by Scott Zesch
County, Tex.
July 29, 1865
near
Morris Ranch,
Tex.
Sept. 1877
Ft. Sill, I. T.
Apr. 13, 1941
Apache, Okla.
BANC
BABB
Aug. 26, 1856
Lecompton
Kan.
Sept. 14, 1866
near Chico,
Tex.
Apr. (?) 1867
Ft. Arbuckle,
I. T.
Apr. 13, 1950
Denton, Tex.
DOT
BABB
May 17, 1852
Reedsburg,
Wis.
Sept. 14, 1866
near Chico,
Tex.
June (?) 1867
Ft. Arbuckle,
I. T.
Aug. 10, 1936
Amarillo, Tex.
MINNIE
CAUDLE
Sept. 1, 1859
Llano County,
Tex.
Feb. 5, 1868
Llano County,
Tex.
July 27, 1868
Ft. Larned,
Kan.
Mar. 11, 1933
Marble Falls,
Tex.
TEMPLE
FRIEND
May 21, 1860
Llano County,
Tex.
Feb. 5, 1868
Llano County,
Tex.
Nov. 14, 1872
Ft. Sill, I. T.
June 2, 1875
El Dorado,
Kan.
ADOLPH
KORN
May 8, 1859
San Antonio,
Tex.
Jan. 1, 1870
near Castell,
Tex.
Nov. 14, 1872
Ft. Sill, I. T.
July 3, 1900
Mason, Tex.
HERMAN
LEHMANN
June 5, 1859
near
Fredericksburg,
Tex.
May 16, 1870
near Loyal
Valley, Tex.
Apr. 1878
Ft. Sill, I. T.
Feb. 2, 1932
Loyal Valley,
Tex.
CLINTON
SMITH
Aug. 3, 1860
near Bergheim,
Tex.
Feb. 26, 1871
near Bergheim,
Tex.
Oct. 24, 1872
Ft. Sill, I. T.
Sept. 10, 1932
Rocksprings,
Tex.
JEFF
SMITH
Aug. 31, 1862
near Bergheim,
Tex.
Feb. 26, 1871
near Bergheim,
Tex.
May 1, 1873
Piedras Negras,
Mexico
Apr. 21, 1940
San Antonio,
Tex.
Notes
A Comment on the Sources
Historian T. R. Fehrenbach observed that “the type of white person drawn to the frontier, either as a settler or an Indian fighter, was one whose life was given to ceaseless action, rarely reflection or philosophy…. Only a handful of the thousands of Texans who battled Indians on the frontier ever bothered to write down their observations” (Fehrenbach, Comanches, 306). Fehrenbach’s remarks explain the difficulty I encountered in searching for reliable information on the captives’ experiences and the dilemma I faced in trying to create an unbroken narrative without sacrificing historical integrity. Sometimes, the only sources on particular events were thirdhand accounts, family legends, or popular histories of dubious scholarship. The white Indians’ stories also contained numerous gaps and omissions. And if the Texas settlers didn’t set down many written accounts, the Comanches and Apaches left virtually none.
My retelling of the events in this book represents a synthesis of the sources that I considered generally trustworthy, even if they contained some errors. In weighing the credibility of each source, I was guided by two inquiries.
Was the narrator an eyewitness to the incidents reported? If not, did he or she atleast obtain the information from someone who was in a position to observe the events?
Even some eyewitness accounts are suspect. Many were written or dictated from memory decades after the events occurred. Others were tailored to meet audience expectations. Furthermore, the captives’ published interviews and “as told to” autobiographies no doubt contain some inaccuracies and biases introduced by their interviewers and editors.
Consequently, I employed a second test:
Are the eyewitness’s recollections either corroborated or contradicted by credible reports of the same events recorded shortly after they occurred?
Although some scholars have questioned the reliability of the captivity narratives I’ve cited, I found that they held up surprisingly well under the second test. For the most part, the captives’ own recollections of their abduction and eventual recovery were consistent with the official reports, letters, and newspaper accounts written at the time those events occurred. That led me to believe that the captives’ tales of their lives among the Indians (most of which cannot be checked against other sources) are generally credible. What’s more, captivity narratives are among the very few accounts of pre-reservation Comanche and Apache life authored by insiders, since those tribes didn’t use written languages (other than pictographs).
