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The Stone Houses Fight
November 10, 1837
by Stephen L Moore
The
year 1837 was a tough one for the Texas Rangers.
Sergeant
George Erath lost two men, killed in his Indian fight on Elm Creek in
January. That same month, three East Texas Rangers were killed and a
fourth was wounded in an Indian encounter along the Trinity River. Twice
in April, the Indians managed to stampede the Rangers’ horses near their
frontier outposts. In May, a five-man wagon party of Captain Daniel
Monroe’s Ranger company was slaughtered by Indians near Post Oak Springs
in present Milam County. In late May, another Ranger of Captain Tommy
Barron’s company was killed near Fort Milam at the falls of the Brazos
River.
The
hostile Indians of Texas had become more aggressive in 1837. By mid-year,
President Sam Houston furloughed most of the Texas army, leaving only
a small group of cavalrymen and a battalion of Texas Rangers to protect
the entire Republic of Texas. In September 1836, the Rangers numbered
more than 450. By early October, there were fewer than 200 employed.
Major
William H. Smith, a veteran cavalryman from San Jacinto, commanded the
remaining units of Texas Rangers. Captain Lee Smith’s Company E, having
fulfilled its enlistment requirements, was discharged on October 1,
1837, by Major Smith. Captain Micah Andrews’ Company C was also effectively
out of service by this date, although Andrews would continue to be paid
through year’s end as a Ranger captain.
Many
other frontier Rangers were leaving the service individually as their
service terms expired. Despite his dwindling numbers, Major Smith was
motivated to organize an offensive campaign against the hostile Indians
in October 1837. The mission was to retrieve horses stolen by Indians
from the Colorado River settlements.
Several
units of men, under the direction of Smith, rendezvoused at the previously
abandoned Fort Smith on the Little River, located in present Bell County
near the junction of the Leon and Lampasas Rivers with Little River.
A detachment of Captain John M. Bowyer’s mounted gunmen from Houston
arrived at Fort Smith to join this expedition. Bowyer’s Ranger detachment
was commanded by First Lieutenant A. B. Vanbenthuysen and Second Lieutenant
Alfred Miles. The senior officers from Major Smith’s battalion were
Captain William Mosby Eastland, who would take command of the men, and
First Lieutenant John L. Lynch. The pension papers of Private George
Green of Company D show that this expedition was referred to by some
of the Rangers as the Eastland Campaign.
Various
accounts give the number of Rangers participating in Captain Eastland’s
Campaign to be between sixty-three and sixty-eight. Expedition member
George Erath said the total party comprised sixty-six men under Captain
Eastland, and they “made a campaign of nearly two months time.” Erath
stated that the men “penetrated the Indian country between the Brazos
and Colorado, further than the same number of men had done before or
since.” Eastland’s men subsisted entirely on the game they killed, without
even salt to use.
The
expedition did not find any Indians by the end of the month. At this
time, some sort of disagreement arose near the Colorado River on November
1 among the officers in command of the party. This conflict occurred
when the expedition was near the head of Pecan Bayou, a tributary to
the Colorado River. This site would be in present Callahan County, just
southeast of present Abilene.
Captain
Eastland and Lieutenant Lynch led the majority of their men back down
Pecan Bayou for the Colorado River and, ultimately, back to Fort Colorado
on Walnut Creek. In his report, First Lieutenant Vanbenthuysen simply
stated that he “parted company with Captain Eastland.”
Eastland’s
Rangers headed back for the Colorado River. Somewhere along the way,
Eastland and twenty-four of his men fought a battle with what was estimated
to be two hundred Indians. The site of the battle was on Ruan Bayou,
and the fight continued for two hours. None of the Texans were killed.
Another party of the returning Rangers from Eastland’s campaign was
“closely chased” but escaped without casualties. One of the small parties,
of which volunteer George Erath was a member, included eight men from
the Brazos. Erath wrote that he and his fellow men “succeeded in taking
seven horses and mules from another party of Indians on our way homeward
and arrived safely at home.”
Captain
Eastland’s Rangers were back at Fort Houston on the Colorado by mid-November.
He signed the discharge papers of Addison Litton on November 20 at this
post.
