Ruth McDonald Lacey

And The

Spring Creek Community

Some McDonald Men of Spring Creek

William J. ~ Gus ~ Lafe ~ Joe Jr. ~ Monroe ~ Levi Allen ~ Benjamin

By Rich Eastwood

www.afamilyofthewest.org

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Part I

– Ruth McDonald and the Fredericksburg Road –

- A Story of Texas -

This is a story of the Ruth McDonald Lacey and her family; the Lockes and Laceys

who settled on the Fredericksburg Road, 12 miles out of San Antonio in the

Community of Lockehill, and the Laceys, McDonalds and Taylors of the

Spring Creek Community 10 miles west of Fredericksburg in Gillespie County.

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Table of Contents

Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 7

Prelude ................................................................................................................................ 9

The Laceys / McDonalds / Taylors – Illinois to Texas ..................................................... 11

Chart of the Players ........................................................................................................... 13

Matthew and Hannah Axley Taylor‟s family to Texas ........................................... 13

Thomas and Rachel Axley McDonald‟s family to Texas ....................................... 15

Elijah and Ruth McDonald Lacey‟s family to Texas.............................................. 16

Joseph and Esther Taylor/Rhoda Nelson McDonald to Texas ............................... 17

James „Eli‟ and Caroline Taylor McDonald‟s family to Texas .............................. 18

Associated Families .......................................................................................................... 19

Early Texas- Winters / White / Banta / Perry ......................................................... 19

Illinois and other places- Nelson, Hazelwood, Casey, Fairchild, Alexander, Hall,

Chesser, Fannin, Herrin, Joy ................................................................................... 23

The Locations.................................................................................................................... 27

Hill Country ............................................................................................................ 27

Locke Hill ............................................................................................................... 29

Spring Creek / Harper ............................................................................................. 29

The Story; a Chronological View ..................................................................................... 31

1840-1853ish........................................................................................................... 31

1854-1860 ............................................................................................................... 35

1861-1865 The War Comes .................................................................................... 37

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Introduction

“I had driven by the place countless times. Daily I passed the small plot of

land on the way to my office. Daily I told myself, Someday I need to stop there.

“Today, that „someday‟ came. I convinced a tight-fisted schedule to give me

thirty minutes, and I drove in.

“The intersection appears no different from any other in San Antonio: a

Burger King, a Rodeway Inn, a restaurant. But turn northwest, go under the cast iron

sign, and you will find yourself on an island of history that is holding its own against

the river of progress.

“The name on the sign? Locke Hill Cemetery.

“As I parked, a darkened sky threatened rain. A lonely path invited me to walk

through the two-hundred-plus tombstones. The fatherly oak trees arched above me,

providing a ceiling for the solemn chambers. Tall grass, still wet from the morning

dew, brushed my ankles.

“The tombstones, though weathered and chipped, were alive with

yesterday….

“Ruth Lacey is buried there. Born in the days Napoleon- 1807. Died over a

century ago- 1877….”

From: “Six Hours One Friday” by Max Lucado, Multnomah Books. A good read! ed.

This is her story

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Discovering family history was easy, a few snippets here and there from family

members, an interest in history and a little wondering. An introduction to Auntie

„Cille‟s family albums…. and then infection set in. I was hooked, it wasn‟t easy any

more. Fortunately my affliction coincided with the advent of the internet and the

family history fever that has blanketed the nation. The computer made it practical,

MS Office made it easier (thanks Bill Gates); with these tools, even one such as I, can

make a presentation.

When I encountered my ancestor, Ruth McDonald Lacey she didn‟t have a pedigree,

„no further information‟ as it is sometimes put. Now we find her right in the center of

a great American story, as exciting and interesting as any that are woven into the

fabric of America. A frontier preacher‟s wife that moved with her loved ones,

hundreds and hundreds of miles to new land and saw them settle down at both ends of

a 60 or 70 mile road; the Fredericksburg Road.

Ruth‟s pedigree threads its way back through North Carolina to Scotland. She is part

of the McDonald / Taylor Family that came to Tennessee and then to Illinois in the

early 1800‟s. Although there is no genealogically sound proof of her direct

connection; she is interwoven, inextricably, with that family. Ruth married Elijah

Lacey in Illinois, Elijah‟s pedigree threads its way back through Kentucky and

Tennessee to Virginia then England or Wales and is Norman in origin. They all came

to Texas in the early 1850‟s and settled between San Antonio and the edge of the

frontier, Gillespie County.

With all the allied families this story clearly becomes a part of the Tapestry

Americana. If it all becomes bewildering, try and enjoy it for its color and texture,

the scene or the pattern…. and how it relates to you.

I‟m a little concerned that this might be a little confusing and I hope you will think

about it in context. This part covers two generations of Laceys, McDonalds and

Taylors; along with their spouses. Coupling that with the peripheral stories might

seem a bit much. However the goal is to give the down stream family members

something more than facts to latch on to; and to give others an interesting view, as if

hanging on the wall of a museum.

Rich Eastwood

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Prelude

“ „Gone to Texas‟ These three words -often abbreviated „GTT‟ on the doors

of abandoned homesteads across the southeastern United States during the 1830s and

1840s-provide a key to the story of Texas from prehistoric times to the beginning of

the twenty first century.” With this thought, Randolph B. Campbell starts his book

“Gone To Texas”; it seems like a good place for us to start from as well. However, if

you think about this issue very much, a wonder might make its way in to your mind:

Where have they gone from? Campbell addresses that point a couple of paragraphs

later. “A place without information about its past is like an individual without a

memory- it has no identity.”

Thomas Lacy endured the perils of crossing the Atlantic and possible death at the

hands of Pirates; to be cast up on these shores, penniless but somewhat of a hero due

to his participation of actions subduing Pirates. With five months of able seaman

wages and a grant of property from the Governor he was off to the races. Virginia

was a long way from Wales but for a hardy and seemingly fearless young man, the

opportunities appeared endless. A characteristic, that has been past through the many

hands of the succeeding generations. In Virginia, as it pushed westward, the family in

succeeding generations lived in the frontier counties. Elliot Lacy and at least one of

his sons gave their lives in the Revolutionary War. When the „Cumberland Gap‟

opened the way west, Elliot‟s son Lionel went west to Tennessee. Lionel married Ann

Rankin, the daughter of another War hero, on the banks of the French Broad River.

Ever restless in these sparsely populated communities he kept heading west, his

youngest son, Elijah, being born in Livingston County, Kentucky. Crossing the Ohio

River and settling in St. Claire County, Illinois, near the mighty Mississippi, Lionel

finally came to a stop.

Scots are loyal consequently they make good soldiers. During the 1700s, during the

time of the „Highland Clearances‟, when their Lairds and noblemen displaced men,

women and children in favor of the financial rewards of sheep, it became increasingly

easy to switch loyalties. The British Crown was an attractive alternative for the

loyalty of many. Some Scots came to the American Colonies as soldiers; some came

as frontiersmen with incentives from the colony, to live at the edge of civilization. In

the Carolinas there were large concentrations of them and when the Revolutionary

War broke out many were fiercely loyal to the Crown. Against this setting we find

Linvil McDaniel/McDonald in the late 1700s in Edgecombe and Chatham Counties,

North Carolina.

Here the McDonald family merges with the Taylor family, an old English family that

had come to Virginia in the mid 1600s. As the family says: “Where you find Taylors

you find McDonalds.” Thomas Taylor was born in 1741 in Richland County, Virginia

and came as a young man to North Carolina with his family. Thomas was murdered

in late 1781 in Chatham County by a misguided Army Officer. His widow, Elinor

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Dotson Taylor, then married Eleazar Andrus and around 1800 migrated, along with

her children and their families, to Williamson County, Tennessee. The party included:

Billington Taylor and his wife Chloe Modglin, Nancy Taylor and her husband

Benjamin Beal, Luraney Taylor and her husband Linvil McDaniel/McDonald and

their respective families. This extended family, after a few years, split up, some going

south, some staying put and some crossing over into Illinois.

„GTT‟ what was the Texas draw? Why did so many Laceys, McDonalds and Taylors

continue on to an uncertain future?

First there was the general lure; I suspect that there were many discussions at social

events or around the campfire in southeast frontier in the early 1800s. The library is

full of books telling of the draw of Texas; a comprehensive one, is the above

mentioned “Gone To Texas”.

The other aspect, and most compelling for our view, is the personal one. At first I

thought, being a Lacey, it perhaps had something to do with Elijah Lacey‟s mother

being a cousin to Sam Houston; then I encountered William Demetrius Lacey, a

signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, who was from the same area where

Elijah was born. However, the answer probably lies with the family of Nancy Taylor

and Benjamin Beal. Their daughter, Rhoda, married James Winters; they had three

sons William, John F. and James W. The Winters migrated to Texas before the Texas

Revolution; James had known Sam Houston in Tennessee and the boys served with

Sam Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto. (See: sanjacinto-museum.org select

Veterans Biographies; then the highlighted „available online‟; then thru to Winters,

J.W.-really interesting) In the pioneer times it is apparent that families and friends

kept in touch, either by letter or oral messages carried by travelers; time and again we

see folks going out to the frontier then shortly their family and/or friends join them.

Communication must have been reasonable considering the hazards of the times. A

few years ago we might have cussed the US Postal Service, but without it, this

country doubtfully would have grown at the pace it did, if at all. The Winters were an

active group; in 1854 John F. Winters received a land grant of 640 acres in Gillespie

County, just beyond Spring Creek, near where Harper is today. The Spring Creek /

Harper area became home to most members of the families involved, for the next

thirty years or so; some are still there.

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The Laceys / McDonalds / Taylors – Illinois to Texas

In 1803 the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory for $15 million.

Napoleon agreed to sell this territory because he was desperately in need of cash.

