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Six-Shooters and Shifting Sands
The Wild West Life of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones
By Bob Alexander University of North Texas Press
Copyright © 2015 Bob Alexander
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57441-601-5
CHAPTER 1
"Dragged to the Ground Lanced and Scalped"
AT THE TIME FRANK JONES CAME INTO a Texas world the place could still be legitimately characterized as the wild and woolly West. The Lone Star State was a hotbed for Indians with ideas of raiding and revenge on their minds. Widespread lawlessness had not yet gained its post-Civil War notoriety—that was a few years into the future—but scattered settlements were still in need of sheriffs and town marshals. Even tenderfoot voyagers were counseled about the wisdom of traveling armed, at least with a revolver, preferably with a rifle or shotgun, too! Though it may ring of the melodramatic, if a mid-nineteenth-century player was desirous of finding some genuine blood and thunder adventure, frontier Texas was an ideal piece of real estate.
Texas was tough ground to cover, not only in the countryside but nearer in, say in a burgeoning municipality like Central Texas' Austin. The county of Travis was named after the fallen Alamo commander William Barret Travis, and was pleasantly situated at the eastern edge of the picturesque Texas Hill Country—with her seemingly endless springtime carpet of Bluebonnets. Fledgling as she was, the city of Austin would lay claim to being both a county seat and state capital. She was a town on the make. Created from historically prosperous Bastrop County during 1840, the year of the Great Comanche-Raid, Travis County wasn't officially organized until three years later on the eighth day of April 1843. One should not be naively misled: The formal county organization was no overnight and magic guarantee that horseback marauders wearing war-paint automatically placed the city off limits. Industrious warriors prospected for a gainful break—anywhere.
In fact, right there in Austin on Sunday afternoon 3 November 1844, just 400 yards from the widow Nancy Simpson's West Pecan Street log residence, Indians lay in wait. The planned abduction was near a pushover for lurking raiders. When Mrs. Simpson dispatched her fourteen-year-old daughter Jane and son William, age twelve, to fetch milk cows, the trap sprung shut. Merciless Indians captured for the short term, but later coldly murdered and scalped Jane. Afterward, subsequent to a tortuous spell of captivity, William was ransomed for $137 worth of "tobacco, salt, clothing, blankets, coffee, sugar, powder, and lead."
Scratching for economic survival in early day Texas prompted pioneering folks to examine opportunity wherever it might be lurking. Precisely tracing the entirety of movements and motives for William Early Jones and his second wife, a widow, Keziah (Rector) Baxter Jones, relocating from Seguin, Guadalupe County, to alluring Comal County (county seat New Braunfels) and then to the Curry Creek settlement is not mandatory, but the repeated repositioning is an integral part of the story at hand. Too, at this point it is but appropriate to nip any anticipated puzzlement in the bud. Though for a time period the delightful Curry Creek area could rightfully call Comal County home, such would not always be the case. Simplicity was foreign to the ways Texans do things and in this instance made more knotty by headstrong intrastate squabbles regarding aligning with the anticipated Confederacy. Blanco County (county seat Johnson City) was lopped off of Comal County during 1858, and Kendall County (county seat Boerne) was chiseled from western Blanco and southeastern Kerr (Kerrville) Counties during the first month of 1862. After the surveys and splits and nitpicking about boundary lines Kendall County owned the delightful—but yet perilous—setting of Curry Creek. The enchanting spot was sited north and a touch west of the Alamo City and not too terribly far southwest of Austin. And there, along Upper Curry Creek, William E. and Keziah established their ranch—a homestead—and the base for the raising of livestock for their larder and the marketplace.