Some elderly Comanches gave interviews in the 1920s and 1930s, which provided valuable information on their captives and pre-reservation culture. Especially important are the 1933 Comanche Field Notes of the Santa Fe Laboratory of Anthropology research party, which will be published in a forthcoming compendium edited by Thomas W. Kavanagh.
As a rule, when two sources disagreed, I gave more credence to eyewitness testimony than hearsay, and to earlier rather than later sources. I decided against interrupting the flow of the story with analyses of the credibility of particular sources or the discrepancies among them. However, I discuss some of those finer points in the notes to the individual chapters.
In writing my account of the captives’ experiences, I did not invent any of the dialogue, although I reconfigured a few lines of narrative prose taken from eyewitnesses’ reports into direct speech. When necessary, I took the liberty of inserting information on what settlers and Indians ate, wore, rode, etc., that was gleaned from accounts handed down by people who lived during that period.
The English transcriptions of Comanche names vary widely from source to source. For the most part, I used the spellings found in the most recent political history, Kavanagh’s The Comanches, which contains detailed information on the derivations and translations of prominent chiefs’ names. The names of several other Native American individuals that were taken from the captives’ narratives should be viewed as rough approximations. For transcriptions and definitions of Comanche words and phrases, I used the Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee’s excellent Taa Numu Tekwapu?ha Tuboopu (Our Comanche Dictionary).
Correspondence, articles, and interviews pertaining to each captive are cited in the Bibliography. Other sources specific to a particular chapter are mentioned in the chapter notes. I’ve used the abbreviations listed below when citing documents from the major archives I visited. However, many of the real “gems” collected during my search were tucked away in vertical files in small-town libraries and local history museums, especially those in Mason, Llano, Decatur, and Boerne, Texas; El Dorado, Kansas; Reedsburg and Baraboo, Wisconsin; and Lawton, Oklahoma. For background information, I relied on many fine articles in the journals Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Chronicles of Oklahoma, and Prairie Lore.
In all citations, Roman numerals refer to volumes and Arabic numerals to pages, unless otherwise indicated. No volume numbers are given for periodicals that are not consecutively paginated.
&nbs
p; ABBREVIATIONS
APSL
American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
CAH
Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas
FCML
Fort Concho Museum Library, San Angelo, Texas
FLNHS
Fort Larned National Historic Site, Larned, Kansas
FSMA
Fort Sill Musuem Archives, Fort Sill, Oklahoma
HML
Haley Memorial Library, Midland, Texas
KSHS
Kansas State Historical Society, Manuscripts Department, Topeka, Kansas
MGP
Museum of the Great Plains, Lawton, Oklahoma
NARA
National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
NARA-CP
National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland
NARA-SW
National Archives and Records Administration, Southwest Region, Fort Worth, Texas
OHS
Oklahoma Historical Society, Archives and Manuscripts Division, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
PPHM
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas
SINAA
Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, Suit-land, Maryland
TSA
Texas State Archives, Austin, Texas
UTEP
University Library, University of Texas at El Paso, Texas
WHC
Western History Collections, The University of Oklahoma Libraries, Norman, Oklahoma
CHAPTER 1: NEW YEAR’S DAY
1. The information in this chapter about the Korn family is drawn from: Hulda C. Wilbert, Kernels of Korn: The Historical Events of a Pioneer Family (Burnet, Tex.: Nortex Press, 1982); O. C. Fisher, It Occurred in Kimble (1937; reprint, San An-gelo: The Talley Press, 1984), 113, 117, 133; and Scott Zesch, “The Two Captivities of Adolph Korn,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, CIV (Apr. 2001), 515–40. My discussion of living conditions in Castell during its early years relies primarily on Hazel Oatman Bowman, “Quaint Castell, Outpost of German Pioneers,” San Antonio Express, July 26, 1936, D1, D3. The quotes by and stories about Granny Hey (Hannah Korn Hey) are taken from: Frontier Times, VI (Jan. 1929), 155–56; Fisher, It Occurred in Kimble, 133–35; Colorado County [Tex.] Citizen, June 11, 1936, Magazine Section, 2; Mason County News, Mar. 14, 1935, 8; Florence T. Hillard, “Tallow Candle Days,” [The Daily Oklahoman], n.d., photostat of clipping in Hey family file, M. Beven Eckert Memorial Library, Mason, Texas; San Angelo Standard-Times, May 3, 1934, Section 3, 2; and Hannah Korn Hey to Hazel Oatman Bowman, Jan. [1935], copy of manuscript in the author’s possession.
