12/18/1860: Texas Rangers "rescue" Cynthia Ann Parker

[Craig Tx]

On this day in 1860, Texas Rangers under the command of Lawrence S. Ross attacked a Comanche hunting camp at Mule Creek.

During this raid the rangers were surprised to find that one of their captives had blue eyes; it was a non-English-speaking white woman with her infant daughter. She was Cynthia Ann Parker, captured by Comanche warriors on May 19, 1836, at Fort Parker in Limestone County. She was with the Indians for almost twenty-five years and had become thoroughly assimilated to Comanche life. After her "rescue" she was never reconciled to living in white society and made several unsuccessful attempts to flee to her Comanche family. After three months at Birdville, her brother Silas took her to his Van Zandt County home. She afterward moved to her sister's place near the boundary of Anderson and Henderson counties. She died there, probably after 1870. Her son Quanah, a noted Comanche chief, later moved her body to Post Oak Cemetery, near Cache, Oklahoma. After his death her body was again reinterred near him at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.