horse, cut out the calf's liver, and eat it raw. In later years he met many of the Texas Rangers and soldiers he had fought against as an Indian. He died on February 2, 1932, and was buried in Loyal Valley.
Citation: A. C. Greene, “Lehmann, Herman,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed November 28, 2022, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/ent ... ann-herman.

[Shakey Jake]

Traces of Texas reader Bear Charlton was so kind as to send this photo of his great grandfather, Robert Charlton, on the X Ranch near Kent, Texas. Kent is about 80 miles west of Fort Stockton on I-10. Robert Charlton is shown either second from the left or at the far left in this photo. Robert had immigrated from England 15-20 years before this was taken. All of that's great but what's really AWESOME is that Bear has the hat that Robert was wearing in this photo. It's a Stetson that was bought in Kent at the Kent Mercantile Co. Check out the photos of this hat that Bear sent in. Bear said he wants to get it reconditioned but can't find a custom hatmaker that's willing to take on the job, so he wrote Stetson and asked if they can do it. He's awaiting a reply now. I've tagged them in hopes that they see it and respond here.
How cool is this? A 100-year-old Stetson that appears to be in decent shape and a photo of the real-life cowboy wearing the hat. SUPER DUPER!
Thank you, Bear. This is fantastic.

[Shakey Jake]

Things looking pretty nice out at Garner State Park!
https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/garner

[Shakey Jake]

The Arcane Texas Fact of the Day:
The growth of Dallas, like that of many Texas cities, was aided enormously by a bit of chicanery. The men in this photo are shown standing at a place in Dallas called Browder's Springs, located where South Saint Paul Street meets the R.L. Thornton Freeway today. Browder's Springs were noteworthy for two reasons. Reason # 1: The springs were the first public water supply developed in Dallas. Reason # 2 is where the chicanery comes in.
In 1871, when the state legislature was debating a bill granting right of way to the Texas and Pacific, the T&P was planning a line west from Marshall along the thirty-second parallel, intended to cross the Houston and Texas Central near Corsicana. Representative John W. Lane of Dallas managed to attach a rider to the bill specifying that the T&P must cross the H&TC "within one mile of Browder's Springs." The bill passed before it was discovered that Browder's Springs was only a mile from the Dallas County Courthouse. Ha! Can you imagine? Anyway, Dallas leaders placated the outraged railroad officials by raising a large bond issue ($100,000) for the benefit of the railroad and donating a right-of-way through town. That right of way is now Pacific Avenue. But it was because of this ruse that Dallas became the first rail crossroads in the state and the shipping center for north central Texas, eventually resulting in Tom Landry and Roger Staubach.
This photo is courtesy the @dallasarchives and comes courtesy @theportaltotexashistory .

[Shakey Jake]

Whenever one of y'all sends me an image that I think I SHOULD have seen but have never seen, it blows me away. This photo of Comanche leader Quanah Parker was sent in by Traces of Texas reader Ben Gilliland. I have probably 150 photos of him and this is not one. And it is a magnificent shot. Wowzers!
Thank you, Ben. Super Duper!

[Shakey Jake]

