Muncey Massacre

The Muncey Massacre was an 1844 incident in Texas. McBain Jameson and Jeremiah Muncey were the first known settlers in the Plano area. Jameson’s conditional certificate was issued by the Republic of Texas in Austin on January 2, 1840, and Jeremiah Muncey’s on January 3, 1842. Neither man was known to be a Peter’s Colonist.

The Muncey Massacre was the last of the fatal depredations by the Indians in Collin County. It took place in the fall of 1844 on Rowlett Creek about four miles (6 km) north of what is now downtown Plano. Jeremiah Muncey, with his wife and four children and an old man by the name of Jameson, had moved out on Rowlett Creek and were living in a board hut while they were building their log house. Shortly after that settlement was begun William Rice and some from near the present Foote, and Leonard Searcy and his son Gallatin (or Thrashly), who lived near the present Walnut Grove went on a hunting trip down Rowlett Creek. In the morning, one of the gentlemen went into the timber to find Muncey's camp. Suddenly he came upon it, and a most terrible and heartrending sight met his startled vision. He found Muncey and the old man Jameson lying on their faces, having been shot and their bodies presenting no appearance of having been disturbed after receiving their death wounds.

The youngest child, some two or three years old, seemed to have had its head bashed against the wall and mashed into a shapeless mass. The mother fought to the last with a bowie knife. The blood from her person and from the bodies of her murderers had splashed on the walls of the board camp in many places. Her breasts were cut off and her body mutilated in a most shocking manner. Two sons, one about twelve and the other about seventeen years of age, were missing.

One boy about fifteen years of age was absent, having gone to the Throckmorton settlement for provisions. The camp had been robbed of whatever the Indians wanted. The feather beds had been ripped open in the yard and the feathers left on the ground. Terrified, Mr. Searcy left the bloody scene and hurried to hunt his comrades. All evidence showed that the attack had been made only a few hours before, probably after the family got up and while Mrs. Muncey was getting breakfast. The two men had fallen from their chairs where they were sitting near the fire. Mr. Searcy quickly found Mr. Rice and told him the story whereupon both men set out to hunt their sons. They had not gone very far when they found the ghastly mutilated body of Mr. Rice's son. They put his body on one of their horses and continued to their homes on Wilson's Creek some ten miles (16 km) away. Here they found young Searcy, who had made his escape and was getting help to go back and hunt the old men.

Young Searcy's story was that he and young Rice, while riding together on the prairie, were suddenly surprised by seeing quite a body of Indians in full view about one hundred yards distant. The Indians had a white flag up and motioned the young men to come to them. Several Indians advanced after laying down their guns, two of them proceeding some distance in advance of the others. The two Indians advanced to the young men. Searcy cautioned his companion not to let the Indians get to him, but when near to Rice one of the Indians seized his horse by the bridle; the other tried to seize Searcy, but he put spurs to his horse and made his escape. Rice was shot perhaps by the distant Indians, his bridle reins cut, and he was dragged from his horse and scalped.

A party of men was raised and followed the Indians. They were easily trailed by the floating feathers that fell from the bed ticks, but they traveled fast and were not overtaken. The two Muncey boys were never heard of except that two skulls were found in the " Flats" near the trail along which the Indians retreated westward. Early settlers believed them to be the remains of the missing boys.

According to oral tradition the day of the massacre was a hot one, typical of what Texans call Indian summer days. Word reached the tiny settlement of Buckner, which was three miles (5 km) west of present McKinney. Mckinney did not exist at the time and was not settled for some four years. The Buckner men considered themselves close neighbors of the Munceys. So a band of grim faced men mounted their horses with guns and wooden shovels and rode down to Rowlett Creek to bury the dead. Among were Jack Herndon and George Washington Ford.

Among Jack Herndon’s present descendant are Mrs. Louise Sherrill of Plano, Mr. Jerry Herndon of Plano, and Mr. J. W. Herndon of Allen. Among George Washington Ford’s descendants are Mrs. Harvey Angel and her daughter Mrs. Clyde Hartline of Plano, and Mr. Pete Ford of Allen.

