“Louisa Naomi Kent Billings” Pt. 4
Feb 11, 2022
“The Journey Begins Again”
Leaving Texas and her established home in Green DeWitt would not have been especially difficult considering all of the tragedy surrounding their life there on the La Vaca River. While on the other hand, twenty years in one place, learning, living and loving, as well as accumulating life’s necessaries may cause even a hard nose like me or you to look back with tears in our eyes as we close another chapter in the struggles of the times.
I want us to consider something that you wouldn’t want me to leave out of the story, especially for all of the treasure hunters out there. It is said that at the vicious encounter with Santa Anna at the Alamo, before the families fled from their homes in the ‘Runaway Scrape”, that they burned their homes and anything else that may have been of use to Santa Anna, except that they buried certain items in the ground, intending to retrieve those items later on their return. It is also said that the items were never recovered and could be assumed that they are still buried waiting for the Kent family to return and recover them. So, are they still there? That’s all part of the tangible intrigue of the story.
It was told to me by another source that on much of the trip the remaining Kent family, and of course Louisa who is now a Billings, walked. I guess I am not too surprised at that, considering that it was not unusual for the wife and kids to walk along beside the freight wagon that was carrying all of their worldly possessions. It would surely be a slow trip, as draft horses were not made for speed and the pace would have to accommodate the walking family. But, I bet from time to time the walkers would take a turn riding on the bench seat next to Jim Billings, Louisa’s new husband.
Besides the turmoil left by the tragedy of the Alamo, there was another villain lurking around, much less visible while just as deadly, Malaria. The low lands of south Texas, and especially areas along the streams such as the La Vaca River mosquitoes were prolific. Sometimes their sting was just a nuisance, but many times it resulted with the dreaded disease, Malaria. The symptom were much like the regular flu, except that without Quinine during the 1800’s, your chances were slim. For example, of the seriousness of disease in the olden days, throughout the course of the Revolutionary war, an estimated 6,800 Americans were killed in action, 6,100 wounded, and upwards of 20,000 were taken prisoner. Historians believe that at least an additional 17,000 deaths were the result of diseases such as Smallpox, Malaria and Dysentery. Given the close-quarters environment of army encampments, any one of these sicknesses could spread rapidly throughout a camp.
So the Kent’s, and now the Billing’s family of two, decided it to be prudent to move out of the lowlands of south Texas to the elevated country in Gillespie County. The move was consummated around eighteen fifty.
Joyfully, the families left the plague of malaria behind, but were now confronted with a new issue that could be just as lethal.
The Comanche Indians were the families next plague, although the 1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek, the last treaty made with the Comanches, established a reservation for the Comanches, Kiowas, and Kiowa Apaches in southwestern Indian Territory.
Of those, the most remote, primitive, and irredeemably hostile were a band of Comanches known as the Quahadis. Like all Plains Indians, they were nomadic. They hunted primarily the southernmost part of the high plains, right in the area our families moved into to escape the deadly malaria.
One of probably many encounters with the marauding Comanches happened at the very end of January in 1863. James, usually known as Jim, Louisa's husband, and their son John, not their youngest son, but heck, he would have been thirteen by then, not a man, but expected to do man size chores by then, went down to nearby Grape Creek to check on their hogs. While they were there they were set upon by a band of Comanches. James was shot full of arrows, then scalped and killed. John was shot through the cheek by a not perfectly aimed arrow, which passing through knocked out several teeth. He was also shot several more times. Fortunately, John had a recent hair cut and his hair was still too short to grasp as the Comanches would have needed to do to pull his head up to execute the scalping. So they left him for dead, or to die, and road away with James’ scalp hang proudly from a spear. John eventually was able to drag himself to a neighbor’s house and recovered from the incident. Naturally, because of the death of his father and probably for the loss of his teeth, John forever held deep animosity towards Indians. Although, later he would say things like, “Maybe it wasn't Indians after all, but Union sympathizers in disguise. But, as for me, considering the time and place that they were in Gillespie County, and considering the Comanches were fighting to retain their homeland, it was probably real Indians.
Jim was buried there in Gillespie County, Louisa Naomi was learning to endure a new life struggle – Life without a husband.
