Chapter IX: Part 9

About the year 1908 a man named C—— claimed to have stumbled upon the vault while hunting alligators. He further claimed to have torn away, though with much difficulty, portions of the brick work, revealing untold wealth in gold coin, the hidden treasure of Lafitte.

Numbers of persons to whom this story was told became interested in making a search for the treasure. Owing to the swampy condition of the country and the inaccessibility of the spot where the vault was located, C—— advised the digging of a small canal as the best means of reaching it. This idea was adopted, money was advanced for the purpose, some five or six thousand dollars, and the digging of the canal was begun. After weeks of toil, of chopping through dense canebrakes, and of floundering through the swamp mud, the party reached a lone cypress tree that was supposed to stand sentinel over the crypt. The treasure could not be found.

Disappointed in their quest and disgusted at their own credulity, the treasure seekers caused the arrest of C—— on the charge of having taken their money under false pretenses; C—— claimed as the reason for their failure that he had lost his bearings. Who knows?—Adapted from a story in the Galveston News, October 27, 1908.

THE UNEASY GHOST OF LAFITTE

By Julia Beazley

“Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it.”

“It faded on the crowing of the cock.”—Hamlet.

Within the memory of men still living, Texas coast dwellers used to gather around firesides on northery winter nights, and while the rich juice of sweet potatoes roasting among the ashes oozed through the jackets, tell tales of “the Pirate of the Gulf.” Not a few of these tales centered about an ancient and dilapidated house at Bayshore Park, La Porte, in Harris County. Under it, so they say, is the blood marked booty of Lafitte; and though old tales and old times and old houses pass, anyone hardy enough to spend the night in this deserted building may yet, according to report, receive a visit from the guilt-harried spirit that sometimes in distress and sometimes in anger is still trying to win absolution for his earthly sins.

The legend runs that upon a certain occasion Lafitte and his buccaneering crew sailed up to what is now Bay Ridge (which is opposite the haunted house of La Porte). He anchored his schooner offshore, and rowed to the beach with two trusted lieutenants and the heavy chest which none dared touch except at his orders. When the skiff grounded, the watchers on the schooner saw their chief blindfold his helpers; then they saw the three disappear with the chest behind a screen of grapevine-laden trees. Two hours later Lafitte returned alone. He was in a black mood and no one had the temerity to question him. It was supposed that he had caught one of his helpers trying to mark the location of his cache, and had killed them both. Some say that he led them back to the pit they had dug and filled up, made them reopen and enlarge it, and while they were bent down digging, shot them dead. Soon afterwards Lafitte and his followers went down together in a West India hurricane, and his crime-stained treasure still lies buried in its secret hiding place.

Yet to many, as I have intimated, that place has not been secret. It is under the old house. As faithfully as I can follow the tale, I shall relate an experience connected with that old house as it was told me by a Confederate veteran who has now passed on. For personal reasons I shall call him Major Walcart, though that was not his real name. The tale, however, is a genuine legend in that it has long been current in the vicinity of La Porte.

“It was on a February night back in the eighties,” the Major used to say. “The early darkness of a murky day had overtaken me, and I was dead tired. I do not think mud ever lay deeper along the shore of Galveston Bay, or that an east wind ever blew more bleakly. When I came to a small stream I rode out into the open water, as the custom then was, to find shallow passage. A full moon was rising out of the bay. Heavy clouds stretched just above it, and I remember the unearthly aspect of the blustering breakers in its cheerless light. The immensity and unfriendliness of the scene made me feel lonesome, and I think the horse shared my mood. By common consent we turned across before we had gone far enough from shore, and fell into the trench cut by the stream in the bottom of the bay.

“We were wretchedly wet as we scrambled up a clayey slope and gained the top of the bluff. A thin cry which I had not been sure was real when I first heard it now became insistent. It was like the wail of a child in mortal pain, and I confess that it reminded me of tales I had heard of the werewolf, which lures unwary travelers to their doom by imitating the cry of a human infant. By the uncertain light of the moon, which the next moment was cut off entirely, I saw that I had reached a kind of stable that crowned the bluff, and from this structure the uncanny summons seemed to come.

“The sounds were growing fainter, and I hesitated but a moment. Dismounting, I led my horse through the doorless entrance, and now the mystery was explained. Huddled together for warmth lay a flock of sleeping goats. A kid had rashly squeezed itself into the middle of the heap, and the insensate brutes were crushing its life out. I found the perishing little creature, and its flattened body came back to the full tide of life in my arms. Its warmth was grateful to my cold fingers, and I fondled it a moment before setting it down on the dry dirt floor.

“I tied my horse to a post that upheld the roof of the stable, and with saddle and blanket on my arm started toward the house, which I could make out in its quadrangle of oaks, not many yards distant. The horse whinnied protestingly as I left him, and when the moaning of the wind in the eaves smote my ears I was half in mind to turn back and bunk with the goats. It was a more forbidding sound than the hostile roar of the breakers had been in the bay.

