A couple of thoughts re the Butterfield route through Jacksboro - In “The Butterfield Overland Mail Ox Bow Route Through Texas” Kirby Sanders discusses the irrationality of accounts of the station being located at Fort Richardson when it did not exist at its present site until late 1867. I have found, to my great frustration, it is not uncommon for researchers and writers to use later names when referring to a location than it was known at the time of the event. Consider this: In July 1866, more than a year before construction was begun on Fort Richardson, Captain George Cram and Company I of the U S Sixth Cavalry arrived at Jacksboro, which had been designated the county seat in 1858. The town consisted of a central square with a few buildings and a rawhide covered courthouse. A dozen or more log houses formed the suburbs. This description is fairly consistent with Ormsby’s account of 1858 except that he does not mention the square. The men of Company I pitched their tents on the town square then bathed themselves and watered their horses in Lost Creek. In his first return Captain Cram reported he had occupied the “Post of Jacksboro” with 29 men and 39 horses. By December, 7 companies were located at Jacksboro, overcrowding the square with tents that were now wearing thin and with inadequate picket stables for the horses along Lost Creek. When additional recruits arrived the next month construction began on a permanent post on the square with picket quarters, fences and corrals. In April 1867, the post was abandoned with 2 companies relocating 20 miles north to establish a new post at Buffalo Springs while the rest of the garrison moved to Fort Belknap. After an ill-fated 6 months, compounded by drought and Indian attacks, that new site was condemned and the troops returned to Jacksboro. There they found the townspeople had torn down the barracks and stables and appropriated the material. Faced with constructing a third post a new site was selected a half mile southwest of the square on a high rolling prairie. Thus was the birth of Fort Richardson. It should be noted that the town square was located north of Lost Creek and the new fort on the south side. A faded 1870 map of the fort shows the road to Fort Belknap running west from the square, the road to Decatur running east about half a mile then turning southeast and crossing Lost Creek, and a road running north to Buffalo Springs. There is not a road shown to the northeast toward Fort Arbuckle, Gainesville or Preston. While this does not prove the location of the Butterfield route or the station it does lend some credence to those researchers who had reported it was located at the erroneously named and later Fort Richardson when they may have been referring the original site on the square, though neither was in existence during the short life of the Butterfield in Texas. ------------------- Some of these specific details were taken from the first hand account of H H McConnell, late of the U S 6th Cavalry, “Five Years a Cavalryman or, Sketches of Regular Army Life on the Texas Frontier 1866 to 1871.” First published in 1889 at Jacksboro by J N Rogers; reprint with foreword by William H Leckie. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press (1996). And, Allen Lee Hamilton, “Sentinel of the Southern Plains, Fort Richardson and the Northwest Texas Frontier 1866 - 1878.” Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press (1988). This well documented account spans the active life of the fort, the Warren Wagon Train Massacre, and the Red River War. I also consulted various other references and my personal library. The conclusions and opinions are my own.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:54:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015