William Early Jones, a Georgian by birth, had bathed in the troubled waters of Texas history. Sometimes referred to as "Fiery Jones" the well-educated patriarch was a lawyer, judge, journalist, legislator, political activist and, regrettably in one sense, but not sadly in another, an exultant surviving prisoner of Mexico's infamous Perote Prison. For a spell he partnered with iconic Texas personality John Salmon "Rip" Ford in the newspaper business, publishing the State Times. The fits and starts of city life—if it could really be called that—defending editorial stances, hunting for advertisers and subscribers to keep things afloat, and those tedious days of listening to haranguing lawyers litigate on behalf of this defendant or that plaintiff had worn thin. Taking a respite from much of that nonsense sounded good. Judge Jones had constructed a saw mill and shingle making facility at the confluence of Curry Creek and the Guadalupe River, southeast of the ranch. The fact that such an operation was somewhat labor intensive was of no major concern for Judge Jones: Tax records enumerated "7 Negroes" as a part of his net worth.
With the saws buzzing and livestock wandering across the more than 2,400-acre ranch, William and Keziah began planning for new arrivals to join the twins, William Kenner and James Russell, who had made their initial appearance the year before on June 4, 1849, at Seguin. At what was then Comal County, but now Kendall County, birth of the twins was followed by the arrival of Gerry "Dood" Jones on 24 May 1852 and Pinckney "Pink" Jones on the twenty-first day of March 1854. The births, as would be expected, were greeted with joy.
Other folks were planning their arrival at the Curry Creek ranch—and they wouldn't be welcome visitors. Judge Jones, penning an explanation for the Seguin Mercury of July 21, 1855, introduces readers to the uninvited company: "It is a painful duty devolving upon me to communicate to you the particulars of an Indian outrage just committed in this neighborhood. On Saturday morning last Mr. Jesse Lawhon, who has been living with me for nearly two years in the capacity of overseer and manager of my farm and stock, went out accompanied by one of my negro men to drive up some oxen. About 11 o'clock the negro boy ran home afoot and barefooted and wet to the hips, and told me he feared that Mr. Lawhon had been killed by the Indians; that Mr. Lawhon and himself were riding together in search of cattle, and when descending a hill into the valley of one of the branches of Curry's Creek, near the foot of the mountains, they were attacked by five Indians who emerged from the bed of the creek and rushed upon them at full speed." According to Judge Jones the quintet of attackers were not all ethnic brothers: Four were Indians "naked and armed with guns," and the other, a "white man dressed in dark clothes with a fur hat."
Luckily the "negro boy" made good his getaway and was able to sound an alarm. Unluckily, twenty-five-year-old Jesse Lawhon was not, leaving behind a young crying wife, Lavonia, and two small children to mourn the heartbreaking loss of "an industrious and most worthy citizen, sober, moral, and of unimpeachable integrity, universally esteemed by all neighbors and acquaintances." A grieving community assembled, and with "stricken hearts" reverently placed Jesse Lawhon in his final resting place—but the Curry Creek settlement was not at rest.
Making a general statement—sometimes dangerous in a historic context—in this instance is a safe call: "in the summer of 1855, Indian depredations fell with mounting frequency on the settlers of the Guadalupe and Blanco Rivers in the Hill Country north of San Antonio." During the month of June warriors had plagued the western portion of Guadalupe County, stealing horses and killing "a negro belonging to Mr. Elam." Then they charged after Pendleton Rector and Doc McKee (McGee ?), the son of a popular Methodist minister, Reverend John S. McKee. Rector, though thrown from his horse, managed to scamper into a thicket and somehow avoid calamity. Doc McKee, riding a plodding mule, wasn't so fortunate: "He was roped, dragged to the ground, lanced and scalped." From the settlers' perspective the forays were epidemic, prompting Comal County's distressed residents to rally at a public meeting at New Braunfels on 12 September 1855 eyeing limited options regarding self-defense: "Despite their location almost a hundred miles behind the so-called frontier, they were being raided." Sadly, more horrifying news would break for the William E. Jones' family during that wearisome year.