There are no Muncey descendants. This early family, the first known in the Plano area, paid the supreme sacrifice and was completely wiped out. It is true that there was a reference to a Muncey boy who was at the Throckmorton settlement at the time, There has been speculation as to whether he was a son or a cousin or an unrelated boy of the household. The fact remains that the abstract to Jeremiah Muncey's land refers to his "vacant succession." All that was left of this family was 440 acres (1.8 km²) of land on the Trinity, one axe, and one set of wagon irons. Several Muncey families living in Celina, Plano and Dallas are related but by collateral lines descended from a common ancestor. These families came to Collin County at a later date.

The site of the massacre is about four miles (6 km) north of present downtown Plano and one mile (1.6 km) east of Highway 5. It is in the back pasture of the home of J. W. Maxwell on Route 1, Plano, Texas. The trees which formerly marked the spot are no longer standing, but the spot has been located by Miss Geraldine Hagy and Joe Birch in the presence of Miss Marguerite Haggard and Mrs. Louise Sherrill. Miss Hagy’s family land included the Muncey homesite, the Muncey spring, the Muncey burial site and “Indian Hole”, said to be an old Indian camping ground. In recent years some of the Hagy land was sold and developed and consequently the massacre site is no longer in the Hagy farm but is included in residential property. Joe Birch, now of Allen, Texas farmed the land for the Hagys for many years and he, like Miss Hagy, remembers the oral tradition of the neighbors such as the descendants of the Brown and Russell families who settled nearby soon after the massacre. Joe unearthed bits of broken dishes during his plowing which he believed indicated the vicinity of the Muncey home.

The burial site is about 200 yards northeast of the massacre site. It is on the bank of Rowlett Creek in the back pasture of Dr. William Stephen Chambless, Route 1, Plano and, as explained above, is located on former Hagy property.2 The immediate cause of the massacre is not known. The Caddo Indians who lived in Collin County were an agricultural people and not generally considered hostile to white people. 3 There was, moreover, a treaty signed on September 9, 1843 at Bird’s Fort in Tarrant County promising peace between Indians and whites.

Indian attacks in Collin County (then part of Fannin County) were blamed on Comanches who made raids from the west and later retreated in that direction. The Comanches were a fierce war-like tribe to begin with 5 and they undoubtedly realized that these early settlers were a threat to their way of life. They were indeed. For the Muncey family was in the first wave of settlers in the Plano area. In 1842 Muncey had 640 acres (2.6 km²) surveyed by Daniel Rowlett.

In 1844 when his family was wiped out, there was only one other group of settlers know to be in this area and these were the Goughs, Youngs, Witts, and Baccus. But in 1845, in the year after the massacre, the settlers really began to come in.

The Muncey massacre struck cold fear into the hearts of the early settlers and they lived with this fear for years to come. In 1845 the Joseph Russell family settled on land adjoining the former Muncey tract. Their family historian includes the notation, “if the Russells did not know, they surely soon heard that less than a year before the Muncey family had been savagely murdered and mutilated by Indians. Although that tragic event is said to have been the last great Indian depredation in Collin, the Russells lived in constant fear and dread of the Indians who frequently came to the cabin demanding food. Elizabeth tried to keep hot bread baked to appease them because they seemed to favor that. When they demanded meat, she gave them a cow.”

In the same year of 1845 Henry Cook settled in the Plano area. In describing their situation Adelle Clark wrote in “Lebanon on Preston”, “The Indians who molested the white settlers usually were after either horses or food. Nevertheless, Indians riding across the prairie toward a little log house were enough to put cold fear in the heart of any housewife.” She then continues to describe the terror with which Mrs. Henry Cook grabbed up a pot of steaming beans and set it outside for the passing redskins and the relief that swept over her when she saw that they ate and then drove off with a yearling but harmed no one.