2. George W. Todd to N.G. Taylor, July 22, 1868, Microfilm Roll 375, FLNHS.
3. Clinton L. Smith and Jefferson D. Smith with J. Marvin Hunter, The Boy Captives (Bandera, Tex.: Frontier Times, 1927), 82.
Vol. H, page 353 (July 5, 1861), Deed Records, Gillespie County Clerk’s Office, Fredericksburg, Texas.
5. Smith, The Boy Captives, 119.
6. San Angelo Standard, May 14, 1926, 2.
7. Alice Todd’s fate was never determined, although there were periodic reports that she remained with the Kiowas, married a Mexican (probably a fellow captive), and had a daughter. Todd to Taylor, July 22, 1868; Dan Allen to Charles Lewis, July 25, 1869, Microfilm Roll M234/376, NARA-SW; and John Lee to H. Clay Wood, Jan. 24, 1870, Southern Plains Indian Agencies Collection, WHC.
8. Indian depredation claim of Rans [sic] Moore, Record Group 123, Case No. 5121, NARA.
9. The murders in the Saline community are described in: Weekly Southern Intelligencer [Austin], Aug. 18, 1865, 2; Fisher, It Occurred in Kimble, 49–50, 113–37; Thomas W. Gamel, The Life of Thomas W. Gamel, ed. Dave Johnson (Mason, Tex.: Mason County Historical Society, 1994), 5–11; J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas (1889; reprint, Austin: Eakin Press, 1985), 644; Joseph Carroll McConnell, The West Texas Frontier, or a Descriptive History of Early Times in Western Texas (2 Vols.; Palo Pinto, Tex.: Texas Legal Bank and Book Co., 1939), II, 68, 218; Mason County News, May 1, 1985, 7, and May 15, 1985, 8; and Josephine Conaway Hunter to Elizabeth Mahill, 1942, copy of notes in the author’s possession.
10. Affidavits of Adolph A. Reichenau, Sept. 4, 1888, Gus Reichenau, Dec. 19,1889, and Charles Wartenbach (n.d.), Indian depredations papers, Mason County Clerk’s Office, Mason, Texas.
11. Indian agent Lawrie Tatum reported that Adolph Korn’s captors were New Mexico Apaches or Arizona Apaches. Lawrie Tatum to Enoch Hoag, Nov. 15, 1872, Microfilm Roll M234/377, NARA-SW; Lawrie Tatum, Our Red Brothers and the Peace Policy of President Ulysses S. Grant (1899; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970), 139. Both designations probably referred to the Mescalero Apaches. Frank D. Reeve, “The Apache Indians in Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, L (Oct. 1946), 211. In 1915, when Indian depredation claims were still being litigated, the federal government speculated that Adolph was captured by Mescalero Apaches from New Mexico, which would have proven that the Mescaleros were raiding in that area in 1870. Harry Peyton, an attorney in Washington, D.C., didn’t believe that was true: “My theory is that this location in Mason County was entirely too far removed from the natural habitat of the Mescalero-Apaches to probably involve them in this capture and depredation. I am led to assume that the Apaches who captured him were of those Apaches that were affiliated with the Comanches and Kiowas on the reservation in the Indian Territory.” Peyton hoped Uncle Adolph could answer this question definitively, not realizing that he had died fifteen years earlier. Harry Peyton to Charles Bierschwale, Jan. 15, 1915, Charles Bierschwale Collection, Box 2-22/994, TSA.
