[The Old Quaker Colony: First Settlement on Staked Plains of Texas] Page: 1 of 7
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TIE OLD QUAdC:R COLONY
First Settlement On Staked Plains Of Texas
by
President J. W. Hunt
Mciurry College
June the 15th, 1881. Slowly the covered wagons rattled up the winding
track from Blanco Canyon to the level of the plains, the mule teems swinG-
ing steadily into the collar and scrambling up the rocky way as they drew
the loads of -household goods and a frontier family's other slender possess-
ions on the great adventure.
For six weeks we had plodded on our way from Kaw Agency Indian Terri-
tory, now Oklahoma, across sandy flats, and broken hill cou:.try, fording
swollen creeks and rivers, camping lonely nights in the wilderness, men-
aced by wild beasts and wilder men, passing through all the viissitudes
of travel toward a western Eldorado. tie were seeking a new home. My
father, a sturdy doctor of the old school, had heard of a wonderful new
land, the grew t Staked Plains of Texas, and now with mother, my older bro-
ther, my younger sister and myself., he was approaching the land of his
dreams.
We had spent two days resting at the hospitable frontier home of Hank
Smith who occupied with his family, the "big rock house" in Blanco Canyon,
and, now refreshed from our weeks of wandering, we pushed on the final
twenty-five mile ldg of our inland voyage.
As we swung around the final obstruction of rocky cliff and mounted
Lhe final ascent, there suddenly opened before our wondering eyes the
nighty stretch of the 'great plains of Texas. We paused for breath and
like Cortez on e."peak in Darien", with vast wonder beheld the virgin
land. No plow had ever depraved its sod. No fences marked boundaries
:ut from its majestic sweep of rolling terrain. Copious rains had fallen.
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Hunt, James Winford. [The Old Quaker Colony: First Settlement on Staked Plains of Texas], text, 1925/1934; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth744323/m1/1/: accessed June 3, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting McMurry University Library.