“I called, but only the muddy waves incessantly tearing at the bluff made answer. I had scarcely hoped really to hear the sound of a human voice. The great double doors leading in from the front porch were barred, but the first window I tried yielded entrance. Striking a match, I found myself in a room that gave promise of comfort. Fat pine kindling lay beside the big fireplace, and dry chunks of solid oak were waiting to glow for me the whole night through.

“I was vaguely conscious that the brave fire I soon had going did not drive the chill from the air so promptly as it should, but my head was too heavy with sleep to be bothered. I spread my horse blanket quite close to the cheerful blaze, and with saddle for pillow and slicker for cover I abandoned myself to the luxury of rest.

“I do not know how long I had slept when I became aware of a steady gaze fixed on my face. The man was looking down on me, and no living creature ever stood so still. There was imperious command in the unblinking eyes, and yet I saw a sort of profound entreaty also.

“It was plain that the visitant had business with me. I arose, and together we left the room, passed its neighbor, and entered a third, a barren little apartment through whose cracks the wind came mercilessly. I think it was I who had opened the doors. My companion did not seem to move. He was merely present all the time.

“‘It is here,’ he said, as I halted in the middle of the bare floor, ‘that more gold lies buried than is good for any man. You have but to dig, and it is yours. You can use it; I cannot. However, it must be applied only to purposes of highest beneficence. Not one penny may be evilly or selfishly spent. On this point you must keep faith and beware of any failing. Do you accept?’

“I answered, ‘Yes,’ and the visitant was gone, and I was shivering with cold. I groped my way back to my fire, bumping into obstructions I had not found in my journey away from it. I piled on wood with a generous hand, and the flames leaped high. I watched the unaccountable shadows dance on the whitewashed walls, and marked how firebeams flickered across the warpings of the boards in the floor. Then I dozed off.

“I do not know how long I had been asleep when I felt the presence of the visitant again. The still reproach of his fixed eyes was worse than wrath. ‘I need your help more than you can know,’ he said, ‘and you would fail me. The treasure is mine to give. I paid for it with the substance of my soul. I want you to have it. With it you can balance somewhat the burden of guilt I carry for its sake.’

“Again we made the journey to the spot where the treasure was buried, and this time he showed it to me. There were yellow coins, jeweled watches, women’s bracelets, diamond rings, and strings of pearls. It was just such a trove as I had dreamed of when as a boy I had planned to dig for Lafitte’s treasure, except that the quantity of it was greater. With the admonition, ‘Do not force me to come again,’ my companion was gone, and once more I made my way back to the fire.

“This time I took up my saddle and blanket and went out to the company of my horse. The wind and the waves were wailing together, but I thought I saw a promise of light across the chilly bay, and never was the prospect of dawn more welcome. As I saddled up and rode off, the doleful boom of the muddy water at the foot of the bluff came to me like an echoed anguish.”

But Lafitte does not appear to every one who spends a night in the house, and any person seeking the treasure from purely selfish motives is likely to rue his pains. A story is told of an acquisitive and enterprising man who came hundreds of miles with the purpose of helping himself to the chance of finding pirate gold, but who abruptly changed his mind after spending a night in the house. As Lafitte steadily pursues his object of finding a fit recipient for his dangerous gift, never succeeding, his disappointment is sometimes terrible, so they say, and some simple folk believe that when there is a particularly dolorous moan in the wash of the waves, it is the despair of the pirate finding voice in the wail of the waters.

LAFITTE LORE

By J. O. Webb

John Smith and W. C. Callihan of the old town of Liverpool, Brazoria County, are each eighty-four years old; each is sound in mind and body; and each has spent practically his entire life in the vicinity of Liverpool. These men speak familiarly of Warren D. C. Hall, of Lamar, and of Lafitte’s lieutenants. The legendary material here given is based on their separate statements. However, the stories told by them coincide to a remarkable degree. Liverpool is situated on Chocolate Bayou, and is so near Galveston Island that the early history of the two places is closely related. Consequently Smith and Callihan are familiar with the lore bearing on Lafitte’s life. What they have to say is not based so much on legends in general circulation as on the stories told them by Lafitte’s associates. One of these followers of Lafitte was Jim Campbell, who, after the departure of his chief from Galveston Island in 1821, settled on what became known as Campbell’s Bayou. The other was an odd character called Captain Snyder.

No story of Lafitte proceeds very far without referring in some way to buried treasure. The lives led by the two strange characters just mentioned caused many to believe that they had stored away some of their chief’s wealth. According to Smith and Callihan, these ex-associates of Lafitte never lacked money, although they were engaged in no profitable business. Long after the death of Jim Campbell, it was generally believed that his widow knew where money was buried but was unwilling to reveal the place.

Captain Snyder was likewise known to have plenty of money. He was engaged in carrying some kind of trade from the Brazos to Liverpool, for which he used a one-eyed mule, but he got little income from this occupation. His actions at times, too, were rather strange. Smith was often on the boat with him, and when they would approach Galveston Island, Snyder would frequently get off and go ashore. There he would go to a clump of bushes, and apparently try to get his bearings for some point.

