During the fall of 1859, Lewis Thompson, who lived at the Patterson and Leaky Mills, where the town of Leaky now stands, started to Uvalde with a load of new lumber, made of the beautiful cypress timber of that section. He was driving two yoke of oxen. When Thompson reached a point of about six miles south of Rio Frio, he stopped to gather pecans. The Indians slipped up and shot him. When found, Mr. Thompson's body was pinned to the ground with an arrow. J.C. Ware and about nine others, who followed the Indian's trail, soon found where the savages had butchered one of Mr. Thompson's oxen. A short skirmish followed, when the Indians were encountered; and the whites recovered thirty-two head of stolen horses. Note: The author personally interviewed: J.C. Ware, who followed the Indians; E.L. Downes, who lived in that section of the country at the time; and others. Further Ref.: Vital Statistics of the U.S. Census Records of 1860. Further Ref.: Hunter's Magazine, September 1916. The above story is from the book, The West Texas Frontier, by Joseph Carroll McConnell. |
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