While
all of these small bands of Rangers succeeded in making it back to their
posts without loss, the eighteen-man group under Lieutenant Vanbenthuysen
was much less lucky. After parting ways with Captain Eastland, Vanbenthuysen
and Second Lieutenant Alfred Miles continued on with sixteen Rangers.
Most of these men were originally from Vanbenthuysen’s detachment, but
his remaining party did include some of Captain Eastland’s men who had
decided not to end the expedition. They pursued the trail of stolen
horses in an east-northeast direction toward the Brazos River until
meeting a party of Cherokees on November 3 near the Forks of the Brazos.
The site was likely in present Stonewall County. Vanbenthuysen wrote
of his party’s encounter with the Cherokees:
They were a
going to the Comanche Indians with powder and lead for the purpose of
exchanging it for horses and mules. This party of Cherokees was piloted
by a party of seven Keechi Indians. When first discovered, one of the
Keechis was [a] half mile in advance of his party. Our men surrounded
him and tried to make him surrender, but he would not be friendly with
us.
This
Kichai raised his rifle to shoot Lieutenant Miles but was shot dead
by one of the Rangers. Felix McCluskey, a wild-natured Irishman, was
the Ranger credited with killing this Indian. Afterwards, he is said
to have scalped the warrior and gone through his pockets. Some of the
riflemen were critical of him for this harsh act. McCluskey, however,
ruthlessly displayed a chunk of tobacco he had lifted from the dead
Indian’s pocket and swore that he “would kill any Injun for that much
tobacco.”
By
this time, the Cherokees came up and informed Vanbenthuysen that the
Keechis were acting as their guides. They also explained that Jesse
Watkins, who had been appointed an Indian agent by President Houston
in September, had made a partial treaty with them.
Watkins
would not live long in his appointment. He and his interpreter Lewis
Sanchez worked largely with the Kichai, Caddo, and Tawakoni Indians
near present Dallas County. According to Sanchez, Watkins was captured
by the Cherokee Indians of Chief Bowles and killed. It is possible that
the very Indians Vanbenthuysen’s Rangers encountered were those who
killed Watkins.
“I
immediately called off my men from the pursuit,” wrote Vanbenthuysen,
“but told the Cherokees that they could not furnish the hostile Indians
with powder and lead to murder the inhabitants on the frontier.”
The
Indians were informed that if they attempted to go onward, the Rangers
would take their goods away from them. The Cherokees promised that they
would return home and apparently did so. Lieutenant Vanbenthuysen’s
Rangers crossed the forks of the Brazos River on November 4. They were
troubled because they continued to find horseshoe tracks going in a
northeasterly direction. Shod tracks indicated horses stolen from the
white men, as the Indians did not shoe their horses.
 By
November 10, the eighteen-man Ranger party had reached a rock formation
in the hills near the headwaters of the West Fork of the Trinity River,
known to the Indians as the Stone Houses. This stone formation, standing
out above the surrounding scrub brush and cactus, was thought to resemble
early houses or tepees from a distance. The Stone Houses formation is
located about ten miles south of Windthorst on Highway 61 in present
Archer County. A historical marker is located just south of the West
Fork of the Trinity River. The formation is actually 1.5 miles south
of U.S. 61 down Prideaux Road, a gravel country lane.
Vanbenthuysen’s
report continues:
I fell in with
a large body of Indians in a moving position towards the southwest.
I first supposed them to be Keechis, but was afterwards informed that
they were Toweash, Wacos and a few Keechis and Caddos. I got this information
from the Shawnees and Delawares. I judged the Indians to be about one
hundred and fifty strong. About fifty or sixty of them were armed with
rifles and the balance had bows and arrows.
When
they first spotted the Indians, the Texans noticed that they had a large
caballada [cabalgata] of horses with them “and were accompanied
by many women and children.” Vanbenthuysen climbed atop the high Stone
Houses rock mound “until I saw about one hundred and fifty mount their
horses and come towards us.” He immediately rushed down and stationed
his men in a point of timber with a deep ravine for protection.
About three o’clock,
the Indians made a charge upon us and completely surrounded our position.
When they commenced firing from their rifles upon us, they had fired
eight or ten shots before we returned their fire. There was a continual
firing kept up on both sides until about half past four.
