Purple martins, scissor-tailed flycatchers, orchard and Bullock’s orioles, and the black-chinned hummingbird all arrive in Erath County this month. Jack (Cactus Jack) Murray, Bird Field Notes, 1969 – 1979, Stphenville, Texas.

In early April of 1921 a tornado struck four miles east of Stephenville, the path was 100 yards wide and 400 yards long, destroying a windmill, tearing up trees, and pulling the feathers out of chickens. Stephenville Tribune

On April 7, 1848, James Stephen bought at public auction 4,409 acres for a total of $150. The land was originally given to the Blair family for their son’s death at the Alamo, but they refused to leave Tennessee to come to Texas. It would be another six years before the Stephen family would travel to the future site of Stephenville to see the land. In 1854, John M. Stephen moved an enslaved family to the post oak forest now the Stephenville square to open a trading post. Their mission was to establish good relations with the Anadarko and Comanche Indians. (good relations lasted less than four years) They traded for deerskin bags of honey and smoked buffalo hams. The following year thirty families moved up the Bosque River from Waco and established the town of Stephenville. The names of this first Black family are not recorded anywhere, but it is said that oral history still remembers their names.

The Stephenville Tribune, April 18, 1913; Homer Stephen, The Frontier Postmasters, Dublin: Dublin Progress, 1952; Dan Young, Unpublished notes, 2022.

Before barbed-wire fences became common in the early 1880s, elk, antelope, and prairie chickens were a part of the Erath County ecosystem. Enclosed cattle soon ate the native grasses down to the soil, then pawed up the roots. Into this void rushed grasses and weeds with tiny root systems that failed to absorb rainfall and led to massive erosion and the lowering of the water table. The result was the disappearance of many varieties of native plants and brooks, small streams that provided water for wildlife. In March of 1883 the last black bear was seen by T.J. Ross between Stephenville and Alexander. Dan Young; Stephenville Empire

The pink bloom shown above belongs to Japonica, or quince, its a small bush once popular in old Erath as a source of fruit-flavored toothpicks. It was planted at one end of the front porch for easy access after a meal. Conversations with O.A. Grant

Wild plum blossoms (shown above) signal the beginning of the wildflower season. First to show is the anemone, pale to purplish; followed by crow poison, with small, creamy petals on an onion-like stalk. Don’t confuse it with actual wild onion/garlic which blooms purple. Low, yellow masses of bladderpods ( in the mustard family) become noticeable along roadsides. By the end of the month, yellow daisies on leafless stems dot the pastures. The reliable prairie verbena (V. pinnatifida) starts its long blooming period in March as well. Charleen Murray. Wildflower Field Notes, 1969-1981, Stephenville, Texas.

1865: Born in Vermont, John Tarleton worked as a store clerk in Knoxville, Tennessee, for forty years. He bought land in Palo Pinto County for 15 cents an acre, and this spring walked to Texas dressed as tramp with his savings sewed into his clothes. Stephenville Empire-Tribune

In March, 1891, “Be it ordained by the City of Stephenville: That hereafter it shall be unlawful for the owners of any cattle or horses, mules, jackes or jennetts to permit them to run at large upon the public square in the city of Stephenville. J.W. Jarrott, Revised ordinances and Rules of Order of the City of Stephenville, Texas. Printed and published by order of the City Council of Stephenville, Texas. Revision of 1893.

