Gunfights & Sites in Texas Ranger History

by Mike Cox

  Richard King, founder of the legendary South Texas ranch that bears his name, thought so highly of McNelly that he placed a sixteen-foot, $3,000 granite monument over the captain’s grave.

  Visit: Mount Zion Cemetery, three miles north of Burton at State Highway 390 and FM 1948. Texas Cotton Gin Museum, 307 North Main Street, Burton.

  MATSON-MCNELLY HOUSE

  When McNelly recruited his soon-to-be-famous ranger company, he; his wife, Carey Cheek Matson; and their two children lived in a two-story antebellum frame house on 1,100 acres four miles from Burton. Carey’s father died in the Civil War, and her mother followed him in death on January 1, 1865, leaving the sixteen-year-old girl sole owner of the property. Back from the war, McNelly began seeing Carey, and they married in the house on October 17, 1865. Only thirty-three, the captain died in the house in the late summer of 1877. By the 1980s, the old house had been cut in two sections and was being used for grain and hay storage. Sue Rowan Pittman purchased the two halves, had the disjointed structure moved to her rural property about a mile from Burton and restored the 1850s house to its former splendor.

  McNelly and Carrie Matson got married in this house in 1865, and the captain died here in 1877. Photo courtesy Larry Lessard.

  Visit: Painted period peach pink with green awnings, the house stands on private property at 9902 Farm to Market 390, about one thousand feet off the roadway. It changed hands twice following its restoration, but the current owners have had the house since 1996.

  Washington

  WASHINGTON-ON-THE-BRAZOS

  A delegation of worried if gutsy Texans (though only two had actually been born in Texas) gathered at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 1, 1836, to formalize what had already begun—a rebellion against Mexico.

  By then, the Republic of Mexico had decided what to do about its Texas problem: kill anyone involved in what the Mexican government viewed as treasonous actions. As the delegates convened in Washington-on-the-Brazos, soldiers under General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had already surrounded the Alamo. In barely five days, they would storm it and kill every male combatant inside.

  Meeting in a drafty frame building, the delegates adopted a declaration of independence on March 2. Three of the fifty-nine signers were rangers or had been, Matthew “Old Paint” Caldwell, Robert M. Coleman and Sterling C. Robertson.

  Visit: Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park. Star of the Republic Museum. 23200 Park Road 12, Washington, Texas.

  A replica of the wooden building at Washington-on-the-Brazos where fifty-nine men (including two rangers) signed Texas’s Declaration of Independence in 1836. Photo by Mike Cox.

  WOOD COUNTY

  Mineola

  WILLIAM JESSE MCDONALD (1852–1918)

  Even as a young man, Bill McDonald exhibited an assertiveness that would both cause him trouble and make him one of the most noted ranger captains of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

  McDonald came with his mother and sister to Rusk County from Mississippi in 1866. Too young to have fought in the Civil War, he made up for that in a confrontation with federal Reconstruction authorities that led to a charge of treason. Acquitted, he left Texas to attend a commercial college in New Orleans.

  Back in East Texas, he taught penmanship for a while in Henderson and briefly ran a store in Gregg County. He soon relocated to the new—and booming—railroad town of Mineola, where he opened a general store, W.J. McDonald and Company. While in Wood County, he became friends with James Stephen Hogg, an attorney and newspaper editor. Hogg introduced him to Rhoda Carter, whom he married in 1876.

  Former ranger captain Bill McDonald wearing a decidedly un-ranger-like hat. Library of Congress.

  McDonald may have been an up-and-coming young businessman, but that didn’t shield him from the law. Arrested for unlawfully carrying a weapon, the person who prosecuted the case was his friend Hogg, by then Wood County attorney. The gritty southerner’s rationalization for toting a pistol was Mineola’s growing level of violence. Changing career directions, he took a job as a sheriff’s deputy and soon gained a reputation for effectiveness.

  In 1883, McDonald and his wife decided to start ranching and moved to Wichita County. That marked the end of the future ranger’s East Texas days, but his progression to fame would continue in West Texas.

  Visit: A 1999 historical marker summarizing McDonald’s life stands at 116 Newsome Street. Mineola Historical Museum, 114 North Pacific, Mineola.

