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EIGHT■j*S5Jifei^lilaa'• ■•:•*• :JV. :' • vwi.'. ' . . ' ,JfA £'•'-* •. --. . 'X-..- -ilTHE BIG SPRING DASketchy+Wr.i-'t-'-v.SA-oneeroman, maech a, uoaArticleslohnHuttoWhile she is not quite so old as some other ladies in Big J riians was a military blunder that has allegedly been placed! ground was literally covered with bonesthere is no woman living in Howard county who can to the account of Capt. S. C. Totten. The family also livedgatheringRally testify to the coming of Mrs. M. E. Barrett. Bc-e town was laid off, before the rails were laid, and two •lid a half years before Howard county was organized, she Same to the “big spring” with her husband.Mrs. Barrett w..s born at Shelbyville, Texas, August 2, 1852. Though passing well into her 86th year, she is “haleiand hearty.” Eugenically speaking, there are reasons to believe that she has many years before her yet. Her father, W. B. Mauldin, died atBlanket, Texas, at the ripe age of 97 years. Two uncles, Dr. Billie Mauldin and Henry Harris, lived to be 93 years old.In her childhood Mrs, Bar-i rett suffered hardships incident to the Civil war. Theon Spring creek and on the Conchos.group of men from Round Rock joined the BarrettThe latter was interested in thebuffalo hunt, the former wantedBarrettcompanied her husband on these hunting expeditions. Buffaloes usually went in herds of thousands and were easily killed. The hunters hid themselves in convenient places and picked out the fattest animals. As in the case of cattle.' stampedes were common and every precaution was taken j to prevent them. The Round Rock party had wagons with the usual top beds. From day to day, as the animals were killed, choice pieces of meat were salted down in these wagons. From interviews with old buffalo h liters, we con-these bones, which at times had a market value as high as $20 a ton, became a profitable business. It was on January 28, 1881 that G. B. Barrett and his family arrived at the “big spring” to gather bones for W. S. Veck of San Angelo. Thousands of tons of the bones were piled in ricks to await the coming of the Texas and Pacific. The complete destruction of Ben Ficklin by a flood on August 24 th, 1882, in svhich the county court house stood fifteen feet in water, not only changed the county seat of Tom Green county to Sandetermined the permanent location of the Bar-Thev had locked their house on leav-retts at Big Spring.Be nelude that those wagons must have held about a ton of meat. The Barretts used but little of the meat save the tongues. Mrs. Barrett says the buffi'lo robes were of incalculable usein the home. The hair, especially from the thick tuft on Ithe forehead, made excellent mattresses. The robes servedMRS. M. E. ItARRETTuivn war. father spent years away in the war and by the act ofj emaniciuation the family was•,r • ~r ^ % ideprived of the slaves. On the death of her mother soon after the war, Mrs. Barrett went] to live with her grandfather.Dr. Elihu Mauldin. The family lived on a farm where there w’as much hard work to be done in the usually hard way. She was strong and willing-minded and did every kind of work on the farm except plowing. Much to her own chagrin and to the delight of' her brothers she was never able to master the art. The fam-' ily lived successively in Shelby, Burleson, Lavaca, andLampasas counties.In June, 1872, Mittie Elizabeth Mauldin married G. B. Barrett, and in the middle seventies came to the San Angelo country to hunt buffaloes. The family lived cn Dove creek, the location of the famous Indian battle t. at washousehold goods behind. With the village swept away and their belongings lost there was nothing to return to. Mrs. Barrett especially deplored the loss of her bridle and sidesaddle.Mrs. Barrett states that the country around the big spring was very bare. Mesquite trees and shrubbery w'ere much smaller than nowr. Theever had, and he was a brother to me.”When Big Spring was yet a village of tents, Mrs. Barrett and her husband moved down town. They lived in two tents placed end to end where Mrs. Barrett kept boarders and did public sewing. She placed her machine in the middle of the tents where she could watch her cooking in one end and her babies in the other. She kept as many as fifteen boarders at one time. During those days there were many rough characters in Big Spring, but not so many came under her direct observation. Cow punchers used to come in town and ride through the tents and shoot out the lights. She tells of one of her boarders, a bully who fondly called himself “Sam Bass.” One day while shewas parchingpets for the tent floorsbesideswas evidence that