The Texas Quote of the Day finds Jim McIntire, ex-Texas Ranger, cowboy, outlaw and gambler, relating how he left Ohio and became a cowboy in Texas:
"Southern Ohio was a great chicken-fighting country at that time, and the sport is not dead there yet. When I was at home, I had nothing to do, and I liked to see the chickens perform with the spurs on. Well, to make a long story short, I got to fighting chickens as regularly as some people "shoot the can." I was always on the lookout for a rooster that could fight and picked up some pretty good ones. Every night mill-men, nail-makers, and corner-loafers, to the number of forty or fifty, would assemble in the basement of a grocery, and the fun would begin. Betting was never very heavy, as shinplasters were in circulation then, and amounts were small as compared with amounts wagered in the twentieth century. My father learned of my adventures with the birds and gave me a scolding that I shall never forget.
About this time I had developed an ambition to be a cowboy and see life on the plains as portrayed by the dime novels I had been reading. I could not get over my father's scolding, and as another boy, whose name was Cash Denny, had ambitions along the same line, we ran away from home together. Denny is at present the proprietor of two prosperous meat markets in Denison, Texas. We first went to New Orleans, but did not stop there long, as we were anxious to get into the cow country.
From New Orleans we went up the Red River to Shreveport, Louisiana, and from there walked along with some bull teams to the place where Dallas, Texas, now stands. Dallas was but a straggling village then. There were only a few houses, a mere 17 trading-point for the cattlemen. There wasn't a railroad nor a fence in the whole State of Texas, and we were where our cowpunching ambitions could be gratified. We were not overburdened with baggage, as Cash could easily take care of his one extra shirt, while I had only an extra pair of pants to look after. I had all the money, which consisted of a two-dollar bill. We were not much worried over our finances, but when I found a roll of shinplasters which contained three dollars and fifty cents, we were full of enthusiasm. Our enthusiasm led us to purchase a link of Bologna sausage and start for Ft. Worth. At the time we reached Ft. Worth the town consisted of one house. Old Man Terrel lived there and kept a feed-yard, where we secured lodgings for the night The next morning found us on our way to Weatherford. As we were coming into the Indian country, we began to feel just a little nervous at times. Whenever we came to a creek, we would pull out our little four-barreled pistols and investigate. We were very cautious, as we had read in our yellow books how cautious Indian-fighters were.
When night overtook us, we found a house which was inhabited by an old gray-haired man and woman. They were of the old rebel sort and wouldn't let us stay all night, because we were from the North. It was hard to have to pull out and "hit" the plains for the night, and as we were awful hungry, as boys will sometimes become under similar conditions, I shot one of the old man's young pigs, which got in the way of my pistol. We built a fire and were preparing to hold a high carnival over the roast pig, when the old man set his bulldog on us. As we did not care to have the dog make a supper off of us, we ran away, leaving the pig on the fire. We did not care to pass up the old man's generous hospitality entirely, so, after it was good and dark, we crept back and registered for a night's lodging in the haystack. We were hungry and tired all at once, and could have thoroughly appreciated a nice warm meal at home. While we were thinking over our misfortunes, a noise on the outside of the stack startled us. We thought of the Indians, our hair assumed a Pompadour aspect. However, we got our 18 guns ready, and, on peering out, saw that it was a man. We spoke to him, and he answered in a white man's voice, which sort of acted as a safety-valve on our throbbing hearts. It turned out to be a humpbacked peddler, and we were so glad that it wasn't an Indian that we welcomed him to share our castle.
We were two hungry boys when we awoke next morning, but not any hungrier than the peddler who shared the haystack with us. We didn't stop to prepare much of a toilet, but set out early for Weatherford, the peddler accompanying us. His pack was heavy and his stomach light. He grumbled continuously, which did not do much toward making things cheerful. We trudged along, however, determined to make Weatherford by night. We had not traveled far until we found a big new dishpan which had fallen from a passing wagon. We carried this along, hoping that we would find an opportunity or two for using it. A few miles farther on the opportunity came, for as we were passing a grove we noticed a company of Africans preparing breakfast after having spent the night in the grove. We could think of nothing but how hungry we were, and the bacon the Africans were broiling smelled awfully good. We made them a proposition to trade our dishpan for some bacon and corn bread, and, as dish-pans were valuable assets on the frontier of Texas, we had no trouble in reaching an agreement. With a fairly good supply of corn bread and bacon under our belts, we "hit" the road for Weatherford again. After tramping all day without anything further in the way of food disturbing our stomachs, we landed in Weatherford about dark, a little more tired and a little more homesick than when we registered at the strawstack. We cut loose from the peddler and went to the old Blackwell Hotel, where we got supper and a good bed. The Blackwell Hotel was a two-dollar house and we had only a two-dollar bill between us, but we put up a bold front and did not allow such little things as becoming stranded to worry us. However, we were so tired that we went to bed soon after supper. We got up early the next morning and started out to look for work. I ran into J.C. Loving, a 19 stock man, who was hiring all the men he could get to protect the cattle on his ranch from the depredations of the Indians. I struck him for a job for myself and companion, and, as we were likely-looking youngsters, he hired us. We went back to the hotel in high spirits over our good luck, especially as the work was right in line with the yellow-backed novels we had read back in Ohio. After settling up with the landlord, we joined Loving for a trip to the ranch.
The Indians were pretty bad at that time, and their boldness in committing depredations was alarming. There were all kinds of stories floating around the town about how the Indians were attacking the ranches and killing and burning as they went. These stories were not exaggerated either, for on one occasion they rode into Weatherford and drove off all the horses hitched to the court-house hitching-rack in the center of the town. This little incident of frontier life had happened just a few days before our arrival in Weatherford, and was a sample of what we could expect in the future.
Loving's ranch was in the Big Loss Valley in Jack County, where the Indians were the worst. After he had hired all the men he could pick up, we started for the ranch. There were about thirty-five men in the party, and with a large number of horses and several supply-wagons we started out in true Texas frontier style. The journey to the ranch was made without incident, except while we were passing through Jacksboro we saw two dead men lying on the sidewalk who had been killed in a dance-hall row the night before. The scene was too much for our "tender-foot" hearts, and we would gladly have exchanged the adventures of ranch life for the comforts of home. But there was no turning back now, and we kept our places in the procession until we arrived at the ranch about the middle of the afternoon."
----- Jim McIntire, "Early Days in Texas," 1902

[Shakey Jake]

