I NDIAN E MILY
by Bob Miles
Here lies Indian Em’ly,
an Apache girl
whose love for a
young officer induced
her to give warning of
an indian attack.
mistaken for an enemy,
she was shot by a
sentry, but saved the
garrison from massacre.
T
Erected by the State of Texas
1936
he story of Indian Emily has
long been a favorite romantic
tale for the residents of the Fort
Davis area. It first
appeared in Carlysle
Graham Raht’s 1919
book, The Romance of
the Davis Mountains
and Big Bend Country.
It told of an early
morning
Apache
attack on the town of
Fort Davis in which
the citizens, soldiers
and teamsters from
several large freight
outfits managed to
defeat the hostiles.
Among the many
dead and wounded
Indians was a badly
wounded young girl.
Mrs. Easton took
charge of the girl and
nursed her back to health, keeping her
as a companion and servant. The
Apache girl was given the name of
Emily. For two years she lived with the
Easton family and fell in love with the
son, Lt. Thomas Easton. The lieu-
tenant, however, fell in love with Mary
Nelson. On the day their engagement
was announced, Emily disappeared.
Nothing was heard from Emily for
some time, but the Apaches were
becoming more troublesome. Then
one night an alert sentry heard some-
one trying to sneak past him into the
fort. When the intruder began to run
instead of halting as ordered, the sentry
fired. The mortally wounded intruder
proved to be Emily. The sentry carried
her to the commanding officer’s quar-
ters and Mrs. Easton was sent for.
When Mrs. Easton arrived, Emily
gasped out with her dying breath, “All
my people come to kill–I hear talk–by
light of morning–maybe you
know–Tom no get killed–good-bye.”
With Emily’s warning, the residents
and troopers were ready for the attack
and drove the Apaches off with heavy
losses. She was buried in the post
cemetery and, in 1936, the historical
marker was placed at her grave.
The tale grew over the years in
the retelling. Local writer Barry
Scobee used the
story in his two
books on the town
and fort and to
promote tourism
to Fort Davis,
which he did quite
well. Others wrote
of the story in
newspapers, mag-
azines, books and
even a newspaper
comic
strip.
Details were often
changed or added
as they wrote, such
as that Emily’s
ghost can be heard
screaming in the
mountains near
the fort; she was
promoted to Indian princess in a poem
entitled “Em’ly, the Chieftain’s
Daughter;” Emily was not really dead,
but waiting in the mountains for Tom
to come to her; the attacking Apaches
became Comanches....
In the early 1960s, after the fort
became part of the National Park
Service, “...a concerted effort was
undertaken to provide historical evi-
dence for the Indian Emily story. None
was found,” according to long-time
park historian Mary Williams. Records
do not show a Lt. Thomas serving at
Fort Davis. There is no record of any
Indian attack on the town or the fort.
Where, then, did the story come
from? Some think that the tale began
with Scobee as he assisted Raht with
his book. (Scobee had written to a
friend in 1955, saying that he was
aware the Army had no record of Lt.
Tom Easton, but “I have for the most
part kept mum about it, so as not to
wreck a good story.”) While there were
occasional Indian women at the fort,
only one death was recorded. The post
surgeon wrote in 1882, “A cowardly
and brutal murder of an Indian captive
Cenizo
(squaw) was perpetrated by some party
or parties unknown near the hospital
where the woman was tented.”
A Fort Davis National Historic Site
bulletin sums up the Indian Emily leg-
end simply: “The event she was cast
into did not happen, except in the writ-
ings of those who sought to create a
romantic tale of the ‘Wild West.’” The
1936 Texas Historical marker now
rests in curatorial storage instead of at
the pile of rocks said to be the grave of
Indian Emily.
Fourth Quarter 2014
19