Some of the buried treasure stories, however, are based on more direct information. In the fifties, according to the authorities already quoted, there appeared at the mouth of Chocolate Bayou a small vessel, which remained in that vicinity for several days. During the daytime it would go to the opposite side of the bay, and at night it would return to the near shore. This odd procedure aroused a little curiosity, but would doubtless have been soon forgotten had not an important discovery followed. A few days after the vessel had gone, Smith and Callihan paid a visit to the mouth of the Bayou and, to their surprise, found that excavations had been made. Beginning at the shore, a long trench had been opened, and at the end of this a large hole had been dug. Apparently, a chest of some kind had been taken out, for the imprint of the box—even to the handles—was plainly visible. As further evidence, there was lying to one side a broken earthen jar that had been sealed with sealing wax, and upon its fragments were imprints of coins.

A less realistic story is told of the region around what was called Dick’s Camp, on Chocolate Bayou. A Mrs. Adams who lived in the vicinity had had a persistent dream of buried treasure. For three successive nights she had the same dream, and in these dreams she was told that $100,000 in gold was buried near Dick’s Camp. The exact spot was to be found by sighting with three stakes due east from a certain point. Mrs. Adams was so impressed with the repetition of this dream that the third morning she and her son set out in search of the hidden treasure. On the way they were joined by Smith, who at first was not told the purpose of the excursion. On reaching the spot they did not find any stake set up, but they did find three china trees in a line running due east. The son, whose name was Brunner, began sighting and measuring, and finally he said, “Here it is.”

“What?” asked Smith.

“$100,000 in gold,” replied Brunner.

Excavation was begun at once, but had not proceeded far when the treasure hunters dug into an oyster bed. Thinking there was little hope of finding treasure in that medium, the search was abandoned and, so far as is known, it has not been renewed.

Captain Snyder, who has already been mentioned, was a strange character. Those who knew him declare that he slept with one eye open, and that often he would cry out in his sleep, “Boys, the Spaniards are coming.” He told many Lafitte stories. He had seen service with his chief on voyages against the Spanish. According to his description, these encounters with the Spaniards were bloody affairs. Blood ran off the decks like water, and when the fight was over, the enemy dead were thrown into the sea. One of the most remarkable incidents related by Snyder, however, pertained to the storm of 1819. Lafitte, with his four ships, was in the bay when the hurricane arose. The storm became so intense that he decided to go with his vessels to the high seas and take his chances there. He headed toward the channel, but, as the wind was blowing from the east, he was unable to get out that way. He therefore came back and drove his vessels straight across the island in six or seven feet of water.

THE PIRATE SHIP OF THE SAN BERNARD

A LEGEND OF THEODOSIA BURR ALLSTON

By J. W. Morris

Rumor of a pirate ship wrecked at the mouth of the San Bernard River, Brazoria County, has persisted for more than a century. Colonel Hunnington, who is seventy-eight years old, and who has lived near the mouth of the San Bernard for sixty years, heard of the wrecked privateer from the McNeill family, which established itself on the Bernard in 1822. Colonel Hunnington says that the ship was wrecked about 1816. It had put into the river to escape a great hurricane. The crew buried their golden pillage, some say ten million dollars, before the water rose to their destruction. When the storm passed, only one pirate remained alive. Colonel Hunnington says that the buried money has never been found, and he believes that it still lies where pirate hands placed it more than a hundred years ago. Captain William Sterling, who died a few years ago at the age of eighty, gave me corroborative evidence concerning the pirate ship. He said that during his boyhood he knew a solitary fisherman on Matagorda Peninsula who claimed to be the sole survivor of the wrecked privateer. He often showed the boy gold coins, which he called Spanish doubloons.

A wild and fascinating legend of the storm-wrecked ship was told me many years ago by Doctor Sid Williams, who was then a practicing physician near the mouth of Old Caney in Matagorda County. Mr. Jacob Smith told the same story. It is ascribed to a chief of the Carancaguas Indians, who spoke broken English and often visited the white settlers. He said that his tribe had always lived along the coast—a fact substantiated by history. A small band, of which he was chief, lived in the timber a few miles from the San Bernard River, along which clear to its mouth grew live oak trees and tough salt cedars. One day a great storm came out of the Gulf; the wind blew with fury that increased as the darkness came, and the waters rose upon the land. The chief and his people climbed into the salt cedars, which bent with the wind but did not break. After two days the storm passed and the tidal waters fell back. Many of the huge live oaks were destroyed utterly, and the remainder were so twisted and broken that they soon died. Since that time there has been no forest along the lowest reaches of the San Bernard.