Acquiring the Louisiana Territory doubled the size of the United States. President

Thomas Jefferson, who was unsure of the constitutionality of the move, rushed to

complete the sale anyway, lest Napoleon change his mind. On May 14, 1804, Lewis

and Clark's expedition set off from St. Louis, on their „Voyage of Discovery‟. The

crew consisted of 32 soldiers and 10 civilians. They headed up the Missouri River, as

far as South Fork, Montana. They spent the first winter among the Mandan Indians in

South Dakota. They crossed the Rockies and were able to float down the Clearwater

River, into the Snake River, and then onto the Columbia River. Then, on November

5, 1805, they reached the Pacific Ocean. The expedition returned to St. Louis on

September 23, 1806.

Although the opening of the „Cumberland Gap‟ unleashed the flow of settlers pent up

behind the mountains of the East; there were political/diplomatic barriers that held

them in check. With the Louisiana Purchase and the „Voyage of Discovery‟ some of

the barriers were down and imaginations were up. In the period that followed, by

1820, the central figures in our story had moved with their families to Southwest

Illinois. For the next 20 to 30 years various counties in that region would be their

home. Also during that period, Illinois would settle down, become a State and

become a staging place for westward movement.

What brought the families together? It appears that two of the most influential forces

in the chronicles of man might have had something to do with it, Girls and Religion.

In 1805 James Axley became an itinerant Methodist Preacher. His appointment would

take him to many locations in Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and even Louisiana. He

was an appealing preacher, as one of his chroniclers put it; “few, if any, of his

contemporaries drew larger audiences, for Axley was irresistible to the Western

people.” When Elijah Lacey was born, in 1804, in Livingston County KY, James and

his brother, Pleasant Axley were living in Livingston County also. Could the same

forces that drew James to the ministry had an effect on Elijah‟s father, Lionel, as

well? At least one of Pleasant Axley‟s daughters was born in Livingston County,

Hannah in 1803. Hannah would later marry Matthew Taylor, who became a

Methodist Preacher, her sister, Rachel, would marry Joseph McDonald. Joseph‟s

sister (or close relative), Ruth, would marry Elijah Lacey who also became a

Methodist Minister.

In 1839 Arkansas, part of the Louisiana Purchase, became a State. A few years later

(before 1843) Matthew Taylor would be the first in our group to heed the call

westward, beyond the Mississippi. He settled in Izard County Arkansas, perhaps at

the behest of the Methodist Church. His youngest daughter, Permelia was born there

and his oldest son, Pressley was married there. By 1850 he had moved to the

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northeast part of the new State of Texas, Hunt County. The gold fields in California

beckoned; Matthew and family put their things in the wagons and headed out joined

by others including members of the Joy family. The wagon train took the Upper

Immigrant Trail through Fredericksburg toward El Paso. They got as far as Pecos,

others who had gone before had come back with tales of drought and dried up

waterholes, the Taylors turned back.

At any rate, the die was cast, by 1853/1854 the Taylors, Laceys and McDonalds were

gone to Texas. Many traveled by riverboat down the Mississippi to New Orleans, by

coastal packet to Indianola and by ox and wagon up through Texas. It‟s unknown if

they all traveled together or if different family groups made their own way. Not all

the members of the families took this route some came overland. It is also noteworthy

to observe that this process took several years to shake out. Perhaps the final

destination wasn‟t always clear. Some parts of the families stopped at places along

the way; Lewis Madison Lacey married a Texas girl in Goliad, „Jack‟ Locke settled

for a while at Pipe Creek (west of San Antonio) with some other members of the

family before settling down at Locke Hill and it was 1859 before Mary Mor

McDonald Fannin became the first white woman to live on Spring Creek.

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Chart of the Players

The following chart is meant to provide a brief overview of the group, to introduce

the players and to give a reference to their relative ages. I picked 1861 as a

benchmark because that was the year that the Civil War came to West Texas.

Matthew and Hannah Axley Taylor’s family to Texas

Matthew Modglin Taylor, 1861 age 59

Matthew was born 1802 in TN, married Hannah Smith Axley in 1822, she was born

1803, they settled in Spring Creek, he was a Methodist Preacher, he died 1880 and

she died 1898 in Gillespie County.

Pressley Beal Taylor, 1861 age 38

Press was born 1823 in IL, settled first in East Texas then after the War in Kerr

County, married Mary „Polly‟ York about 1847.

Thurman Thompson Taylor, 1861 age36

T.T. was born 1825 in IL, married Elizabeth „Catherine‟ Alexander about 1853,

settled Spring Creek.

Zodac “Zed” Taylor, 1861 age34

Zed was born 1827 in IL, married (1) Margrit Halburton in 1853, settled Spring

Creek, (2) Dorcas Hays in 1860, during Civil War he died as a result of an accident

1862, buried at Spring Creek.

Rebecca Ancibill Taylor, 1861 age 33

Rebecca was born 1828 in IL, married cousin James „Monroe‟ McDonald in 1856,

(see below) settled in Spring Creek

Hester Ann Elizabeth Taylor, 1861 age 31

Hester Ann was born 1830 in IL, married cousin Lewis „Martin‟ McDonald in 1856,

see below, settled first at Spring Creek.

Celia „Caroline‟ Taylor, 1861 age 25

Caroline was born 1836 in IL, married (1) cousin James „Eli‟ McDonald in 1857,

settled Spring Creek area, Eli was killed by Indians, Caroline was taken Captive

1865-1866, she then married (2) Pete Hazelwood in 1868, he was killed by Indians,

she later married (3) L.F. Pope.

James Thomas Taylor, 1861 age 20

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James was born 1841 in IL, settled Spring Creek area, married cousin Gillette “Gil”

McDonald in 1863, „Gil‟ was killed by Indians 1865, he married cousin Samantha

McDonald in 1870.

Permelia Cornelia Hannah Taylor, 1861 age18

Permelia was born 1843 AR, settled Spring Creek, married Edward Robert Janes

about 1865.

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Thomas and Rachel Axley McDonald’s family to Texas

Thomas McDonald, 1861 age 62

Thomas was born 1803 in NC, he married Rachel Axley 1927, she was born 1809,

they settled in Spring Creek, he died about 1870 she died in 1878.

Mary Mor McDonald, 1861 age33

Mary was born 1828 IL, married George Wesley Fannin in 1848, he died in 1860,

they were, perhaps, the first settlers of Spring Creek.

James „Monroe‟ McDonald, 1861 age 32

Monroe was born 1829 in IL, married cousin Rebecca Ancibil Taylor in 1856 in

Gillespie County, settled Spring Creek.

Melissa Melvina McDonald, married John Fannin in 1853 in IL, they apparently

did not move to Texas.

Suzanna Mariah McDonald, 1861 age 22

Suzanna was born 1839 in IL, married Richard Griffey Hall in 1858, settled in

Spring Creek.

Rebecca Angelina McDonald, 1861 age 21

Rebecca was born 1840 in IL, settled Spring Creek and married John Walter Banta

about 1860 in Gillespie County.

Robert Lafayette “Lafe” McDonald, 1861 age 17

Lafe was born 1844 in IL, settled near Spring Creek, married (1) Alwilda Joy in

1864, she was killed by Indians, married (2) Amanda Elizabeth Larimore in 1869

William Augustus “Gus” McDonald, 1861 age 14

Gus was born 1847 IL, settled Spring Creek, married cousin Louanna Elizabeth

Lacey 1867.

Josephine McDonald, 1861 age 11

Josephine was born about 1850, settled in Spring Creek and married Jerry

Hazelwood in 1869, she must have died shortly after, for he married cousin “Curly”

Fairchild in 1870.

Samuel Thomas McDonald, nothing is known of him, he must have died young.

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Elijah and Ruth McDonald Lacey’s family to Texas

Elijah Lacey, 1861 age 57

Elijah was born 1804 in Livingston Co. KY, married Ruth McDonald in 1828, she

was born in 1807 in TN, they settled at LockeHill and Spring Creek, he was a

Methodist Preacher and moved about quite a bit, she died 1877, he died around 1885.

William Jackson “Jack” Locke, 1861 age 33

Jack was born in 1828 in IL, married (1) Mary England in 1848, settled LockeHill,

divorced and then married (2) Anna McCarthy.

Asa Phelps Lacey, 1861 age 31

Asa was born 1830 in IL, married Rossanna England in 1849, settled LockeHill and

Spring Creek.

Mahala Elizabeth Lacey, 1861 age 27

Mahala was born 1834 in IL, married cousin John Hardin Lacey in 1853, settled San

Antonio after the War.

Lewis Madison Lacey, 1861 age 26

Lewis was born 1835 in IL, married Margaret White in 1861, settled in LockeHill.

Nancy M.C. Lacey, 1861 age 23

Ninnie was born 1838 in IL, married William Alexander in 1864.

Mary Matilda Lacey, 1861 age 21

Mary was born about 1840 in IL, married (1)Morgan McDaniel in 1855, he died, she

settled un Spring Creek, married (2)Henry Hartmann 1861 he left, she divorced,

married (3) Marion Columbus “Lum” Alexander in 1863.

Joshua Collins “Coll” Lacey, 1861 age 19

Coll was born 1842 in IL, settled LockeHill and Spring Creek, married cousin Cloe

Fairchild 1867.

John Burnyan Lacey, 1861 age 17

Burnyan was born in 1844 in IL, married (1) Lucy Ann Dunn in 1866 in Gillespie

Co. He married (2) Sina Chesser in 1868 in Gillespie Co. then married (3) Susan J.

Parr in Gonzales Co. in 1878.

Thomas Monroe Lacey, 1861 age 13

T.M. was born 1848 in IL, settled LockeHill, married Mary Chesser.

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Joseph and Esther Taylor/Rhoda Nelson McDonald to Texas

Joseph McDonald, 1861 age 46

Joseph was born 1815, married (1) Esther Elizabeth Taylor, she was born 1814,

died 1847 struck by lightning, married (2) Rhoda Jane Nelson in 1849, she was born

1830, they are both buried at Spring Creek.

