Ann Barker
Living on the Frontier
A Pioneer Woman’s Account
A tough-spirited resourcefulness to live on the Parker County frontier and survive close encounters with Indians
The following account was written in about 1960 by Ann Barker’s granddaughter, Bess Ann Barker Motley (1898-1969). It was submitted by Ruth Lynn Barker Cotter.
To: Jennifer Ann Barker, Daughter of James Earl, and Son of the older James Earl
Recollections of her Great-Great Grandmother, Ann Barker, for whom she is named.
Written by: Her Great Aunt Bess Ann Motley (1898-1969)
This was written in about 1960
Dear little Jennifer Ann, now just two years old. How I wish you had know your little pioneer, “Indian-Fightin” Great-Great Grandmother Ann, as I did when I was little girl. I remember her as a small woman, already old but very lively still, dressed always in black with a black and white checked apron decorated in cross stitch and on her head a black kerchief tied corner-wise with the point in the back, peasant fashion. Her hair was always parted in the middle and combed smoothly back to a bun low on the back of her neck. Her apron had a pocket in which she kept tobacco rolled in a black handkerchief for chewing. All the elderly women of our community smoked clay pipes or chewed tobacco. Their lives were hard in pioneer times and often they had to help their men folk defend their homes against Indians, so the tobacco probably helped them to be brave.
Your Great-Great Grandmother Ann was born June 14, 1841. You father gets his name “James” from her husband and your Great-Great Grandfather, James J. Barker, known as “Jim” Barker. James J. Barker was born December 7, 1834. They were probably born in Missouri, because we know that they came from Joplin, Missouri, to Parker County, Texas, during pioneer and Indian times there. They had twelve children named as follows: Mary, William, Martha, Nancy, Marion, Jasper, Robert, Barney (your great-grandfather), James, Frank, Samuel, and Ann.
James J. Barker owned much land in Parker County on “The Ridge” ‘nine miles north of Weatherford. His fields were outlined with rock fences which were still in place when I was a child. Part of his land he sold to honor a debt left by his brother, Joshua, whose business failed in Weatherford. (This same Joshua was one of the first business men, first City Alderman, and first Sheriff of Weatherford.
The first home which Jim built on his and was of logs and it was burned by the Indians. (I have a story to tell you about this.) The second home was built of lumber, hauled in over long distance by oxen. It was still standing when I was a young girl and your Great-Great Grandmother Ann lived there alone. I will tell you my memories of this house.
James J. Barker died December 17, 1893, and Ann Barker lived on it, the home place, until her last few years which she spent in our Weatherford home until her death, January 8, 1918.
When I was a tiny little girl like you, Jennifer Ann, I used to spend as much time as I could with my grandmother Ann; and I remember, even today, every detail of her little house, inside and out. She had a large fireplace which was used for all her cooking. It had an iron crane extending out from the side, and handing on this were two iron kettles and an iron tea-kettle. On the hearth at one side was the Dutch-oven where she baked her biscuits, cornbread, and cakes. I remember a birthday cake which she baked for me when I was three or four years old. She would put live coals on the lid and coals underneath the Dutch-oven. If she cooked sweet potatoes, she baked them in the hot ashes. If she was going to cook turnips in the wintertime, we would walk through the snow out to the hay stack and dig them out from deep in the hay where she had stored them for the winter. The turnips would do into one of the iron pots over the fire. Her soda was kept in a big covered wooden bucket. The inside walls of the little house were snowy white with whitewash and her planked floors were snowy white because she scrubbed them with ashes.
Grandmother Ann taught me how to make corn-cob dolls to play with. We would start with the whole ear of corn, shell off the corn and outer shucks, then cut short and slit the remaining inner shucks to make hair. We would make eyes, nose, and mouth with a piece of charcoal, and then dress the doll with scraps of materials that Grandmother saved for her quilts. She would take me with her to gather horehound growing wild, and then I would watch her make horehound candy for coughs. Also, I would watch with great interest how she would cook off her lard in a great iron pot in the yard, and how she would make soap in this pot, first making her lye from ashes.
One memory that stands out in my mind is a walk I had of several miles with my Grandmother. We were going to the old pioneer Clarke Cemetery where Grandfather Jim was buried. In our path there suddenly appeared a copperhead snake which Grandmother Ann soon dispatched with a walking stick she was carrying. In this cemetery are the graves of both Jim and Ann Barker as well as many of their descendents.
And now, Jennifer Ann, I have two stories to tell you about your Great-Great Grandparents, Ann and Jim Barker, and the Indians, as follows:
“Ann’s Adventure with the Indians”
News came to the settlement that the Comanche Indians were on a raid. As always, the men banded together and started out to find the Indians, do battle, and run them out of the country. The women and children were supposed to leave at once and gather at “Ward’s Fort” for protection. This fort was merely the home of a man named Ward who was crippled but was very good with his gun, and with the help of the women would fight off Indians.
However, Ann had a mind of her own and was brave, so she decided to wait until she would milk her cow in the late afternoon. Then she, her Mother (Great Grandmother Teeters), and the two babies would make their way to the safety of the fort.
Just before sundown Ann started out to drive up her cow for milking. As she walked she would see the grass moving off to the side, and she knew that an Indian was following her. Then she noticed smoke pluming up from a ravine in the distance and knew that the Indians were there cooking supper. However, Ann continued on her way and pretended not to know the Indian was crawling along in the grass watching her. Still pretending, she drove her cow home, milked, and then went into the house to wait for darkness so they could escape to the fort.
Inside the house Ann dressed herself in a man’s coat and hat and loaded her gun. When it was good dark she came out of the house trailed by her Mother carrying the two babies. In the darkness Ann ran into one of the gate posts and thought it was an Indian. She started screaming and ran for the house with her Mother trying to catch her and stop the noise. Finally things quieted down and they slipped away from the house, on their way at last to “Ward’s Fort”. Before they had gone very far they would see their house in flames with the Indians dancing round about, but they escaped with their lives.
To this day you can the spot where the house burned by the Indians once stood. In a pasture near a stream you can find stones from the fallen chimney and foundations, all showing signs of the fire; and the hearth tones are still in place. One in the spring I visited this pasture during bluebonnet season with my Father, Barney Barker; and we found the bluebonnets were of a deeper hue where the pioneer house once stood.
Jim Barker and the Indians
One day Jim Barker was out alone on horseback looking for some horses which he thought had strayed, or else had been stolen by the Indians. Suddenly he spied a band of Indians in the valley just below. Luckily, the Indians had not seen him as yet; so he slipped away and rode to the back side of the ridge overlooking the valley. From there he came riding fast to where the Indians would see him at the top of the ridge. The looking down the back side he waved and yelled as though he were bringing up a band of settlers to fit the Indians. The trick worked and the Indians raced away; and Jim had won his one-man battle.