As soon as the storm abated, the chief went from his camp to the bank of the river, where a pale-face lived alone. He found the hermit’s body tied with a rope to the splintered stump of a tree. There the waves had overwhelmed him. The chief also saw, partly in the water and partly on the land, the wreckage of a great ship. As he looked, he heard a faint voice. He followed the sound to what had been a cabin, and saw the ghost-like form of a white woman chained to the side. She stood with difficulty, and presently fainted, perhaps from weariness, perhaps from fright at seeing an Indian savage, for the chief made a habit of wearing deer antlers on his head. He broke the chain from the wall and carried her to the shore and laid her on the sand. He bathed her face in cold water, and she revived. She told him that her father had been a great chief away back somewhere, but that he had been misunderstood and had had to leave his country. Her husband was governor, she said, of a great state. She had been in a ship on the ocean when pirates destroyed the ship and killed all aboard it except herself. She was put on the pirate ship, which, returning to its Gulf headquarters, had been encountered by the storm and driven inland. There was, she said, a chest of gold on the wrecked ship, but the Indian could not find it. He did find the captain and some of the crew lashed to parts of the wreckage, dead. The chief made every effort to revive the woman, but she grew steadily weaker. She took from her neck a chain and locket and gave them to him. She began to sing, very faintly and beautifully. The Great Spirit spread a white wigwam around her so that the Indian could not see her. The voice sang on into the night, more and more faintly. When the morning star rose, the voice was still. At daylight the white wigwam was gone, and the woman lay dead. The Indian dug a grave with broken pieces of the wrecked ship, laid her there, and covered the grave with a broken door from the wreck. No man knows where that grave lies.

The Indian took the locket and chain to some white men, who read on the locket the word Theodosia and found within pictures of a fine-looking man and a little boy. Long afterward coast dwellers told this story in explanation of the mysterious fate of Theodosia Burr Allston. [117]

LEGENDARY ORIGINS OF TEXAS FLOWERS, NAMES, AND STREAMS

AN INDIAN LEGEND OF THE BLUE BONNET

By Mrs. Bruce Reid

[Considering the popularity of Texas blue bonnets, it is rather strange that legend concerning the flower is not more widespread. Corroborative versions prove conclusively that there is a legend. The first version is supplied by Mrs. Mattie Austin Hatcher, of the University of Texas; it was given her by a Mrs. Lida Lea of Austin.

When the first Spanish missionaries came to the Southwest, they brought with them the seeds of a blue flower which grew originally on the hillsides of Jerusalem. They planted the seeds first within the walls of the mission gardens; they sprouted, and, though the soil was alien, the flowers grew and bloomed and soon spread far beyond the mission lands. Thus came the blue bonnet to Texas.

Another version of the legend was given to Mrs. Hatcher by a Mexican lady from the City of Mexico. She said that she had always heard that the flower came to the Southwest in this manner: There was a terrible pestilence in the land of the Aztecs. The prayers of the priests and the pleadings of the people had brought no relief. At length the voice of the god to whom they prayed proclaimed that a living sacrifice of some sinless human being must be made to atone for the wickedness of the people. A certain Aztec maiden offered to make the sacrifice. Her offer was accepted. When she went up to the altar on the hillside, her little bonnet dropped from her head without being noticed, and the next morning the ground around the altar was covered with flowers in the pattern and color of her bonnet, each splotched with the hue of her spilt blood. The pestilence passed. Now the Mexicans call the flower el conejo (cotton-tail rabbit), but in Texas it is the blue bonnet.

This legend is very characteristic of the Southwest. Mr. J. H. Tipps of San Antonio saw a cross high on a hill near Roma, Texas. He asked an old Mexican why it was there. The Mexican said that it was to commemorate the life of a girl who had saved the community by prayer. A terrible drouth was ruining the country, the most terrible ever known. There was not a sprig of forage for animal kind to eat; the people were starving. Then the girl went up on the mountain to pray for rain. For a long, long time she prayed. She prayed until she was no longer conscious. Then it rained, but the girl died before she could be brought down. She gave her life, and the cross was erected on top of her Mount of Olives.

Comparative folk-lorists will associate the springing of the blue bonnet from human blood with the Greek legends of the hyacinth and the narcissus. It is related, too, to the legend of the bleeding heart shamrock, said to have first appeared in Saint Roche’s Cemetery at New Orleans, from the blood spattered on some clover by a lover who stabbed himself to death over the grave of his sweetheart.

The legend told by Mrs. Reid must have come from the Comanches rather than from the Cherokees (who did, however, bring with them to Texas the legend of the Cherokee Rose). The Cherokees were in Texas only twenty years, and then hardly into the blue bonnet lands. See “The Last of the Cherokees in Texas,” by Albert Woldert, Chronicles of Oklahoma, issued by the Oklahoma Historical Society, June, 1923, pp. 179–226.—Editor.]

The teller of legends often adds details to his narrative in order to give it reality. I do not pretend that all of the details in the following legend are as I heard them, but something like this legend was told me by the late “Jack” Mitchell, whose people lived for fifty years among the Indians of the piney-woods and cross-timbers of Texas. My understanding is that the legend came to him either from the Cherokees or the Comanches. There is another Indian legend about the blue bonnet. It has to do with a fight among warriors in the happy hunting grounds, during the course of which they knocked from the sky chunks of blue that fell to the earth and assumed the form of the blue bonnet.

