During the summer of 1863, Jno. Sellers and his nephew, Almond Boyd, a son of James Boyd, who lived about four miles south of the present town of Pancake, in Coryell County, were returning home from the Leon Valley, where they had been to search for a strayed horse. Their homes were on the hill, a considerable distance from it's crest; and as they came up out of the valley, Almond Boyd, a boy fourteen years of age, told Jno. Sellers to look out for a large panther. But about that second the panther and others like him, raised upon their hind feet, and proved to be Indians, who were concealed in the brush. Jno. Sellers was riding a gray horse, and Almond Boyd, a blind pony. So when the Indians made an attack Sellers successfully escaped, but Boyd was killed. During the Civil War, according to information we have received, some refugees by the name of ________, who went by the name of _________, located in Coryell County. To hide their identity, they disguised as Indians. They were also strongly suspicioned of having committed two or three of the depredations in that section. Some have advanced the theory that Almond Boyd was killed by these people. Whether or not that be true, of course, no one knows. A part of these people, however, were finally arrested as refugees, and a youth among them, according to reports, confessed they killed two or three persons while disguised as Indians. Note: Author personally interviewed Mrs. Isaac Young, and her husband. Mrs. Young was a sister of Jno. Sellers, and an aunt of Almond Boyd; also interviewed Mrs. L.M. Blackwell, and others, all of whom lived in Coryell County at the time. The above story is from the book, The West Texas Frontier, by Joseph Carroll McConnell. |
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