Our Old Jack
He used to be kept at Grandad's. Dad built a stout lot with a good high fence and moved him to the Hittson. It was a small lot so he couldn't get a run and climb up over the fence. A Donkey-- Burro-- Jackass has long ears and slant eyes. They are patient, bull headed and stubborn. They may wait 20 years to hurt you. A donkey's bray is a long honking whistling. It sounds like a tired old man slowly sawing on an iron pipe with a rusty hacksaw. A mule is the sterile offspring of a horse and jack. Dad bought race mares that couldn't win any more, and bred them with Old Jack. Mules were valuable, as much as $300. Mules are tougher than horses, less excitable and more sure-footed. Grandad and sometimes Dad took them to Arkadelphia, Arkansas. They sold them at Uncle George's big livestock barn. Grandad bought a house in town. It was close to the race track, by the jockey yard. Dad owned several race horses. I sure did like to watch them race, 'Diltz' was one.
Our Old Jack, we were afraid of him---as if he was a real devil. A Jack can outfight a stallion. He can dart under the horse's neck and grab a leg. Break the leg with his jaws and then go for the throat. We were to stay away from his pen. We never went to the barn when friends come. Etta remembers the time he broke the gate down and was out in the pasture. "Dad was in town and Mama called every place in town until she found him. We stayed in the house, maybe under the bed, until Dad got him back in his lot."
Our Old Jack, he was mean. The day Granpa Hess died, May 28, 1916. Dad must have got careless. He was putting feed out for the Old Jack and Old Jack bit him on the breast. It made a bad sore and hurt him for years. 30 years later Dad was riding his horse up the steep east bank of the Brazos. He was going to our mail box.(There wasn't any rural delivery on our side of the river.) His saddle gert broke, he had braided it out of binder twine. Dad fell on the saddle horn and badly bruised that old spot where the Old Jack had bit him. Dad had a bad sore that was cancer. He had much treatment and radiation, that burned him. Dad died Apr 18, 1949.
The Tornado
One morning after breakfast, Dad had gone to town, Mama and the boys saw a threatening cloud coming from the SW, that's where most storms come from. But it was unusual for a storm to come in the morning. It was big and dark. A neighbor called and wanted to know if we had seen it.
Our storm cellar
Mama lit the lantern and we checked the cellar for snakes. It was about 7 by 8 foot, with dirt walls and wooden shelves built against them. It had an air vent, but there was no window or light, a man had to stoop over. The inside top of the room was logs, close together, about a foot above the ground level. That was to hold the dirt that was piled up, on top, on the outside roof, to keep it dry. Most every one planted cactus on the top, to keep the kids from playing on it. That would slide the dirt off and it would leak. We laid pretty rocks on the cellar top. We would look and remember where we found this one and who gave us that one. Mama stored the fruit and vegetables, that she put in jars, on the cellar shelves. She 'put up' what she raised in the garden, in the summer. We ate it in the winter. There were peaches, plums, jelly, grape juice, and pork sausage too, and always a crock of sour kraut. The cellar was always cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Dad made wine down there too. He was awful strict as to who drank any of his wine. Us kids never got any of it. The cellar always smelled good with a strange musty smell. Steps were notched out in the dirt. A heavy door leaned over and closed it. There was a rope to lift the door up to open it, and a rope to hold on the inside, if the wind tried to pull it open. You would be scared to go into the musty smelling dark place. On sunny days, we opened the cellar door, to 'air it out', we had to watch that it stayed dry. Sometimes a snake would be in there, we always kept a stick leaning up handy. Fleas got in the cellar once, and Dad had Dock tie his goat down there, to get rid of them.