Expending effort defending or condemning the actions of James Hughes Callahan, commander of a company of provisionally tenured Rangers—temporary enlistments—is not compulsory. Governor Elisha M. Pease, wholly overwrought with pleas and petitions, pressed the veteran frontiersman and Indian fighter into service. Judge William E. Jones had been sounding the drumbeat for an unrestricted search and destroy mission. The task was plainspoken: There was no money in the state's coffers for salaries, but chastise any marauding Indians with an unbending vengeance. Chase them to the gates of Hell if needed—into Old Mexico if they went there first. Pay, if it came at all, would come later. The problem needed a fix, right now—immediately! Supporters would defend Callahan's sortie, detractors would assert the actual purpose was to recapture runaway slaves seeking refuge south of the Rio Grande. Others, William Robertson "Big" Henry, being one, were championing for splashing across the Río Bravo and interjecting an armed Texas contingent into raging political and revolutionary turmoil then underway, explicitly declaring: "War to the death against Santa Anna and his government." Callahan's and Henry's calls for saddle-hardened volunteers did not go unanswered: Texans were fighters. All they needed was a good reason—at least in their minds—to punish Mexicans for past atrocities or Indians for blood-spattered episodes more recent.
In particular Henry's message struck a note with twenty-four-year-old Willis H. Jones, the first-born son of William Early Jones during his earlier marriage to Caroline (Randle) Jones. Unscrambling motives for his move—with precision—is unworkable: Was he holding a grudge, fostering a hatred for his dad's imprisonment by Mexicans at Perote or did a simple spirit for adventure force his hand? Did he want to even a score for butchery of Lawhon at Curry Creek? At San Antonio on 10 September 1855, riding a high-dollar horse valued at $125 and carrying arms worth $60, Willis enlisted in Captain Henry's company of would-be Lone Star warriors. In any event and despite any controversy that would ensue, and there would be plenty, Private Willis Jones was far removed from any policy making or command decisions.
Shortly Callahan's men, Henry's volunteers, and a third company answering to Nathaniel "Nat" Benton, merged into one in-the-field corps, James Hughes Callahan battalion commander, Henry and Benton, company captains. Now, Willis H. Jones was voluntarily and dutifully riding as one of Commander Callahan's unpaid Texas Rangers. Nineteen days later, Private Willis H. Jones was perched atop his horse four miles north of Eagle Pass, Maverick County, looking at the winding Texas boundary below: The Rio Grande waters were swollen by an unremitting rainfall upriver. There is dispute as to whether these Texas Rangers crossed by invitation as asserted by Callahan, or by force and at gunpoint as proffered by witness Emilio Langberg, military commander of the Mexican State of Coahuila. But cross they did.
On 3 October 1855, twenty-odd miles south of Piedras Negras, near Río Escondido—really a creek—the 110 Texas Rangers and a greatly superior mixed contingent of Mexican soldiers and Indians collided. Fittingly, maintaining Texas Ranger tradition, it may be reported that these no-nonsense Texas Rangers inflicted heavy causalities. A scorecard of dead and wounded enemy combatants—Mexican and Indian—was significantly lopsided, at least so said James Callahan. There is, however, another hard and undisputed truth regardless of the first one: Willis H. Jones and three other Texas Rangers were left dead on the battlefield, while their colleagues whipped around, making fast tracks for the border before enemy reinforcements made a show and doled out big-time payback. Positively the lifeless Ranger Private Willis H. Jones did not witness the sacking and burning of Piedras Negras before James H. Callahan's Rangers sought safety, splashing back across the Rio Grande. Governor Pease was not pleased at all regarding the tactic of torching of Piedras Negras, even if at least part of the raging inferno was the result of Seminole Negroes shooting flaming arrows into town in an effort to dislodge Rangers. Governor Pease was not any too happy, but political expediency tempered his written remarks to Commander James Hughes Callahan—still in the field:
When you got on the trail in pursuit of the Indians who had been committing depredations upon our settlements, and found that they had crossed the Rio Grande, you were justified in following them there for the purpose of recapturing the property stolen by them and punishing them, but you had not the right to take possession of or to occupy Piedras Negras or any other village or property of Mexican Citizens; After the termination of your engagement with the Indians you should have returned immediately to this side of the Rio Grande, and I trust that you have already done so.