Here's one from the Texas State Historical Society and not Traces of Texas about Lone Wolf, a Kiowa chief whose Indian name is usually written Guipago, was a leader among the militant minority of his tribe during the violent transition from nomadic to forced reservation life in the 1870s. In the summer of 1856 Lone Wolf's band left their tepees in care of William Bent, at Bent's Fort, while they went on a buffalo hunt. On returning, they discovered that Bent had given the dwellings to the Cheyennes. In the fight that followed, in which Lone Wolf's horse was shot, the Kiowas were driven off, and the Cheyennes kept the tepees. By 1860, however, differences apparently had been resolved as the Kiowas made peace with the northern plains tribes. As a member of the Tsetanma, an elite society of warriors, Lone Wolf soon emerged as a leader among the tribe's militant factions. In 1863 he was among the Indian delegates accompanying United States Indian agent S. G. Colley to Washington in a futile effort to establish a favorable peace policy. Along with other prominent chiefs he signed the Little Arkansas Treaty with federal commissioners on October 18, 1865. In February and March 1866 Lone Wolf led his braves on a series of raids into Texas, where he took 150 horses. He attended the Medicine Lodge Council in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, but did not sign the treaty of October 21, 1867, probably because it did not allow the Kiowas to continue these raids. After the death of Dohäsan in 1868, Lone Wolf succeeded him and shared leadership with Kicking Bird, leader of the peace faction. Lone Wolf was unable to unify the Kiowa tribe.
After hostilities resumed in 1868, Lone Wolf and Satanta agreed to meet with Lt. Col. George A. Custer for the purposes of negotiating peace. On December 17, 1868, the two chiefs, after meeting with Custer under a flag of truce, were brought to Fort Cobb, military headquarters inside the Kiowa-Comanche reservation. Once there, Gen. Philip H. Sheridan ordered them held hostage, and Custer threatened to hang them if the Kiowas did not agree to return to their reservation. This course of action proved effective, for, by the time the two chiefs were released in February 1869, most of the Kiowas had agreed to return to the reservation. For their parts, Lone Wolf and Satanta agreed to keep the peace. However, even though Lone Wolf counseled peace during the early 1870s, he was not always able to control the actions of other Kiowa leaders. He was present at the arrest of Satank, Big Tree, and Satanta by Gen. William T. Sherman at Fort Sill, Indian Territory, for perpetrating the Warren Wagontrain Raid in 1871. On April 30, 1872, Lone Wolf and his son Tau-ankia (Sitting-in-the-Saddle) participated in the attack on a government wagontrain at Howard's Wells, on the San Antonio-El Paso Road, in which seventeen Mexican teamsters were killed. They then fought off a patrol of the Ninth United States Cavalry from Fort Concho. During the skirmish a warrior named Mamadayte rescued the wounded Tau-ankia.
In the fall of 1872 Lone Wolf was chosen by his tribe as a delegate to accompany special commissioner Henry Alford to Washington for a peace conference. There the chief used his influence to secure the parole of Satanta and Big Tree from prison the next year. Hopes of peace were dashed, however, when Tau-ankia and his cousin Guitan were killed by troops of the Fourth United States Cavalry near Kickapoo Springs in Edwards County on December 10, 1873, while returning from a raid into Mexico. In May 1874 Lone Wolf, embittered by his favorite son's death, led a war party to Kickapoo Springs to recover the bodies of Tau-ankia and Guitan and return them for reburial in Kiowa country. This party, which successfully eluded army patrols, was probably the unidentified Indian band that raided the Ninth Cavalry encampment at Johnston Station on the North Concho River and took about twenty-three cavalry horses. These fresh mounts enabled Lone Wolf to escape pursuing troops, and he reburied the remains of his son and nephew on a rocky hill in Mitchell County. The hill and the creek flowing from it became known as Lone Wolf Mountain and Lone Wolf Creek.
With his hatred for the White man fueled, Lone Wolf was among the participants in the attack on Adobe Walls on June 27, 1874, the second battle of Adobe Walls (for this and the "Lost Valley Fight" see RED RIVER WAR). About July 12 his band ambushed and besieged twenty-seven Texas Rangers under Maj. John B. Jones. During the so-called "Lost Valley Fight" two rangers were killed, two more were wounded, and the rangers lost most of their horses. The rest of the group escaped annihilation only through a timely rescue by the Tenth United States Cavalry under Capt. T. A. Baldwin. In the course of this battle, Mamadayte killed ranger David Bailey. The young warrior turned over Bailey's body to Lone Wolf who, after cutting off the ranger's head, declared his son avenged. As a reward for Mamadayte's actions, Lone Wolf adopted him and gave him the name Guopahko, Lone Wolf the Younger.
The majority of the Kiowas followed Kicking Bird's peace faction. Among them Lone Wolf and his followers were never popular. The war party returned briefly to the reservation, but in late August they raided the agency at Anadarko and fled to the Texas Panhandle, where they camped near the headwaters of the Washita River. On September 9 Lone Wolf's band began the unsuccessful attack and siege on Lyman's wagontrain. The Kiowas afterwards retreated into Palo Duro Canyon near the Comanche villages. As a result of this raid, Lone Wolf's village was among the lodges destroyed by Ranald S. Mackenzie's troops on September 28. Despondent and famished, Lone Wolf surrendered his band to the military authorities at Fort Sill about February 26, 1875. He was among the leaders singled out for incarceration at Fort Marion, Florida. Weakened by malaria, he died near Fort Sill in the summer of 1879, soon after his release from prison. He was buried on the north slope of Mount Scott, the highest point in the Wichita Mountains, in the northern part of what is now Comanche County, Oklahoma. His grave is near the site of his old campground.