Birdwatcher;This account is wrong.Somebody made a mistake in confusing the "Salt Creek Massacre" and a completely different battle which occurred at a different time and at least twenty miles apart.
I posted on here years ago about how four of us boys were horseback in the mid-fifties and found a marker placed in 1898 to mark the Salt Creek Massacre.It is in North Young County,roughly halfway between OLNEY and Jean and on the N side of SH 114.There is a historical marker there now [thanks to our find].
Artemus Nash , an old neighbor who was born in the mid-'eighties IIRC told us the details of the fight.It was a party of civilians from Ft.Belknap who had gone up Salt Creek to get salt.When attacked by Indians[don't know which tribe] they made a dash for the little rise where we found the marker.One young man on a small mare got so excited he kicked the wind out of her and one of the others came back and got him.
Two or three were killed but they kept that fact hidden from the Indians who eventually gave up.
The marker-about 40 inches high I estimate from memory- had not much information but it did have the names of all the party,about 20 in number.
One of the names was"[bleep] Brit".As far as I know, the small marker is still there , on private land.
The teamsters were traveling from Ft.Richardson in Jack County [not Weatherford] hauling fodder to Ft.Griffin , by way of Ft.Belknap.Again, a couple of us who were quail hunting found the monument [actually, I had a real good young pointer gyp who "honored" it, it being more or less white in color]which was placed at the actual site.
The monument gives the info I related and says the teamsters were "killed by Indians led by Satank,Santana, and Big Tree.I do not believe the teamsters were buried at the site.
This spot is South of Loving Tx about six miles.You could say it is four miles East of FLINT CREEK [not Salt Creek as your account says].There is a historical marker beside SH 16 but the actual monument is about 2 miles East of that on private property.
The three chiefs mentioned were captured and taken to Jacksboro for trial.
Now, to add to the mystery: In the novel I mentioned earlier,The Black Fox,Brit is killed in the manner and place laid out in YOUR account!But he is freighting from Weatherford to Ft Belknap , not Ft.Griffin.
If you look at the Frontier Forts stretching from Ft Worth to Ft Davis,it would not make sense to freight from Weatherford to Ft Griffin.That would require at least two , and maybe three days.Richardson to Belknap is a day's travel by wagon.Then Griffin one more day.Then Ft Phantom Hill one more day.
That was the reason the Forts were spaced as they were.
I'm sure there are correct accounts of all this that would agree with what I've posted, but I've seen magazine articles that obviously used your source and makes the same mistakes.
I wish someone would straighten it out.
