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30

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

gation the colonists, in the remainder of 1834 and
all of 1835, failed to raise crops and, though
guarded part of the time by a company of Mexicans
employed for that purpose, were ever uneasy
lest they should be attacked by the savages. As
time passed dissatisfaction arose and the colonists
in small parties left the settlement, at one time four
families leaving, all probably to the Mexican towns
of Monclova, Santa Rosa and San Fernando, but of
their ultimate fate no information is at hand.
From Mrs. Horn's narrative it is learned that after
many had left and some time in the winter of 1835-6,
a new settlement of seven men and a boy (their
nationality not being given), sonle thirty or forty
miles distant, while two of the men were absent for
a few hours, was attacked. Four of the men and
the boy were killed -the fifth man left for dead
and all of them scalped. The wounded man, much
mutilated, was conveyed to San Fernando, about
twenty miles distant, one arm amputated, and,
scalpless, he recovered, only to exist as an object
of pity and charity.
This last calamity determined all the remainder,
excepting Mr. Power and seven others, to abandon
the country and return to the gulf and their native
lands. Power and party went to San Fernando,
in vain to await the arrival of other immigrants.
What became of them is not known.
This brings us to the sad story of the murder of
the twelve colonists and the captivity of Mrs.
Harris, Mrs. Horn and two children. Mrs. Horn
has been several times mentioned in this narrative
and before proceeding with it, her history previous
to leaving New York, on the Amos Wright,
November 11th, 1833, may be briefly stated from
her own notes. The youngest of ten children of a
Mr. Newton, she was born in 1809 in Huntingdon,
sixty miles north of London, her parents being
respectable and sincerely pious people. When
three years old she was left fatherless. Her
mother successfully fulfilled her doubled mission
and trained all her children in the strictest principles
of virtue and religion. At the age of
eighteen this baby daughter, on the 14th of
October, 1827, in St. James church, Clerkenwell,
London, married Mr. John Horn, who proved to
be all, as husband and father, that her heart
desired. They settled in Arlington, No. 2 Moon
street, Giles Square, London. Her mother resided
with her till her death late in 1830. Mr. Horn
was well established in mercantile business in a
small establishment. Soon after this many English
people of small means were migrating to America
to improve their condition. Mr. Horn was seized
with the same desire and, after due deliberation,

they sailed from London, July 20, 1833, in the
ship, Samuel Robinson, Capt. Griswold (or
Chriswold), and arrived in New York on the 27th
of August. They took lodgings at 237 Madison
street, and Mr. Horn procured a satisfactory
clerkship with Mr. John McKibben. About this
time Dr. Beales, from Mexico, was in New York
preparing for the colonization
trip to the Rio
Grande, already described. Omitting many
strange incidents and forebodings of evil--presentiments,
as generally expressed
on the part of
Mrs. Horn, they sailed on the voyage as has been
narrated, November 11th, 1833.
On the 10th of March 1836, the disconsolate
party which we are now to follow, left Dolores with
the intention of reaching the coast by way of San
Patricio, on the lower Nueces. It consisted of
eleven men, including Mr. Horn, his wife and two
little sons, John and Joseph, and Mr. Harris, his
wife and girl baby, about three months old, probably
the only child born at Dolores
in all fifteen
souls. To the Nueces, by slow marches, they
traveled without a road. Santa Anna's invading
hosts had but recently passed from the Rio Grande
on the Laredo and Matamoras routes, to San
Antonio and Goliad. The Alamo had fallen four
days before this journey began and Fannin surrendered
near Goliad nine days after their departure,
but these ill-fated colonists knew of neither
event. They only knew that the Mexicans were
invading Texas under the banner of extermination
to the Americans, and they dreaded falling into
their hands almost as much as they dreaded the
wild savages. They remained on the Nueces, near
a road supposed to lead to San Patricio, several
days, protected by thickets, and while there saw
the trains and heard the guns of detachments of
Mexican soldiers, doubtless guarding supply trains
following Santa Anna to San Antonio.
They resumed their march from the Nueces, on
the San Patricio trail, on the 2d of April. Early
in the afternoon of the 4th, they encamped at a
large lake, containing fine fish. Not long afterwards,
while the men were occupied in varieus ways
and none on guard, they were suddenly attacked by
fifty or sixty mounted Indians, who, meeting
no resistance, instantly murdered nine of the men,
seized the two ladies and three children, plundered
the wagons and then proceeded to their main camp,
the entire party being about 400, in an extensive
chaparral, two or three miles distant. Here they
remained till next morning, tying the ladies' hands,
feet and arms, so tight as to be extremely painful.
Next morning, before starting, a savage brute
amused his fellows by tossing the infant of Mrs.

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Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/37/ocr/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .

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