  VAN ZANDT COUNTY

  THE BATTLE OF THE NECHES

  Four ranger companies participated in one of the darker episodes of the Republic of Texas era, the so-called Cherokee War.

  Its instigator was Republic of Texas president Mirabeau B. Lamar, a man who did not like Indians. Fearing Mexico would succeed in allying with the Cherokees in an attempt to regain Texas, Lamar declared that unless the tribe “consent at once to receive a fair compensation for their improvements and other property and remove out of this country, nothing short of the entire destruction of all their tribe will appease the indignation of the white people against them.”

  Eighty-three-year-old Chief John Bowles, leader of the Cherokees in Texas and a friend of former president Sam Houston, believed his people had a right to be where they had been since 1819, which was the East Texas timberland. The chief did not want war, but the younger members of his tribe vowed to fight. When negotiations between a commission appointed by Lamar and the tribe broke down, Brigadier General Kelsey Douglass received orders to drive the Indians from Texas.

  The young republic fielded more than 1,000 fighting men for the campaign, a combination of regular soldiers, volunteers and 208 rangers.

  The first clash happened on July 15, 1839, in present Henderson County. The heated skirmish resulted in light casualties, but in retreating under cover of darkness, the Indians lost a substantial number of horses and cattle, along with corn, ample lead and five kegs of gunpowder.

  The decisive battle came the next day. Douglass had deployed about half of his force elsewhere, but roughly five hundred men engaged Bowles and his six hundred to eight hundred warriors near the Neches River in current Van Zandt County. Indians from numerous other smaller East Texas tribes joined the Cherokees.

  A hard fight, in which even the Texans admitted Chief Bowles distinguished himself before being killed, resulted in at least one hundred Indian deaths. The Texans lost eight men and around thirty wounded.

  In the days that followed, the Cherokees left Texas for what is now Oklahoma. The battle, the largest ever fought between rangers and Indians, effectively ended any Indian presence in East Texas.

  Some rude chaps scalped the poor chief [Bowles] after his death.

  –Houston Telegraph and Texas Register, September 1, 1841

  Visit: The main battle site is on private property, about fifteen miles southeast of a historical marker placed in 1968 at a roadside park on State Highway 20, five miles east of Colfax. In 1936, the state placed a granite historical marker where Chief Bowles is believed to have been killed. From Canton, take State Highway 64 about nineteen miles southeast to County Road 4923, follow signs north about two and a half miles to the marker. In 2009, a group of metal detector enthusiasts, working with representatives of the Texas Cherokees, found an assortment of lead bullets, including numerous .69-caliber rounds, at the battle site. A framed collection of the relics was presented to the Cherokee Nation, with another set going to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco.

  The sword taken from Chief Bowles’s body, a gift from Sam Houston (who was an honorary member of the Cherokee Tribe) is on display at the Masonic Hall in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

  CENTRAL TEXAS

  BANDERA COUNTY

  Bandera

  BATTLE OF BANDERA PASS

  The Battle of Bandera Pass, an oft written about fight between rangers under Captain Jack Hays and a much larger Comanche war party, probably never happened. A historical marker says it did, but historians have never found
official documentation.

  The legend is that in the spring of 1841, while scouting in the Guadalupe Valley, Hays and thirty-plus rangers made camp for the night near present Bandera. The next morning, the rangers rode into Bandera Pass, a geologic feature about 500 yards long and 125 feet across.

  Unknown to the Texans, a large Comanche war party sat waiting for the approaching rangers. The ambush worked, catching the rangers by surprise.

  Hays rallied his men, ordered them off their pitching horses and began a defensive action that soon degenerated into hand-to-hand fighting. Ranger Kit Acklen shot the Comanche chief with his pistol, but the Indian still had enough fight in him to draw his knife and charge the ranger. Acklen unsheathed his knife and, in a vicious struggle, prevailed. When the other warriors saw their leader fall, they withdrew.

  Five rangers supposedly died in the battle with six others wounded.

  In the legend’s defense, many Republic of Texas documents burned when the state adjutant general’s department caught on fire in 1857. Other documents of Hays’s day were likely lost in the 1881 capitol fire.