There had been a great flood followed by a greater drouth, and then on the drouth came a bitter winter of sleet and ice. Even in the far south, where the cold breath of winter is seldom felt, the woods and grasses of the coastal plains were sheathed with a rattling icy armor. All the game was dead or gone. The Indian people were starving to death. A dreadful disease had broken out among them. It was clear that the Great Spirit had indeed turned his face away from his children. Day and night the medicine men chanted their incantations, danced to the music of the sacred tomtoms, and mutilated their bodies in agony for a promise from the angered Spirit. At last the Great Spirit spoke. This was his message. In penance for the wrong-doing that had brought the evils upon the tribe there must be a burnt offering of its most valued possession, and the ashes of this offering must be scattered to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south.

Now among those who sat in discreet and becoming silence, beyond the anxious warriors gathered about the fires, was a little maid, too young for the heavy burdens of Indian womanhood to have yet begun to fall upon her small shoulders. Hidden among the folds of her scanty garments she tightly clasped a tiny figure of white fawn-skin, rudely shaped into the likeness of a papoose, with long braids of black horse-hair, and eyes, nose, and mouth painted on it with the juice of various berries. This figure the little maid had robed in a skirt, mantle, and high head-dress, out of the feathers of a bird of the rarest of hues in nature—the big, proudly crested, black-collared bird that calls “Jay! Jay!” through the topmost branches of the tallest and largest trees. Very, very beautiful were the feathers of this bird, soft, richly blue as the late afternoon skies when they clear after showers which have lasted through a day; and as an older mother loves her living child, so did the little maid love her deer-skin baby. Almost would she rather have died than have parted with it. Well she knew that it was by far the most precious of things owned by the tribe; and her heart was very heavy indeed for the rest of that day, and the part of a night that she lay beside her mother in their tepee, sleepless for that she saw her duty so clearly.

At last she arose, and stooping to lift from the smouldering fire within the tepee a bit of wood, one end of which was a glowing coal, she slipped out into the night. Under the twinkling, frosty stars she knelt, and prayed that her offering might be accepted and the fact of the acceptance made known to her.

Then blinking her eyes to keep back the tears, which an Indian child early learns must never be shed, she made a fire of twigs and grasses, and thrust her beloved papoose deep down into the glowing heart of the blaze, till the last bit of skin and shred of feather were consumed to ashes. The ashes she carefully scooped up in the hollow of her hand and scattered, to the east and the west, to the north and the south. Then putting out what remained of the fire, she patted the earth smooth and flat again.

As she did this last she felt beneath her palms something as fine and soft as the plumage with which she had clothed her doll—something that had not been in that place upon the ground when she cleared it to make her little fire. Believing that this might be the sign for which she had prayed, she would have picked up what lay against her hand, but she found it to be rooted in the soil.

So, returning to the tepee, she waited until morning and then with her mother, whom she told of what she had done, she went to the place where she had burned the little deer-skin papoose. But all about, as far as the ashes had traveled upon the early spring night breeze, was nothing but a blanket of such flowers as had never before enriched the landscape; and their thick tassels, in so great a profusion as nearly to hide the tender green of their leaves, were of the same deep, deep blue as the feathers of the bird that calls “Jay! Jay!” through the high tree-tops.

When the chief of the medicine men heard the story told by the mother and daughter, and saw for himself the expanse of blue flowers, he called the tribe together, and solemnly informed them that the command of the Great Spirit had been obeyed and the sacrifice accepted, and that the evil which had for so long pursued them would now be at an end.

It was even so. At once the plains and the open places, between lines and clumps of trees, began to renew their verdure, scattered over with gayly colored wild flowers; the birds and four-footed things came back to raise their families; and the tribal crops, natural and cultivated, gave every sign of abundant harvest.

In place of the name the little maid had borne, another was given her, a name of many musically flowing syllables, the meaning of which, in the red men’s tongue, was “she who dearly loves her people.”

Because the great shaggy animals, whose herds of old thundered across the far-flung prairies, were so fond of its succulent green abundance, the blue flower was called an Indian name which the pale-faces translated into “buffalo clover.” After the manner of its class of plant, it bore prodigious quantities of fertile seed and rapidly extended the limits of its growth.

HOW THE WATER LILIES CAME IN THE SAN MARCOS RIVER [118]

By Bella French Swisher

[This sentimental legend is not an invention of Bella French Swisher’s, who was given to turning legends to literary uses, but not to manufacturing them. I have heard of it from a lady who grew up on the San Marcos and was familiar with the story of the Indian lovers forty-five years ago. It is akin to another Indian legend of the same flower, Castalia elegans, according to which a star maiden fell in love with the red people of the earth and came down to live among them in the form of a water lily. This latter legend is quoted from the Grolier Society’s The Book of Knowledge, by Kate Peel Anderson in the Houston Chronicle, September 16, 1923, page 8. The San Marcos version is probably appropriated from some other stream.—Editor.]

All pearly and bright, by the day and the night,
(Beautiful, beautiful river)
Reflecting the sky and the clouds passing by,
Flows the San Marcos forever.

The lilies arise in their damp paradise,
And they open their petals in glory;
But on every leaf is written, in brief,
Such a sweet little Indian story!

Far back in a day when the red men held sway,
On the banks of the beautiful river,
An Indian maid of the world grew afraid,
And gave back her sweet life to the Giver.

A princess was she of a royal degree.
Who had loved far beneath her high station;
She suffered the blame, the sorrow and shame,
Like a maid of some wealthier nation.