1900: “While being driven through town, a herd of horses stampeded and rushed across the square which was crowded with wagons and teams. Several teams became excited and broke loose. For a while it looked like there would be several runaways and many good farmers said some ugly words.” Stephenville Empire

1889: “Any person who shall recklessly ride or shall drive any horse, mule or other animal in, along, or across any public square, street or alley, or other public place within the corporate limits of the city of Stephenville at a gait faster than that of an ordinary lope or gallop . . . shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.” Jarrott

1912: A great herd of two-year-old cattle were driven through Stepnenville, and much complaint was heard by people who own lawns and cement walks.” The herd destroyed newly planted trees on Graham Street because as the “drivers galloped horses on the paved walks and this caused much indignation.” Stephenville Tribune

J. Frank Dobie described early Stephenville; “There were six or seven log cabins, with shed rooms of rawhide lumber, strung along the trail out from it. The central and largest structure served as a courthouse. It had a gallery (porch) covered with boards made of pin oak. The liveliest place in town was a saloon where for two-bits, (a quarter) a purchaser could get a ‘fair-sized drink’ of wagon-yard whiskey drawn in a tin cup from a fifty-gallon barrel. Usually a group of cowboys were congregated here, but the dogs of the village far outnumbered the inhabitants and visitors. Dog fights furnished the chief amusement. The sheriff owned a large parrot that habitually perched on the roof of the courthouse gallery. It had picked up a considerable vocabulary from the cowboys, including ‘Ye-oh, sic’ em’, in a second all the dogs in town charged the steers. They stampeded, knocked down all the galleries, including the one the parrot was perched on, rammed through the sheds, and even demolished some of the shacks. Stephenville looked as if a cyclone had struck it.” J. Frank Dobie, The Long Horns. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1941.

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March 20, 1867: 14-year-old Ole Nystel had planned helping to plant corn, but his father instead sent him with a neighbor, Carl Quested, to Golden Mountain (part of the Chalk Mountain hills) to chop cedar posts (this is before overgrazing eliminated grassfires that restricted cedar to the hills) “I was at the wgon and Mr. Quested had gone off fifty steps to commence work, when I heard a noise, and on looking up I saw two Indians made hideous with war paint . . . It appeared to my excited imagination that they were devils who had come for me and I really thought I could see great streams of fire issuing from their mouths. I had been taught that ‘the devil would get me’ if I was not good . . . I take occasion here to enter my hearty protest against making such erroneous impressions upon the minds of the young . . . I run about forty yards when an arrow pierced my right leg . . . I was placed on a poor, boney horse without a saddle and you can imagine, better than I can describe, my discomfort.” The Comanche party eventually headed back toward the Panhandle, not making camp for five days. After about 200 miles they made camp, the Indians slept in a tent while Ole, suffering from the arrow wound, slept under a rock overhang to avoid the snow that fell that night. Ole T. Nystel, Lost and Found: Or, Three Months with the Wild Indians, a Brief Sketch of the Life of Ole T. Nystel, Embracing His Experiences While in Captivity to the Comanches, and Subsequent Liberation from Them. (Introduction and notes by Derwood Johnson) Clifton, Texas: Bosque Memorial Museum, 1967. Originally published in 1888.

1891: In March Dublin vigilantes raided and burned a Mexican camp just outside town. There were no details. Dublin Progress

In March of 1871, Ab Nystel (14) and an old man named Carl Quertod, were chopping cedar post near Chalk Mountain, when they were discovered by a Comanche raiding party. The boy was captured while Quertod escaped with an arrow in his arm. The Indians continued to raid through Bosque County before turning back toward the Northwest, where they killed an enslaved black man and captured a 14-year old girl. Several weeks later the girl escaped while the Comanches were crossing the Arkansas River. Nystel was eventually sold for $250 dollars. Floyd Holmes, Indian Fights on the Texas Frontier: A True Account of the Last Exciting Encounters with Redskins in Hamilton, Comanche, Brown, Erath, and Adjoining Counties. As Recorded by E.L. Deaton. Fort Worth: Pioneer Publishing Company, 1927.

1885: Hailstones the size of a man’s fist hit Erath County, killing cattle, splintering shingles, and mashing stove pipes. Stephenville Empire

1892: A traveler between Thurber and Weatherford investigated the source of “piteous moaning” to find a trained bear chained to a tree, nearly starved to death. Nearby were the bodies of two Italians who had been traveling across Texas performing with the bear. They had been robbed and murdered about a week earlier. Weatherford Enquirer