The
Texans made their defensive stand in a deep ravine, and the Indians
took position about seventy yards in front of the gorge. At one point,
Nicholson, who understood some of the Indian language, was sent out
to try and make peace talk. He climbed a tree and opened conversation
with the enemy.
Reportedly,
the Indians first demanded the surrender of Felix McCluskey, who had
killed the Kichai Indian one week prior. When this was refused, the
battle ensued. Vanbenthuysen recorded that the skirmish, later known
as the Stone Houses Fight, was fought on November 10 at 33.5 degrees
north latitude.
The
Indians remained on horseback and fired at the Texans. The leading chief
of this band rode his horse rapidly up and down the ravine in order
to cause the Texans to waste their ammunition firing at him. He boldly
held his shield up between him and the Rangers. One of the veteran Indian
fighters among the Texan group was not fazed by this shield. He took
good aim, fired, and killed the chief.
In
his battle report, Vanbenthuysen stated that his men were no more than
a pistol’s shot apart from their enemies during this exchange. He also
noted that his men had “the good fortune to kill their [the Indians’]
principal chief” during this exchange.
When
the chief fell from his horse, the other braves rushed forward to retrieve
his body. The Texans poured a volley into their midst as the savages
tied a rope around the chief’s body and galloped off out of range. After
depositing the body, they returned on foot in fifteen minutes and took
position within sixty yards of the ravine occupied by the Rangers.
The
gun battle now became intense as the Indians tried to avenge their fallen
leader. The Indians had the better position in thick timber that was
adorned with underbrush and tall grass. The Texans were forced to fire
by sneaking a peak over the top of the ravine to spot an Indian and
then quickly shooting. Each of their shots drew a volley from the enemy.
During
the fight, the Rangers would pull off their hats, place them on the
end of their ramrods, and raise them above the walls of the ravine.
The Indians, mistaking the empty hats for hats with heads in them, would
fire at them, sometimes putting as many as half a dozen balls through
one hat. The Rangers would then immediately rise, take aim, and fire
at the Indians.
After
an hour and a half, the firing died off about 4:30 p.m. The Indians
withdrew, having suffered a number of casualties in the heated exchange.
Lieutenant Vanbenthuysen’s men had done surprisingly well against their
numerically superior foe. They had, however, lost four Rangers and six
horses killed.
Those
killed had been Joseph Cooper, Alexander Bostwick, Dr. William Sanders,
and William Nicholson. Dr. Sanders had enrolled in Captain James Price’s
Kentucky Volunteers on June 1, 1836, for six months and had subsequently
joined the Ranger battalion under Major Smith. Bostwick, an atheist,
had argued to his fellow soldier James Ogden Rice on several occasions
that he did not believe in the existence of God. Rice had prophetically
chastised the man: “I may yet see you die on this trip.”
Vanbenthuysen
gave praise to his men for fighting valiantly during the early gun battle:
Too much praise
cannot be bestowed upon those brave men who fell. All of them received
their death shots and died in a few minutes after being shot. Their
cry was, “Fight on! Fight on! You can whip the Indians!” Mr. Bostwick,
after being shot through the body, loaded and fired his rifle three
times and had the fourth load in his gun when he expired in the act
of drawing his ramrod from his rifle. Young Cooper insisted that we
should help him up and let him fight after securing a death shot.
After
a fifteen-minute hiatus, the Indians again advanced on the fourteen
surviving Texans. The tall, dry grass and brush of the woods on three
sides of them were set ablaze. A strong wind blew thick, blinding smoke
over the Rangers. The Indians took defensive positions at either end
of the ravine to prevent the Texans from escaping. “We discovered a
smoke rising around us,” wrote Vanbenthuysen. “The Indians had made
a ring [of] fire completely around our position, [and] the fire was
advancing rapidly.” As the flames rose, Vanbenthuysen realized that
the only escape for his men lay on the fourth side, an open prairie
where Indian horsemen with bows and arrows were stationed.
The
only option left for the hapless Rangers was to brave a charge through
the rifle-armed Indians. These natives were considered preferable to
those equipped with bows and arrows and able to reload quicker and discharge
more shots at them. When the horses would not move through the flames,
the men were forced to leave them and proceed on foot. According to
veteran Ranger Oliver Buckman, the dense smoke helped hide the Texans
until they made their final charge from it.