But her heart-strings were torn, when one bright April morn,
He was slain—her most worshipful lover.
On the green banks he lay, all the long, weary day,
With only the sky for a cover.

But just at the night, when the star-beams were bright,
Her despair gave her power to sever
The terrible bands, that imprisoned her hands,
And she fled to the banks of the river,

To the spot where he lay ’mid the shadows so gray,
Colder still than the bright pearly water.
Just a prayer and a breath, and they met there in death,
The slain lover and the chieftain’s mad daughter.

But the breath and the prayer, as a seedling fell there,
Though the waters were ever so chilly.
They discovered her not, but morn found on the spot
Where she died, a white water-lily.

Since then, waxen and white, in the sun’s golden light,
And as well in the evening glooming,
May ever be seen, ’mid their foliage green
In the water, the white lilies blooming.

And e’er since that day, tradition doth say,
Have the Indians shunned the fair river;
Though pearly and bright, by day and by night,
Flows the San Marcos forever.

THE LEGEND OF EAGLE LAKE

Reprinted from the Morning Star, Houston, 1839

[The following legend (reference to which was contributed by Mr. E. W. Winkler, Librarian of the University of Texas) is taken from the first daily newspaper of Texas, the Morning Star, Houston, June 13, 1839, Vol. I, No. 56, pp. 2–3, which in turn reprinted it from the Richmond Telescope. A week after the Morning Star printed the legend, the Telegraph and Texas Register reprinted it, June 19, 1839. A few typographical errors have been corrected in this reprinting and some of the original punctuation has been redistributed. The legend of how Eagle Lake got its name has persisted down to the present day, but this version is probably the oldest that we shall ever find.

A version with many changes was published in The American Sketch Book (Texas Pioneer Magazine), Austin, Vol. VII, No. 2 (1881), pp. 99–102. The article in which it is embodied is unsigned, but the legend itself is said to be “fresh from the pen of Mrs. F. Darden” [Mrs. F. A. D. Darden], and it is apparently quoted from some other publication. According to this version, one of the lovers, Sonoto, was old and fierce; the other, Gray Cloud, was youthful and bold. The tree that the rivals climbed was a cottonwood. Gray Cloud reached the nest first and had grasped one of the eaglets to bring it down when he was assaulted by the fierce parent eagle. Sonoto seized the opportunity to hurl his opponent to the ground a hundred feet below. Out in the lake were the Indians, watching the contest from their canoes. When she saw her lover’s fate, the maiden, Forest Flower, began the death chant; then she leaped into the water and was drowned. Later the two lovers were buried side by side at the foot of the tree.

The Eagle Lake Headlight, according to its editor, Mr. Bruce W. McCarty, printed in 1903 a version of the legend written by Mrs. Emma Duke, now dead. A year ago another version, in verse form, “written for the Eagle Lake Chamber of Commerce” by Mrs. H. W. Carothers, formerly of Eagle Lake but now of Houston, and printed on a folio leaflet for popular distribution, was sent me by the mayor of Eagle Lake. It shows all the crassitude of modern “boosting.” In it a smug young Indian gets the eaglet and presents it to the maiden—his success an emblem of “the spirit of endeavor” that characterizes the modern “progressive” inhabitants of Eagle Lake! Mr. Louis Landa, who is Oldright fellow at the University of Texas and whose home is at Eagle Lake, says that the legend in one form or another is common in the vicinity.

Thus may be traced over a period of almost a century the progress of what was originally a very simple, a very dramatic, and a beautiful legend.—Editor.]

Eagle Lake is a beautiful sheet of water, about seven miles in circumference, and is connected by a bayou bearing the same name—a kind of outlet—with the Colorado. That body of land through which Eagle Lake Bayou passes may be said to be without exceptions the most fertile in the world. Besides its qualities of unsurpassed fruitfulness, there is no part of the known western hemisphere where the common grape grows so abundantly or abounds so spontaneously.

A large sycamore tree is shown on the west shore of the lake, where a large eagle, the Falco Washingtonianis, built her nest. The remains of the nest are there, consisting of branches of trees and tufts of grass, which hang fully 110 feet from the surface of the earth below. The bird was called by the inhabitants of the country the king eagle, and its nest was considered inaccessible. The “king eagle’s nest” and “eagle’s water’s wave” were proverbial phrases with the various tribes of Indians in western Texas.

The daughter of an Indian chief—a beautiful, dark-eyed girl—was wooed by two young warriors of equal pretensions to consideration among the Indians. Each was anxious to obtain the hand of the fawn-like damsel of the woods, and each, no doubt, loved with all the ardor and fervency, simplicity and sincerity, of a rude youth of the forest. To say which should become the husband of his daughter was a great perplexity to the mind of the maiden’s father. He had his political interests to strengthen and his views to carry out, as have greater men in greater nations. After many cogitations he resolved upon the following plan by which the suitors themselves could give a decision.

