Fort Worth: A Frontier Triumph

16. Cabins on the Fort’s Horizon

CHAPTER 16 Cabins on the Fort's Horizon SONS OF pioneers rarely sought security on the settled frontiers. It was the belief and the faith of Americans in those days that their fate was their responsibility; that the western wilderness gave them opportunity ; and what they did with that opportunity was up to them. Such was the pioneering spirit which brought one wagon, several wagons, a caravan of wagons, young lonely riders, and even a few on foot from Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and East Texas to the country around the military post of Fort Worth. This spirit of individual responsibility was one of the many forces accumulating to settle the region which was to become Tarrant County and the future Fort Town. The Mexican War was another force. Men had gone to Texas, then crossed into Mexico. There were many Texans in every camp; and many of them spoke with pride of the advantages frontier Texas offered. Soldiers from other Southern states and Texans from the settled areas of East Texas heard of the opportunity in North Texas. One group of soldiers listened well and placed their "horizon of hope" on that area. These were inhabitants of Shelby County and other parts of East Texas. Those from Shelby were formerly fighters in the Regulator-Moderator War. When the call to arms came, their feud was forgotten. They joined 88 BOOK III the same company becoming brothers in arms; and their combined fighting ability helped to turn the battles of the Mexican War into victories . War over, they directed their energies to molding the region at the forks of the Trinity. Of course their way had been prepared for them as we have seen by the land laws of the Republic of Texas, as well as those of the state, the foresight of President Houston's Treaty of 1843, and the military expeditions of General Tarrant and others into North Texas. So much for the why and wherefore of the accumulating forces; but what about the picture that these forces etched on the geography of the Grand Prairie in the Eastern Cross Timbers? In the score of cabins on the horizon north, south, east, and west of the fort were spirited pioneer dwellers. One at a time, sometimes two at a time, the outline of new log houses with their narrow rock chimneys, which sharply punctured the stark spaces, appeared on the horizon around the fort. With the appearance of each new chimney sending up its curl of smoke to announce the heartbeat of a new home, horsemen rode to welcome the newcomers; and the new neighbors became the conversation of the month. In the first decade of Fort Town's history, either the arrival of a new family or the appearance of a new home was an event to all the residents within a twenty-mile radius. Joy prevailed according to one cabin dweller, "Then life out here in northern Texas was one long dream of sensuous existence. No locks, no bolts and bars, free game, free grass and free men." North Horizon Three miles north of the fort in 1849 were two log cabin homes, those of John B. York from Missouri and Sebum Gilmore from Tennessee. York and Gilmore were both men of courage. They came alone with their families and unhitched their oxteams in 1848, a year before the fort was founded. York's first hardship was tragic. Six months after his arrival, he buried his six-year-old son near their new home in the present area of Niles City. Sorrow did not move York and Gilmore to pull up stake and join the caravans of California gold-seekers. They liked wilderness , because to their way of thinking, land was gold. Gilmore, the sonin -law of York, built his home near York's cabin. When Tarrant County was organized, Gilmore became the first county judge of Tarrant, and York, the second county sheriff. In July 1849, Will York was born, the fIrst boy in the environs of Fort Worth; and in August, Martha Gilmore came into the world with the CHAPTER 16 89 distinction of being the first girl. At an early age, Martha was an industrious child, and throughout her life, an outspoken feminist. Whenever occasion presented opportunity for boasting, she would remark, "And the men? What would they have done without us girls? We carded the wool, wove the...