Lucretia Jane McDonald, 1861 age 28

Lucretia was born 1833, married (1) Amos Fairchild in 1850, settled first in East

Texas then Spring Creek in 1862, Amos was killed by Bushwhackers in 1864,

married (2) William Chesser in 1868, William was a Methodist Preacher. She

married George T. Morgan in 1878.

Lewis „Martin‟ McDonald, 1861 age 26

Martin was born 1835 in IL, married cousin Hestorann Elizabeth Taylor in 1856,

they settled Spring Creek.

Isaac „Rufus‟ McDonald, 1861 age 23

Rufe was born 1838 in IL, settled Spring Creek, married Polly Jane Lockhart in

1860.

Clarisa Adiline McDonald, 1861 age 20

Clarisa was born 1841 in IL, settled Spring Creek, married (1) Jacob Banta in 1859,

he was killed in an Indian fight 1866, married (2) “Joe” Garcia in 1871.

Gillette McDonald, 1861 age 18

Gil was born 1843 in IL, settled Spring Creek, married cousin James Thomas

Taylor, she was killed by Indians 1865.

Mary Ann Elizabeth McDonald, 1861 age 11

Mary was born 1850 in IL, settled Spring Creek, married (1) John Strong in 1866,

(2) Vicente Cruz about 1871.

Merinda „Melvina‟ McDonald, 1861 age 19

Mel was born 1852, settled Spring Creek, married Benjamin Franklin Casey in

1868.

Samantha L. McDonald, 1861 age 6

Samantha was born 1855, settled Spring Creek, married cousin James Thomas

Taylor (see above).

William Jefferson McDonald, 1861 age 5

William was born in TX, settled Spring Creek, married Rebecca Chesser 1874.

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Levy Allen McDonald,

Levy was born 1861 at Spring Creek, married cousin Mahala L. McDonald 1879.

Joseph Thomas McDonald,

Joe was born 1864, at Spring Creek, married Thelka Reeh about 1881.

Benjamin Franklin McDonald,

Bennie was born 1867, at Spring Creek, married cousin Elizabeth „Lizzie‟ Taylor

1885.

James ‘Eli’ and Caroline Taylor McDonald’s family to Texas

James „Eli‟ McDonald, 1861 age 23

Eli was born 1836/9 in IL, settled in Spring Creek, married cousin „Caroline‟ Taylor

1856, Eli was killed by Kiowas 1865, Caroline was held captive 1865-1866.

Mahala L. McDonald, 1861 age 1

Mahala was born 1860 in Spring Creek, captive of Kiowas 1865-1866, married

cousin Levi Allen McDonald 1879.

Rebecca Jane McDonald

Beckie was born 1864 in Spring Creek, captive of Kiowas 1865-1866, married James

Monroe Herrin in 1879.

James „Eli‟ McDonald Jr.

Eli was born in 1866 in Indian captivity, settled Spring Creek, married cousin

Harriet „Helen‟ Taylor in 1889.

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Associated Families

Early Texas- Winters / White / Banta / Perry

Early Texas- We won‟t go into a detailed history of early Texas however it is a

fascinating piece of history available in many places. When Mexico won its

Independence from Spain in 1821 there were barely 3,000 Hispanics and a sprinkling

of Anglos in Texas. Shortly afterward Stephen Austin and others contracted to bring

settlers into the area. 1835-1836 saw the Texas Revolution and Independence

followed by Statehood in 1846. In this early period some of the associated families

discovered Texas. For such a large geographical area it is interesting how so many

from such a diverse background came together. After this early Texas section we will

continue on with thumbnail sketches of other associated families that information is

available on, they aren‟t in any particular order.

Winters- The fact that James Winters wife, Rhoda, was a first cousin to Matthew

Taylor probably had a great impact on our story. In 1832 two of their sons, William

and John, migrated to Texas and built a log cabin and planted crops. William then

returned to Tennessee for the family while John tended the crops. James had been a

friend of Sam Huston‟s, possibly serving with him in the Indian Wars, when war

came to Texas they offered their services. James served with the quartermaster

foraging food, sons William and John fought at the battle of San Jacinto in Capt. Wm.

Ware‟s Company of the Second Regiment and younger brother Ben hauled supplies.

John homesteaded a piece of land in Gillespie Co. near where Harper is, in 1854.

White- Peter White was born in Virginia in 1801, he came to Texas by way of

Missouri with his wife Nancy and two children in 1830. He received a land grant

from the Mexican Government, through Stephen F. Austin, in Jackson Co. Family

tradition says he was on a foraging trip for the Texian Army when the battle at San

Jacinto took place. But Peter got in a lot of fighting over the years. He served under

Capt. Caldwell at the battle of Plum Creek against the Comanches in 1840. In 1842

he served in Capt. Ward‟s Company of Texas Rangers against raids by Mexicans.

And finally, he served in the war with Mexico in Capt. Bell‟s Company, Corpus

Christi Rangers. He had thirteen children and survived several wives; they lived

variously in Jackson and Goliad Counties. In 1861 his daughter Margaret married

Ruth‟s son Lewis Lacey in Goliad. Margaret‟s mother was sister to Samuel

McCulloch Jr. credited with being the first soldier wounded in the Texas revolution.

Banta- There are three Banta brothers that fit into our story, William, John and Jacob;

sons of Isaac Banta. The Banta Family came from Holland to New Amsterdam in the

1600s by the early 1800s some of them had moved west. David Banta was an early

resident of Kentucky and a Baptist Minister, his son Isaac was born in 1800 in

Lexington, Kentucky. The Bantas moved to Indiana, Isaac married Eliza Baker in

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1822 in Warrick County, Indiana and in 1839 moved with their children to Texas.

After 1843 Isaac moved to South Sulphur where he assisted in organizing Hunt

County.

William Banta was born in 1827, married Lucinda Hairston in 1850 in Burnet

County, they had fourteen children. He organized and commanded the first company

of minutemen in Burnet County and participated in nearly every engagement with the

Indians in the region throughout the 1850s. He saw service on the Texas frontier

during the Civil War as lieutenant, then captain, of Company A of the Frontier

Regiment. In the spring of 1864 he was stationed at Camp Davis in Gillespie County.

With J.W. Caldwell he wrote an account of his life in Texas, “Twenty-Seven Years

on the Texas Frontier”, published in 1893. Many excerpts of this book, telling of how

things were, are quoted on „The Sons of DeWitt Colony‟ web site, very interesting.

http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/dewitt.htm

John Banta married Angelina McDonald.

Jacob married Clarissa McDonald.

Perry- “Cicero Rufus (Old Rufe) Perry, Texas Ranger was born in Alabama on

August 23, 1822. In 1833 he moved with his parents to Bastrop, then in Washington

County. He participated in the siege of Bexar, served from July 1 to October 1, 1836,

in Capt. William W. Hill's company of Texas Rangers, and was involved in an Indian

fight on Yegua Creek. He was wounded on February 12, 1839, while serving under

John H. Moore. In 1841 he served under Samuel Highsmith and Thomas Green and

scouted for Edward Burleson and Mark B. Lewis. He was also a member of the

Somervell expedition. He joined John Coffee Hays' ranger company in 1844 and

participated in many of his Indian fights, including the battle of Walker's Creek. In

August 1844 he was severely wounded in a fight with the Comanches on the Nueces

River, and he and Christopher Acklin were left for dead by their two companions.

With three wounds, Perry walked 120 miles, from near Uvalde to San Antonio,

unarmed and without food or water. In 1873 in the battle of Deer Creek he came to

the assistance of a party led by Dan W. Roberts. In 1874 Perry was appointed captain

of Company D of the Frontier Battalion. Roberts served as his first lieutenant and

later as his successor.

“Perry died at Johnson City on October 7, 1898. Described by John Holland

Jenkins as having been „tall, muscular, erect-a perfect specimen of the strong and

brave in young manhood,‟ Perry had black hair and „dark eyes, bright with the fires of

intelligence and enthusiasm.‟ It was said that in his career as a volunteer soldier and

Texas Ranger he had sustained twenty wounds from bullet, arrow, and lance.”

The previous excerpt was taken from The Handbook of Texas Online. Perry was a

remarkable man but also a typecast of the early pioneers.

His daughter Birdie married Benjamin Butler Lacey.

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Taylor- Another person that should be mentioned here is Creed Taylor, no relation to

our families but a close neighbor to some of our families in Kimble County and a

character in his own right. The following is also from The Handbook of Texas. I

thought you might like it.

“Creed Taylor, (1820–1906) soldier and Texas Ranger, was born on April 20,

1820, in Alabama, one of nine children of Josiah and Hepzibeth (Luker) Taylor.

Josiah Taylor, a relative of Gen. Zachary Taylor, came to Texas in 1811 and served as

captain in the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition; he fought at La Bahía, Alazán, Rosales,

and Medina. He brought his family, including four-year-old Creed, to Texas in 1824

and settled in DeWitt's colony. At fifteen Creed Taylor helped defend the Gonzales

„come and take it‟ cannon and took part in the battle of Concepción, the Grass Fight,

and the siege of Bexar. Late in January 1836 he was with the Texas forces at San

Patricio; he was placed on detached duty as a scout or courier until March 1, 1836,

when he was ordered to join Col. James C. Neill in Gonzales. After the fall of the

Alamo, Taylor led his mother and family to safety in the Runaway Scrape. He then

caught up with the Texas army at Buffalo Bayou on April 20 and fought in the battle

of San Jacinto the next day. In 1840 Taylor took part in the battle of Plum Creek

against the Comanches with Daniel B. Friar's company. In 1841 he joined the Texas

Rangers and fought Indians with John Coffee Hays at Bandera Pass; the following

year he was wounded in the battle of Salado Creek. In the Mexican War he enlisted as

a private in Capt. Samuel H. Walker's company of Texas Mounted Rangers, which

mustered into federal service on April 21, 1846. Taylor fought at the battles of Palo

Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterrey, and Buena Vista. He enlisted in the

Confederate Army on February 13, 1864, in Col. John S. (Rip) Ford's command.