Black was afraid of a storm, he wanted to go to the cellar. Dock was afraid of closed places, he would not go in the cellar and close the door. Dock got on the back porch with his goat and her two kids. We got inside of the cellar and stood on the steps, watching the threatening clouds. When the wind started, Mama shut the heavy door, we were glad that we had the lantern. After the wind quit roaring, we opened the door and looked out. Dock and the house were fine. When we looked up toward our big barns---hay was showing. Dad and the boys had stacked hay in it, clean to the roof. One side of the roof of one barn was gone, it held together and we found it a quarter of a mile down in the pasture. The shingles were all blown off, on the other side of the roof. Mama called 'Howard and Whites' in town to tell Dad. He wasn't in the store, so they stepped to the door and called him. He got the word and called home. They had a time building the roof back on that barn. That was the only bad storm that we ever had. Years later, Etta was talking to a man across the river, he told her that he had watched as our barn roof lifted up. He watched it sail, a quarter of a mile, down in the pasture.
Etta remembers---Our Car
We got the Hittson ranch paid for in 1925. Dad gave us a 'certain field'. He told us we could raise cotton on that land and put the money to buy us a car. Oh, we worked. One day before Mama rang the bell for dinner, the boys all come in from hoeing. Mama asked them why they were early. They said, "The grasshoppers pushed our car off the bluff, into the river." Dad come in and said, "The grasshoppers are so bad, that they are going to eat up all the young cotton plants, this year." And they did. In 1926, we tried it again and bought a new Ford, I think we paid $500. We were so proud. Cam had owned a little one-seated Ford, but we couldn't all get in it. Dad never did try to drive, it seemed to just be 'in' the boys. If some of us went with Dad, or if something had to be hauled, he took the wagon.
One year cotton prices were so low
Dad left 60 bales of cotton at the gin in town, to be sold later. The gin and all our cotton burned. The banks went broke. After a year, the banks paid 60% of what was deposited. It made us always cautious of banks. "You better watch them and not put all your money in the same one."
The Jury
It got him every year, he usually stayed in Palo Pinto for a week. Dad always served on the jury, when he was called. He was very serious about it, all the men were. Any time Dad stayed in Palo Pinto, it was at Aunt Jenny and Uncle Aaron's house. She was his younger sister. They had a ranch outside of town and Uncle Aaron was sheriff for 4 years.
4th of July
It was as big as Christmas to us. All our family got together, every chance we got, especially on the Hess side. The Hess's always tried to have watermelons by then. Our early watermelons always froze on our lower side of the river (cold settles down). Our picnic grounds were on the road, in the river bottom, just up from Oaks Crossing. Years before, a little settlement was started there, at the river crossing. There was a blacksmith shop and a primitive cotton gin. It died out before it had a name. All that is left of it is the remains of where the old well was. Later years we got to having a get-to-gather, there with the neighbors, on the 4th.
Langdon Withers
He remembers coming to the picnics when he was small. Withers' were good friends who lived over across the river in Willow Pond. He remembers them carrying all their food and everything across the river to the picnic. It is a real wide shallow crossing when the river is down.
Oaks Crossing
There is a nice big oil painting of 'Oaks Crossing', by Bettie Flores. It is looking to 'our side' of the river, toward the west. Our land is on the right. The Oaks Crossing was an easy place to get stuck in the sand or to 'drown out' your car. It has fooled a lot of people, but people who live around there, they respect the Brazos.
Firecrackers
The men would shoot the firecrackers and Roman candles across the road, where the little ones couldn't follow. There was lots of noise and so much smoke, that we couldn't hardly see them. We all had fun. Us kids got little bitty firecrackers for Christmas. Dad took the fence down and dug a hole, to BBQ one or sometimes two heifers or a goat. He would dig the hole and start the fire the night before. Mama would have the salt and spices mixed up. Dad could BBQ or smoke meat better than anyone. The neighbors would all pitch in with roast turkey, or guinea or fried chicken. Our Mamas brought every good thing to eat.
A Splivicater
Us kids would find a grapevine hanging, and swing on it. The boys would tie a long rope, away up in a tall tree. We would hold on and swing a long way around. It would make us sore for a week. At the picnic we would have on our best clothes, and didn't get in the water. In the summer we always had a splivicater. We could swing out, and turn loose and land in the water, usually from the river bank.
