In a message dated 01/10/2002 9:50:33 PM Central Standard Time, Gacrowell@aol.com writes: > I don't have a map > in front of me, but I wonder if that might have been a route from East > Texas > up to Tennessee. > > Hi Gwenetta, Carthage is south east of Van Zandt County in Texas. To go to Tennessee by going to Carthage first would be out of the way; but they may well have done this because of a reason we have no knowledge of: they may have gone to Carthage to pick up someone who was also going to Tennessee and would be a traveling companion. Ordinarily I would not think they would go to Carthage and then to Tennessee from Van Zandt County. I tried to find ANY organized Indian attacks east of a line passing through Dallas in the latter half of the 19th century and there are none on record. In the 1870s in Texas there was still a lot of "hard feelings" over the Civil War and there were renegades, etc., hanging around committing crimes. Van Zandt had seceded from the State of Texas during the civil war and was a hotbed of trouble. It was at one time, during the civil war, calling itself, The Free State of Van Zandt. Gordon Hale Grand Prairie, Texas