Taylor married Nancy Matilda Goodbread on April 25, 1840, and they became the

parents of two sons and a daughter. After Nancy died, Taylor moved to Kimble

County and married Lavinia Spencer, by whom he had several more children. He

dictated his recollections to James T. DeShields, who published them in 1935 in „Tall

Men with Long Rifles.‟ Taylor died on December 26, 1906, and was buried in

Noxville Cemetery.”

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23

Illinois and other places- Nelson, Hazelwood, Casey, Fairchild, Alexander, Hall, Chesser, Fannin, Herrin, Joy

Depending on your family view, you may perceive that your family should be one on

the core families. As I have developed this story I have come to similar deductions;

however I couldn’t figure out a better way to present everything. Every time I turn

over a new bunch of stuff it gets bigger, please don’t get your feelings hurt. I

understand. ed.

Nelson- The Nelsons were friends of the Taylors and McDonalds going back to their

time in North Carolina. Hiram Nelson was a contemporary of Billington Taylor and

Linville McDonald and their families remained close for several generations. Joseph

McDonald married Hiram‟s daughter, Rhoda Jane Nelson, Feb. 14, 1849 in Jefferson

County, Illinois, Rev. Elijah Lacey married them.

Hiram and his wife, Mary Anna Wiles Roundtree, and some of their children made

the move to Spring Creek with the rest of the crowd. Some Nelson‟s moved on to

Seven Rivers, New Mexico with the McDonalds and related folks in the 1890s.

Hazelwood- Cliff Hazelwood married Nancy Axley about 1796 in Livingston

County, Kentucky. Nancy was a sister to James Axley the Preacher and Pleasant

Axley the father of Hannah and Rachel. From Kentucky they moved with other

family members to Illinois and settled in Alexander County. I don‟t have reliable

information but I think Jerry and Pete Hazelwood were sons of their son, William.

Casey- Franklin Smith Casey was married to Rhoda Winters Taylor daughter of

Billington Taylor Sr. and Mary Elizabeth Modglin. They lived in Jefferson County,

Illionois and their son Benjamin Franklin Casey might have come to Texas with our

families. In 1868 he married Melvina McDonald.

Fairchild- Amos Fairchild was born in Washington County, Ohio in 1825. He was

the son of Erastus Fairchild and Elizabeth Giddings. The Fairchilds were a product of

a Connecticut Family that traces back to early colonial times. Amos married Lucretia

Jane McDonald, the oldest on Joseph‟s children, in 1850. They were wed in Mt.

Vernon, Jefferson County, Illinois where the Fairchilds had moved some ten years

earlier, home to many of our families. Amos and family came overland to Texas,

stopping in Collins County, Texas for a few years; arriving in Gillespie County in

1862, just at the beginning of the Civil War.

Alexander- There are two separate Alexander Families in our story.

John J. Alexander and his family were living in northeast corner of Louisiana in

1850. He was born in Mississippi and his wife, Mary, was born in Kentucky. They

moved their family a few counties west, to Hunt County, Texas by 1860. How they

got hooked up with our families is conjecture, probably meeting the Taylor family in

Hunt County. Daughter Catherine married Thurman Taylor about 1853/54.

24

Bill Alexander took the long way around to Texas and marriage to Ruth Jane Lacey.

He was born in Ohio in 1846, his father came from Northern Ireland and his mother

came from Wales. Bill served in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, he was

captured at Shilo, imprisoned in Mississippi and Georgia, exchanged as a prisoner,

went home and later rejoined his Regiment. He was engaged in the struggles from

Atlanta to Savannah. In 1864 he went to New York, then to St. Louis and then home;

not yet being 20 years of age. When he was about 25 he came to Kerr County and did

some cowboying for Creed Taylor.

Hall- Richard Griffey Hall was another Illinois boy, he and his brother Elijah had

worked their way west; possibly in the company of the Hazelwood boys. They might

have been a part of Thomas McDonald‟s group, for in 1858 in Grayson County,

Texas he married Mariah McDonald. In 1870 they were living in Spring Creek, Jerry

Hazelwood was staying with them and Elijah was the next family over. Indecently, on

the other side were Elijah and Ruth McDonald Lacey.

Chesser- William Chesser brought his large family from Missouri to Texas during

the 1850s, settling in Burnet County. He like so many others in our story was a

Methodist Minister. His wife died about 1860 and he remarried a widow with two

small children and she died a short time later. His oldest son, John Dan, married in

1860 and started his own family; one of his first jobs was carrying the mail to

Fredericksburg; when the war broke out he served in the frontier defense forces.

Perhaps John Dan introduced his father to our families, in any event the widower,

William Chesser, married the widow Lucrecia Jane McDonald Fairchild and created

one huge family and adding a couple of more of their own.

Fannin- George Wesley Fannin was a cousin of Col. James Fannin of the Texas

revolution fame. His roots go back to Virginia, but he found himself in Jefferson

County, Illinois in 1848. Here he married Mary Mor McDonald in September of that

year. They settled down in Morgan County but sometime after 1857 they came to

Texas. Settling on Spring Creek, in 1859, Mary was said to be the first white woman

to live there. George died there in 1860.

Herrin- Ramson Herrin was another Jefferson County boy, in 1849 he married Mary

there. They might have come overland with the Thomas McDonald crowd for the

places of birth of their children indicate the same pattern. Ransom was in the frontier

defense forces and served in the Gillespie County Minute Men 1872-1873. His son

James married Rebecca Jane McDonald in 1879 in Gillespie County.

Joy- Wiley Joy was a frontiersman extraordinaire, as a child he was taken by Indians

and held captive for a few years. He married Elizabeth Frazier in 1828 and they

settled in the Ozarks of Arkansas. About 1858 it got too civilized there and he moved

his family to Texas, first to the Doss Ranch then to the James River of Kimble

County, just a few miles on west from Harper and finally to nearby Kerr County. His

daughter Alwilda married Lafe McDonald at the outset of the Civil War and his

25

grandson Alonzo married Alwilda Taylor. After an unhappy event, which we will

recount later, he spent the last part of his life hunting down Indians.

Hudson- The Hudson Family although not directly related to our core families has

been closely related to many of our extended families for generations. Hulda Jane Joy

married Henry Richard Hudson and they were in Kerrville for the birth of their

second son by 1856. This family settled near Wiley Joy on Johnson Creek of the

James River later. This family and others continued, on years later, with others in our

families to the Seven Rivers area of New Mexico.

26

27

The Locations

Hill Country

The following is a general description of the area West and North of San Antonio, an

area spanning several counties. This is an edited version of „The Handbook of Texas

Online‟ article on the subject. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/

“ „Hill Country‟ is a vernacular term applied to a region including all or part

of twenty-five counties near the geographical center of Texas. In the

geomorphological sense, the Hill Country represents in large part a dissected plateau

surface. It is bordered on the east and south by the Balcones Escarpment, on the west

by the relatively undissected Edwards Plateau, and on the north by rolling plains and

prairies. The elevation nowhere exceeds 1,300 feet and is typically less than 1,000

feet. Lying in the transition zone between humid and semiarid climates, the Hill

Country experiences both wet and dry years; at Fredericksburg eleven inches of

precipitation was recorded in 1956 and forty-one inches the next year. The vegetation

originally consisted of a parklike, open forest dominated by several types of oak,

giving way in places to expanses of shinnery (dense thickets of scrub oak), to prairie,

or to dense juniper (colloquially called cedar) brakes. Both mesquites and junipers

have expanded as the environment has been disturbed. In the cultural sense the Hill

Country has been a meeting ground of Indian, Spaniard, Mexican, hill southern

Anglo, and northern European. The Apaches and their successors, the Comanches,

left little imprint but did retard Spanish colonial activities in the region. As early as

1860 the partition of the Hill Country between the two groups that were to dominate

it -hill southern Anglos and Germans- had been accomplished.

“Between 1840 and 1850 significant numbers of settlers, mostly southern

mountaineers had been attracted to the Hill Country, particularly to Williamson,

Hays, Comal, and Gillespie counties. Settlers from the mountain states of Tennessee,

Arkansas, and Missouri composed the largest nativity groups within the rural,

immigrant, Anglo-American population of these counties. The initial settlement of the

remaining Hill Country counties occurred in the decade before the outbreak of the

Civil War, as migration into the hills continued on a larger scale. According to a

count of the 1860 manuscript census the leading states of origin for the Anglo-

American population were still Arkansas and Tennessee. In the 1880 census the trend

remained the same, supporting the claim that migration from the Ozark, Ouachita,

and Appalachian states was largely responsible for the settlement of the Hill Country.

“But the southern mountaineers were not solely responsible for the peopling

of the Hill Country. Germans, mainly hill Hessians and Lower Saxons, introduced in

the middle 1840s by the Society of Nobles, occupied a corridor stretching 100 miles

northwestward from New Braunfels and San Antonio through Fredericksburg as far

as Mason, along the axis of an old Indian route known as the Pinta Trail, later called

the Upper Emigrant Road. The towns of Fredericksburg, Comfort, Boerne, and

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Mason all bear a strong German cultural imprint, as do numerous neighboring

hamlets and farms. By 1870 the population of Gillespie County was 86 percent

German, Comal 79 percent, Kendall 62 percent, and Mason 56 percent. Each river

valley in the German-settled portion of the Hill Country developed its own distinctive

subculture, particularly in the religious sense. The Pedernales valley in Gillespie

County is a Lutheran-Catholic enclave abounding in dance halls and ethnic clubs; the

Llano valley in Mason and western Llano counties is dominated by German

Methodists, who avoid dancing, drinking, and card playing; and the Guadalupe valley

of Kendall County is the domain of freethinkers who maintain the only rural

stronghold of agnosticism in Texas. Other European groups in the Hill Country

include Silesian Poles, who settled at Bandera in the 1850s; Alsatians, who spread up

from the Castroville area, following streams such as Hondo Creek; and Britishers,

who came as sheep raisers to Kerr and Kendall counties. Blacks are largely absent in

the Hill Country, though a few tiny freedmen colonies, such as Payton Colony in

Blanco County, occur. Hispanics form a relatively small minority throughout the Hill

Country.