firesrue grass had beenfee this man, while under the influence of whiskey, tried to be a little too friendly with her. When mild reproofs failed to calm him she reached in a handy drawer and drew a sixshooter on him and told him if he persisted she would “shoot him so full of holes his hide wouldn’t hold shucks.” Needless to say, he cleared out at once. Mrs. Barrett said, “and I’d have done it too. but I would not do a thine likethewere used as coverings and many times as parts of tent walls. Mrs. Barrett deplores the fact that out of the thousands of hides taken not one was saved to posterity. The hides usually brought the hunter from a dollar and a half to two dollars and a half.Mrs. Barrett tells of incidents while living on the SouthConcho which well illustrate the hardships suffered by frontier women. Her husband was away once for several weeks working for a cow' outfit. In his absence a rise* in the Concho threatened the destruction of the entire camp consist-ersoncommon. Their only) thathbors at the spring were Cebe Hilburn and Aaron Rob-She states that one of the children’s graves just the spring is that of little Madie Roberson. Hil-I Meeks ran a little store and John Birdwetl had aBarrett first traded with BressiedeclaresmerchantsgoodJoe Earnest's meat market wassaloon run by Joe Cascaden tents.these w-ere housedcaden.ing of several families, why I did it, I suppose our belongings piled onBarrettLordi. Barrett is free in her commendations of Joe Cas-She says he was honest, honorable, and did not . She relates an interesting incident in which Joe came r tent in great distress because the Irishmen—at that railroad construction hands—refused to drink hisItiedwhite whiskey, almost ceased.was out and his sales hadwheels of the w'agon.” 'The flood drifted the wagon down stream, but it assumed an upright position and all the goods were saved. During the same absence of her husband she was stricken with typhoid-pneumonia and lay very sick for several weeks. Doctors were inaccessible, but Mrs. Bar-e randf a ther-doct o rfought on January 8, 1865. The battle which took place 8 experiences in the home of herbetween about 50 Texas Rangers and Minute Men and about 4,000 friendly Kick a poo Indians on their way to Mexico and which resulted in the death of 26 Rangers and the wounding of sixty others, as well as in the death of a host of the In-*igood play during casesThe buffalo bone industry was the aftermath of the destruction of the buffaloes which took place mostly duringthe seventies. Especially around watering places, theMrs. Barrett suggested that a good quantity of brown sugar, w'ell toasted, might add to the color. This method Joe adopted, and, after he added a few' plugs of tobacco, his sales readily picked up.Mrs. Barrett also speaks with fond recollections of John Birdw'ell and his wife. She says that Mrs. Birdwell came to Big Spring from Nashville, Tennessee, as a bride and that she was both beautiful and cultured, and she said, “and she is pretty yet.” Mrs. Birdwell was often greatly distressed because her husband, who had long since been a cowboy, rode wild horses for the Earl of Aylesford. states Birdwell “was one of the best sheriffs IMrs. Barrettwalled up tent with brush arbor in front where the meat was hung at night. The town had not been laid off into streets, but “Front Street”, now' South First street, was the principal business thoroughfare.Over seventy years ago Mrs. Barrett became a member of the Christian church. She was baptised in the Lampasas river. Of the seven charter members of the local Christian church only she is living. During the early days the congre^ gation worshipped from house to house and later in the school house. Judge Walthall nailed up the school house to prohibit worship there and in 1884 the church built a house of worship which is the present Hteffernan hotel.For the past 55 years Mrs. Barrett has lived on the corner of Bell and Fourth streets. When the writer stated that she had a good background for longevity she replied, “yes, that’s the trouble, I am staying here too long. I am getting tired.” Her husband has been dead many years. Though life has been long and hard it has not embittered Mrs. Barrett. She says, “there have been many thorns, but too there have been the roses.” She is a type of hardy frontier womanhood which is rapidly passing.!
Newspaper Details
Big Spring Daily Herald
Big Spring, Texas, US
Sun, Mar 20, 1938
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
TX, USA 22 Aug 2019
Other Publications Near Big Spring, Texas
Big Spring Stanton Herald
Big Spring Sunday Herald
Big Spring Weekly Herald
Big Spring Daily Herald
Big Spring Herald
