encountered Joe Henson and John Murphy on their way
to Weatherford for the cornerstone ceremony. A dead-run
pursuit ensued as the settlers turned their mounts homeward and rode for their lives. The Indians were unable to
overtake the two men who upon making it home changed
for fresh mounts and rallied volunteers to strike out after
the raiders. Back on Campbell’s Prairie the riders found
John Lopp hanging in a live oak, murdered and scalped.
The Indians were easy to follow because they drove
before them a herd of purloined horses and mules which
left behind a distinctive trail. Settlers overtook them near
Advance in the northwestern part of the county not far
from Slipdown Mountain. Disgruntled Indians raiding
south from the reservations often entered the area via this
high ground, the highest point in Parker County, indeed,
in the whole Fort Worth-Dallas area. Located near present-day Poolville, east of the Advance Community, today
Slipdown Mountain is covered with cedars and oaks, but
in frontier times a vast prairie grassland carpeted the slope.
From there raiders could see for miles and plot their forays
before they would “slip down” the mountain to thieve
horses and occasionally kill homesteaders they considered
to be thieves of another sort — greedy newcomers who
felt they had to “own” the land.
Once discovered, the Indians abandoned their hoofed
plunder and escaped into a cave on the west side of
Slipdown Mountain, a cavity in the side of a ravine. The
settlers built a fire in the mouth of the cave and soon the
smoke-choked marauders came running out. The whites
killed but one of the eleven, an Indian flush with scalps
and trinkets. Under a hail of arrows and bullets one of the
settlers crawled to where the dead Indian lay, attached a
rope to his foot and heaved him out of the fray. Unable
to remove a ring from his trophy’s hand, he whacked off
the finger. He divvied up various other items among the
volunteers but kept for himself the brave’s scalp and tomahawk. Over the years he used the weapon to dispatch
skunks foolish enough to seek an easy meal in his chicken
house.
Indian raids plagued the county five more years, the
last recorded attack coming in 1874. Once fear of Indian
depredations had passed thousands began to flood into
the area and the agricultural economy began to prosper. But those who lived through those years of bloody
cultural conflict on the plains and prairies never forgot the
mounted terror that occasionally slipped down into frontier Parker County.
Sources:
• The Frontier Times, November 1929, April 1930
• A New History of Parker County, 1906
• Historical Sketches of Parker County and Weatherford,
Texas, by Henry Smythe, 1877
• History of Parker County, Parker County Historical
Commission, Weatherford, Texas, 1980
• A Cry Unheard: The Story of Indian Attacks In And
Aro und Parker County, Texas, 1858-1872, by Doyle
Marshall.
Serving Parker County
for over 60 years
Photo by Megan Parks
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