Jack Co., TX - History - An Old Time Texan Wants to Meet Friends Home Coming Week


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The Jacksboro Gazette
Jacksboro, Jack County, Texas
Thursday, March 15, 1917

An Old Time Texan Wants to Meet Friends Home Coming Week
Egan, Texas, March 12, 1917
To the Jacksboro Gazette and its many friends Ð 
With the consent of the good editors, IÕll try to write a few lines in
anticipation of the great reunion of the old pioneers of Jack County, and do
hope the old friends will once more meet to congratulate and express the
appreciation we had for each other to long ago; and as I consider myself one of
the old pioneers of 60 years ago, that never showed the white feather in the
defense of this great State and country against the savage Indians and brutal
white men as they claimed to be, that led and perpetrate the killing and
scalping of the very best people including women and children, I ever knew. I am
now (in July) will be 81 years old, yet when I think of those savages it raises
the Òold IrishÓ in me yet. Yes, I lived in Jack County from 1856 to 1860, and
experienced all the rough ups and downs of a frontier life, often living on
buffalo meat without bread or salt for a week or 10 days Ð and this all to
protect your scalps, my dear folks and our stock from being stolen and driven
out of the country. But notwithstanding all this, the cruel Indians and their
friends virtually succeeded in breaking up and destroying everything along the
border settlements, as the people had to fall back or fort up for protection,
and this a great many did. Yes, I claim to be an old Texan, as my father and
uncles moved to Texas in the summer of 1845 and settled at Corsicana, Navarro
County, or where the nice city of Corsicana and the county of Navarro are today,
as at that time there were no county and city in this part of the great State of
Texas as we have them now. It was then a vast wilderness with wild animals of
many kinds Ð buffalo, wild horses, deer, antelope, and other wild game by the
thousands of herds. The Indians then were our neighbors as they would visit us
in the fall and camp and kill buffalo with us until spring. They at this time
were friendly honest and were a protection to early settlers against the
Comanches as this time they were at war with each other. As long as this lasted,
the early settlers had a fairly good time; but in 1858 or 1859 they all
consolidated their forces against the frontier, killing Cameron and Mason and
their families, and the trouble all along the border commenced.

I will close for the present and perhaps at some future time will finish my long
experience as one of the very earliest settlers and pioneers of the now great
state of Texas.

Respectfully, Ren Richardson.

P.S. I write this to urge all the old settlers to come to the reunion this
summer, and such a time we will have, none but we can know.