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• Gender	Male
  Person ID	I305	Our Family
  Last Modified	24 Aug 2005 00:00:00
  Family	Tennie Tidwell
  Children	> 1. Absolem Tidwell Tumlinson, b. 14 Dec 1827, Crawford, AR
  Family ID	F0081	Group Sheet

• Documents		Article from The Galveston Daily News April 12, 1878, attributed to Peter Tumlinson Early Times in Texas Another very old veteran heard from The Atascosa Journal prints a short narrative from the pen of an old veteran of the Texas Revolution and one of the oldest white settlers now left in Texas. He is a native of North Carolina, and thus recounts his emigration and early experience in Texas: A party of us, consisting of thirty-three persons, started from near the mouth of Klaltia River in the fall of 1821. The members of our party were J. Tumlinson (my father) and family, James Tumlinson and family, Martin Varney and family, Henry Jones and family, William Styles and wife, two young men, one named… Strickland, the other Samuel Carter, John Fowler, Jesse Shelton and son, and a negro man. We crossed Red River December 7, 1821. We had some two hundred head of cattle and about the same number of hogs. We conveyed our packs on horses and proceeded westward until we struck the Brazos River just above the falls. The country on our route was an entire wilderness and abounding with game such as deer, buffalo and turkeys, and full of Indians. They were the first white women seen by these Indians and greatly …ted their curiosity. Here we remained ten days to rest our horses and prepare for further advance. In February, 1822, we crossed the Brazos. Tuesday about sunset some thirty C…. warriors charged upon us, but a Mexican with them, perceiving we were whites and prepared to resist, called out, “Don’t be afraid, we are friends.” We engaged this Mexican to conduct us to the old San Antonio road. Thence we journeyed to the place where Independence now stands. It was then a wilderness, over which vast quantities of cattle, horses, and buffalo roamed. Altogether these cattle were the finest I ever saw. All of the cattle were the same color, viz: dark brown with a dun stripe down their (bac)ks. These cattle were the descendants of cattle imported from Spain through Mexico, long anterior to even that early date. This country had evidently been occupied by civilized people for more than a century prior to our advent for we frequently saw remains of aqueducts, forts, hearths, …. all very old and of Spanish origin. The narrator “cut and split” the …. walls and built them into cattle (pens?) on the very spot where Independence now stands. Other families then came. Our food was meat alone. (…t?), bread or coffee could be had. We dressed ourselves in buckskin and (wore?) moccasins after the orthodox Indian style. Our women also were often compelled to wear buckskin. Quite a number of families in this vicinity lived on horse flesh without salt, much less bread. The Indians were quite numerous here, Lipans, Tonquawas, Coronquawas and Creeks. The Lipans were the most powerful from both bravery and numbers. The Tonquawas claimed to have fifteen-hundred warriors, the Coronquawas and Creeks about one thousand together. These Indians were elevated but little above the brutes. The adult was almost (naked?); the young up to about 14 years were entirely nude. They lived for the most part on meat and ate it raw. Upon killing a deer I have seen them eating the liver, still warm, dipping it in the blood, just as we eat bread and gravy. The Coronquawas as a (whole?) were of larger stature than any (other?) human beings I every saw. Most of their men were fully seven feet tall. (Each?) man’s bow was of the same length as his body and so strong that I (even?) failed to string them after exerting my utmost strength. They subsisted on fish and flesh. The only household utensil possessed by the savages was a kind of pottery. It was unusually hard and often made into beautiful … with pretty carvings on the exterior surface. Two of my sisters were little misses, eight and twelve years old respectively, with red hair. These, on account of the color of their hair, were regarded by the Indians with much wonder, as though they were beings of different world. During the summer of … about one hundred families of (Austin’s?) company came out. They, too, lived on flesh and dressed in buckskins. I neglected to say, however, that we did sometimes make a very little bread out of the root of the bamboo (…r). It was made by pounding the (ro)ots in a mortar, then soaking it in (water?) and then straining the water and (fr….king?) the fine sediment at the bottom of the vessel. This we cooked like fritters. Many settlers continued without bread twelve months. Such was the case with my father’s family at one time. My father and two of my brothers were slain by the Indians; the first in 1824, one of the latter in (?), the other in 1827. The encounters between the settlers and Indians were often of the most deadly and vindictive character. The last named brother of mine, having been stabbed through by a warrior, discharged his gun into the savage and both fell dead together. Attributed to Peter Tumlinson, son of John Jackson and Elizabeth Plemons Tumlinson. John Jackson and his brother James heard of Austin’s Colony early in 1821, when Moses Austin passing through Arkansas on his return trip to Missouri, announced the grant. In the vanguard of Colonists, the Tumlinsons traveled from Arkansas to the Colorado River late in the same year. John Jackson Tumlinson Peter F. Tumlinson Absolem Tumlinson Mary Ellen Tumlinson m .James Joseph West Lee Bluford West Charlie Edward West John Jackson’s brother James, mentioned in the article, was the father of George W. Tumlinson, who died at the Alamo.

• Sources

  [S1761] Family Data Collection - Births