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of almost every variety, and from every sand-bar the grewsome alligators disported themselves,
also the sly and watchful otter and beaver.
The country was then a hunter's paradise, and even to this day, more than three quarters
of a century removed from the time of which I write, much of the country possesses character-
istics peculiar to its early settlement.
We will now leave for a while the primitive islander and return to the family in North
page 18. Louisiana. When BULLOCH and Sam HORTON returned home great was the grief and constern-
ation of the mother, when she perceived that the youngest son was not with them. Her lamenta-
tions brought forth explanations, and when she learned that her son was living, and under what
* circumstances they had left him, she was greatly perturbed in mind.
There were living at that time (1824) some two or three hundred Indians along the several
creeks that cross the King's Highway and west of where the town of San Augustine now stands.
But they were friendly and gave the settlers no trouble; as game of every kind was abundant,
and they could easily supply their simple wants without any distant excursions and so remained
in savage indolence about their wigwams, whilst their women administered to their wants. But
the fact of Indians being in the vicinity of her lonely child added new terror to the mothers
anxiety and she lost no time in getting ready to leave for Texas to join him. No pen can por-
tray her troubled mind, her terrible anguish, during the long weeks she
page 19.was on the road, and until she had joined him. She knew that he was in the wilderness
all alone and far removed from human aid; if stricken with disease there would be no one to
hand him even a cup of water, smoothe his sick pillow and with work of kindness and sympathy
illume his passage to the grave.
Then again he might be devoured by wilk animals or massacred by prowling Indians. All
these thoughts flashed constantly through her mind day and night during the six long weeks
she was en route, and until she was reunited with her son at the little pine pole cabin on the
banks of the Attoyac river in Texas, then a part of the Republic of Mexico.
The meeting of the mother and her long absent son can better be imagined than described;
joyful also was the meeting of the little brothers and sisters with the one they had feared
they would never see again.
I have oft times in long after years heard my grandmother tell of her trip from Washington,
Parish, Louisiana to join my father in Texas, not knowing but that she would find his body
mouldering to decay, the victim of disease or the scalping knife of savages.
page 20. She was a woman of heroic mould, of fine judgment, inflexible will and determination
in carrying to consummation any project or undertaking that appealed to her judgment as proper
or necessary', but she never could see the propriety or necessity of BULLOCH and Sam HORTON
leaving her thirteen year old son exposed to such dangers and hardships in the wilds of an
uninhabited country. She would oft reminiscently remark, seated round a winter's fire earnest-
ly picking the seed from cotton --- notwithstanding my father's gin was situated but a few
hundred yards from the residence --- "I would not have left him there for the State of Texas,
it was enough to have unbalanced the mind of so young a child, to say nothing of the dangers
wo which he was constantly exposed, and I greatly feared that I would never again see him alive.
Whilst the mother and family were recruiting from their long and tedious journey through
the wilds of Northern Louisiana to Texas, drying venison and bear meat for future use, and
also storing away honey -- for the forest abounded in bees -- and does to this day, more than
three quarters of a century from the time of which I write --- and whilst the stock they had.
brought with them were fattening on the succulent cane and nutritious grass that springs up
with luxuriant spontaneity in that Southern clime, the mother was taking observations and
endeavoring to decide in her own mind what course best to pursue for the benefit of herself
and minor children.
She did not like the location: it was too far from human habitation with no prospects
of schools in the near future, and her children needed to be going to school. She had pre-
viously lived surrounded by relatives and friends in the old North State, and at least by
neighbors in Louisiana the few years she spent in that state, and thus to immure herself and
family in the uninhabited wilds of Mexico was repulsive to her feelings and nature revolted at
the thought.
She determined to go back to the settlements on the Red Lands along the King's Highway.
This she did,
page 22. and finding a party that wished to return to the states, she purchased his improve-
ments about three miles West of the town of San Augustine, and there remained until all her
children had grown up and married off, and on a beautiful hillock near the home, and land by
the King's highway, her enfeebled body and snow white head over which eighty-five winters had
come and gone found a last resting place forty years afterward.
ALEXANDER HORTON
After his mother left the island on the Attoyac river and and moved to and settled upon
the King's Highway, which was in the summer of 1824, Alexander HORTON, being the eldest then at
home, (Sam HORTON, the eldest, having returned to Louisiana) took upon his shoulders the burden
and responsibility of head of the family. He worked on the little farm and when the crop was
gathered in the fall, cleared land and split rails, thus adding each year a few more acres of
cultivated land to his little farm.
During the years 1824-5- and 6 very many substantial people settled around where the town
of San Augustine is located, and opened up farms, some of them possessed considerable slave pro-
perty, and they were mostly
page 23. men of sterling worth, of intelligence and ability. Everything was moving smoothly
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The Quarterly - March 1981