The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953 Page: 361
641 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Shawnee Trail
Colonel Cooke joined the troops at Little River and went on
to the Waco village. There he waited for the quartermaster to
catch up, bringing supplies that included beeves on the hoof
and several wagons with provisions. Five of Cooke's men, care-
lessly leaving their muskets when they went to fetch water, were
killed by Indians. Soon afterward, in a cold norther, the cattle
broke loose and ran away. This left the party with nothing to
live on except sugar and coffee and whatever game they could
kill. When the game ran out, they had to cook the meat of dogs,
mules, and horses.
On the Red River, Colonel Cooke had his men build a stock-
ade called Fort Johnson, midway between Holland Coffee's trad-
ing station and Basin Springs. He also opened a supply post that
became known as Fort Preston. It took its name from that of
Captain William G. Preston, who was in charge of a company of
men there in 1840. Later the village that grew up about the fort
was called Preston Bend or Preston.2
Because of its Rock Bluff crossing, Preston was the most con-
venient place to take herds across the Red River. In the late
183o's James Tyson, of North Carolina birth, had begun operat-
ing a ferry at this point. Although his first ferry was little more
than a log raft, it served to get wagons across the stream. Later
the ferry was owned by two partners, Jim Shannon and Bud
Randolph. About 1853, to cash in on the California gold rush,
Benjamin Franklin Colbert, a Chickasaw born in Mississippi,
started a similar ferry service a short distance downstream near
Shawneetown. This ferry was used by the stagecoaches of the
Butterfield Trail and by some of the cattle drovers.
After crossing the Red River, the Shawnee Trail entered the
Choctaw country and veered a bit to the northeast. Some of the
herds were pointed past Fort Washita, which had been set up
in 1842 to protect the Chickasaws against wild, hostile Indians
of the plains. Other herds followed a more direct line a dozen
miles to the east. The splits came together before reaching
Boggy Depot about fifty miles above the Red River. This set-
tlement on Clear Boggy Creek had received its name from the
2Report of Colonel William G. Cooke to B. T. Archer, secretary of war, Novem-
ber 4, 1840, in Journals of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Texas,
Fifth Congress, First Session, z84o-z84z (Austin, 1841), 325-327.361
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953, periodical, 1953; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101145/m1/433/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.