CHAPTER II.---PIONEERS

Long anterior to the Civil War the whites ventured into this territory, then occupied by the Indians, for the purpose of traffic and the location of lands. Among the first of these was Charles Barnard, a well informed and cultured man; he had a trading house far to the northwest of here, but later established himself on the Brazos in this vicinity, and engaged in the lucrative trade, built the noted Barnard's Mill, which bore his name for many years, and until it was acquired by Maj. T. C. Jordan, who changed the name of the place to Glen Rose, now the county seat of Somervell County.

Geo. B. Erath, from whom the county adjoining us took its name, and _____Green were also here, together with many others, and the above named gentlemen, surveyed perhaps, most of the larger surveys fronting on and along the Brazos, between the years 1846 and 1850. Much of the surveying by these men at that date was done on horse back, the horse being so hobbled as to make him step a vara's length; and nearly all of the early large surveys contained excesses. There were however, few if any, permanent settlements established this high up the Brazos, for stock raising or farming, until about 1853-4, but about that period and up to the beginning of the war, a most substantial class of stock farmers began to settle the Brazos and Paluxy valleys. These pioneers endured severe trials and hardships, for the Comanche and Kiowa Indians had now become extremely troublesome and warlike, raiding the settlements nearly every moon, requiring the utmost vigilance on the part of the settler in the defense and protection of his family and property. This state of affairs continued till long after the close of the Civil War, and many lives were sacrificed and thousands of horses stolen, houses burned and women and children taken by the savages into cruel captivity. The barbarity of the Indians, in these periodical midnight forays in slaughtering loved ones, engendered hatred and thirst for revenge on the part of the whites, which found no satisfaction with many, save in the scalp of the redskins; and many were the bold pursuits hastily organized and far extended into the very haunts and strongholds of the Indian, and fierce the battles, when overtaken by the whites, the Indians, usually with superior numbers, were brought to bey. And many heroes gave up their lives whose deeds have been unknown to fame and unsung by poets. The early settlers of Hood County furnished their quota of men who bled and suffered in the common cause. To recount these various actions is scarcely within the province of my undertaking, moreover, the most of these Indian battles have been graphically told by writers, who were eye-witnesses, yet a finished story of Hood County will necessarily include many incidents within her borders and contiguous thereto.

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