“In the fall of 1872, I went to Brown County, where I was hired by Bob Terrell. He was trading dry goods for cattle, and was camped in an old log house, eight miles above Brownwood, on the Bayou. Terrell slept in the house and I slept outside, and one night, while the moon was shining almost as bright as day, a party of Indians ran a big bunch of horses near the house within a few feet of my pallet, and I did not wake up until they had passed and Terrell called me. This was on the old road from Comanche to Camp Colorado, and the only (low water) crossing on the Bayou. It is likely if I had awakened as they passed, the Indians would have taken my scalp,” said early frontiersman Dick Sullivan.
This vivid account of an encounter with a band of Comanche appeared in the March 1924 edition of Frontier Times magazine. It’s interesting to me that Sullivan refers to the “old road from Comanche to Camp Colorado,” and makes me wonder which road he was referencing. It was seemingly a well known route at the time Sullivan’s story appeared in Frontier Times.
The oldest recorded account of any travel into Brown County by white settlers is told in White’s Promised Land, A History of Brown County, Texas. “The first visitors of whom there is a credible record were Captain Henry S. Brown and a party of companions who came into Brown County in 1828, chasing a band of Indians who had stolen their horses.” Brown’s party entered the county by crossing the Colorado, somewhere south of Brownwood, and ended up in a scrap with the Comanche along Clear Creek, probably near Brooksmith. According to another passage in White’s book, it’s possible, even likely, that the Comanche were following one of their own trails as they fled with the horses, and Brown might well have pursued them along that trail as well.
“There were two main trails by which the Comanches entered the county,” White tells. ‘One of these was through Mercer’s Gap, running along toward what later became known as Salt Mountain, and continued toward the west and northwest up Pecan Bayou and into Callahan County. The other trail came from the west, and crossed Pecan Bayou in the vicinity of what is now Elkins.” The road Sullivan references must have been near or even on the northern route going from Mercer’s Gap, up through Blanket to the Salt Mountain area, then cutting west or even southwest to Pecan Bayou.
If you stand on Salt Mountain on a clear day, as Caiden Tyler did when he took the photo above, you can actually see Santa Anna Mountain in the distance. Several tales of pursuers chasing Comanche in the area report bands running towards Salt Mountain, as it was along a main thoroughfare for the tribe. It’s almost a direct line west from Salt Mountain to Camp Colorado. Following Salt Creek to where it intersects with Pecan Bayou seems to place you right about where Sullivan said he was sleeping when the Comanche passed by his camp.
As I pointed out in several recent columns, the old military road would have gone just north of Brownwood, heading west to Thrifty and then Camp Colorado. Likely, Sullivan was referring to that old military road. It is possible that road was carved out along an older trail first forged by the Comanche and used to travel west from Salt Mountain towards Santa Anna. Sullivan recounted that the following year, he was in the same area. “We passed out by Camp Colorado, as at that time Coleman hadn’t yet been born. This side of Cedar Gap, in what is now Taylor county, we killed our first buffalo, cut out some hams and tender loin, and took all the kidney fat to cook with.”
What would it have been like to travel that old route in the days when this area was a nearly pathless wilderness? There is no direct road west from Salt Mountain to Camp Colorado today, but perhaps there once was.Sullivan says he was near one of the only low water crossings on Pecan Bayou. It’s hard to know if that crossing still exists. It could be part of Lake Brownwood now, or maybe it’s somewhere slightly south of the lake. In Sullivan’s time, that would have been a very dangerous path to take. One that only the boldest among us would have dared to take.
“There were two main trails by which the Comanches entered the county,” White tells. ‘One of these was through Mercer’s Gap, running along toward what later became known as Salt Mountain, and continued toward the west and northwest up Pecan Bayou and n into Callahan county. The other trail came from the west, and crossed Pecan Bayou in the vicinity of what is now Elkins.
Dick Sullivan, when published in the March 1924 Frontier Times Magazine
The original settlers had to resist Comanches who entered the region from the north at Mercer’s Gap or from the west along Pecan Bayou, near Elkins.
https://sparksfamilyhistory.com/page/brown-countypage.htm
Traditional Indian Trails in Brown County White (1941) describes two Indian trails that existed in Brown County when the first white settlers arrived: One of these [trails] was through Mercerís Gap, running along toward what later became known 17 as Salt Mountain, and continued toward the west and northwest up Pecan Bayou and on into Callahan County. The other trail came from the west, and crossed in the vicinity of what is now Elkins [White 1941:12]. The southernmost of these two trails, the one passing by Elkins, may have been close to Camp Bowie. However, no historic or protohistoric Indian archeological sites were identified during our surveys
About 1861, J.H. Christman, T.D. Saunders, Ambrose Lathen and Pat Gallagher, who were on their way from Camp Colorado to Gatesville, met several Indians driving a caballada of stolen horses. The Indians were discovered at a point between Pecan Bayou and Blanket Creek in Brown County and not a great distance from Mercer’s Gap. The Texans examined their arms and made ready for war. When the Indians were within one hundred yards, J.H. Christman, who led the small command, ordered his men to charge. As they advanced, the citizens continued to motion their hands as if calling others in the rear. This, of course, caused the Indians much consternation for they seldom fought when the citizens stood their ground. The Indians fled and were charged by the four citizens for a short distance. After gathering up the thirty-six head of horses, which had been stolen, the whites hurried on to the home of Jesse Mercer, which was in Comanche County. Here the horses were penned for the night and the following day driven to Hamilton and then to Gatesville.
Note: The author personally interviewed Dave Cunningham and Mrs. Joel Nabors and others who were living in Brown and Comanche County at the time.
Further Ref.: Wilbarger’s, Indian Depredations in Texas.