The
surviving Rangers now attacked approximately fifty armed Indians and
drove them ahead. Finding the ravine heavily populated with Indians
on horseback, the men ultimately decided to race up the hill and across
the open prairie for the thicket beyond.
Leading
the charge was Private James Rice, a young man of about twenty-two years
who had served in one of the early Texas Ranger companies under Captain
John Jackson Tumlinson Jr. during the Texas Revolution. Rice was nearly
killed when he met an Indian with a raised gun. As he sprinted, he raised
his own gun, leaped to a stop, and fired a chance shot at his adversary.
Good aim or pure luck was with Rice this day, for his shot hit the brave
squarely and dropped him dead on his face.
While
making this most desperate charge from the ring of fire, six of Lieutenant
Vanbenthuysen’s men were not as lucky as Rice. Lieutenant Alfred Miles,
Lewis F. Sheuster, James Joslen, James Christian, Jesse Blair, and Westley
Nicholson were shot and killed while trying to escape the burning field.
James
Christian was one of the original enlistees into Colonel Robert Coleman’s
1836 Ranger battalion, having previously served in Captain Alfred Walden’s
infantry company. Lieutenant Miles was a San Jacinto veteran who had
been involved in the capture of Santa Anna. On Saturday, December 16,
1837, The Telegraph and Texas Register announced that Miles was
originally from Richmond, Virginia, and that he left behind a sister
and mother in Texas.
In
the end, only eight of eighteen Rangers escaped the deadly Indian encounter
at Stone Houses. Three of these men--John Zekel, Robert Fletcher, and
Samuel Blisk--were wounded in the process. Five men escaped without
bullet or arrow wounds: Vanbenthuysen, James Rice, Felix McCluskey,
Oliver Buckman and John Hobson.
The
survivors had broken through the Indians and commenced their retreat
on foot. They had just crossed the skirt of timber when they again came
in sight of the Indians. This time, the braves did not pursue the Texans
but merely stood and watched. “They had enough of the fight,” thought
Vanbenthuysen, “for we had killed about fifty of their warriors.”
Lieut.
Vanbenthuysen’s Stone Houses Fight: November 10, 1837
First
Lieutenant: A. B. Vanbenthuysen
Second
Lieutenant: Alfred H. Miles (K)
Privates:
Jesse
Blair (K)
Samuel
K. Blisk (W)
Alexander
Bostwick (K)
Oliver
Buckman
James
Christian (K)
Joseph
Cooper (K)
Robert
Fletcher (W)
John
Hobson
James
Joslen (K)
Felix
McCluskey
Westley
Nicholson (K)
William
Nicholson (K)
James
O. Rice
Dr.
William Sanders (K)
Lewis
P. Scheuster (K)
John
Zekel (W)
K = Killed by Indians.
W
= Wounded in battle.
Unfortunately
for the ragged survivors of the ill-fated Ranger expedition, escaping
from the Indians would not end their ordeals while returning to safety.
All of the men had lost their horses and their provisions in escaping
the battleground. In the ten days following the Stone Houses Fight,
Vanbenthuysen’s men roughed it on foot through the wilderness as they
cautiously followed the West Fork of the Trinity River in an east-southeasterly
fashion through present Fort Worth. They had nothing to eat for the
first four days until the men managed to kill some buffalo and save
themselves from starvation. The wounds of the three injured Rangers
were bound up and greased with buffalo tallow.
By
November 20, Vanbenthuysen’s men were fortunate enough to find a friendly
Indian camp in present northwest Dallas. The camp was located near the
junction of the West and Elm Forks of the Trinity River. Lieutenant
Vanbenthuysen wrote:
We first discovered
an Indian on the prairie. We followed him to his village. When we arrived
there, we found the warriors drawn up to receive us in a hostile manner.
They were all armed with rifles and the squaws had bows and arrows.
I expected nothing else but we should have to fight them, but after
a good deal of parleying they said that our little party might stay
there that night. We then dressed the wounds of the men and camped in
the midst of the hostile camp.
On
November 21, the Rangers crossed the Trinity River at the Three Forks.
