Oral History Interview with Clarabelle Barton Snodgrass, August 25, 1999 Page: 5 of 127
This text is part of the collection entitled: Rescuing Texas History, 2015 and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Kerr County Historical Commission.
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and pair of mules to come with us. We all started about the fifteenth of October.
McClures wife got sick in eastern Texas and he stopped and promised to come on
as soon as his wife got able to travel and I saw him no more and lost the whole
outfit amounting to four hundred dollars.
We had a pleasant time moving, weather fine, the little sick boy improved and the
first night of December. We lacked one days travel of being to journeys end. We
camped on Wolf Creek in Gillispe* County and the worst blizzard or norther that I
have ever experienced came upon us about dark and came very near freezing us all
to death. The little sick boy got worse and died in a few days after we got to Cousin
Sidney Reeses. That left but Two children, Daniel and Henry out of a family of a
wife and five children. I finally moved to Kerrville in the winter of 1860 and bought
a house and lot from Hance Burney, built me a large commodious shop and went to
work at my old trade of blacksmithing but I am a little too fast. The Indians were
very bad to steal horses and I had five or six head of horses. I had an Uncle and
cousins living at Clinton in Dewitt county so I took my two boys and my horses and
went to Clinton to my Uncle to stay until I could make some disposition of my
horses. There was a severe drought that summer and no grass and some of my
horses died. While there I married my second wife Miss Margret Ann McCann and
set out anew to fight the battles of life. I was thirty-three years old and my wife was
twenty-one. We moved back to Kerrville and bought the property and built the shop
above mentioned and went to work with a will.
I was the only regular blacksmith in this upper country, I got all the work to do and
did it better than the people had ever been used to. In the spring of 1861I returned
to Arkansaw* for the purpose of collecting the notes due on the Mills sold by way
of New Orleans. I walked to San Antonio, took the stage coach to Alleyton the then
terminus of the present Sun Set Road, took the train there to Galveston, there by
steamer to New Orleans, there by steamboat to Little Rock and by land to Cedar
Glade, my old home.
When I arrived at New Orleans there were firing cannons on Jacksons Square in
honor of the secession of South Carolina. When I arrived at Vicksburg there were
hundreds of people dragging long cannons up the bluff, building fortifications for
the defence* of the city. I collected only eight hundred dollars in Twenty dollar
gold pieces, I carried them in a belt around my body. (SEE NOTE) It became very
tiresome before I got home. I came home by water and rail as I went.
NOTE: The following story was told to me by my Father, Walter Lee Lowrance,
the youngest son of Miles Lowrance. Grandfather Lowrance was returning to Texas
with the money he had collected and while he was in New Orleans some men
attempted to rob him. As he was waling down the street a man approached him and
asked if he were a stranger in town and offered to show him around. After a while
this stranger suggested that they go to his room. When they entered the room
Grandfather noticed two other men there so he became suspicious and as they5
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Oral History Interview with Clarabelle Barton Snodgrass, August 25, 1999 (Video)
Interview with Clarabelle Barton Snodgrass from Kerrville, Texas. The interview includes her stories of growing up on a ranch, experiencing the Great Depression, and earning the titles of "Citizen of the Year" and "Woman of the Year."
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Bethel, Ann & Snodgrass, Clarabelle. Oral History Interview with Clarabelle Barton Snodgrass, August 25, 1999, text, September 25, 1999; Kerrville, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth795488/m1/5/?q=%22United+States+-+Texas+-+Travis+County+-+Austin%22: accessed June 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Kerr County Historical Commission.