It was in the summer season, and the “great eagle” had hatched her young. The old chief’s plan was no more nor less than that the young man of the two in question who could bring him the young eagles alive, by a certain time, without cutting down the tree, should have his daughter. The proposition was accepted, and the rival lovers set out to procure, if possible, the young eagles. Each prepared himself with a raw-hide rope to throw over some limb of the tree, which could be fastened and facilitate the ascent. They both arrived alone and about the same time at the king eagle’s tree.

Each had precisely the other’s means to come at the young eagles, and the other’s means seemed to each so sure to succeed that neither would consent for the other to make the first attempt; whereupon arose a dispute, a quarrel, and a fight, which terminated in the immediate death of one, and the infliction of a mortal wound upon the other, who died a few days after the combat upon the spot where they had fought, being unable from debility to leave it.

Meantime the maiden, becoming anxious for their return, and apprehending some such catastrophe, seized her father’s spear and hastened to the place. She arrived there in the afternoon of the day on which the last one of the two lovers breathed his last. Frantic with frenzy and despair, she plunged the lance into her own breast, and died as she had always lived, in the language of the Indian who related the story, “the wife of no one.”

Ever afterwards the spot was regarded with a superstitious veneration by every tribe of Indians to whom was related their hapless story. Once in every seven moons the young men and maidens assembled to consecrate the spot, and each time they erected a cenotaph of flowers to their memory. Thus Eagle Lake took a name by which it is now known and will ever be.

THE HOLY SPRING OF FATHER MARGIL AT NACOGDOCHES

By E. G. Littlejohn

[Fray Don Antonio Margil de Jesús was one of the most active of Spanish missionaries in Texas during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, preaching and founding missions. Legend has remembered him well. The Margil Vine is named for him, the legend of which is told in History and Legends of The Alamo and Other Missions, by Miss Adina de Zavala, under the title “Legend of the First Christmas at the Alamo.” But the most remarkable Margil legend—and this told by Mr. Littlejohn is but a variant of it—is that connected with the origin of the San Antonio River. It has been realistically told by Major Charles Merritt Barnes in his Combats and Conquests of Immortal Heroes, pages 76–79, and retold by Mrs. Wright. [119] According to Major Barnes, he heard it in 1875 from a venerable San Antonian of Spanish blood.

Father Margil was with a company of priests and soldiers spying out the land when they were almost overcome by the heat and drouth. At length they came into a valley where there was green grass for the horses but not a drop of water. The priests kneeled under a tree to pray for water, and as he prayed Father Margil’s eye fell on bunches of mustang grapes above him. With praises to God, he began to climb for the juicy fruit. While he was reaching for a cluster, he fell. In falling, he swung to the grapevine and somehow uprooted it with a sudden jerk. Then from the hole left by the root a plenteous and refreshing spring of water gushed out. Thus was the origin of what is now called the San Antonio River.

Finally, at the very moment of his death, which was in the City of Mexico, August 2, 1726, all the mission bells in Texas, so legend runs, rang out of their own accord, without hands. [120]—Editor.]

The story of the “Holy Spring of Father Margil,” as it is called in the country around Nacogdoches, was told by H. C. Fuller in the Galveston News more than twenty years ago. The spring is situated just back of the city cemetery of Nacogdoches, overlooking La Nana Creek. Every other spring in the neighborhood has gone dry, but this one has never been known to cease its abundant flow. By some devout people its waters are thought to have healing power. The story of its miraculous origin runs as follows.

In 1716, or thereabout, the zealous Franciscan missionary, Father Margil, visited the Nacogdoches country, preaching to the Indians and projecting missions. His work accomplished, he and a few devoted followers started back for San Antonio, then the headquarters of the missionary movement. It was midsummer, the heat was terrific, and a burning drouth had made the whole country as dry as a rock. As Father Margil’s band traveled on and found no water, they began to suffer from thirst, but they felt sure that they would come to water in La Nana Creek. Imagine their disappointment upon arriving to find the bed as parched as the banks.

Overcome with heat, thirst, and fatigue, the entire party, with the exception of Father Margil, sat dejectedly on the ground. Taking his walking staff, Father Margil set out down the creek in search of water. About four hundred yards from where his companions lamented, he observed signs of moisture upon a high bluff overlooking the creek; here he knelt and prayed that like Moses he might be allowed to find water. Then with full faith he arose and smote with his staff the rock whereon he stood. Immediately there issued forth a living stream of cool, clear water. He tasted of it and hastily ran for his companions. Then they all drank and went on their way rejoicing at their miraculous deliverance.

INDIAN BLUFF ON CANADIAN RIVER [121]

By L. W. Payne, Jr.

This story, or legend, came to me in 1911 from a University of Texas student named W. Higgins, who got it from a guide called “Doctor” Barton on a camping trip up the Canadian River near the Oklahoma boundary line. Mr. Higgins admits that he has used his imagination somewhat in writing the legend, but says that its basis is real legend.

