hide. They huddled together in the corner, fright chattering
in their teeth and apprehension all but paralyzing them.
Each passing second they expected the painted raiders to
burst through the cabin door and scale the ladder to the
loft. Save a miracle from God, it seemed inevitable.
But what they next heard was not the splintering of
wood or pounding of fists but the familiar tinkling of a
bell. Annie knew the bell to be the one attached to her
father’s sleek and fleet-footed racehorse penned in the
lot beside the house. Earlier in the day she’d raced him
home from her uncle’s place nearby. At first the ringing
was sporadic then steady as the Indians drove him from
the lot and onto the prairie. Annie and her mother listened
as the pounding of hooves and howling became distant
and muffled. Carefully they descended from the loft and
looking to the prairie south of the house watched as the
horsemen chased and finally caught William Rider’s fine
horse. Their appreciation of good horseflesh likely spared
the Rider women what was often referred to on the Texas
frontier as “a fate worse than death.”
The Indians had been chased from Tarrant into Parker
County by a band of mounted citizens who’d lost them on
the West Fork of the Trinity River which was swollen out
of banks by the runoff of recent downpours. As the citizens of Weatherford celebrated the Fourth of July 1869,
this band of eleven warriors raided the eastern reaches of
the county.
After stealing the prized horse and scaring Annie and
her mother out of their wits, the raiding party rode to
Clinton Rider’s place. There they took mules and saddled
the racehorse taken from his brother’s place a mile or so
away. The marauders attacked but no one was injured.
They quickly rode on, soon overtaking an unfortunate
teamster named William Tinnell who they mortally
wounded and scalped. Tinnell lingered about a week
before dying.
That Fourth of July was an infamous one for Parker
Countians while the band of eleven Indians wreaked
havoc in the east, two dozen others entered the western
part of the county and raided in the Grindstone Creek
and Newberry area. They caught the festive-minded
Light family returning home from celebrating the Fourth
with neighbors. They killed Mrs. Light and her infant-inarms outright and wounded 9-year-old Emma and young
William Lee with arrows. Older sister Sarah Ann hopped
a fence and hid in the profusion of a cane field. Bill Light,
husband and father, died of his wounds a few hours later.
The morning of Monday the 5th, a hot sun poked above
the horizon promising a sweltering day in North Central
Texas. Area settlers rose early to make Weatherford by 11
o’clock when ceremonies for the laying of the cornerstone
of the Weatherford Masonic Institute were scheduled to
commence. Despite the oppressive heat and Indian scare,
an enormous crowd turned out for the ceremony and 2
o’clock dinner.
The Indians who’d raided Mary’s Creek also rose
early. By mid-morning they stood upon Campbell Prairie
some five miles north of the county seat. There they
TEXAS BUTANE CO., INC.
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South Side Square • 103 W. Church • Weatherford, Texas 76086
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