  Visit: A marker detailing the history of Bandera Pass itself stands ten miles north of Bandera on Farm to Market 689.

  OLD TEXAS RANGER TRAIL

  The Battle of Bandera Pass may or may not have occurred, but rangers did operate in this area during the Republic of Texas era. The reason was the Pinta Trail, a road extending from San Antonio northwest to the old Spanish mission on the San Saba River in present Menard County. A historical marker placed in 1968 is titled the “Old Texas Ranger Trail,” but it refers to the Pinta Trail.

  Visit: Across from Bandera County Courthouse at Main and Pecan Streets, Bandera. Frontier Times Museum, 510 Thirteenth Street, Bandera. Built of native stone, fossils and petrified rock, the museum is historic in its own right. J. Marvin Hunter (1880–1957) opened it in 1933. He had founded Frontier Times magazine ten years earlier, and until he sold it in 1953, he published many hundreds of pages full of grass-roots history that might otherwise have been lost, including numerous articles on the early Rangers. During Hunter’s lifetime, old rangers periodically dropped by the museum for a visit.

  BASTROP COUNTY

  Bastrop

  FAIRVIEW CEMETERY

  Bastrop’s oldest cemetery, dating to the early 1830s, holds fifteen Texas Ranger graves, the earliest burial in 1855. For a list of the burials, visit bastropcountyhistoricalsociety.com.

  Visit: Hill overlooking town, 1100 State Highway 95.

  ROBERT COLEMAN HOME

  Before Robert Coleman could face court martial over the death of a drunk ranger at Fort Coleman, in 1837, he accidentally drowned while bathing in the Brazos River. He left behind wife Elizabeth and two sons, who lived in a cabin between Bastrop and Austin. On February 18, 1839, Comanches attacked the Coleman home and killed Mrs. Coleman and one of her boys. The Indians took the other son captive. A historical marker placed at the home site in 1936 is the only vestige of what happened there.

  Visit: The marker stands seventeen miles north of Bastrop off Farm to Market Road 969. Bastrop County Museum, 904 Main Street, Bastrop.

  BELL COUNTY

  Belton

  BIRD CREEK FIGHT

  The Comanches did not relinquish their hunting grounds without fierce resistance.

  On May 25, 1839, thirty-five rangers under Captain John Bird encountered a Comanche buffalo hunting party and charged. The Indians fled, but they did not go far.

  The next morning, a group of Indians stampeded a herd of buffalo through the rangers’ camp. Again, the rangers chased the Indians, but the Comanches succeeded in staying just out of shooting range. When the rangers gave up and returned to camp, a party of roughly forty Indians waiting in ambush surrounded the Texans and let loose with a withering barrage of arrows.

  Bird ordered his men to fall back to a nearby ravine and take cover. From there, the rangers looked toward a hill and saw an estimated 250 warriors lined up to attack. When the Indians rode down on them, the rangers held their fire until they could make their bullets count. Several warriors fell, and they pulled back, only to charge again.

  As often happened in Indian fights, when a ranger killed their chief, the Comanches withdrew. But five rangers lay dead, including Captain Bird.

  Five rangers died in an Indian fight not far from this 1936 historical marker in Bell County. Photo by Mike Cox.

  After drawing up their lines, the war-whoop from one end of their line to the other was heard, which shrieked in the ears of our gallant little band, which was soon followed by a desperate charge from every point; but our boys gave them such a warm reception they were handsomely repulsed.

  –battle survivor Nathan Brookshire

  Visit: The battle happened in present Bell County near a creek later named in Bird’s honor. A 1936 granite historical marker commemorating the fight stands at Adams and Interstate 35 in Temple. Another marker, this one recognizing Captain Bird and the other slain rangers, is in the 2000 block of Nugent, west of Interstate 35 and just east of Bird Creek. A third marker, placed in 2002, indicates the approximate site of the buffalo stampede. Take State Highway 36 6.0 miles northwest of Temple, then go north 6.8 miles on State Highway 317, turning west 2.9 miles to the marker. The rangers lie buried in a common grave on the bank of the Little Leon River, the exact location unknown.