12. According to one version of Adolph’s story, based on interviews with pioneer citizens of Mason County who knew him, the Comanches were not motivated by revenge: “When an Indian child died, the Indians buried their Guardian with them. They did this in order that the child might not be lonely in his Happy Hunting Ground. After they have buried the child for several hours, they will not kill the Guardian.” Alva Catherine Beach, “History of Events of Mason County, Texas,” in Mason County Scrapbook and Obituary, Archives and Manu scripts Collection, CAH.
13. Uncle Adolph did not specify which men wanted to kill him. Although anyone could have expressed an opinion on this issue, an owner’s decision to dispatch his captive—or, for that matter, to adopt him and give him full rights as a Comanche—would not have been made collectively; these choices did not require tribal consent. Recollections of Naiya (Slope of Land), Comanche Field Notes, Waldo Rudolph Wedel and Mildred Mott Wedel Papers, Box 109, SINAA.
14. Circular, Office of Indian Affairs, Lawrence, Kansas, 1870, Microfilm Roll KA42, OHS.
CHAPTER 2: GERMANS IN COMANCHE LAND
1. A. Irving Hallowell, “American Indians, White and Black: The Phenomenon of Transculturalization,” Current Anthropology, IV (Dec. 1963), 523.
2. Dorman H. Winfrey and James M. Day (eds.), The Indian Papers of Texas and the Southwest, 1825–1916 (5 Vols.; Austin: The Pemberton Press, 1966), II, 8.
3. Winfrey and Day (eds.), The Indian Papers of Texas, III, 62.
4. The earliest accounts of the founding of Fredericksburg and the relations between the Comanches and the German settlers in the vicinity include: Democratic Telegraph and Texas Register [Houston], Dec. 7, 1846, 4, and Feb. 17, 1848, 3; Robert Penniger, Fredericksburg, Texas: The First Fifty Years, trans. Charles L. Wisseman Sr. (1896; English ed., Fredericksburg: Fredericksburg Publishing Co., Inc., 1971), 29–49, 73–78; Louis Reinhardt, “The Communistic Colony of Bettina,” Texas Historical Association Quarterly, III (July 1899), 33–40; Frontier Times, VII (Aug. 1930), 514–16 (recollections of Katherina Burrer); San Antonio Express, July 26, 1936, D1, D3 (interviews with the children of Castell’s first settlers); Mason County News, Aug. 19, 1937, 4 (interview with William Schmidt); Terry G. Jordan and Marlis Anderson Jordan (eds. and trans.), “Let
ters of a German Pioneer in Texas [Franz Kettner],” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, LXIX (Apr. 1966), 463–72; H. T. Edward Hertzberg (trans.), “A Letter from Friedrich Schenck in Texas to His Mother in Germany, 1847,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XCII (July 1988), 145–65; Brian J. Boeck, “ ‘They Contributed Very Much to the Success of Our Colony’: A New Source on Early Relations between Germans and Indians at Fredericksburg, Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, CV (July 2001), 81–91; and the sources cited in Karl A. Hoerig, “The Relationship between German Immigrants and the Native Peoples in Western Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XCVII (Jan. 1994), 423–51.
5. The most comprehensive and objective eyewitness account of the German expedition into the Fisher-Miller Land Grant and the Comanche-German peace council of 1847 is Ferdinand Roemer, Texas, with Particular Reference to German Immigration and the Physical Appearance of the Country, trans. Oswald Mueller (1849; English ed., 1935; reprint, Austin: Eakin Press, 1983), 218–87. Other eyewitness reports are found in: John O. Meusebach, Answer to Interrogatories in Case No. 396, Mary C. Paschal et al., vs. Theodore Evans, District Court of McCulloch County, Texas (1894; reprint, Austin: Pemberton Press, 1964), 23–25; Robert S. Neighbors to William Medill, Apr. 24, 1847, Microfilm Roll M234/858, NARA; and Penniger, Fredericksburg, Texas, 37–45 (report of two unnamed Germans). Newspaper coverage is found in Democratic Telegraph and Texas Register [Houston], Mar. 22, 1847, 3, Mar. 29, 1847, 4, May 3, 1847, 4, May 10, 1847, 4, and June 14, 1847, 3.