too late, and that their “course was decided.” According
to Rachel, her uncle Benjamin then turned to her and said,
”Run little Rachel, run for your life and your unborn child.
Run now and fast!” Abject terror gripped the pregnant teen
who also had a two-year-old son in tow. Benjamin Parker
returned to the Indians pressing at the front gate. Rachel’s
first inclination was to flee, but Silas Parker, also her uncle,
told her to watch the gate while he fetched his musket and
powder. “They will kill Benjamin,” Silas told her, “and
then me, but I will do for at least one of them, by God.”
Events began to cascade, and whooping hostiles with
screwed-up faces painted red and black and wearing
buffalo-horn helmets entered the compound. True to Silas
Parker’s word, they killed Benjamin. But the five minutes or so his effort bought allowed most of the women
and children to escape out the back. Not Rachel. Now
afraid she would be unable to keep up while carrying her
two-year-old, she stayed inside the fort and ran from the
intruders, dragging her son by the hand. Outside the gate,
warriors still stabbed their lances into Benjamin Parker’s
body. Silas Parker, who’d gone out to help a woman struck
down by a hoe, and to back his brother, was killed outside
the gate.
The aged John Parker, his wife and a Mrs. Kellogg
ducked out the back and were three-quarters of a mile
from the fort when mounted Indians overtook them and
turned them back. They stripped, murdered and scalped
Weatherford’s first and
only gastropub!
et
Now Serving Gourm
Elder John Parker. They also stripped and left his wife for
dead, though she did recover. Mrs. Kellogg they abducted.
The raiders also scooped up pregnant Rachel Parker Plummer and her son, James, bringing the tally of those taken to
three.
But the number would rise by two. Behind the fort, Silas
Parker’s wife, Lucy, and their four children were ridden down, overtaken before they could make good their
escape. Lucy tried to protect her darlings, but upon being
threatened with a tomahawk, she hoisted her nine-year-old
daughter Cynthia Ann up onto the rump of a dancing Indian pony and then placed her six-year-old son John upon
another. The five captives disappeared, the sight of their
bouncing backs forever seared into the memory of their
devastated loved ones.
Please see next month’s Parker County Today for
Part 2 of “Disappeared.”
SOURCES:
Handbook of Texas Online
The Warrior’s Bride, Jan Reid, Texas Monthly Magazine,
February 2003
The West Texas Frontier, by Joseph Carroll McConnell,
Gazette Print, 1933
“It’s been a great first year in business, thanks to you Parker County for your patronage.
Your support has made an expansion to a new concept on Lake Granbury possible.
We’re excited to announce the opening of Breakwater Bar & Grill, so if you venture to Granbury,
come see us!
And Big John’s is as big as ever, come on in and see what’s new!
We are launching our new gourmet hot dog menu
—
just in time for July 4th and Peach Fest!
It’s the perfect finale to the
July 4th festivities or any
summertime celebration.”
Love,
Cherish & Mike
JULY 2015
Hot Dogs!
(817) 341-6717
Breakwater Bar & Grill
1003 White Cliff Road
Granbury, TX 76048
(817) 964-3634
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
Big John’s Burgers & Beer
105 College Ave
Weatherford, TX 76086
23