The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great HighwayInman, Henry
History
The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great Highway
Inman, Henry
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); New Mexico -- History; Santa Fe National Historic Trail
The circuit attorney, T. W. Leal, was scalped alive and dragged through
the streets, his relentless persecutors pricking him with lances. After
hours of suffering, they threw him aside in the inclement weather, he
imploring them earnestly to kill him to end his misery. A compassionate
Mexican at last closed the tragic scene by shooting him. Stephen
Lee, brother to the general, was killed on his own housetop. Narcisse
Beaubien, son of the presiding judge of the district, hid in an outhouse
with his Indian slave, at the commencement of the massacre, under a
straw-covered trough. The insurgents on the search, thinking that they
had escaped, were leaving, but a woman servant of the family, going to
the housetop, called to them, "Kill the young ones, and they will never
be men to trouble us." They swarmed back and, by cruelly putting to
death and scalping him and his slave, added two more to the list of
unfortunate victims.
The Pueblos and Mexicans, after their cruelties at Fernandez de Taos,
attacked and destroyed Turley's Ranch on the Arroyo Hondo[27] twelve
miles from Fernandez, or Taos. Arroyo Hondo runs along the base of a
ridge of a mountain of moderate elevation, which divides the valley of
Taos from that of the Rio Colorado, or Red River, both flowing into
the Del Norte. The trail from one place to the other passes over the
mountain, which is covered with pine, cedar, and a species of dwarf oak;
and numerous little streams run through the many canyons.
On the bank of one of the creeks was a mill and distillery belonging
to an American named Turley, who did a thriving business. He possessed
herds of goats, and hogs innumerable; his barns were filled with grain,
his mill with flour, and his cellars with whiskey. He had a Mexican wife
and several children, and he bore the reputation of being one of the
most generous and kind-hearted of men. In times of scarcity, no one ever
sought his aid to be turned away empty-handed; his granaries were always
open to the hungry, and his purse to the poor.
When on their road to Turley's, the Pueblos murdered two men, named
Harwood and Markhead. Markhead was one of the most successful trappers
and daring men among the old mountaineers. They were on their way to
Taos with their pack-animals laden with furs, when the savages, meeting
them, after stripping them of their goods, and securing their arms by
treachery, made them mount their mules under pretence of conducting
them to Taos, where they were to be given up to the leaders of the
insurrection. They had hardly proceeded a mile when a Mexican rode up
behind Harwood and discharged his gun into his back; he called out to
Markhead that he was murdered, and fell to the ground dead.
Markhead, seeing that his own fate was sealed, made no struggle, and
was likewise shot in the back with several bullets. Both men were then
stripped naked, scalped, and horribly mutilated; their bodies thrown
into the brush to be devoured by the wolves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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