Salt Mountain Fight of 1857
https://colfa.utsa.edu/_documents/car/asr-300/asr-317.pdf
Pecan Valley Genealogical Society
There are a lot of Brown County pioneer family names in this article by Dick Sullivan, when published in the March 1924 Frontier Times Magazine*. The magazine was published on a monthly basis by J. Marvin Hunter (1880–1957) of Marfa, Texas from 1923 into the 1950s. He had a passion for Texas history and documented first-hand accounts of the early days in west Texas. He established a museum in 1927, where many artifacts of this region were displayed. We owe a great debt to these early publishers that recorded and preserved the life stories of these early day pioneers, peace officers and Texas Rangers. ~ Clay Riley
ON THE BUFFALO RANGE – 1873
W. F. (Dick) Sullivan, San Saba, Texas.
“Some of my children and friends have asked me to write a short sketch of my experience in West Texas during the early days, and I will attempt to do so, without apology to any of the wiseacres. I would not know Grammar if I met it in the road, for I was deprived of schooling when I was growing up, like many of the other boys who were raised on the frontier.
I was born in Mooreville, Mississippi, in 1854, and left there with my parents in 1868, to come to Texas. Although I was just a little chap at the time, I drove a team of oxen to a wagon, in which my mother rode with me. The rest of the party had mule teams. We stopped at Pilot Point, in Denton County, which was then a wild and wooly country. In the spring of 1869, my father died and my mother was left with six little children to raise, in a strange country. Nobody but an orphan knows what it means to be an orphan, no schooling, no father’s hand to guide you, and nothing but a trying struggle staring you in the face.
We lived on the old Chisholm Trail, when thousands of cattle were being driven to Kansas and other northern markets, and in the spring of 1872. I went up the trail with a herd of cattle for J. T. Wilson. The herd was from La Salle County, and all of the hands were Mexicans except Wilson, myself and Charlie Cooper of San Antonio. We passed up by Fort Worth, where we bought supplies. There was no railroad there then, and we bedded our cattle right where the packing house stands now. We crossed Red River and went through the Indian Territory on our way. We stopped near Wichita, Kansas, on the Ninesquaw River. In September I returned to Texas with Moses Stephenson’s outfit, which was composed of twenty-three men, and twelve new wagons. We had gray-backs (chiggers) good and plenty all the way back and put in most of our time scratching. Nobody knows what good scratching is unless they have these pests.
In the fall of 1872, I went to Brown County where I was hired by Bob Terrell. He was trading dry goods for cattle, and was camped in an old log house, eight miles above Brownwood, on the Bayou. Terrell slept in the house and I slept outside, and one night, while the moon was shining almost as bright as day, a party of Indians ran a big bunch of horses near the house within a few feet of my pallet, and I did not wake up until they had passes and Terrell called me. This was on the old road from Comanche to Camp Colorado, and the only (low water) crossing on the Bayou. It is likely if I had awakened as they passed, the Indians would have taken my scalp.
In the fall of 1873 I went on a buffalo hunt with nine other men, three of whom were ‘”Slick” Clements, Ben Anderson and Lon Anderson. Seven of us were on horseback, and three drove wagons.
We passed out by Camp Colorado, as at that time Coleman hadn’t yet been born. This side of Cedar Gap, in what is now Taylor county, we killed our first buffalo, cut out some hams and tender loin, and took all the kidney fat to cook with. A short distance further on “Slick” Clements borrowed my needle gun and killed a big doe, which was the fattest deer I ever saw. The fat was an inch thick between the hide and the meat. Pretty soon another boy came in with a big turkey gobbler, and we went on down to a spring branch to camp, and on our way discovered a cabin covered with buffalo hides. Three of us walked up to the cabin and learned that it was Kin Elkins’ western ranch. They had killed three bears that afternoon, and gave us a whole bear to take back to camp with us. Now you can imagine what a feast we had at supper. Buffalo, turkey breast, fat venison and bear meat, all cut up and fried together. I have always thought it was the best supper I ever ate.
The next day we passed through Cedar Gap, and stayed ten days on the buffalo range, and in that time, we loaded our three wagons with buffalo meat and hides and went back home. We camped some nights in sight of Indian camp fires, and saw lots o£ Indian sign, but they were watching us from the mountain tops and knew our strength, so they didn’t bother us.
On January 4, 1874, I joined Jim Connell’s company of Rangers. Company C. Charlie Webb, who was afterwards killed by John Wesley Hardin in Comanche, was our first lieutenant. One time we were camped near Government Knob, when twenty-five of us were detailed to scout west for Indians, and our chuck wagon was to load and follow and overtake us on the Salt Fork of the Brazos. We never saw our wagon, and had to live on buffalo meat without salt or bread for fourteen days. It tasted mighty good when we got back.
At that time Brownwood was a very small place, with only two stores and one saloon. In 1872 there were seventy-five men in Brown county, and for a long time I could hear of only four of my old comrades of those days, but last September at the old Rangers’ Reunion at Menard, George Womack of Brownwood and Dick Cheatem of Santa Anna walked up and put their arms around my neck, and said ”Dick, don’t you know me?” and the tears flowed like rain. And we thanked God that six of us are still on this side of eternity. The other three are Charlie Taylor, Bob Routh and Al Cheatem, all of whom have been living at Brownwood forty-six years. After I was mustered out of the ranger service I received my pension check for $680.
I have lived in San Saba county forty-three years, part of the time on a ranch, and about twenty years in the hardware business. I have a wife and twelve children to share my love.”
*Edited to correct spelling and to shorten the narrative. C. R.
Source: March 1924 – Frontier Times Magazine
Image: Buck to Breakfast by Charles Marion Russell 1897
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Diane Adams is a local journalist whose columns appear Thursdays on BrownwoodNews.com. Comments regarding her columns can be emailed to [email protected].