On the crest of a hill on Rowlett Creek, Sam Young had a grist mill. From time to time he would climb to the top to keep a lookout for Indians over the distant countryside. When neighbors were afraid of attack they would hurry to his log house until the threat passed.

In 1848 or before, Rowlett Baptist Church was organized. It is told that at the early revival meetings, men stacked their guns under a tree before services in order to have them handy in case of Indian attack.

Stories have come down in the Carpenter 9 and Fletcher 10 families showing that as late as the Civil War the women who were left to tend farms and families without the help of their men were terrified by the sight of passing Indians. No doubt stories of the Muncey massacre haunted them too. The Muncey massacre not only thoroughly frightened and haunted the minds of the early settlers. It also caught the imagination of later historians and its story was recounted again and again.

References: 1. Home Monthly, edited by Mrs. Bella French Swisher, and published in Austin, Texas in 1880.

2. The version told in the above publication was copied exactly in the McKinney Advocate of April 13, 1880, a copy of which is in the files of Frances Wells, Plano, Texas.

3. A somewhat shorter version is included in “Sixty Years in Texas” by George Jackson, October 27, 1908 on pages 163-4.

4. This second account is the one used by historian George P. Brown in what are known as the Brown papers (now filed on a research shelf in the McKinney Library) and in newspaper articles based on his work.

On October 11, 1930 historian George P. Brown wrote, “Would it not be a fine thing if a monument could be erected beside the highway, at the bridge, giving the date of this last Collin County tragedy? Some action of this kind would perpetuate this local history, and show the ages yet to come, just how the present age preserved the heroism of the past age.” 11

In 1958 Lee Stambaugh wrote in his “History of Collin County, Texas” concerning the massacre site, “It is hoped that some day the people of Collin County will erect here a permanent memorial to the memory of these brave pioneers.” 12

In 1974 Plano Boy Scout Troop #221 chose to earn a history medal by learning about and raising money for the historical marker for this spot. So even today imaginations are being impressed by the vivid detail of this event.

This event is commemorated, however, for reasons in addition to the fear, which its story still arouses in our hearts. The event was significant as a savage massacre, but , after all, it was also the last massacre in Collin County.

Shortly thereafter, Texas became a state and Collin County a separate county. The time seems to have been a turning point. From then on relations with the Indians might have been uneasy, but they were mainly peaceful. In the Muncey massacre we see the latest local clash between two cultures. The tragedy of the Muncey family dramatized the danger faced by all of the very earliest settlers. The incident also dramatizes the tragic situation of the Indian whose homeland was endangered.

Footnotes: 1. Swisher, Mrs. Bella French, “The American Sketch Book” – An Historical Home Monthly American Sketch Book Publishing House, Austin, Texas, 1880, pp. 285–287. 2. Jackson, George “Sixty Years in Texas”, October 27, 1908, pp. 163–4 3. Stambaugh, Lee, “A History of Collin County, Texas”, State Historical Association, Austin, 1958, pp. 17–18 4. Haggard, Miss Marguerite, Plano, Texas 5. Stambaugh, p. 14 6. Abstract #1293, Abstract of Title to 165 acres (0.67 km²) in Jeremiah Muncey Survey, prepared for John Hagy. Record in Book A, page 172, Survey Record of Collin County, Texas. 7. Parr, Mrs. Givens Archer, and Mrs. Foy Thomas, “The Family of Joseph Russell, Early Settler in the Peters Colony, Texas - 1845”, Local History and Genealogical Society, Dallas, Texas, December 1972. 8. Clark, page 66. 9. 1852 – Carpenter – 1952 (a family history privately printed) 10. Interview with Mrs. B. B. Carpenter, a descendant of the Fletcher family. 11. Brown, George P., “Last Collin County Indian Massacre in 1844” – Muncey family wiped out on Rowlett Creek, article included in the Brown Manuscript but at the end and not among those pages which are numbered. This article has appeared in numerous newspaper articles.

References

External links

• Muncey Massacre Set on Flickr