JAMES ALLEN & NANCY TEMPLE

JAMES ALLEN TEMPLE AND NANCY ANN KING OATES TEMPLE THIS IS OUR GREAT GRANDPA & GRANDMA TEMPLE. MATTIE JANE (TEMPLE) (CURE) SNELL's (My Grandmother) AND  SISTERS Left to right (Bertha Sophonia,  Millie Catherine, Anna Rose, and Dona Zelma) Bertha married Alvin Parker,  Minnie married James Benjamin Hardin,  Anna married Mark Pipkin and Dona married Solley Cox   Not shown in picture with James and Nancy Ann Temple.   Their oldest daughter Mattie Jane married 1st Richard McClure Cure and 2nd James Snell Mattie had left home when this was taken Mattie and Richard had 1 child Jeanita Ruth. As the story goes Jeanita (Cure) Griffin was home alone with Anna Rose when Anna died in Sep 1901. Jeanita was 3 years old.  Jeanita was trying to get Anna Rose a drink of water at the time.  Jeanita lost her father also Nov 1901.  She lived with her grandparents after her father's death while Mattie worked for ranchers in the area. Others descendants of James Allen Temple not shown are: Sarah Ellizabeth Temple, John Byston Temple (John married Richard Cure's (my grandfather) sister Ninetta I. Cure, Mary Temple, Millie Augusting Temple. James's 1st wife was Peneia Henshaw, 2nd wife was Hannah Dorcas Miller and 3rd was Nancy Ann King Oats born 8 August, 1841 in Mississippi.  Died July 14, 1942 in Austin Texas.  Buried in Brady, Texas

Amanda Hinshaw died Aug 20 1866, Duffer Ranch, near Ranger, Eastland County, Texas; buried Alameda Cemetery, Ranger, Texas.^102,a    Amanda was brutally murdered by Indians during a raid on the Duffer Ranch.   A historical marker is in Alameda Cemetery, Eastland County, Texas

This is a story I grew up hearing from my Grandmother Mattie Jane (Temple) (Cure) Snell and my mother Jeanita Ruth Cure Griffin. Their account of the information was no more than she had been killed by Indians. . The account below in summation, is a different thought on a faithful day in  August of 1866.  I suppose the story I was told was the way Grandmother and Mother  heard it handed down over the years.   

Lewis Coffer was married to Amanda Hinshaw. Amanda's sister was Penina Hinshaw who was married to James Allen Temple's * brother John Dixon Temple. John was married to Margaret Hinshaw also a sister to Amanda.
Lewis had been very sick with a fever for about four weeks, and was now confined to his bed. All the housework and outside chores fell onto Amanda. Certain of the relatives and friends would come to sit with them at night, because there were still small bands of marauding Comanche Indians in the area. Their main activity was stealing horses, but they were quick to kill people if they got a chance.

On the evening of the 20th, right before dark, they got that chance. Amanda left the house by herself before the "sitters" arrived, and she went about 400 yards away, down into a ravine. She had staked out a filly there, because the grass was good, and it could be watched from the house. As she approached the filly, she was surprised and captured by Comanche Indians, who were in the process of stealing the horse. We do not know how many Indians were involved. Before she had left the house, however, she had strapped on Lewis's Navy revolver, for protection. As the Indians approached her, she fired five shots at them. Whether any of them were hit, we do not know. The pistol was taken from her, and she was placed behind an Indian on a horse, and they all quickly left, leading the filly.

In the meantime, a brother-in-law, Jim Temple, the husband of Amanda's sister, Penina, had come to sit with Lewis. It was then that he heard the shots and screams, and rushed to her rescue, only to become a witness to her murder. It should be assumed that he also brought his wife to the Cofer house, because he certainly had with him his four year old daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, later to become Mrs. Stephen Wade Worrell. She recalled, on many occasions, seeing her daddy bring in the lifeless body of Amanda on his horse, and seeing her brains running out of her head. Also present that day at the house was F. M. (Frank) Cadenhead, husband of Jim's sister, Mary Jane. It is not known if Mary Jane was present, for she had 15 days earlier given birth to her first child, a daughter they named Mary Josephine, born August 5, 1866. She was my grandmother. Frank Cadenhead later told many people how he remembered Jim Temple bringing in Amanda across his horse, and how her brains ran out of her head. My grandfather, Samuel, always told of his mother being scalped. However, Lewis Coffer makes no mention of Amanda having been scalped, nor does he say anything about her having been shot with arrows. Given the time element, and the haste of the Indians in getting away from Jim Temple, and the fact that she was shot with a large caliber revolver, doesn't it sound logical that she was shot in the head, causing severe damage, and not scalped at all?

A coffin was fashioned out of wood from an old wagon bed. Why, in those days, they waited three days before burying Amanda, we don't know, unless it had something to do with the health of Lewis, who was very sick. At any rate, she was buried on a grassy knoll near their house on August 24, 1866. This was the site of an old Comanche camp, and it later became the Alameda Cemetery. A historical marker is in Alameda Cemetery, Eastland County, Texas.

* James Allen "Jim" Temple was an Indian fighter and served with the "Minute Men Company" under P.C. "Sing" Gilbert.