Having covered his gubernatorial fanny with the foregoing admonishment, the state's chief executive knew where much of the general public's sympathy would lay, and it was not with Mexicans or Indians or mealy-mouthed sympathizers. The second half of the letter to Callahan was effusively praiseworthy, but even then Governor Pease couldn't let go of worry:
Your encounter with and defeat of such a large body of Indians reflects great credit upon yourself and the brave men under your command, and I trust that no acts have been committed by your command against the Citizens of Mexico which will give them any just cause of complaint against you.
Taking a deep breath, Governor Pease had much more to say, this time to the U.S. Military. Repeating a portion of it now will be meaningful for its impact on Frank Jones' story later. In a missive dated 13 October 1855, to the Commanding General of the U.S. Army in Texas, Persifor F. Smith, Governor Pease had this to say, in part:
You will perceive that I made no objection to his [Callahan's] pursuit of the Indians across the Rio Grande, and that I only objected to his occupation of the territory of Mexico after the termination of his engagement with the Indians. That he was justified in pursuing the Indians across the Rio Grande on their retreat from this state, where they had been committing depredations upon our citizens, I presume will not for a moment be questioned, and if this leads to a border warfare between the citizens of this state and the Mexicans and Indians no one will regret it more than myself, but the fault lies with the United States government, whose neglect to furnish protection to our settlements against the repeated depredations of these Indians during the past year, rendered it necessary to call into service Volunteers of this State for our protection.
James Hughes Callahan's Rangers retuned to the Leona River country west of San Antonio where they were to be mustered out of service. They had come home to the cheering adulation of some contemporaries then, but discordant denigration later from U.S. military brass, distraught diplomats, and annoyed abolitionists, as well as succeeding generations of armchair thinkers. William Early Jones, at the time, would hear none of that negativity. He was heartbroken! He, too, was mad, thoroughly angry. Mad enough to raise a crowd of leathery volunteers to invade Mexico and extract revenge on the Mexicans and their understood Indian allies. Although the jingoistic ranting was in one way or another emotionally fulfilling, such venting about a punitive invasion came to naught.
When the midnight hour finally passed, allowing Father Time to surrender 1855 and begin marking a new year, two newsy issues would be of interest and importance to William E. Jones and his ranch-raised boys: Keziah was pregnant. The new baby brother/ sister was scheduled—if everything went right—to arrive during early summer. Others hadn't waited for summer. The incessant Indian raids had not abated. That year following the murder of Jesse Lawhon and the Callahan expedition would notch several landmark clashes between the U.S. Army and Indians in and around the Texas Hill Country—all too close for the Jones clan on Curry Creek to find any comfort.
Riding hard out of Fort Mason on February 14, 1856, Captain James Oakes, at the head of Company C, 2nd U.S. Cavalry, was in pursuit of a band of Waco Indians who had been on the warpath, raiding settlements throughout the region. After six grueling days the soldiers and tribesmen locked up: An Indian died and two troopers were wounded. It was, according to military records, the first time a 2nd Cavalryman killed an Indian. William E. and Keziah Jones took notice, as did most Hill Country folks.
The wait for like news was but short. The following month, on the eighth day of March, Captain Albert G. Brackett in command of Company I, 2nd Cavalry, detected the camp of Lipan Apaches on the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Kendall County's immediate western neighbor. These raiders had been returning from an incursion near San Antonio, and were guilty of killing settlers, looting cabins, and stealing livestock. During a dismounted charge Sergeant Henry Gordon and his soldiers "killed three of the Indians, and recovered stolen horses, mules, and a bank draft for 1,000 British pounds." Mrs. Keziah Jones was suffering morning sickness and, rightly so, the jitters.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Six-Shooters and Shifting Sands by Bob Alexander. Copyright © 2015 Bob Alexander. Excerpted by permission of University of North Texas Press.
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