CHAPTER XIII.

Pioneeers, Continued-Sam Smith-David Kerr-Killing and Scalping of J.E. Phillips-Deceptions of Frontier Girls-A Mistake Corrected.

Well advanced in life is Mr. Sam H. Smith, now a citizen and merchant of Granbury, and who, though not till 1870 a resident of Hood county, yet, because his father was settled at a very early date in our sister county of Parker, where the son was reared from his boyhood amid scenes of danger and wild adventure, deserves here to be chronicled as one of our pioneers. In 1859-60 he served in Capt. A.B. Mason's ranger company in guarding the frontier settlements. At the breaking out of the war in 1861 he enlisted in the Confederate army and was away in that service till the end, having been severely wounded at Donelsonville on the Mississippi, from the effects of which he still suffers much. He was for several years engaged in the stock business on the upper Brazos and had many adventures with the Indians, who were constantly preying on and driving off his stock. He settled finally about 1870 at Acton, where he married the daughter of G.B. Dillahunty. In 1882 he was elected assessor of Hood county, and reelected for the second term, at the conclusion of which, though the desire for him to continue in this second office seemed almost universal, yet he modestly and voluntarily retired from official life. He removed to Granbury after his election to office, and since retirement has devoted himself to mercantile pursuits and to efforts of bestowing upon his children such educational advantages as fit them for useful citizenship.

The several Kerr families now constituting a respectable part of Hood county's people and exerting large influence are descended from David Kerr, a hardy pioneer of early date here. He was a native of South Carolina, from whence he removed to Mississippi, where he married a Kentucky lady, and in 1843 settled in Newton county, Texas, and ten years later on the Clear Fork of Trinity in Tarrant county, thence in 1856 to what has since been called Kerr branch of North Paluxy in Erath county, where he continued to reside until the hostilities of the Indians compelled him in 1860 for safety to withdraw from the exposed frontier, and he then went to Bee county, and from this abode J.F. and Wm., two of the sons, went out to do battle for the Southern cause. After the war, Joe. F. Kerr, coming from service, settled first on Rucker's creek, and afterwards the father with his family returned to make their future home here on the Brazos at the place now occupied by Judge H.T. Berry. Here he lived the life of a quiet citizen till his death in about 1874. Besides the two sons above mentioned, there are three others, H.J., M.T. and Stanley, and a daughter, Mrs. Murchison, still living.

While the Kerrs resided on Paulxy, and after the hostile attitude of the Caddo Indians, they, in common with others, endured many hardships and dangers occasioned by the stealthy inroads of the savages into the settlements, and among other incidents Mr. J.F. Herr relates the story of one of those horrid murders so common here in those times. A Mr. Joe Dotson was settled at one of the places now known as Hightower ranch in Erath county. (There were two ranches known by this name.) Dotson had a son-in-law named J.E. Phillips, residing in the same locality. On one Sunday evening in the fall of 1860 Phillips went out to drive up his cows and when not more than a quarter of a mile from his house he was suddenly surprised and fallen upon by a party of Indians, killed and scalped. While this bloody scene occurred within the territorial limits of our mother county of Erath, yet it was not very far from the present western boundary of Hood, and since the diligent researches of that able writer, Mr. Willbarger, seems not to have found for it a place in his otherwise replete stories entitled "Indian Depredations in Texas," I give it a place here.

These exposed settlers, engaged in stock raising and meager efforts at farming, and dependent so much upon their own resources for defense, were fertile in devices to alarm away and elude the savages from threatened attacks upon their solitary homes. Often all the men would necessarily be from home attending their stock interests, leaving only the mother and daughters to keep the premises; but these were the wives and daughters of brave men, and used to perils and alarms. They learned that safety largely depended on courage and strategy. I have it from the good authority of an old lady who was one of these frontier women that the girls, under these trying circumstances, did not forget their cunning, and in absence of the men from the home, when danger threatened, actually practiced upon the savage lords of the wilderness the arts of dress, by donning the manly attire of their absent fathers and brothers, and thus deceived them, but for quite the opposite purpose for which it is said they usually practice their deceptions in dress upon the dudes of civilization. The girls deceived the Indians to keep from being caught.

In a former chapter I related the incident of the rescue of two children, a boy and a girl, at Indian Gap, and I have since ascertained from several sources that I was mistaken in the statement that the children rescued were those of the murdered Savage family. The boy was Frank Wilson, and the girl a near relative of his. He now lives a prosperous citizen near the head of Long creek, perhaps in Parker county and near the north line of Hood. Mr. Willbarger gives an account of this affair, differing in some respects as to details from the facts as I have recorded them; but it cannot be expected that all the witnesses, after so long a time, will agree as to minor points. I am especially indebted to Rev. Harvey Martin, who was a near neighbor of the parties at the time of the occurrences, for setting me right as to this.

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