Transcriber’s Note: Care has been taken to preserve the content of the original publication including unexpected punctuation and spelling. See the note at the end of this ebook for further details. CYNTHIA ANN PARKER. THE STORY OF HER CAPTURE At the Massacre of the Inmates of Parker’s Fort; of her Quarter of a Century Spent Among the Comanches, as the Wife of the War Chief, Peta Nocona; and of her Recapture at the Battle of Pease River, by Captain L. S. Ross, of the Texian Rangers. —BY— JAMES T.

In the month of June, 1884, there appeared in the columns of the Forth Worth Gazette an advertisement signed by the Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, and dated from the reservation near Fort Sill, in the Indian Territory, enquiring for a photograph of his late mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, which served to revive interest in a tragedy which has always been enveloped in a greater degree of mournful romance and pathos than any of the soul-stirring episodes of our pioneer life, so fruitful of incidents o

Contemporary with, and among the earliest of the daring and hardy pioneers that penetrated the eastern portion of the Mexican province of Texas, were the “Parker family,” who immigrated from Cole county, Illinois, in the fall of the year 1833, settling on the west side of the Navasota creek, near the site of the present town of Groesbeck, in Limestone county, one or two of the family coming a little earlier and some a little later. The elder John Parker was a native of Virginia, resided for a ti

Of the captives we will briefly trace their subsequent checkered career. After leaving the fort the two tribes, the Comanches and Kiowas, remained and traveled together until midnight. They then halted on an open prairie, staked out their horses, placed their pickets, and pitched their camp. Bringing all their prisoners together for the first time, they tied their hands behind them with raw-hide thongs so tightly as to cut the flesh, tied their feet close together, and threw them upon their face

The battle of the South Canadian or “Antelope Hills,” fought in 1858, was probably one of the most splendid scenic exhibitions of Indian warfare ever enacted upon Texas soil. This was the immemorial home of the Comanches; here they sought refuge from their marauding expeditions into Texas and Mexico; and here, in their veritable “city of refuge,” should the adventurous and daring rangers seek them, it was certain that they would be encountered in full force—Pohebits Quasho—“Iron Jacket,” so call

It is not our purpose in this connection, to assume the role of biographer to so distinguished a personage as is the chevalier Bayard of Texas—General Lawrence Sullivan Ross. That task should be left to an abler pen; and besides, it would be impossible to do anything like justice to the romantic, adventurous, and altogether splendid and brilliant career of the brave and daring young ranger who rescued Cynthia Ann Parker from captivity, at least in the circumscribed limits of a brief biographical

For some time after Ross’ victory at the Wichita Mountains the Comanches were less hostile, seldom penetrating far down into the settlements. But in 1859-’60 the condition of the frontier was again truly deplorable. The people were obliged to stand in a continued posture of defense, and were in continual alarm and hazard of their lives, never daring to stir abroad unarmed, for small bodies of savages, quick-sighted and accustomed to perpetual watchfulness, hovered on the outskirts, and springing

From May 19th, 1836, to December 18th, 1860, was twenty-four years and seven months. Add to this nine years, her age when captured, and at the later date Cynthia Ann Parker was in her thirty-fourth year. During the last ten years of this quarter of a century, which she spent as a captive among the Comanches, no tidings had been received of her. She had long been given up as dead or irretrievably lost to civilization. Notwithstanding the long lapse of time which had intervened since the Capture o