TX BIOS:  Nat? Henderson
   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   00011
   
   Wm. V. Ervin, PW; wichita Falls, Texas
   
   Words 2,040
   
   Page 1
   
   INTERVIEW WITH [NAT?] HENDERSON, EARLY SETTLER, WICHITA FALLS, 907
   Hamilton Bldg., Wichita Falls, Texas.
   
   "I came to Wichita Falls in 1883 from Seguin, in South Texas. Up here,
   in a new town, I had opportunity that I wouldn't have had down there.
   There I would have had to wait until the old [?] died off.
   
   "When I came here Seventh Street was the main street of the town.
   There were only two or three brick buildings, which were on Seventh
   street, between Ohio and Indiana avenues. There was a stone building
   over where Saul's store is now, on Indiana. Colonel J. G. James
   started his bank there.
   
   "The town had only about seven hundred people in it when I came here,
   but by 1890 it went to two thousand. However, the terminus of the
   railroad was moved to Harrold and the drought came on, and things got
   in bad shape. Nearly everybody was broke, and we even abolished the
   city incorporation.
   
   "I was going down the street one day, and didn't have a cent in my
   pocket. I thought if I had any money I'd get a shave and a glass of
   beer. There were papers folded up in my pocket, newspaper clippings
   and memorandum slips, and I happened to take them out and looked
   through them, not having anything else to do. I found a piece of paper
   folded up which seemed heavier a little than the other papers and
   looked a little less worn. I unfolded it and it was a check for $38.65
   made out to a client of mine and given to me for him about three
   months before; however, I had already paid my client, and so the check
   was mine. I've made deals since then in which I have made several
   thousand dollars, but none of them looked as big to me as that check
   did then. I got the shave and the beer, and--well, I don't know, but I
   guess I played poker with the rest of it. There wasn't much to do
   anyway then, but gamble. There wasn't much business, and no
   amusements. A lot of the people had left, and the population 00022of
   the town had gone down about half.
   
   "In 1885 the ranchmen around here leased 900,000 acres of Indian lands
   in the Indian Territory. The east part of this body of land was taken
   by Addington and the Suggs brothers, then Barnett and Waggner and
   Stinson and Herring. This was the real Big Pasture. What was called
   the Big Pasture in the Territory a number of years later was only
   forty or fifty thousand acres. I was employed by them to survey this
   900,000 acres. Quanah Parker, with some braves of his tribe, came
   along as body guard, and they were needed.
   
   "The Kiowas objected to the arrangement, and after we got started with
   the surveying we kept [hearing?] that the Kiowas were coming, and the
   possibilities were that they would be on the warpath.
   
   "One day Quanah and I went up on a little hill so he could show me how
   they wanted the line to run. As we looked around we saw twenty-five or
   thirty Kiowas ride out of the brush, and they appeared to be heading
   toward our camp, which was off across a creek. Quanah signalled the
   Kiowas to stop, and we went down to where they were. Quanah started
   [parleying?] with them and he also [DEL: [?] :DEL] [sent?] a runner
   after his crowd, who were mostly over about the camp. They threatened
   Quanah, and he told them, "You do anything to me, my young men will
   get you all." We had an interpreter along named Sanders. He said to me
   that we'd better get [you?] [there?]. About that time Quanah's crowd
   arrived, and there were forty or fifty of them. The Kiowas whirled
   their ponies and rode back away from us and dismounted and got their
   rifles ready to shoot.. We hustled back to the camp. We were sure
   there would be war between them. They powwowed for sometime, though,
   and finally the Kiowas went off, and Quanah told me we would go ahead
   with the line, but he changed its direction some.
   
   "We went along through the day all right, without seeing the Kiowas
   again. 00033But Comanches kept showing up, and that night when we made
   camp there were about five more chiefs besides Quanah and about one
   hundred and fifty braves with their squaws and children, which made
   about five hundred people in the camp--and no telling how many dogs.
   My bunch and I, there were about five of us white men, moved our camp
   over south of Quanah's about a mile, figuring that the Kiowas would
   come from the north if they came again, and would miss us, and we
   would not be in the mixup if they had one. Well, about ninety of them
   came from the east the next morning and ran right on to our camp, and
   first thing we knew we were right in the middle of them. My [DEL: ahir
   :DEL] hair stood straight up. We thought we were goners. We were not
   armed except with pocketknives. One young brave grabbed at me and sort
   of startled me. He wanted some cigarette papers I had in my shirt
   pocket. He took the [packet?] and took one paper out and threw the
   rest in my face. I thought if I everhad him by himself I'd make him
   sorry for that. They let us alone, and went over to Quanah's camp.
   Both sides drew up in line of battle, and Quanah and his chiefs sent
   their women and children away, and it sure looked like they were going
   to have a fight. We watched to see what they would do, and we had
   better get out of there. We hadn't started, though, when [Quanah?]
   sent a messenger to us to tell us that we needn't be afraid, that we'd
   be "all same as squaw and papoose." So that's how we were classed as
   non-[combatants?]. They powwowed again for sometimes, and again the
   Kiowas went off without fighting. We didn't have any more trouble with
   the Kiowas, but the Comanches stayed with us until we were headed
   toward Red River, away from the Kiowa country, and then they left us,
   telling us we would be all right then. I had a partner working with
   me--he wason the east side. It took us about three months to complete
   the job.
   