“In the late 1970s a study was made to determine the extent and intensity of

the Hill Country as a perceptual region. Almost three-quarters of the people in the

region so designated identified „Hill Country‟ as the popular name for the area.”

It was into this area that our Ruth McDonald Lacey and her families came.

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Locke Hill

From „Nine Mile Hill‟ on the Fredericksburg Road you could see the Alamo, a few

miles further, Ruth‟s son, W.J.„Jack‟ Locke decided to settle. Some members of his

family, possibly Elijah and Ruth and some of their children, apparently intended to

settled on Pipe Creek, to the west, in Bandera County and Jack and his little group

were living there. Jack bought land near the Fredericksburg Road and built a log

cabin there. He then returned to Pipe Creek for his pregnant wife, Mary, and children;

they didn‟t quiet make it back to the new digs, son Sam was born in the wagon. From

such a challenging start in 1861 things grew worse, 1862 to 1865 brought the

hardships of the Civil War. After the war things improved, Jack‟s brother, Lewis

Madison Lacey, brought his young family to the area; they ran a stage stop and

ranched, by the 1870s there was a Post Office and School in Locke Hill.

Spring Creek / Harper

The Fredericksburg Road ran another 60 miles or so to the northwest ending in that

very German town in Gillespie County. One of the main features of Gillespie County

is the Pedernales River, running west to east through the area. Ten or so miles due

west of Fredericksburg on a tributary of the Pedernales, Spring Creek, a small

community sprang up in the 1860s / 1870s populated chiefly by members of our

„Family‟. It seems that, for a while, Spring Creek was a focal point for different parts

of the family as they spread westward into adjacent territory. Another eight or so

miles to the west, near the headwaters of the Pedernales, is an area that later

developed the town of Harper. This lovely countryside, lightly forested with plenty of

water, would seem like a pioneer‟s paradise, except for the Indians that is. The heads

of our „Family‟ all lived and some of them died in the Spring Creek/Harper district.

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31

The Story; a Chronological View

This part of the saga has a couple of challenges: First, the telling of it, that‟s my

challenge. I‟ll try and make it interesting; I‟m a little apprehensive and hope my skill

level is adequate to keep you from falling asleep. Second, the reading of it, my

intentions are to never finish this section therefore you must be patient and keep up

with developments. Depending on where you read this please understand that what

you read today might be improved tomorrow.

If you think of this story as an hourglass; all that‟s come before, the people and

places, the mountains of Tennessee, the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the vast

expanses of Texas, with the people that plied them. Neck it down to the

Fredericksburg Road plus a few miles more and then open it again. Open it up to

West Texas, then New Mexico and Arizona and in a few generations the whole

world, quite a tableau!

1840-1853ish

We‟ll start off with a bang, so to speak, with „The Battle of Plum Creek‟, August 12,

1840.

“The boldest and most concentrated of the Indian invasions on Texas, and the

deepest into the heart of Texas soil, occurred in August of 1840 and culminated in the

Battle of Plum Creek.” (Courtesy of lsjunction.com)

Tension between the Indians and the Texans had been steadily escalating for several

years. They came to a head in early 1840 in what became known as the Council

House Fight in San Antonio. The Indians had come to San Antonio on what started

out as a peace mission, but a dispute ended in the death of seven Texans and over

thirty-five Indians. As a result, the already diminished trust between the Texans and

Indians totally collapsed, and the Indians began making plans for retaliation.

The Indians sought revenge; it began in early August, when a war party of about 600

Comanches and Kiowas moved down from the Texas hill country all the way to

Victoria and nearby Linnville on the Gulf of Mexico. They carefully avoided the

settlements on the Guadalupe valley, and thus made the trip undetected when they

reached Victoria on the afternoon of August 6. After raiding and looting on the Texas

coast, the Indians began their return, back-tracking northward just east of the

Guadalupe River.

By then, news of the raids on Victoria and Linnville had spread through the

settlements. Volunteers from Gonzales under Matthew Caldwell and from Bastrop

under Ed Burleson were soon gathered and on the way to the site agreed upon to

intercept the Indians. The Comanches were already in sight as the two contingents of

Texans joined forces. As the Texans approached, most of the Indians formed a line in

32

front of their horses and pack mules. After some time, however, the Indians began

retreating and separating, so that the battle turned into a long running fight. The

Comanches lost over eighty warriors in the battle that stretched for almost fifteen

miles. Others were captured, including squaws and children, and much of the plunder

taken at Victoria and Linnville was recovered. The Texans lost one man killed and

seven wounded.

This fight and the events surrounding began a series of events that led to the

expulsion of the Indians from Texas. By the late 1850s almost any Indian adult male

in the State was considered up to no good and fair game; it must also be noted that the

Indians had come to the same conclusion.

Plum Creek has another significance to our story; Peter White, Samuel McCulloch

Jr., Rufe Perry, Creed Taylor and, I suspect, other participants became related to, or

close neighbors to our families.

As Texas was struggling for its identity, back in southern Illinois things were getting

down right civilized. Matt Taylor (age 38) was working as a stonemason and

preaching; and wife, Hannah, was raising a young family. Hannah‟s sister Rachel also

had a family to raise with her husband, Tom McDonald (age 37). Tom‟s sister Ruth

and her minister/doctor husband, Elijah Lacey (age 36) were moving their family

about as the ministry required. Brother, Joe McDonald (age 25) and his young wife

Elizabeth and their young children were keeping the never-ending farmer‟s life. The

youngest of our families, Eli McDonald, was still a toddler.

Elijah‟s father, Lionel, had been in the Illinois Militia like most of his peers during

the Indian disturbances of the early 1800s; the threat of Indians was now almost non-

existent. Building communities, farms and families was uppermost in most people‟s

minds.

The Methodists of that era were a very evangelical lot. They didn‟t think too much of

slavery and in this neck of the woods they didn‟t have much conflict over that.

Southern Illinois had few slaves, the bulk of the inhabitants were mid-south

frontiersmen who were used to doing their own work or northeasterners who thought

very little of the institution. However one area of daily life that brought the frontier

clergy to odds with many men was the counter-productivity (to put it mildly) of

alcohol. But the affable nature of the frontiersman overcame much of that; you do in

your space, I‟ll do in mine, if you don‟t badger me too much we‟ll get along fine. The

one area that frontier religion was unflappable in was a person‟s direct and un-

negotiable relationship with God. When folks left the East Coast for the most part

they left behind structured religion and religious settings. As things matured on the

frontier, as local congregations sprang up they served a social purpose but the

uppermost thing in every preachers mind was „what is your relationship to God‟. The

evangelical fervor was never quenched.

33

In 1840, up the road in Springfield, Abe Lincoln (age 31) was a well-established

states legislator and lawyer. The year before he had started seeing Mary Todd and in a

couple of years they would start a family of their own. They were on the way to a

little migration of their own for in 1846 he was elected to the U.S. Congress.

Of course, all this settling down in Illinois would have just the opposite effect on

some, as you westerners have no doubt observed in your own families. Maybe a

young feller, settles down, starts a business, get a house of his own…. or both. Then

one day he‟s talking to friend or a letter comes, or something and…. Bam! Pack the

wife and kids and we‟re off to new horizons.

Matt Taylor was the first to go and maybe the inspiration for the rest. Whether it was

a letter from his cousins, the Winters or perhaps the Methodist Church that got them

going, they went.

Pack the wagon, put the wife and kids aboard, cross the Mississippi and head

southwest. When you cross into Arkansas, at about the middle of the border with

Missouri you‟re in Izard County, a fine place to stop. In 1843 his last child, Permelia,

was born there. He plied his trade as a brick mason and followed his calling as a

circuit rider for the Methodists. After a few years, possibly due to the fact that Texas

was annexed in 1845, the wagon moved again for in 1850 we find him in Hunt Co.

(in the northeast corner) Texas.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Victoria who had become Queen of

England in 1837 at age 18, she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840;

like others in our story she was raising a family. England was coming out of a

peaceful and non-violent revolution and embarking on path that made it the greatest

empire in the history of the world. Not so with much of the rest of Europe, political

change and social unrest washed themselves across most of Western Europe, Prince

Albert‟s Germany was no exception. Germany was not a formal country, as we know

it, but a loosely allied Federation of States joined by language and customs. It wasn‟t

until the 1870s the Germany was united under Bismark.

By the 1840s thousands of Germans had already headed for the New World.

Meanwhile in drawing rooms across Germany, the nobility and educated were

discussing the unrest across their land. Out of this came an organization know as the

Adelsverein or the Society of Noblemen. As they explored options, Texas often came

to the forefront of discussion with its vast areas and unlimited opportunities. In the

midst of their search, one of the Noblemen, Prince Carl Solms, a first cousin to Queen

Victoria, met an American named Henry Fisher. Fisher had arrived in Bremen,

Germany as the official counsul of the Republic of Texas.

As happens when dealing with Texas, one thing led to another, the unexpected or

unplanned for cropped up and there were financial difficulties, but the lure of Texas

prevailed. In March 1845 the first group sponsored by the Society had landed at

Indianola and moved up and founded New Braunfels. Soon more immigrants were on

34

the way, where to put them? After painful starts and stops the next group of settlers,

120 men, women and children made camp at what would become Fredericksburg in

Gillespie County; the date, May 8, 1846.

