The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004 Page: 363
660 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Widow vs. the Bureaucrats
Worth occupying the army's Eighth Military Department (Texas). In
April of that year, he established Fort Graham in the Hill Country near
present-day Waco, as part of the first defense line guarding the frontier
against Indian raids on white settlements and white encroachment on
Indian lands. In May of that same year, Arnold led a scouting expedition
up to the Trinity River to locate a site for the next fort in that defense
line, returning in June with his entire command to build Fort Worth. He
commanded there, with occasional reassignments, until ordered back to
Fort Graham in the spring of 1853.
During all the years of travels, Catherine Arnold was always a dutiful
soldier's wife, following her husband to one distant posting after anoth-
er. Before Texas they were posted in Florida, Louisiana, and Indiana.
There were also frequent visits to Washington, D.C. The rootlessness
continued after they got to Texas in 1849. At different times in the span
of the next five years, the Arnolds lived at San Antonio, Fort Graham,
Arlington Station, and Fort Worth. Along the way, their family grew:
Katherine was born in Louisiana; Flora Ann in Florida; Nannie, Willis,
and Sophia (a.k.a. "Sophie") in Texas. It was a difficult life that could
wear even the hardiest of women down.
Catherine and three children (Kate, Flora Ann, and Willis) joined
Major Arnold on the Trinity toward the end of 1849. During the next
three years, two more children were born to the couple (Sophia and
Nannie), and two of the five also died at Fort Worth (Sophia and
Willis)." They were laid to rest under a pair of live oak trees less than a
mile north of the fort on a plot of ground that came to be known as
Pioneer's Rest Cemetery.
Life on the north Texas frontier was hard but not without its little
pleasures. These included horseback riding lessons from Sgt. Abraham
Harris and lessons in music and French from family friend Adolphus
Gouhenant (sometimes misspelled "Gounah"). The Arnolds had a snug,
two-room cabin built by the major's men out of local materials on a stan-
dard frontier plan of two separate rooms joined by an open-air
"dogtrot." Among her official duties, Catherine was a gracious hostess to
the numerous travelers who came through and served as a sort of den
mother to the junior officers. Indeed, she did so much entertaining that
Major Arnold successfully petitioned the War Department to designate
Fort Worth a "double rations post."6 She was the first woman on the
The only official record of the Arnold family's presence at Fort Worth is the 1850 Census
report Seventh United States Census (1850), Tarrant County, Navarro District, Nov. 4, 1850, p.
177, microfilmed records M432, roll 91o, Texas (National Archives)
' R. A. Arnold to Maj. George Deas, Asst. Adj. Gen, Eighth Military Dept, San Antonio, July 30,
1849, in Letters Received, Adjutant General's Office, 1822-186o, M567, Record Group 94
(National Archives).363
2004
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004, periodical, 2004; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101224/m1/421/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.