After dinner, across the road in Fritz Moore's field, we had our rodeo. We had a big pretty white faced bull. Cam always rode him first. That was the most exciting thing. He really bucked hard, Cam always stayed on. One year 'Big Bill' Glidwell thought he would 'get ahead' of Cam, He wanted to ride the bull first, so he got on. He got bucked off and he never wanted to ride him again. We had another bull, a big old wild looking one, blue-grey with little horns. We left him alone, Cam never rode him. Dock and Hanner would rope calves or goats, Black never wanted in on it. It was easy to get up a rodeo. The Boone and Harrington Boys and Fritz Alex, always liked it and had a part.
Etta remembers 1927
It was the next to last year that we had our big picnic. Black and Leona were getting interested in one another. Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel, Cordis and Janie, come to the 4th celebration, they lived across the river. They brought Leona and her younger sister, Lorena. Tude Lynn was there, Boney's Mother. Tude's Mother was a Moore. They lived in the McEntire house, on the river, just up from us. Dad said the meat was ready to eat. He could cook it so good. Mama and Mrs. Boone and the others had their big tablecloths spread on the ground, they were opening things up. All at once it started raining--- And it just poured, we grabbed everything up. We all headed up the hill to one of our big dry barns, it was about a mile. Dora and Don (Donna) our cousins, Aunt Sude and Uncle John Oaks girls, had come in their hack. (A bigger buggy, that had two seats and two horses). Going up the steep place, at the gate to the graveyard, one of the horses slipped and fell. I was in the hack with them and I was scared. The other horse stood and waited on him to get up. We hurried on to one of our big barns. It had a big open hall down the center. They again spread the tablecloths on the ground--there in the cow lot, and set dinner out. We were all in the dry, it was just coming a gully washer. Water broke thru under the upper edge of the barn and it was running 'smack dab' toward our dinner. They ditched it and turned the water. We ate dinner, it was extra good. Our barns were on a bluff overlooking the river. Dad was watching off to the west, to the Glidewell bend.
River Rising
He saw the water beginning to rush and to rise. "If you want to get back across the river, you better get down to that crossing." Everybody started hurrying. The hack was faster, Dora and Don got across safely. The river was rising. Mr. Gabriel started across the river---their wagon bed started floating. (They are built so they can float, instead of turn over). The Gabriels' were in it, 'holding on for dear life'. Cam, Dock, Black, and Hanner and the Boone boys were there with their horses. They rode alongside the wagon, holding the bed in place, and holding the heads of the two horses---until they all got up on the far bank safely. The rising river was swirling and muddy. One of the boys yelled, "Let's go home." They jumped their horses into the swift water and swum them back on our side. The boys were all raised on the river. They tolerated it, that they were sometimes called "River Rats."
The next 4th of July,1928, people from town had heard about our picnic. When dinner was spread, they hadn't brought much to eat---if anything, they rushed in and ate ours. That was the last picnic that we had on our place.
July 4th 1930
We lived at Breckenridge. There was a big celebration at Lovers Retreat every year. It was a well known camping place. It was popular for Old Settler and Civil War Reunions. There was no charge and every one was welcome, 3 miles west of Palo Pinto, off highway 80, up against Eagle Creek and the bluffs. There are beautiful rock formations and long narrow cracks in big high rocks. We walked and wiggled our way through them. They were 'fat man's misery'. Some cracks were narrower, they were 'skinny man's misery'. It was a fun place. Eagle creek run nearly all year, and it had a good swimming hole. We would drive the 30 miles from Breckenridge. All of my family from Mineral Wells, would drive 20 miles and meet us there. After the big dinner, there was the rodeo. There were no big fences, we all parked our cars, close together, in a big circle to make an arena. First the bull riding, it was a different bull, he really bucked hard, but Cam rode him. Everybody got excited and cheered and started honking their horns. That bull got scared--He run, he was looking for a hole, to get out!! He run around and headed for a little crack by our car, we all run out of his way, All except my daughter, Annie Louise. She stood there as big as she could---for 8 years old, she jumped up and down and waved and yelled. That bull come charging, bellering---he was coming through!! In a second the crowd got quiet. At the last instant---that bull turned. The whole crowd let out a cheer. She didn't know why I run and hugged her, and then shook her. She remembers the cheers. That is the only 4th of July that she remembers. That is another time God was watching over us. The owner tried to sell the land to Palo Pinto County for a park, in 1916. The taxpayers voted 413 for and 1169 against---a tax of five cents on the hundred. It is all fenced off now, you can't even find it.
