| Notes |
- This is not expressly about Albert Thomas, (he is mentioned once) but is a wonderful description of life in his time and place:
From: mae2002@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 9:27 PM
Source: TXLLANO-L@rootsweb.com
Hi Karolyn, I just found some more info on Delcina and Porter Kimball. This is a story my great aunt wrote way back in the 60's for a feature in some magazine called True West, J. Marvin Hunter. Porter Kimball was born in 1834 in Tennessee; came to the area that was later Brewster County, when the only settlement was Fort Pena (now the post south of Marathon). Only nineteen at the time, he was a government scout, employed to help guard a wagon train against Indian attack. The train was hauling supplies and taking the payroll to U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Leaton on the Rio Grande. The train camped for a night at Fort Pena then headed southwest over the southernmost branch of the Chihuahua Trail. In spite of precautions Indians attacked the train at the crossing on the Maravillas Creek about dusk. (This was 1853). The wagons pressed on towards Del Norte Gap, while the battle between the men and savages lasted far into the night. Two wagons were captured and burned; the payroll was lost; the balance of the train escaped and went off to Fort Leaton.
Delcina Elzira Davis was born in Bluffton, Texas in 1848. She and Porter Kimball were married in 1871 and went to Williamson Co. to live. Their first child Gertrude, was born a year later in Georgetown, Texas. The Kimball's moved to Burnet Co. to live until 1885. During this time four more children were born; Nathan (Bud), Sam, William Alvis, Mary Virginia (Jenny). Porter Kimball engaged in freighting and in raising race horses. In 1885 the Kimball's moved to Bandera, Texas, a beautiful place, settled by Mormons on the Medina River in 1850. Porter Kimball continued freighting goods from San Angelo to the settlers in the region where Ozona and Juno were later established. He had eight big wagons; two were tied together and pulled by eight mules. He hired one man to drive and let his older sons (from his first marriage) help him with the other wagons. Porter had been married at an earlier age and had a grandson about the same age as his oldest child, Gertrude, who probably helped him quite a bit. This grandson died when they moved to the Old Hargus Place near Marathon. He died of typhoid pneumonia. The Kimball's freight outfit was a wholesale house on wheels, since he bought supplies and sold to storekeepers on his route. The supplies consisted mainly of staples; brown sugar, flour made from whole ground wheat, molasses, cured bacon, beans, salt, coffee beans, dried fruits such as prunes, peaches, apricots, and apples. Sugar, flour, bacon and molasses came in wooden barrels. The prices were sugar at $2.50 per barrel, $1.50 for barrel of flour. The coffee had to be ground by the user, but every household owned a small hand cranked coffee mill. Kimball would load his wagons in San Angelo and drive to his home in Bandera and unload a two week supply of groceries to his family. For the children there was usually a wooden bucket full of candy. (Cream candy, hard rock candy, pink and white candy strung on a string). The two week supply cost about $10. Another son, John, and two daughters, Nellie and Katie were born in Bandera.
When Crockett County was organized, Porter Kimball moved his family to the county seat, Ozona. Frankie and Addie were born here. (Between these births Gertrude married Joseph Moss. Kimball continued freighting over the San Angelo-Ozona-Juno route. He raised and trained race horses; one race at Sonora, his fleet little mare, named Nellie, won against a horse named Bill Ike Babb!
In 1894, Porter Kimball decided to move his family and freight outfit to New Mexico. Travelling west they passed throught Odessa, which had about twenty houses, and Midland, with about five hundred houses. Both towns had numerous windmills as did the surrounding ranch country. Aunt Nell said that Porter, her father, hauled the first windmills to Midland, Texas. From there the wagons creaked slowly over the road until they reached the Sacramento Mountains. A permanent camp was made. Kimball freighted between Carrizo, New Mexico and White Oaks. During the severest weather that winter the family was isolated from the few neighbors and freighting ceased, because wagon travel was impossible in the snow.
Some of the older boys tied a big iron wash pot to a saddle horn and drug it through the snow to open up a narrow trail to the nearest neighbors. The mules and horses almost starved because the grass was covered with snow.
One winter was enough for Porter Kimball, who headed back to Texas as soon as spring came. The Kimball's reached Alpine early in the summer, camped at the entrance to Sunny Glen, and spent the next four months putting up hay for A.T. Winder, who ranched there. The gramma grass was thick and tall.There were no catclaw bushes, so hay making was easy. In the autumn, Joseph Moss and Gertrude Kimball Moss came through on the way to the Chisos Mtns. in what is now Big Bend Nat'l Park. Nathan (Bud) joined them and the rest of the family agreed to follow them later. They started out about the first of November, went east of Santiago Peak, then through Persimmon Gap to Bone Springs. From here they followed a route marked out with Spanish Dagger blades and white string tied to bushes. The Kimball's and Moss' made their camp at the foot of Pulliam Bluff on the north side of the Chisos Mtns. Later, their campsite was Moss Well. Bud and Sam decided to join Tom and Steve Dawson on a trip up into the Chisos Mtns. There were so many panthers in the mountains that Porter Kimball was afraid to let the boys ride mules. The boys decided to go on foot. Each had his own blanket and provisions. High in the Chisos they found tepee poles, still tied together, and three old ponies, a sorrel, a grey and a pinto, probably Indian horses. The boys reached the summit of Emory Peak and were some of the first white men to view the surrounding wild region from that lofty site.
Wild, unbranded cattle, possibly strays from the old G-4 outfit, were in the foothills of the Chisos Mtns, game was plentiful. In December the Mosses left to return to their home in Ozona. Porter Kimball accompanied them as far as Marathon and Alpine; he brought a load of deer hams to town and sold them for twenty five cents each. After buying groceries and Christmas things for the children, he went back to the camp and spent the winter north of Pulliam Bluff.
In the spring the Kimball's moved down to the Rio Grande, at the point where the river makes its southernmost bend, and Porter and the boys cleared lowlands in preparation for farming. While burning brush and river cane, they saw several gray-green rattlesnakes, trying to crawl into holes and get away from the fire. With the tools on hand, they were unable to bring the river water up onto the land for irrigation. Abandoning the place, the Kimball's came back to Marathon then and took up land west of this town in what was later the Decie and Hargus ranches. Porter traded his race horses for more mules and took jobs building fences for ranchers. He also hauled and sold wood in Marathon for $5.50 a load.
The last child, Alice Lucille, was born on this ranch. There, too, the children contracted scarlet fever. One of them, Frankie, died. In 1902 Porter Kimball sold his ranch and moved to Deming, New Mexico. Later on members of the family came back to Marathon. Some married there, and spent their entire lives in the area; others drifted away to New Mexico, California, and etc. Porter Kimball died and was buried in Deming, New Mexico; Delcina Elzira was buried in Marathon, Texas.
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1862 - 1904 (41 years)
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