This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/5U.2ADI/2984.5.1.1 Message Board Post: Mike, Sorry. I must have misinterpreted your original message. One of the people buried at Falling Springs Cem. is Abraham Hood Onstott, Jr. His story (written by him) is as follows: I was born in Pike County, Missouri, on Spencer's Creek, fourteen miles from Bowling Green, July 20, 1828. When 5 years old in 1833 (the year the stars fell), my parents moved to southwestern Missouri to what is now Jasper County and settle on Casper Creek, five miles south of the present town of Carthage. We found plenty of game and fish there. The Osage Indians were there in large numbers, and very few white settlers. Our bread was corn mashed in a mortar. It was forty miles to the nearest mill. I received a common education in a log schoolhouse. When 17 I joined the Freewill Baptists. In those days we had fine camp meetings. In the spring of 1846 I came to Texas in a company of emigrants in an ox wagon crossing the Arkansas river at Fort Smith, went through the Choctaw Nation and crossed Red River at old Warren on June 1. It was a wild country at that time and abounded in wild game, buffalo, etc. There were a great many Indians too, and we had to be continually on the alert. When I reached Dallas I found two log cabins, in one of which lived a Mr. Smith and a Mr. Patterson. They had a small stock of goods in the other cabin, which was a trading post. They had dealings with the Delaware Indians and the few white settlers living there at that time. I crossed the river and went over the Lonely Prairie encountering wolves all along until I reached the Brazos river below the falls at Moseley's ferry; thence to the Colorado river and on to Victoria on the Guadalupe river, and on by Ward and Fannin's battleground to the place where the massacre occurred. Thence I went across to the San Antonio river from the present town of Goliad; from there to San Antonio and joined Capt. William G. Crumps Company, P. H. Bell's Regiment, Texas Volunteer Cavalry to go to Mexico. That was my first experience among the Mexicans. I was in the storming of the Black Fort at Monterey, under Gen. Zachery Taylor. It was a trying time. We lost some good men there. One of the officers, Capt. Walker, was killed by a Mexican from an adobe house as we charged the town after taking the fort. I could see white flags funning up all over the city. Part of our regiment was detailed to escort Capt. Walker's remains back to the Alamo for burial. We were stati! oned on the boarder of Medina river, southwest of San Antonio. We had a battle with the Indians near the Rio Grande, which lasted nine hours. We lost five brave men, whom we buried on the lonely prairie. We had several fights with the Mexican guerrillas and lancers; these experiences were trying on our boy's nerves. I was in another fight where we were ordered to charge, and as I charged an old buck threw his tomahawk and just missed my head and grabbed me by the leg, trying to pull me from my horse. It took some hard kicks to knock him loose; that is what I call a close call. We killed several of the Indians and three of our men were wounded. We captured a band of horses; and talk about brave men--the Kiowa and Commanche Indians were among the bravest. We had several other conflicts with the Indians and the border Mexicans and lost some good men. When peace was made we were mustered out and discharged at San Antonio, and separated. I came back to Dallas and went into partnership with one Charles Turner of Dallas, later of Fort Worth, to import mares and mules from Old Mexico to Texas. It was a risky thing to go into Mexico at that time on account of Mexican guerrillias, but we made three trips and came out alright. We gave $6 for picked mares and $22 for picked mules. We crossed the Rio Grande at Matamoros with stock. On our last trip we had trouble with the Mexicans on the plains but came out all right. In 1853 while peddling horses through the state, I met a beautiful young lady by the name of Amelia Farber, and married her the same year near Greenville, Hunt Country, Tex. We settled on a farm near the present town of Alvarado which town I named. In 1854 Johnson County was organized. I was selected sheriff. The first court was convened under a clump of trees on Buffalo Creek near the present town of Cleburn. David Mitchell was the county Judge and Parson Easterwood was County Clerk, Drew Kinnard was one of the County Commissioners. We located the country seat on Nolan River and named it Wardsville. It was afterward moved to Buchanan, six miles northwest of Cleburne. When the trouble came up between the States and Texas seceded I joined the Southern cause and enlisted in the Confederate Army for three years, or during the war. I was in Capt. H. G. Bruce's Company H. Col. T. C. Bass's Regiment, Twentieth Texas Cavalry. Then we marched off leaving our loved ones, not knowing whether we would ever see the again in this life. Some of our company never lived to return. No one knows the horrors of a war except those who go through a four year war such as the Civil War between the States, where it was brother against brother and father against son. We marched to Missouri in time to be in several hard fought battles--Carthage, Newtonia, Pea Rige and other fights. I had several close calls; was in places where I believe if my head had been over on either shoulder it would have been shot off, for the heat of the bullets would burn my ears. We were dismounted four miles below Van Buren on the Arkansas River, just before the Prairie Grove battle, and went into camp on the Missard prairie, living on half rations. On the 4th of December, 1862, we started on the march north as webfoots, and on the 6th we waded Cove Creek thirty odd times during the day and night on a forced march, and on the 7th, early in the morning, went into the battle of Prairie Grove. There the men fell thick and fast, leaving their brave wives at home to care for the little ones alone. Women wove and spun cloth and kept us clothed for four years with heavy jeans suits for winter. The detailed men who were sent home after these clothes reported that the Southern women were faithful to the Southern cause. They saw some hard times as well as the men in the battle. My dea! r wife clothed me through the entire war. After the battle of Prairie Grove we retreated to Fort Smith. I was in several other fights. In one battle at Elk Creek, in the Creek Nation, which is called the "Honey Spring fight," we faught ten to one, and my Captain and first Lieutenant and most of the company were taken prisoners, but I got out by sheer running under heavy fire for about a hundred and fifty yards. This is the only time I ever was scratched by a bullet in all my close calls. That was on July 17, 1863. At last when the was all over I was glad to go home to meet my dear wife and little ones at my cabin door all in good health. It was a happy day, but what a sad thought to remember so many homes where no man came back to embrace his loved ones. Arriving home at dawn at Bedrock with a wife and five children, but thanks to God for having that much. We had eleven children born to us; tow died in infancy and the rest have families of their own. The married ones are four sons and five daughters; the two oldest live in Arkansas, three live in Oklahoma, two in Washington, one in Oregon, and one in Colorado, while wife and I live alone on a little forty-acre farm in the hills of Spavinaw in Benton Country, Arkansas, and if we live until Sept. 9 we will have been living together sixty years. I am 85 and she is 76. ABRAHAM H. ONSTOTT, Jr. Route 2 Decatur, Ark.