The Baptists
They had camp meetings there for many years. George W Truett, a popular, well known Baptist preacher was holding a revival there Grandad and Granmama went to the camp meeting in their wagon, this one lasted two weeks. Some families would come, leading their cow behind their wagon. It was the only way they could have milk. Some of the people brought chickens in a coop, so they could have chickens to fry and to boil for dumplins. Grandad was baptized there in the swimming hole on Eagle creek at Lovers Retreat. There is a big group picture of them taken at that baptizing. It is hanging on the wall of the First Baptist Church, in Mineral Wells. Granmama had been baptized in the Brazos River, by the Rev. Mr Slaughter. It was soon after they come to Texas in 1875. She was a Baptist for about 60 years.
Comanche Indians
We did not know that in 1850 the Indians had a thriving village there, where we call Lovers Retreat. Chief Ned was noted as a daring leader. He was a big man and he had a head for fighting. He was angered that white men were coming onto the Indians land and that he had lost one of his favorite broncs to General Arnolds' scouts. General Ripley Arnold led the Second United States Dragoons. He established Fort Worth with only 42 men, officers included. Chief Ned was determined to get his Indians together and wipe out the new Fort Worth. The Indians had a wild war dance at their village, (later Lovers Retreat). They were determined to swoop down on the small fort and wipe it out. Chief Ned led 100 warriors, and Chief Feathertail led 100, on a longer way around. Chief Ned's party stopped , resting for the early next morning fight. Army scouts surprised them sleeping and killed 52 of them. Chief Ned escaped. The rest retreated to their secure village. Major Arnold went cautiously after them. The first night the soldiers camped at the Brazos river, it had to be, at Oaks Crossing, it was on the major trail. The next night they made camp near the village. The village was attacked in the silence of dawn, a three prong attack was used again. The Indians were waiting---war whoops roared and echoed through the canyon. Arrows poured from behind every rock. But the repeating rifles and the experienced soldiers overcome the Indians. Chief Feathertail was bold and daring. He moved here and there, encouraging the Indians, he was shot in the head. His followers, dragging their leader with them, soon gave way in panic. A secret exit into a narrow canyon was used by the Indians to escape. They left 45 dead. Five army regulars were killed and buried where they lay, 15 were wounded. Fort Worth was saved. Major Arnold rested his remaining 36 soldiers and then set back out for their fort. They passed the little mountain that would be named Barber Mountain. Again they crossed the Hittson ranch land--- where I would be raised. Past where the school house would be, where my Mama was at school in 1883. When she saw Indians slipping along in the trees. Again crossing the Brazos River at the same place where I was baptized in 1914.
Chief Ned
He was still determined to wipe out the hated Fort Worth garrison. Six months later, he had what was left of his same band and other Indians. He was ready to fight again. Major Arnold was expecting another attack, waiting and watching. The new fort was where the big courthouse is now, overlooking the Trinity River. His scouts reported many Indians nearing from the southwest. Major Arnold had a new six-pound howitzer at the fort. He had it facing southwest. Early one morning a large number of Indians come creeping up over the bluff. This powerful gun belched forth--- dropping a shell in their midst. It exploded and they scrambled back down over the bluff. The soldiers chased them. Many were killed and the others left out. They moved back further west. Chief Ned saw that guns would overcome arrows. He accepted amnesty and lived a peaceful life for many years.
Note: This account was written by Dr. Carrol M Peak, post surgeon at Fort Worth in 1853. He talked with the soldiers right after battle and he kept notes. He knew the soldiers involved and lived in the fort with them.
Copyright © 2004-2005 by Anne Louise Moore - All rights reserved.