: Early Days in Fort Worth Much of Which I saw and Part of Which I Was by Paddock B B Buckley B - Frontier and pioneer life Texas Fort Worth; Fort Worth (Tex.) History; Fort Worth (Tex.) Biography

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This 2010 facsimile of the rare first edition is limited to 300 copies. B.B. Paddock created this work just after 1900, perhaps 1905 or 1906. It provides early Fort Worth history and is a necessity for a Fort Worth collection.

Albert L. Peters Bookseller P.O. Box 136814 Fort Worth, TX 76136

E-Mail: petersfortworth@aol.com

I purpose writing a brief history of Fort Worth from the time of its selection as a military post down to the time within the memory of men now living, who may be interested in the struggles and sacrifices made by those who laid the foundation of the City. I purpose giving somewhat in detail the work of these patriotic, public-spirited men to whom the present citizenship of the City owe so much.

I am inspired to do this for the reason that so much credit is given by the uninformed to men to whom no credit is due and so much is withheld from those who bore the burden and heat of the day in times that tried men's souls, and to whom no sacrifice was too great, no demand upon their time or purse too much, if it could be shown that Fort Worth was to derive a benefit from the expenditure of time or money. The good that men do should live after them. But men should not have the credit for deeds done in the body when the deeds were never performed. Obituary notices are useful as examples to the living, but to be useful they should be true. Men should not be given credit, even though it may make pleasant reading to the families of the deceased, for things they did not do and perhaps had not the means of doing, no matter how willing they may have been.

In the early days of this city there was among its citizenship a coterie of men, the like of which were never found in any other community. Their first and only thought was for the upbuilding of the city. Some of these men are still living, but most of them have gone to their reward. It is greatly to be regretted that all could not have lived to see the culmination of their efforts and to participate in the prosperity which they helped to bring to the city.

In what follows there shall be found "nothing extenuate, nor aught set down in malice." It will be "an o'er true tale" as I saw it I do not hope that this little volume will be complete but that it may serve as a foundation for some future historian to erect a structure as voluminous and veracious as Gibbon's Rome or Hume and Smollett's England. As far as it goes it may be regarded more authentic and reliable than Knickerbocker's History of New York.

FIRST SETTLEMENT OF FORT WORTH.

At the close of the war with Mexico, General Winfield Scott sent a troop of the Second Dragoons in command of Major Ripley A. Arnold to North Texas to establish a post to protect the then sparsely settled territory from the forays of the Indians which then inhabited this section.

Major Arnold selected this as the most central point for this purpose.

The post was first called Camp Worth in honor of Brigadier General William Jennings Worth. It was established on the sixth day of June, 1849. On November 14th, 1849, the name was changed to Fort Worth, and it was abandoned on the 17th day of September, 1853, and the troops stationed here were sent to Fort Belknap, about a mile from the present site of the town of Belknap. There was never a fort at this point and the only buildings were the barracks at the head of and a little west of Houston street.

The first settlement in the county of any magnitude grew up about the military post and on its abandonment the buildings were used as stores by those who had settled near the post. Among those who were in business here were Col. Abe Harris, who at this writing still lives in the city, the late James F. Ellis and G. P. Farmer who subsequently located a farm about twelve miles south of the city.

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