Mrs. Sallie Patterson Met with Tragedy in Her Pioneering Days in Texas
by Effie Martin - Pearsall, Texas, 28 June 1930contributed by Joanne Clinton Truman
Sallie Moore Ketchum was born 23 November 1838 in Lowndes County, Mississippi and died in 1932 in Pearsall, Frio County, Texas. She was the daughter of EMILY LINCECUM and DANIEL BOONE MOORE. The article is from the San Antonio Express, 29 June 1930.
Mrs. PATTERSON has spent many years on the frontier of Texas, and today is remarkably active. She often cooks dinner for the family, feeds the chickens and does many other chores about the place.
In relating her life story to the writer, she said, "I was born in Lowndes County, Mississippi, Nov. 23, 1838. My father was DANIEL BOONE MOORE and my mother's maiden name was EMILY LINCCUM. I came to Long Point, Washington County, Texas, with my parents in 1851, where we lived for one year, and then came to St. Mark's River near Lockhart, where we lived for six years. There my father entered the cattle business. In 1855 we moved to Hondo, Medina County, where we lived in a camp. Most, then, lived in tents and picket houses. Here we all enjoyed life and had a good time for a while."
"In 1857 I met P. R. KETCHUM who came from Illinois. He and I became "sweethearts." We were married Dec 31, 1857. We moved to a point between Seguin and Prairie Lea, where we lived for a year, after which we moved near Luling, and stayed there until our first child was born. We named him CHESTER VAN BUREN."
"When war broke out in 1861, the Indians began to make raids. The first people I remember to be killed by the Indians were some sheep herders."
"The Indians killed HENRY and CUDE ADAMS, brothers, who lived in Elm Slough, Medina County. They scalped CUDE, but HENRY was not scalped, however he was shot several times with arrows."
"One day my husband, Mr. KETCHUM, left the camp without a weapon of any kind, and the Indians ran him into a thicket and shot him five times with arrows. Not being satisfied, they ran a lance through his body, scalped him and struck him in the head with a tomahawk. After which they cut off his nose, skinned off his whiskers, stripped him of all his clothes, and then left him lying in the woods. Two men and a boy brought him home. He was the most horrible sight I ever beheld."
"My first child "TOBBY" at the age of five years was bitten on the main artery of the right leg by a rattlesnake while we were spending the day at a neighbors. I sucked out the poison, as the nearest doctor lived 15 miles away. The child died before daylight the next day."
I was married a second time to D. J. PATTERSON in 1872. We lived for two years near Castroville on the Chicon River. At this time the Indians were still making raids. Later we moved to the Big Foot territory in Frio County. Later we moved to Pearsall. Mr. PATTERSON died in July 1918."