   "The United Stated Government had no law under which it could lease
   the Indian lands, so the cattlemen had been using them and giving the
   Indians cattle 00044now and then. But at last it was decided to lease
   the lands outright, the cattlemen to pay so much per acre to the
   Indians, but it had to be winked at by the Government officials. Some
   of the cowmen said they would give the Indians three cents an acre.
   Burk Burnett said, "No, we'll give them six cents, and then we won't
   have any trouble with them." He and Cal Suggs were the brains of the
   outfit.
   
   "Payment of the lease was to be made semi-annually. The ranchmen and
   Indians agreed to meet at Anadarko, where the Indian agency was, and
   have Mr. Hunt, the agentk take the money and pay it out to the
   Indians. It figured out to about nine or ten dollars to every man,
   woman and child. I was asked to go along as I was by then well-known
   to the Indians. We started out from here with the money. There were
   sixteen buggies. When we got up there the Indians were late as usual,
   and hadn't arrived. We called on Mr. Hunt and asked him to take the
   money and pay each Indian his part. Mr. Hunt said that if he did so,
   that is if the money passed through his hands, he would have to
   account for it to the United States Government. He said that he would
   advise us to see the Indians and agree with them on a meeting place
   some distance from Anadarko. Well, that was all we could do, so as the
   Indians hadn't showed up we started back. We had got about fifteen
   miles from Anadarko when we ran into about a thousand Indians. We
   stopped to palaver with them. There wasn't anything else we could do
   anyhow, even if we'd wanted to. The chiefs gathered around and we told
   them what Mr. Hunt had said. They seemed sort of suspicious of us. One
   of them said. "That heap much money. Maybe white men no got." Well, we
   opened up our grips and showed them that we had the money all right.
   They were well pleased, and agreed on a time to meet us on Cash Creek,
   about forty miles from Anadarko. 00055"I went over there to the
   meeting. We camped and paid off all the Indians. We had a pay-off tent
   where we paid them off. Some of the Indians when they got their money
   would come to me and some of the other white me and ask us to count
   their money for them. Along in the evening I was laying down under a
   buggy about half asleep when an Indian came and put a purse in my
   hand. I thought he wanted me to count his money for him, so thinking
   to have some fun with him I slipped the purse in my pocket without
   saying, anything, and lay there like I had gone back to sleep. He
   still didn't say anything so I opened my eyes and looked around to see
   who he was, and he wasn't there. The purse he had thirty or forty
   dollars in it, and it was all there. I never did know which Indian it
   was that brought me the purse.
   
   "The Indians called me Hendessy in trying to call my name. Quanah told
   me afterwards that when they were about to have trouble with the
   Kiowas he sent to Wichita Falls to buy cartridges. Before I got the
   surveying job completed and came back to Wichita Falls Quanah was down
   here, and when he got back he told me that my law partner had asked
   about me. Quanah said, "I tell him when Kiowas come Hendessy skaddddle
   down the road like hell," and he laughed big. He thought that was
   quite a joke on me. Quanah was a good fellow. When he was out in this
   country he was a blanket Indian, but when he came here he always wore
   white men's clothes.
   
   "Henrietta got to be a good town before this town did. They had an
   electric plant over there before we did here. Kemp and Kell did a
   great thing for this town when they built the railroad from here over
   to Henrietta. It did an enormous business and started this town to
   growing, and it gave Kemp and Kell their big start. 00066"I was county
   surveyor for a while. I ran for county attorney in 1896 and was
   elected. It was against the law for there to be any public gambling,
   but it went on just the same. The sheriff and his men were in with the
   gamblers, and they had a regular gambling hall. I had been gambling
   some, and when I was elected country attorney they told me they were
   all right then as I [gambling?] and they didn't think I would enforce
   the law. I told 'em I wasn't going to [gamble?] any more they had to
   quit, too. But when I got in office and tried to enforce the law I
   soon found I was at [loggerheads?] with the sheriff and his
   department. I couldn't do a thing toward enforcing the law against
   gambling, and it went right on.
   
   "There was a little man with the nerve of Bill McDonald wo was a
   deputy sheriff. His name was Sam Abbott. He and the sheriff got at
   outs and the sheriff put him off the force. Sam came to me, and he
   said if I could get him an official position, we could clean up the
   gambling. I got him on as deputy constable. We cleaned up the gambling
   and there wasn't any gambling to speak of here for several years.
   
   "I lived across the railroad. One evening after dark I got home I
   heard a loud [DEL: shot :DEL] [?] and then three shots, but not so
   loud. Somebody came for me soon after, and said it was Sam Abbott,
   that he had been shot and killed. The gamblers got him. We knew pretty
   well who it was, but we couldn't proof against him. It was a man named
   Wilson. He and the others planned it. I was some afraid they'd try to
   get me, and I didn't stay in any lighted rooms after dark. But I was
   told after Sam was killed that the gambling bunch wasn't after me;
   that they got Sam because they considered him a traitor to them as he
   had been in with them more or less, or they considered he had as he
   had been with the sheriff's force. Sam was shot with a shotgun loaded
   with buckshot, and at least 00077one of the shot went through his
   heart. He ran a hundred yards after he was shot and fired his pistol
   three times at the man that shot him, before he fell.
   
   "While I was with the Indians on the surveying job we came on a big
   rattlesnake one day. He was stretched out. When I was a boy I had
   learned to grab snakes by their tale and kill them by snapping their
   head off. I grabbed this one by the tail and gave him a snap. It
   didn't jerk his head off, but it killed him. I gave him another jerk
   and popped his head off, and we never did find it. After that I was
   big medicine with the Indians.

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