Now is a good time for a geography lesson. For those of you that stayed awake in

10th or 11th grade Geography and American History, close your eyes and imagine

that big wall map in the classroom; for those of you that didn‟t, fake it. For everyone

else, somewhere in this collection is that same map; open it and follow.

Right above where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi River, that‟s southern Illinois.

Now find Austin TX, that‟s just above and to right from San Antonio. If you imagine

a line connecting southern Illinois and Austin that‟s sorta the emigrant trail in to the

heart of Texas. See where it passes by Little Rock, Arkansas then across the Red

River near Texarkana? Go a little west and you‟re in Hunt County, Texas and next to

that is Collin County and just above that is Grayson County. Do you have all that?

Austin is in Travis County due west is Blanco County then Gillespie County and

home. The emigrant trail at the time of the California Gold Rush continued on from

there through the desolate reaches of West Texas across the Pecos River and then in

another 150 miles or so, El Paso. The last town before this stretch was

Fredericksburg, today at 80 miles an hour it takes most of a day to El Paso; back then

at maybe 15 miles a day with very little water and very many Indians…. Just think

about it for a while. This transportation system in 1849 was known as the upper

emigrant trail and went on through to San Diego, California.

Now back to our lesson. You‟ve got Gillespie County all worked out, right? Go back

to Travis County (Austin) and make a counterclockwise arc right around Gillespie

County and back; Williamson County, Burnet County, Llano County, Mason County,

drop down, Kimble County, Kerr County, then back to Kendall County and Bexar

County with San Antonio, is just below Kendall.

There is a reason behind all this madness, these Counties come up over and over

again in our story.

But WAIT!…. for $19.95 plus shipping and handling we will throw in one more free

lesson: Go back to southern Illinois, follow the Mississippi River down to New

Orleans, turn West and follow the coast down past Galveston to Matagorda Bay.

There just below present day Port Lavaca was the Port of Indianola where the

Germans landed in the 1840s. Over the ensuing few years an overland route through

Goliad to San Antonio developed, from there westward to Chihuahua, Mexico or else

through to El Paso, the lower emigrant trail. But for our story the road continued out

of San Antonio either through Selma to Austin or through LockeHill to

Fredericksburg; The Fredericksburg Road. You got all that? There will be a quiz at

the end of the week.

In January 1848, just above Sacramento, California, James Marshall discovered gold

while building a sawmill for John Sutter. In December 1848, in a message to

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Congress, President Polk confirmed the discovery of gold in California. By June 1849

there were about 200 deserted ships in San Francisco harbor because the crews had

abandoned them for the goldfields. The population of San Francisco grew from 1000

in 1848 to an estimated 100,000 by December of 1849 gold fever had gripped the

nation.

In September 1848, Ruth‟s oldest son Jack Locke married Mary England the daughter

of Methodist, Minister of the Gospel, William England. A year later Jack next

younger brother, Asa, would marry Rosanna England, Mary‟s sister. The families

were growing.

When the Census was taken in June 1850, Matt Taylor was in Hunt County, Texas,

nearby lived the oldest of the Banta boys, Henry, with his family. Sometime after that

the wagons were rolling again, this time California. Who all actually started on the

trip is obscure but some deductions can be made, certainly the Taylors, maybe a

Winters cousin or two, members of the Joy family, possibly some of the Banta boys

and maybe others from Illinois.

If they hustled along, in a couple of months they would get to Fredericksburg, the last

chance to stock up, perhaps they even stayed for a while. The Gillespie County area

was nice, plenty of water, not to many people and even though it was on the edge of

the settlements at this time, in its history Indians weren‟t an over concern. They were

going to California, gotta roll on. Another two or three months of arduous travel

would bring them to the banks of the Pecos River. Maybe rest up and prepare for the

next and drier leg of the journey, thru to El Paso. While camped along the Pecos other

wagons appeared from the West, discouraged emigrants on their way back. Their

report, the wells and streams to the West were dry and conditions seemed intolerable.

A pow-wow among the Taylor party was held and the decision was made to turn

back, maybe they could find a place in Gillespie Co. It looked pretty nice there.

1854-1860

Meanwhile, back in Illinois the mailman must have been busy or perhaps some of the

young men had been to Texas for a visit. By 1853, 1854 at the latest, Elijah Lacey

and Joe McDonald had decided to head west. Some of their older children had

married and settled down, they would be along later.

First Joe and Elijah and families left, down the Mississippi River on a paddle wheel

steamer to New Orleans. At that port all the household goods and wagons and

animals, if they brought them, had to be trans-shipped to a coastal packet headed for

Indianola. Whether they came as one large group or as smaller groups is unclear.

What is certain is the fact that they stopped along the way, possibly for some time. As

evidence, Elijah‟s daughter, Mahala, and her husband John had a baby when they

were in Goliad in 1854, while Mahala‟s brother, Lewis, met a local girl, Margaret

White, whom he would marry in 1861. As this band worked their way along, they

seemed to have been thinking of settling at Pipe Creek, some miles west of San

36

Antonio. However Asa Lacey was the first interested in the area just north of San

Antonio but it would take his brother Jack Locke to actually buy some property and

settle in to what would become Locke Hill Community.

Joe‟s younger brother, Eli McDonald must have come with them, for in November

1857, at age 18, he married Matt Taylor‟s daughter Caroline; Rev. Elijah Lacey

officiating.

Tom might have taken a little more convincing. Tom and his family, seem to have

come overland. They traveled possibly with others from Illinois as evidenced by the

fact that his daughter, Suzanna married hometown boy, Dick Hall in Grayson Co. TX

in April 1858. Over the next couple of years they all came including relatives and

neighbors; Nelsons, Hazelwoods, Fairchild, Caseys, Herrins and more. The extended

family, with the exception possibly of Jack and Lewis, all lived at one time or another

in Gillespie Co.

The families didn‟t move right in to Spring Creek and settle down in one happy

commune, they sort of trickled in and then later filtered out. A good example is Tom

and Rachel McDonald and their younger ones. They first settled on Willow Creek and

then they moved to the Doss Ranch where Thomas ran the ranch for the Doss

Brothers. The Doss Ranch was just over the ridge, to the north of Spring Creek. Next

they moved to Sherman and built the first house in Basin Springs and then back to the

Doss Ranch. Later they settled into what would be called the Spring Creek

Community.

It‟s a little hard for us to envision the time element; it takes some time perhaps a year

to settle in. There were no houses, sometimes a little lean-to might do, usually a log

cabin or dugout was required, planting crops and building corrals were the next most

important. In Tom and Rachel‟s story just mentioned there was probably five or six

years between Willow Creek and Spring Creek. All the while, the kids are growing

up; there are weddings, the occasional funeral, visiting to do, housekeeping, farming

and stock raising.

37

1861-1865 The War Comes

Abe Lincoln was elected President in 1860; although he wasn‟t an abolitionist he

favored banning the expansion of slavery to newly founded states. This, of course,

didn‟t sit well with the ardent slave holding states, secession followed. By April 1861

shots had been fired at Ft. Sumter and the Civil War was on. In eastern Texas, as in

most of the South, young men flocked to the colors. But on the western and northern

frontiers, the concern was not fighting for a cause in the east but, with the withdrawal

of Federal forces from the frontier, defense of hearth and home from marauding

Indians.

The first of our extended families to join up, Austin and Peter White (Jr.), Lewis

Lacey‟s brother‟s-in-law, in March of 1861 they enlisted in the First Texas Mounted

Rifles to defend the frontier. Peter would not come back. They had both been born in

Texas and were eager, as their father before them, to defend the frontier; this

organization was initially under the control of the Sate of Texas.

As 1861 past, it became obvious that the war was going to be protracted and the men

in the west of Texas were coming to some hard decisions. Most members of our

family took a wait and see attitude, they were on the thinly populated edge of the

settlements and had other priorities. December 1861 brought an apparently good

solution; the Texas State Legislature authorized the formation of The Frontier

Regiment; subject to regulations of the Confederate Army but only to serve on the

frontier in Texas, the enlistment was for twelve months. This suited many of the

Gillespie County men, they wouldn‟t be far from home since the companies were

organized geographically and they wouldn‟t have to fight against the Union. Some of

the men in our families joined Company A, McCord‟s Frontier Regiment, Texas

Cavalry, among them; Asa Lacey, Lafe McDonald, William, Jacob and John Banta,

Dick Hall, Thurman Taylor, Jim Taylor and other friends and relatives. William

Banta would, later, command the Company.

In April of 1862, the Confederate Government passed a conscription act; all able

body men between 18 and 35 were subject to military service. The fat was really in

the fire now; the men had to decide which course to take. There were four major

options; outright join the Confederate Army, figure out how leave western Texas and

join the Union Army, take your chances with the Frontier Regiment or, finally, try

and evade conscription. The problem facing most members of our families is that they

didn‟t fancy Slavery but of course in these months before the Emancipation

Proclamation, in January 1863, the issue was states rights; nonetheless, it was hard for

them to give up old loyalties. It was especially hard on their German neighbors who

had recently sworn their loyalty to the United States.

Lewis Lacey moved his wife Margaret and infant son from Locke Hill to Goliad were

her family was and together with her brothers, John and Grey White, and Thurman

Taylor‟s brother‟s-in-law, Bill and Lum Alexander, enlisted in Company D, Waller‟s

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Battalion, Texas Cavalry, CSA in April 1862. John White was killed at Bonnet Carre,

LA in September of that year.

Mahala Lacey‟s husband, John H. Lacey had enlisted in a different outfit of the Texas

Cavalry, CSA and was heading to one of the costliest battles of the war, The Battle of

Stones River, near Murfeesboro, Tennessee. Here one of the saddest but recurring

family events of the war, brother fighting against brother occurred. John in the Texas

Cavalry (dismounted) faced his brothers James and Theophilus in the Twenty Second

Illinois; Theophilus was killed outright and James was to later die of his wounds.