“Well,” began the “Doctor,” “see that tall rocky cliff over there? There’s kind of a legen’ ’bout that. Seems like durin’ early times there was a man an’ his family a-livin’ out here on this side the river, not so fur away. He had a mighty beautiful little baby, ’bout two years old. Besides her, there was three or four older children; then their ma and pa. There was lots of Indians livin’ on th’ other side the river, near the bluff; and some lived in the cliff. Yes, they did. But I think they just kept their bows and arrers in there, for I don’t see how they could breathe good. An’ in this day an’ time everybody’s tryin’ to get all the fresh air they can. But maybe them kind of people didn’t need air. Well, anyhow, some of them Indians was on mighty good terms with these white folks. One old Indian in partikler. He used to climb down the cliff an’ come ’cross the river in his boat to see his neighbors. He used to take th’ little two-year-old in his canoe for a ride, sometimes. Mighty queer they would let him do it, but they did anyhow.

“One day the white settler an’ the Indian had a fuss. What ’bout, I don’t zactly recollect; but seems like the white man hit the Indian with a piece of wood. He had tried to make the Indian do some dirty work for him, an’ when the red-skin refused, the white man beat him nearly to death. The Indian swore revenge. He went home terr’ble mad. He didn’t go to see the settlers for a long time. They kind-a missed him too.

“But one day they looked out and saw him a-crossing the river. They didn’t know whe’r to be glad or sorry. The Indian dragged the canoe up on the shore and came straight to their hut. He looked happy and glad to see them. They was glad to see him too, I can tell you.

“Finally he took the little girl and started down to the canoe. He pushed ’cross the river. It took him a long time, for you all know this here river is pretty wide. He climbed the cliff with the child in his arms. He’d never done this before. The white man got scared. He called loud to the chief to come back; for an answer the Indian turned ’round and looked at the man with a horrible grin. Then he climbed on to the top of the cliff. When he reached the top, he stopped, threw up his hand to the anxious folks on the other side, and with a deadly Indian whoop, leaped over the cliff into this here river.

“‘What did the child’s parents do?’ you ask. Nothin’; there wasn’t nothin’ to do. The Indian and baby was both dead. But the folks moved away and never was heard of agin. We call the place Indian Bluff, and now you know why.”

HOW MEDICINE MOUNDS OF HARDEMAN COUNTY GOT THEIR NAME

By L. W. Payne, Jr.

This legend was contributed by a University of Texas student named W. A. Darter, from Hardeman County, a number of years ago. He says that though some of the details are “made up” the main incidents are based on legendary material current in the country of the Mounds.

The Medicine Mounds, as they are called today, are located in Hardeman County, about nine miles southeast of Quanah. They are four in number and extend north and south in a direct line. The tallest one stands to the north two thousand feet above the surrounding country. The lowest one stands to the south of the other three, fifteen hundred feet lower than the tallest one. The other two are of such heights that if a line were determined by their peaks, it would pass through the top points of the two extreme ones. To the west of these mounds, running almost north and south, is a deep-worn trail said by the old settlers to have been a buffalo trail. About these mounds and about this trail especially are to be found today many flint arrow-heads that the Indians let fly at the buffaloes as they passed back and forth on these hills.

On the top of the tallest mound, there is a great, flat, over-hanging rock. This rock, the Indians used to say, was the dwelling place of a good spirit. From this position one can see the surrounding country for miles and miles; and it was on this account that the good spirit took up its abode there. While the red man was in search of game, the good spirit would direct his arrows straight toward the mark; and while he was on the war path, this good spirit would also help him to defeat his enemies.

Now, during early days, a tribe of Indians were roaming over this rich country, killing big game with their arrows and big fish with their spears. And in this tribe, as in every tribe, was a medicine man. This medicine man had a beautiful daughter who had been asked to become the first squaw of the brave young chief. But she was sick with a fever, and she became worse as time passed on. Her father had done all he could for her. He had driven away all the evil spirits that, by his many devices, he could drive away, and at the same time he had brought in all the good spirits that he could in order that they might help her; but his beautiful daughter only grew worse. He had mixed his different medicines in every way that he could think of, but all in vain. At last he despaired of saving her. He went outside of the little wigwam, squatted down, and prayed to the good spirit that dwelt upon the high rock.

Instantly almost, the expression of his face changed from gloom to hope. The idea had come to him that if he would but mix his medicine on the rock, the remedy would in some way receive the power of the good spirit. He returned for one more glance at his daughter, and then, pulling his bright-colored blanket about him, left for the high rock.

It was not long before he returned. He found his daughter resting well. He felt her face; it was not so hot as it had been when he left. He stopped and looked. Had he lost her? Then he thought of the good spirit and the medicine. It was his last hope. He gave it.

Outside the wigwam, the medicine man once more drew his blanket tightly about him and squatted down. He prayed for many hours—he knew not how many. It was nearing evening when he heard a faint voice calling him by name; it was the voice of his daughter. He rose as if he had been on springs; and in two steps, he was by her side. The fever had left her while he was away, and she had simply fallen into a deep sleep. The good spirit had saved her.

From this time on, the medicine man did not forget the good spirit on the high rock; and it is said that every year thereafter he went regularly to these mounds in order to instil some of this good spirit into his medicine. From this habit of the medicine man, these hills have been called the Medicine Mounds.

THE NAMING OF METHEGLIN CREEK, BELL COUNTY

By Alex. Dienst