Hide Article Text (OCR)
f HAUNTED HOUSE, DESERTED*)SILENT SENTINEL OVER LOOTED OF PIONEERS: MANYEARI ,Y COUNTY BURIAL PLACESFour sunken holes, rifled graves { lived there relate, phantomfrom | uourtedHtheadornintslay,thei 10 *, In[er-opran-dantofor,Ue* re d, t is thethe'ouriake- ofn oron a weedy hillside near a house inwhich the phantom of a man in woman’s dress is reputed to walk, are all that, remain of one of Denton County's oldest buryingground:-. Dating from before the Civil War, when the brakes where a Ranger troop had its camp was the only place to bury its dead, the cemetery was desecrated because of the men's desire to keep their felon oi.'i -vo nearby. The spring m’ lu lt;h . M ' i r k ■ !:'.ud- - . ■.. ■ . ’ '-i' , V . ■; : ' 'west of town, known variously asRi nger Spring, and Station Spring, oils the center of activity for thefund of soldiers sent to protect the curly settlers from theabout 1850.But it was likewise, according to remembrance of the oldest settlers,Ma first-magnitude point in the map of Sam Bass and his gang, Theyused to ride along Hickory Creek.after attaining the comparative re-1 ) lOteness of the rough countrypround Bald Knob, and visit the old1. ■.. -Ranger Stui on with its always abundant flow of water. Two orthree men, innocently penetrating the lonely woods in search of game, i were shot by the bandit outpostsfor spies, it is said. Legend also uc-ounts for the looting of the graver by the long reiterated story that cum Bass had bur ek $75,000 in gold!a Santa Fe express robbery the Spring.Old Grave* OpenedThe gfav#-r© 4yty was com para-1tHvly recent, happening about six. years ago on a drizzly night. “Undo Bill*' Sttnchcomb, who lived in the supposedly haunted house that now stands vacant, staring v ith its starkly empty windows at ih© deserted hillside, saw tn© wav-lt; ring Sight that directed the mysterious visitors in a task that required half of an inky night. For several days preceding the opening of the graves, a Mexican and an aged white man had been seen in the neighborhood, and had asked many questions of Stinchcomb.On the morning after the, dim light had played over the unmork-graveyard, he investigated anda skull und bones thrown up with earth from four of the graves which b**d been opew«d 1 tack* which went from the excavations to the gate corresponded to others mode by the two strangers in their ramshackle back drawn by ponies. Whether they found the gold cache of the bandits no one ever knew The exposed hones were hastily covered and the spot left, lonely asbefore Now its only visitors are animals, snul by men living on the next hill to be a small variety of the “grave robber”. A dark, fetid hole extends into tin* wide of oneof the sunken mounds,Meanwhile, in the abandonedhouse nearby, a spare figure, wearing the white dross of a woman, but displaying the dark, saddened features of a man, is said to move, ^half-floating and half-walklinn. from room to room, When the house was inhabited, those whowould stop beside each bed in the darkness, gaze fixedly at the fare on the pillow, and lapt drift, to the tlreplace, tare again for a long moment, and vanish.Marking? at early graves wcra mostly of sandstone which has been* ' . , ■ 1 ,rj■. 'worn away by the weathering of nearly three-quarters of an century. Consequently there are several lost cemeteries, some of them almost aa old a «t he Runjp t bury mg-ground,near Denton.Judge's Grave LostSomewhere beneath a tangle ofbeggar-1 ice and pigweed lie the remains of the man who was county! judge when the county seat was removed from Old Alton to Denton, in 1858. Judge J. M Lively, stepfather of Frank Sutton, 1115 Fannin Street, himself an old-timer, was buried in the Woodruff cemetery, now a weed-grown corner of the D. B. McClurkan farm on therort WThe .'v.y ■. ca oftmWomf hpf *V' ¥-•« k*TI » £ , . 'Wm 30mrm* w... _. _| „$%' a^idt a ialsoon his noi-gHKor t«?onnd brought then !af$ it*. the: jiittlft’ silent instead lt;\i dig^inf* a gravei a. amih to beco vmut h £aWIl-Ss■*U O'lbgrave?t ta.ee piv llfeftylifrmdmMrs.1858, m 1ter* onSpring,tunningri, «d i!?but slightly' chardot ness. Today only severof the 50 may be located, remains of the lame £ ■■ i t-1 family lot, proi;lt;eted w«H which h:i, beer, meliibed and the reM HH (ifnvei of Sutton*#Paruielia Lively, whound ot his Kiuvdi‘HXvnt$p Mr.Mr*. Emhit Smitlh are Pm'rth was a ranger i l;.0 or 100 with ‘nwiquar-Hickory Creek at Rangeland met his death while his horse after a beef.Relics of PioneersFallen stones, with the crude in-eriptions half obliterated by ravages of time, mark weed-grown graves of O. L Low, who died In* 1 § *■ \a IMarch, 1878; of infant sou of Bourne, and of—-I,—-—-——riseii ftnidcwetrkam*g.....