A younger Lacey brother, Joshua Collins, or “Coll” chose a different scenario. After

New Orleans fell to the Yankee‟s, he made his way there and enlisted in the First

Texas Cavalry Volunteers, USA, in October 1862 and served with that Regiment until

the end of the War. He was discharged in October 1865. He had been wounded by a

gunshot through the right side in a skirmish in 1863. On March 3, 1876, the Adjutant

General‟s Office, Washington, D.C. listed the following information incidental to the

application:

“Pension File No. 213.123. That Joshua Lacy was enrolled 28th day of Octo-

ber, 1862, at New Orleans in Co. A, 1st Regt., Texas Cavalry Volunteers, to serve 3

years, and was mustered into service as a Private on the 6th day of November 1862 at

New Orleans, La., in same company and regiment and to serve 3 years.”

On the Muster Roll of Co. A of that Regiment for the months of Nov. and Dec., 1863

he is reported Joshua C. Lacy, Sergt, present. Sept. and Oct., 1863, Private, absent

wounded and taken prisoner near Franklin, La., Oct. 4th, 1863. Regtl. Return for Oct.

1863 reports him, Private, missing in action Oct. 12, 1863, New Iberia, La. Co. roll

for Nov. and Dec., 1863, reports him Sergt, present. Remark, promoted from Private,

Dec. 21st, 1863. Escaped from Confederate hospital, Alexandria. Returned to duty,

Dec. 20th, 1863. (Regtl. Return for Dec. 1863 reports him escaped from rebels and

reported at Brownsville, Dec. 20, 1863). Muster Roll of a Detachment of said Co.,

dated Oct. 31st, 1865, reports him, Joshua C. Lacey, 1st Sergt, Present, and mustered

out with detachment at that date at San Antonio, Texas. No evidence of wound as

alleged Oct. 1st, 1863, or that Co. was engaged in action at that date. Oct. 1, 1863,

Co. was encamped at Risland, La. Oct. 2nd took line of march to Franklin, La. Oct.

3rd on march on road leading to New Iberia, which is about 28 miles from Franklin.

Oct. 4th Co. was engaged in action about 2 miles from Newton, La. No record to

show that Co. was engaged in action Oct. 12th, 1863 other than stated on Return for

Oct.1863. Prisoner of War Records furnish no information.

When McCord‟s Frontier Regiment was sent East they were replaced in the area

around Gillespie County with the Third Frontier District, at first commanded by

James M. Hunter.

It was manned by older men and invalids back from other service. Jack Locke was

just old enough to be exempt from the draft but was a prime candidate for the Third

Frontier District, he was voted in as Captain of a company in Gillespie County. That

39

he was elected Captain, spoke well of his leadership abilities, but something, whether

it was local politics or the unrelenting issues of the Confederate cause pushed him to

desert to the Union lines. Jack wound up serving with some of his kinsmen in the

Second Texas Cavalry Volunteers USA along the Rio Grande as a Lieutenant. Jack

left his wife, Mary, and their two small children at their cabin near what would

become LockeHill until he returned in the summer of 1865. Mary was on her own,

growing what she could, they ate wild berries and acorns, she trapped small animals

and hunted with a bow and arrow; all the while keeping a lookout for Indians that

were plaguing the vicinity.

The men in the Frontier Regiment had the advantage of being near home but as the

months went by their job became increasingly overwhelming. Deserters had been

making their way to the sparsely populated regions, draft evaders of unsavory

character and others had formed bands of bushwhackers; stealing what they want,

killing whom they please and terrorizing unprotected women and children. Law and

order had crumbled. It fell to the frontier forces to do the best they could, sometimes

they reacted to harshly and too indiscriminately and that led to complaints about them

as well.

Which leads us to the last category, men who for moral reasons did not want to be in

Confederate service and around Gillespie County they were numerous, folks like our

families that were to far from the Union line to take their families back or the

Germans mentioned before. The usual ploy was just to not be home when the

enrolling officer came around which wasn‟t to difficult most of the time; neighbors

and family understood, the country had innumerable places to hide, most of the time.

The often-insurmountable problem was when organized groups of men came looking

for you.

James Duff and his Confederate Partisan Ranger Company conducted a reign of

terror in the Hill Country between May 1862 and March 1863. Duff‟s unit was

ordered to the Hill Country by General Hamilton Bee to suppress activities that were

considered disloyal to the Confederacy among German settlers there. Duff and his

men were given to summary executions rather that law, they murdered many citizens

in the area; among them were Sebird Henderson, Gus Tegner, Frank Scott and Hiram

Nelson. The four men were rounded up, beaten and hung, then rocks were tied to their

feet and they were thrown into Spring Creek in the summer of 1862. The bodies were

retrieved by family and buried in Spring Creek Cemetery. Hiram Nelson was the

father of Joe McDonald‟s wife Rhoda.

Duff‟s brutality gave way to another family story, that of the fate of Amos Fairchild.

Family tradition had always said that Amos had met a similar fate including having

his legs chopped off, but no confirmation existed; that may well have been a myth

that sprang out of Duff‟s violent ways. In recent years a document has come to light,

dictated by Amos‟ daughter, Gillette, to her daughter, Emma “Amy” Taylor, in

Animas, NM. Amy wrote that Amos died at Eagle Pass, TX in 1865; that Amos met

his death while working for Mr. Hunter and that he was a Union man all of his life.

40

This story is supported by history, Major James Hunter; a man well known in

Gillespie Co. had taken command of the Third Frontier District Organization that

succeeded the Frontier Regiment in 1864. Hunter‟s area of operations was from the

area around Gillespie Co. to the Rio Grande and by this time they had to deal with

many desperate and lawless men. The Frontier Organization was made up of older

men were the issue of loyalties wasn‟t such a big deal, which sets a stage for Emma

Taylor‟s document to ring true.

Let‟s switch from trials and tribulations of war to the trials and tribulations of the

frontier. Zed Taylor had been at forefront of the family adventures and possibly his

accounts of the potential of things down the road fueled his father and others to get up

and go. He and his wife Margrit had come to Gillespie County 1855, in 1857, shortly

after the birth of their second child, Margrit died. Like many in his family he was a

very religious man and loved to attend „Camp Meetings‟. On one such occasion he

met a beautiful young girl of nineteen, named Dorcas Hayes, and on the last day of

1860 they were married. The coming months brought both the excitement of just

being… and the uncertainties of the war.

Zed enlisted in July of 1861 and, as was common in Texas outfits, he was elected

Sergeant. Dorcas had her two stepchildren to keep her company and she was looking

forward to her own child at the end of the year. As November drew near, Sergeant

Taylor asked for leave to be with his wife, an accident in which he broke his foot

made his leave possible even sooner. His foot healed nicely, he was able chink and

daub the log house and to repair the huge stone fireplace. His family and neighbors

pitched in and built him a smokehouse for the winters supply of meat; for Dorcas had

raised a lot of hogs. With the help of friends, he butchered the hogs on November

20th

, the next day the baby was born. On the 25th

he was called back to the service.

The first of December brought a warm spell, Dorcas got up from her bed to look after

the newly butchered meat; it was all too much for her and by December 5th

she was

dead.

In London, a few days later, at Windsor Castle, Queen Victoria‟s beloved husband,

Prince Albert died from typhoid fever. Victoria remained in self-imposed seclusion

for the next ten years. This genuine but obsessive mourning kept her occupied for the

rest of her life and played an important role in the evolution of what would become

the Victorian mentality.

Zed was released from service to take care of his children, his parents, Matt and

Rachel, lived nearby and they of course helped. In May 1862, there was a big Camp

Meeting near where Harper is now and Zed was there. After morning services Deacon

Zed and two other men went down to the spring to wash and bring water for the noon

meal. As he stooped down to wash a large water moccasin struck at him, Zed pulled

back, drew his revolver and shot the snake. He holstered his pistol but something

happened and it fell out; striking a rock it went off. The ball entered Zed‟s chest. He

spoke only six words “God have mercy on my Children” and died. Alice, James and

Hattie were orphans.

41

In April 1862 New Orleans fell to Union forces under Admiral Farragut, on the

eastern front battles raged in and around Virginia, on what was considered the

western front, there was fighting in Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee; summer

changed to winter, as December changed to January, John Lacey was freezing and

fighting the Battle of Stones River.

On the frontier lawlessness was growing and the Indians, emboldened by the lack of

manpower in Texas, were growing ever more brazen. Our families were very self

reliant so the shortage of manufactured goods that Texas was experiencing, hardly

bothered them, nonetheless the lack of sewing needles for the home, iron for the

blacksmith and gunpowder, percussion caps and lead for firearms had to crimp their

already meager lifestyles. The biggest shortage, by far, was strong backs; sure they

could get by, but month after month turning into year after year without the muscle

required to chop down trees, till new ground, hunt and raise and butcher stock took its

toll.

As the Yankees moved north from New Orleans in the fall of 1862 and into 1863 the

boys in Waller‟s Battalion were fighting constant skirmishes and a few pitched battles

with them in the bayous of western Louisiana. In Austin, there was a struggle of other

sorts going on, the struggle with the Confederate Government in Richmond over

military manpower. In the first year they had allowed frontier units like the 1st Texas

Rifles to be transferred to Confederated Army control and they had raised other

regiments for regular service but Richmond wanted more. Texas didn‟t feel that they

had more to give, after all the less than two thousand men of the Frontier Regiment

were doing what it took one-quarter of the entire U.S. Army to do before the war.

Young Lafe McDonald had fallen in love with beautiful Alwilda Joy and in April

1864 they were wed, Rev. Elijah Lacey performed the service. No sooner than Lafe

had returned to Company A, they were notified that they were being transferred to

Confederate service and were moving eastward, and most certainly to combat with

Union troops. The men from our families and some of their friends had strong

Northern sentiments, what to do? Asa Lacey made his way directly to New Orleans

and enlisted with his brother in the 1st Texas, USA. Lafe McDonald, along with Ed

Janes and Toby Joy, and perhaps in the company of Thurman Taylor and others took

off for Mexico and finally reached the Union lines at Brazos, TX and joined the

Second Battalion Texas Cavalry, USA and served from March to November 1865.