  PETER HANSBROUGH BELL (1812–1898)

  One of three former rangers to become governor, the namesake of Bell County fought in the Battle of San Jacinto and served as both assistant inspector general and inspector general for the Texas army from 1837 to 1839. Bell rode as a Texas Ranger and held the rank of colonel of Texas volunteers in the Mexican War. Elected governor in 1849, he served until 1853 when he entered the U.S. Congress, representing his district until 1857.

  In 1936, during the Texas Centennial, a bronze statue of the former ranger was placed on the courthouse square in Belton.

  Visit: 101 West Central Avenue. Bell is buried in the State Cemetery. Bell County Museum, 201 North Main, Belton.

  Temple

  RAILROAD STRIKE

  As organized labor began to grow in power in the late nineteenth century, the state occasionally dispatched Texas Rangers to prevent violence during strikes. When a nationwide railroad work stoppage in 1894 triggered bloodshed and sabotage—paralyzing transportation and the mail—Captains J.A. Brooks and John R. Hughes took sixteen rangers to Temple, a division point on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.

  Not only did the presence of the state lawmen preserve the peace, someone took a photograph of them standing with Winchesters in hand in front of a Santa Fe boxcar. Extensively published over the years, the image likely was taken near the Santa Fe depot downtown.

  Visit: The old Santa Fe depot was replaced by an impressive two-story station house opened in 1911 at 315 Avenue B. Closed in 1989, the City of Temple bought the property in 1995. The restored depot continues to serve as the city’s Amtrak station. The Temple Santa Fe Depot Railroad and Heritage Museum is also in the depot.

  BLANCO COUNTY

  Blanco

  SCOTT COOLEY (1845–1876)

  Exactly how Scott Cooley died, either of natural causes or by intentional poisoning, has never been determined. But the real mystery is why he did not catch a Comanche arrow and lose his scalp in the fierce Indian fighting he took part in as a ranger, or why someone didn’t just back-shoot him as recompense for his role in the Mason County Hoo-Doo War. However it happened, Cooley died in Blanco in June 1876 and lies in Miller Creek Cemetery under a concrete slab that simply says, “Scott Cooley/Texas Ranger.”

  Visit: East 2.1 miles from intersection of U.S. 281 and U.S. 290, 5.3 miles north of Blanco.

  Johnson City

  RUFUS CICERO PERRY (1823–1898)

  Alabama-born Cicero Rufus “Old Rufe” Perry first served in a ranger company under Captain William Hill in 1836 when only fourteen. Later, he rode under Captain John Coffee Hays. Perry also fought as
a ranger in the Mexican War.

  When the legislature created the Frontier Battalion in 1874, Perry gained appointment as the first captain of Company D. The veteran Indian fighter, along with numerous other rangers, had to be laid off in December 1874 due to a state budget shortfall. Perry ran cattle on property he owned along the Pedernales River in Blanco County until he grew infirm. He died in the small community of Hye, between Johnson City and Fredericksburg. In reporting the old ranger’s death, the Beeville Bee newspaper said Perry had been wounded by Indian arrows twenty-one times and shot seven times.

  Visit: Masonic Cemetery, North Nugent Street (Spur 356). Johnson City. The former ranger’s restored log cabin, 404 U.S. 290.

  BURNET COUNTY

  DEER CREEK INDIAN FIGHT

  The roughly twenty-minute battle that took place along Deer Creek in Burnet County in mid-August 1873 did not involve the rangers, but it likely led to the enlistment a year later of a young man who would become one of the force’s more famous captains—Daniel Webster Roberts. Viewed another way, the engagement came close to killing him.

  Near the wagon road from Austin to Fredericksburg, the future ranger leader; his father, George Roberts; and seven other Texans rode up on a party of twenty-five to thirty-five Comanches cooking four stolen beeves.

  In a pitched battle, George Roberts, his son and another man suffered wounds along with two of their horses. With three men already wounded, the outnumbered Texans backed off, and the Indians opted not to follow. The Indians lost two to four warriors and a couple horses.

  Knowing what I now do, I do not see how a man of us escaped alive, for the Indians were well armed and shot well.

  –James Ingram, letter published in the Austin Tri-Weekly State