Mayes notes

From The Trail Drivers of Texas, page 187

In 1871 I went up the trail with T. B. Miller and Bill Mayes. We crossed at Red River Station and arrived at Newton, Kansas, about the time the railroad reached there. Newton was one of the worst towns I ever saw, every element of meanness on earth seemed to be there. While in that burg I saw several men killed, one of them, I think, was Jim Martin from Helena, Karnes County.

From The Trail Drivers of Texas, page 943

CAME TO TEXAS IN 1838
Mrs. H. C. Mayes, Carlsbad, Texas

My father, William Rodney Baker, moved from Terre Haute, Indiana, to Austin, Texas, in 1838. I was then six weeks old. My brother, Nelson Baker, was the first white child born in Austin. Father moved from Austin to a place ten miles south of the village on Onion Creek. On February 1, 1842, father and my uncle, Silas Sherman, 17 years old, went out after the milk cows and never came back. Next morning they were found dead and scalped by Indians. They had cut out father’s heart and badly mutilated his body. From the signs found there a desperate battle had taken place. Broken arrows were scattered about, the bark knocked off trees, and father’s gun barrel was bent, showing that he had used it as a club against his foes after he had exhausted his supply of ammunition.

I am now eighty-four years old, and have lived in Texas all of my life. My husband, Hollen C. Mayes, came to Texas in 1850. He was in the Ranger service, and also served through the Civil War in the Confederate Army. He died August 5th, 1921, in his 86th year. We raised eight children, six boys and two girls.