\Ist ructurearc jarsfront of plunks.entrain e!mesa to the cheers of the crowd. The priests receive them, find each runner deposits prayer offerings atat the altar.The captive snakes— some times there are m many as a hundred of them—are washed tn the underground kiva The priest* squat and aing. Two priests takea handful of writhing, twisting snake* out of a jar and hand them to other priests who alt by a jarof consecrated water. The snake-are dipped in this and tossed onthe sand of th® sacred altar, to the tune of blood curdling yells.At sunset comes the snake danceproper, on the open plaza, V iaitors.both Indian and white, line th© mesarbc vc,First the Antelope priests appear,marching to a little cottonwoodcalled the “kisa,” in which containing the anakea. Init is a hole covered by It in supposed to bo theto the underworld, andthe priests sprinkle »alt;*red *nqal on it to notify the god* of th* underworld that the donee is aboutto begin. Then they form a line and chant a monotonous sort ofat.ng.The snake priests appear nextThey too divide into groups of thru© and each group approaches the kim in turn. Qno member tokca a rattlesnake from n jar, put* it in hi mouth, .-.ml prance« away. Oneof his comrades dance beside himand the third follow* in the rear,T h row a j§ttake A w «yman with thethe third manand picks after which the two men in of him return to the kina for «n-othlt;» sunk# When all the nutk*»have been taken from the jars thechief prieM draws a sacred circle in the ground, and all the prirmt rush up and drop the snakes intoit Then, ut another signal, they eeisi the nakc* up again, d*»h off to the four po.ut;, of the compnsi and release tin tn After that come t w . d*y« of fca*tiAg—-altheugh each priest i« obliged to take .* powerful eineih before he may join,lit it.Th it 1 the famou , Hopt snake dunce- an attrnction foi tourist* from all over the world How tlm prii t« avoid getting fatally bitten by the live rattlers they handle *ocarol#*sky is a wystory. But theyeJwayf'-de** v-- i ’■James L. Bourne,Mr. and Mrs. Z. Bourne, who name was Ihmei L. Sanford An diet. May 20. l!§8l. Her maiden earlier grave is marked Mary Atm Loving, wife of J. D. Loving, who nied Oct. 14, lStVJ; and another, a decade before, is the resting place of Joseph W.. *c,n of O. and E, S.White. Catherine Tyson, the baby of J. Moon and the baby of J. S.Hyatt, ate the only other name* legible, and crumbling of the stone nas obliterated the dates.Old Dalton CemeteryA family cemetery that changed names as it was inherited is thatwhich now forms the center of t.u: new Denton County Memorial Park-At first the Cook burying ground,it was named for the late Jo#Cook’s father, Gideon Cook, whogave the land for it, and who was the first to be buried therV, about the time of the establishment of Denton. Mrs. Margaret Cook Dalton and her sister, who also married a Dalton, interited the property, andit became known iss the Daltoncemetery, thia name continuing a3Moll ie Dalton, her son, came into th© title of the large tract. About20 years ago, when he was on hi*deathbed, he sent for Frank Sutton and requested him to draw up a deed conveying the cemetery to I'--©i i Countv This * ©mm nt«din the tall of 1891 About 100greets, icj.n jchtmg many pioneer fm©Hies, are in this burial ground Many of the graves are unmark ed neio, and hundred* it) the Okj Alton cemetery which date far backinto Indian days, ranr.c' now be located, according to Boone Daugherty, probably the oldest settler.His sister, Rebecca Daugherty, wasthe first buried there, in 1852, when the whit© settlement extended no further weat than DentonFuneral* tn those days were entirely without benefit of clergy, Daugherty ♦ culls. A plank box waxnailed together by the men whoknew no division of labor; a dozenneighbor* who heard of the death came to th© house and ail assisted in digging the grave and depositingin it the rude coffin.thrown tn, and thatre qua tn.The earth was was the final-W.„— .!V « ‘ on* h iit' ftw-ftj? khm ratal fttefront|up*, GrosecloseDallasto Address M. E. MembersDt ji it, GVfitUglOs-©. director of the Dallas .Sanitarium, now Mefh-odiai hospital now under construe-tioru wjll til1 the pulpit of the First Methodist Church Sunday, in ah-;• © ace ef the pastor, Rev. S. If.Black, who ir away on hi* vacation,it i» announced by Burney Skiles,©dm at ion al directorLIKES101 ) I.Ah' IB D WOMAN IFLAPPER M VB1TSPHll ADELPH1A—Three dishes of tee cream • day. God's will and plenty of © -t t©*\ make for long life, according to Mr*- Father mo Ricketts who recently celebrated hero* he .»n*Dveraary of her Wl»| Lath -dry ^ ■ -Tf--*Mi Rickets approves ©f bo fe*tr for women a old a* FtraeH“for comfort ejjd not for atyle and* ifgvst* that girl* of the presentgeneration b© privileged to smokocigarette* and wear short dr., st.esthey want the At
Newspaper Details
Denton Record Chronicle
Denton, Texas, US
Sat, Aug 21, 1926
Page 11
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
