County, but as goes the post office,
so goes the town. Postal service halt-
ed in 1907, and Carter’s population
dwindled away until in the 1920s
the settlement had for all intents and
purposes vanished.
• • •
ndians were known to enter the
county through its far northwestern
corner. That country up along the
Parker-Palo Pinto County line could
be downright dangerous when raiders
out of Indian Territory drifted down
across the muddy Red and into this
area. On Nov. 8, 1870, well-known
cowman Marcus L. Dalton traveled
to the northwest corner along the Old
Weatherford-Belknap Road, accom-
panied by James Redfield and James
McAster (McCaster). It would later be
recalled that Dalton had with him a
six-shooter which he set on the seat
beside him, and a little dog that had
followed him all the way to Kansas
and back on a trail drive. Redfield
and McAster were making their first
foray into the frontier.
I
from the cover of a fallen live oak
tree near the trail and murdered the
travelers.
“No doubt, Mr. Dalton was killed
instantly, for his pistol had never
been moved from its scabbard,” the
Fort Tours website reads. “His mules,
however, ran with the wagon out
to the right side of the road, made
a circle of perhaps 150 yards, and
then crossed the roadway to the left.
Redfield and McAster were each
lying on the ground near the second
wagon. All three were scalped, and
their bodies badly disfigured.”
The locked trunk baffled the
pillagers, who decided to cut a hole
through which to remove items from
Whitt Tabernacle
the bottom. The stashed money
went undiscovered and was given to
Dalton’s family — small but impor-
tant consolation for the loss of a
husband and father. The mutilated
men were not found until the next
day. It was a somber scene riders
came upon — three men scalped and
hacked up, Dalton’s faithful little dog
lying near two of the bodies, as if
waiting for someone to bear witness
to the horror he’d seen unleashed the
day before.
It was in this vicinity, a little east
inside the Parker County line, that
a few years later, in the mid-1870s,
Continued on page 51
Photo by Mel W Rhodes
Marcus L. Dalton
34
Dalton’s wagon creaked beneath
the weight of supplies and provisions
bought in Weatherford. In the top
tray of a traveling trunk filled with
dresses and whatnots for his wife and
daughters, Dalton squirreled away
$11,000 in a shoe. He’d been long
from home and looked forward to
a joyous and prosperous reunion.
But in Loving Valley, three-quarters
of a mile northeast of present-day
Salesville, 30 to 40 Indians sprang
Whitt Cemetery
Photo by Mel W Rhodes