That evening, they arrived at a Kickapoo village, where the Indians
were friendly and treated them with “the utmost hospitality.” The Kickapoos
gave them food to eat, and the next morning, two of the young braves
led the Texans to a trail. They were told that it would lead them to
the Neches Saline near the Neches River.
Vanbenthuysen’s
report noted the beauty of the East Texas area:
The country on
the waters of the Trinity is handsomely situated, well watered, plenty
of timber of large growth consisting of hickory, oak and cedar. The
prairies abound in game of every kind: the game is chiefly bear, deer
antelopes and buffalo. I have seen the prairies black with immense herds
of buffalo, as far as the eye could extend. I think that this country
is the garden of America, and will in time be the most valuable part
of Texas.
They
reached the saline in Cherokee Nation and proceeded on to Martin Lacy’s
trading post on the old San Antonio road. On November 27, Vanbenthuysen’s
men reached their first white settlement since the battle. This made
seventeen days and one night that they had retreated through hostile
Indian territory--on foot, without horses or blankets or provisions!
Lieutenant
Vanbenthuysen left the wounded men in the white settlement, and on November
28, he started for Houston in company with Rangers Rice and McCluskey.
They eventually arrived on December 8, 1837, after an absence from that
town of six months.
Today,
a Texas historical marker marks the site of the Stone Houses and mentions
the battle these riflemen survived. It is located in Archer County on
FM 61, ten miles south of Windthorst.
The
Battle of Stone Houses was a tough loss in the early history of the
Texas Rangers. Of the survivors, John Hobson settled in Harris County
and Oliver Buckman moved near Bastrop. Vanbenthuysen never held a significant
command again in Texas. James Rice continued in the frontier service
and his name would become well known for commanding Rangers in a fight
on the San Gabriel in 1839. Felix McCluskey, whose killing of the Indian
in early November ultimately led to the attack at Stone Houses, was
later killed in a drunken brawl.
Condensed
from Stephen L. Moore’s Savage Frontier. Volume 1: 1835-1837. Rangers,
Riflemen, and Indian Wars in Texas. Plano, Tex: Republic of Texas
Press, 2002.)
Sources:
DeShields,
James T. Border Wars of Texas. 1912. Reprint. Austin, Tex: State
House Press, 1993, 211.
Gulick,
Charles A. Jr., Winnie Allen, Katherine Elliott, and Harriet Smither.
The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, 6 Volumes, 1922. Reprint.
Austin, Tex: Pemberton Press, 1968. I: 592-95. See also Volume IV: Erath
to Lamar, “Sketches on Milam and Robertson County,” # 2164, 32.
Jenkins,
John Holland. Recollections of Early Texas. The Memoirs of John
Holland Jenkins. Edited by John Holmes Jenkins III. Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1958. Reprint. 1995, 181.
Mann,
William L. “James O. Rice, Hero of the Battle on the San Gabriels.”
Southwestern Historical Quarterly , Vol. 55 (July 1951) 32.
McLean,
Malcolm D. Papers Concerning Robertson’s Colony in Texas. Published
by the University of Texas at Arlington. Arlington, Tex: The UTA Press,
XVI: 195-98.
Smithwick,
Noah. The Evolution of a State/Recollections of Old Texas Days.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983, 143.
Sowell,
A. J. Rangers and Pioneers of Texas. 1884. Reprint.
Austin, Tex: State House Press, 1991, 40-41.
 Vanbenthuysen’s
report published in Telegraph and Texas Register, December
23, 1837.
Wilbarger,
John Wesley. Indian Depredations in Texas. 1889.
Reprint. Austin, Tex: State House Press, 1985, 192-95.
Stephen
L. Moore, a sixth-generation Texan, manages a creative department
for the nation's largest direct seller of home décor products. He is
a descendant of a number of Texas Rangers who served during the years
of the Republic of Texas. He, his wife Cindy, and daughters Kristen
and Emily make their home north of Dallas in Lantana, Texas.
A
graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University, Steve was a featured
author at the 2002 Texas Book Festival in Austin. Steve has written
three books and will have two more published in 2003. One is Volume
II of Savage Frontier, which will focus on the years 1838-1839.
The other book is a detailed history of the San Jacinto campaign of
1836.
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