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Edith L. Crawford
Carrizozo, N. Mex.
1090 -words.
PIONEER STORY.
By Mrs. Mary E. Burleson.
The Government train we came to New Mexico in had about
one hundred prairie schooners in it. Of this number four belong-
ed to my family. My grandfather and grandmother Searcy, with six
girls and one boy and my father, O. K. Chittenden, with my moth-
er brother Tom and myself. I was five years old and my brother
was about one year old. My grandfather and my father sold their
farms in West Port, Missouri. We brought all our supplies along
with us. We had our flour in barrels, our own meat, lard and su-
crar. We were not allowed to stop and hunt buffald on the way out
here on account of the Indians. The women made the bread out of
sour dough and used Soda. There was no such thing as baking pow-
der in those days. The men baked the bread in dutch ovens over
the camp fires. When we stopped at night the schooners with
families were put into a circle and the Government schooners
would form a circle around the family wagons. /n between the two
circles they put the oxen and horses, to keep the Indians from
getting them. Every night the men took turns standing guard.
All the soldiers rode horses. Every few days the train would
stop and everybody would get rested. The feet of the oxen would
get so sore that they could not go without resting them every
few days. When the train stopped it was nearly always at water
and the women would do their washing. The train used cow and
buffalo chips and anything they could find to burn. The men did
all this as the women and children were never allowed far from
the schooners on account of Indians. We did not milk our cow as
she had to be worked along with the oxen. Our schooners had cow
hides fastened underneath and our cooking utensils were packed
in them. Our drinking water was carried in barrels tied to the
sides of the schooners.
We had no trouble of any kind on our trip but we were al-
ways in fear of the Indians as other trains had been attacked
by them. Mr. Tom Boggs, the foreman of the Government train,
told us that there was a band of Indians just ahead of our train.
The Indians had attacked a train not long before we came along
and had killed the people, stolen the horses and.oattle and burn-
ed the wagons. We saw what was left of the wagons as we passed by.
We left the wagon train on Raton Pass. Enoch Tipton who was
a relative of my grandmother, and who had persuaded my grandfath-
er and father to come out to this country, met us on Raton Pass.
We stopped at his place at Tiptonville, New Mexico. Enoch Tipton
had come out here. sometime before from West Port, Missouri. I do
not remember just when he came or how he happened to settle here.
Tiptonville is the same place as Mora, New Mexico is now. My fat-
her and grandfather farmed a year at Tiptonville. When we found
our new home hard dirt floors and a dirt roof my mother was so
very homesick to go back to Missouri where we had a nice farm
home. My mother had brought her spinning wheel with her. She spun
all the yarn for our clothes and knitted all our socks and stock-
ings. My father and grandfather made a loom for her and the made
us two carpets for our floors to keep the baby from getting so
awful dirty on the floor. We had brought some seed cane with us
and my father and grandfather made a homemade syrup mill and
made syrup, the first ever made in that country. The mill was a
crude affair made of logs and drawn by a horse. The juice was
pressed out with the logs and put in a vat and cooked into sy-
rup. People came from miles around to see this mill.
We always saved all our beef and mutton tallow to make our
candles. We brought our moulds from Missouri with us. We made
our ricks out of cotton strings. We tied a large knot in the
end of the wick, slipped the mould over the wick and poured the
hot tallow into the mould. When the tallow got cold we cut the
knot off and slipped the candle out of the mould. Our candle
moulds were the first ones brought into that part of the country,
and all the neighbors borrowed them to mould their candles.
My father moved to Ute Creek, New Mexico, in 1867, when they
struck placer gold there, and he put in a country store to supply
the needs of the miners and the people who were rushing to the
gold strike.
A man by the name of Stevens, I can't remember any other
name as everyone called him "Steve", wheeled a wheelbarrow all
the way from the State of Maine to Colorado. In this wheelbarrow
he had his bed, his clothes and his provisions. He did not stay
long in Colorado. He came on to Tiptonville and put in a toll
road to Ute Creek and my father took care of the toll gate for
him. They charged 11.00 for a wagon, .50* for a horse and rider
and 25* for a rerson on foot. Mr. Stevens made a lot of mon-
ey as there were lots of miners rushing to Ute Creek looking
for gold.
17hen my brother and I were old enough to go to school
we had to walk three miles. My mother was always so afraid
of wild animals and Indians. We had a big bull dog who used
to go with us to school. When he got tired waiting for us he
would go home and when it was time for us to get home he would
come to meet us. We lived down in a valley and had to go over
a big hill and be would wait for us on top of this hill. We
went to school at Ute Creek. The Indians were not so hostile
as when we firet came to New Mexico. /t was the Apache and
Ute Indians who gave so much trouble and sometimes the no_
was and Cheyennes would slip in and make raids on the settlers.
My father was from Connecticutt originally and came to
West Port, Mo., and married my mother there. She was Eliza-
beth Searcy. I am the last one left of the Searcy and Chitt-
enden families. My brother Jap who was born after we cane to
New Mexico died in Gallup, New Mexico, in 1926.
Narrator: Mrs. Mary E Burleson, Aged 78 years.
Carrizozo, New Mexico.