Next we will let Lafe tell you the story from his memoirs:

This is taken from “Memoirs on Lafe McDonald, Frontier Times”:

“My people were Union in their sentiments. My father could never reconcile

himself to the belief that it was right to rebel against the United States government. I

was but eighteen years old at the time, but had imbibed my father‟s sentiments. But

not knowing what to do, I first joined a ranger company, enlisting under Captain Jim

42

Hunter. This captain soon resigned and Capt. Wm. Banta was chosen as his

successor. This was in 1862. During this time we were stationed at various camps, the

first being Camp Verde in Kerr County. From there we went to a place on the Llano

River that we called „Camp Pumpkin-Head‟. Then to old historic Fort Mason and I

have never forgotten that beautiful, gurgling spring near the old fort. From Mason we

went to the mouth of Spring Creek in Gillespie County, and then to Camp Davis on

White Oak Creek.

“During the time I was in this service and when I was just twenty years of age,

I was married to a very beautiful girl named Alwilda Joy. Old Uncle Lige (Elijah), a

pioneer Methodist preacher performing the marriage ceremony.

“I did not get to remain with her very long, for my services were required with

the rangers, I soon had to leave her never to see her beautiful face again, the fatal

circumstances to be told further on in this narrative.

“We were soon notified that we would be required to enlist as regular soldiers

in the Confederate service. This, with my Northern sentiments, I did not desire to do.

In company with Ed. Jaynes and John Joy, I ran away. We were called deserters, and

a company of Confederate soldiers was sent to arrest us. This was in 1864. The Con-

federates were under command of Capt. Louis Dixon, We had started to Mexico but

the Confederates overtook us and demanded us to halt. We ran into a thicket and the

Confederates fired, but overshot. Limbs of trees fell all around us. I wanted to return

fire, but my two companions would not, saying we did not have a shadow of a chance

of driving the company back. John Joy and Ed. Jaynes went back of the thicket. I

stood where I was, the company advanced and at last a German fellow spied me. He

darted back but told him to come on, that we would surrender. They did so, and we

were disarmed, and started back under heavy guard. We did not know what they

intended to do with us but we supposed they would shoot us as deserters. There was

not the best feeling between myself and Dixon, owing to a little trouble I had with his

brother, Bill Dixon, who hit me on the head with a loaded quirt. I thought Louis

Dixon held malice towards me on account of that difficulty with his brother. So the

first opportunity I had, I whispered to my companions that we would stay awake and

some time after midnight, arise and overpower the guard and try to make our escape,

but my comrades thought it unwise to do so. I however, lay awake. Late In the night

when they thought we were asleep, I heard Dixon talking about us. I heard him say:

„That Lafe McDonald Is a good boy; but he has gotten In with a bad set, and he, like

the rest, must take his medicine‟.

“Early the next morning they started on with us, keeping us heavily guarded

all the time. That night they camped near some old log houses. One house had been

built first, and later another room had been added by putting the ends of the logs into

the cracks of the one that had been built first. There was no door to the room built last

except the door coming out of the other room I sized It up and saw if we were placed

in that room that night, we could slip a log, where the two rooms joined and make our

escape, and I was willing to try nearly anything.

43

“Fortunately Dixon and his men had secured some watermelons from a field

nearby. They generously gave us one, and one of our men said, „Boys, lets go back

into that room and eat ours.‟ We were allowed to go unmolested, for the Confederates

thought there was no way for us to escape. They sat down in groups in front of the

door, and began eating watermelons. We passed into the room, put down our melon,

slipped the log, and crawled out, keeping the house between ourselves and the enemy.

We were soon in the timber completely out of sight. We ran as hard as we could go

for about eight or nine miles when we stopped to rest. We listened and heard the

tinkling of a cowbell. My hearing was extra good, and I knew what it was; but John

Joy contended that it was the bark of hounds on our trail, so we started and ran again

until we were completely exhausted. We were very hungry and kept thinking of the

watermelon we left behind; but what was liberty compared to a watermelon. Well, we

lay out in the brush for a few days when hunger forced me to venture up to my fathers

house. My mother was greatly excited on seeing me, and said: „Lafe, are you not gone

yet? The soldiers are thick around here, it is impossible for you to get away.‟ She

knew I was trying to get to Mexico, I said „Get a sack and fill It with provisions,

quick‟. She did so, and I merged into the darkness to the hiding place of my

companions. I said as I started „Pa, get me a horse to the Bill Gamel Ranch on the

Llano.‟ He did so, and a few days after that seven of us started from the Gamel Ranch

to old Mexico. There was, besides myself, John Joy, Geo. Davidson, Ed. Jaynes

(there seems to be three missing). We were all mounted but I had no saddle. I rode all

the way to Mexico bareback.

“We took some provisions with from the Gamel Ranch, but depended mostly

on securing food on the route. We left in too much haste to make much preparation

for the trip. At one time our supply of provisions was entirely exhausted, and we lived

on prickly-pear apples. At last the majestic Rio Grande was reached and we crossed

at Nuevo Pueblo, or New Town, as we called it in English. It was the time of the

Maximilian affair in Mexico, and the country, like the one we left, was in a very

disturbed condition. We were anxious to keep our horses and sidearms, but did not

know if we would be allowed to do so. We left our horses at Nuevo Pueblo, and

reported to the Alcalde at Piedras Negras. He treated us with considerable courtesy,

but seemed to be a little suspicious. He asked us what we had done with our horses.

We told him we had traded them for provisions. He then had us placed under arrest.

One of our men became scared and kept talking about his horse, and the Mexicans

understood. The Alcalde told us they would have to take our horses and firearms, lest

they might fall into the hands of the French. They then released us, but sent and got

our property.

“Being bereft of our horses, we began seeking work. A great many cotton

bales had been floated across the Rio Grand, and we were employed to pick off the

damp cotton and spread it out in the sun to dry. At this occupation we worked about

two weeks. Then a man came there from Santa Rosa seeking help in the silver mines.

We went with him and worked about a month, it was raining and the water was

pouring into the mouth of the shaft. Our employer decided to build a roof over it. We

were sent to Rio Sabinas to split cypress shingles for that purpose. This was a change

from the laborious task of digging out silver ore, and we greatly enjoyed it. We were

44

in camp there about two weeks after which we returned to Piedras Negras. While

there, we were joined by Tobe and Dick Joy, They had made their way into Mexico,

and in some manner heard of us, and sought us out. While there, we heard that Mrs.

Joy and her daughter had been killed by the Indians, but I did not know if it was my

mother-in-law, and my wife that were killed, or if it were another Mrs. Joy and her

daughter. I was, of course, very uneasy, but bad no way of getting facts in the case.

Dear Alwilda, it was cruel to be separated from her, at such a time; but such are the

ordeals, of war.

“We at last decided to leave Piedras Negras and go to the mouth of the Rio

Grande to where we knew some Federal troops were stationed. The distance was

seven hundred miles, and we were afoot. There were now nine of us. The trip was a

long, weary one, fraught with many privations; but we finally made it, walking every

step of the way. We crossed the river in a ferryboat, and reached the Federal troops.

With them, we went to the Brazos Island. From there we took transportation on a boat

to New Orleans, where we were mustered into the regular army. This was in February

1865, and we were sworn in on the 11th day of March, following, under Capt. James

Speed. We were then sent back to Brazos Island, and after remaining there for awhile

we were sent to Brownsville. From there Lieut. James, with some men, was sent to

Laredo. I was with them. From there we scouted back and forth, during the rest of the

war. It was while here that we heard of Lee‟s surrender at Appomattox. There was

much rejoicing, because it meant that the cruel war was over and that we could go

back in peace and safety to our homes. Visions of my young bride came up before me

and would shudder when I would think of the report that a Mrs. Joy and her daughter

had been killed by the Indians. I went to San Antonio, and there met old Joe Mc-

Donald and be related the sad circumstances. It was indeed Alwilda and her mother

who had been murdered. With a sad and broken heart, I returned to Laredo and it was

there I received an honorable discharge from the army.”

In the autumn of 1864 the beautiful Alwilda Joy McDonald was living with her

parents on the James River in neighboring Kimble County about 25 miles from her

Gillespie County in-laws, the Monroe McDonald family. Alwilda was getting antsy

for a letter from her husband and because of the distances and sparse population

maybe a little lonely. Living with Monroe and his wife Becky (Taylor) was Monroe

and Lafe‟s sister Mary Fannin and her four children. She was a widow and a favorite

aunt of Alwilda‟s. So one day Alwilda and her mother saddled up and went to the

McDonald‟s for a visit, which they no doubt much enjoyed. They stayed several days,

when it was time to return they were trying to persuade Aunt Mary to return with

them. She decided not to at the last minute and they got a late start, not concerned

about the road home because it was a full moon. Their little outing turned to tragedy a

few miles from the McDonald‟s, the women were attacked by Indians and murdered.

A traveler found the bodies and the family buried them in the Spring Creek Cemetery.

With that bit of grim reporting we‟ll end our family view of the Civil War. General

Robert E. Lee surrendered in April 1865; Texas held on for another month or so and

collapsed. When the Union Army rode into Texas the slave population of East Texas

45

didn‟t even know they were free. On June 19, 1865 Major General Gordon Granger

read General Order #3 to the people of Galveston, Juneteenth and no more slavery,

Reconstruction had begun.

Our fellow traveler from Illinois, Abe Lincoln, was assassinated in Ford‟s Theater

and his family brought him home to Springfield on the train.

Ruth and Elijah continued to minister to folks in the area.

This concludes Part One of our Story.

Part Two will back track a little and review the local events of 1860.

It will also recap the War years, and

follow Ruth’s extended family through the 1885ish period.