The Sherman Courier
Wednesday,
August 15, 1917
Pg. 19
Fiftieth
Anniversary edition
UNCLE DICK CHAPMAN RELATES SOME EARLY
INDIAN EXPERIENCES
R.A.
Chapman, perhaps the oldest business man
in Sherman, and who is today
younger than many men half his age, gave
The
Courier the following
interview on August 1, 1910:
"You ask me what I know about the
early days of Texas. Of my own
knowledge I know nothing of the
real early days but I could fill a
volume of what I have been told by
the early settlers. Burl
Yarborough told me that the Indians once
stole some horses from him and he
afterwards found the horses in the
Indian camp at Fort Sill, but the
commander would not make the Indian
give them up. At one time a young
man from somewhere here in the
State found his sweetheart in the Indian
camp whom the Indians had
stolen, and he tried to buy her from
them and offered all he had -
pony, gun, everthing - but the Indians
refused to give her up.
I
remember the killing by the Indians of
one of our neighbors, Enoch
Jones and his son and a Negro who went
from here out about Jacksboro to
put up hay. Then the Custer fight
in which Luther Hare,
son of our deceased ex-congressman and
Judge, took part and who would
no doubt have been slain with the others
had he not been sent back for
reinforcements and thereby his life was
saved. Old Judge Hare,
father of Luther Hare and Silas Hare,
always took an active part in the Old
Settlers Reunion and it is due largely
to him that the organization was
perpetuated.
I
came to Texas with Mrs. Chapman and our
two oldest boys in February
1862 from Gallatin, Tennessee by rail to
New Orleans and from New
Orleans to Jefferson by boat. On
the boat I met J.E. Ranney,
known to many of the old settlers of
this county as a merchant in
McKinney for years after the war.
Ranney built the first flour
mill in McKinney. Later Ranney
moved to Sherman and took quite a
batch of stock in the M. & P. Bank,
which he still owns. He gave a
church bell to the "Old School
Presbyterian" church up here which still
tolls to inform the people
when to come to service.
Biography Index
Susan Hawkins
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