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Frank Lemos/Art Illustration A Matamoros newspaper ad from 1847 shows improvements of 1844, 1845, and 1846 made to Colt's repeating pistol.

The first Texas Rangers in the 1830s used muzzle-loading rifles. In Indian fights, they had to dismount to aim and reload. A charging warrior could shoot off half a dozen arrows in the time it took to reload a cap-and-ball rifle.

Walter Prescott Webb wrote that the Rangers and Indian fighters "would discharge their rifles, then mount, and go in pursuit. At most they had only two shots each, and these were soon spent. In the meantime, the Indian could discharge his arrow from a running horse, and as soon as his adversary's guns were empty could turn upon him with arrows and spears. Texas needed a new weapon. The man who supplied that weapon was a Connecticut Yankee named Samuel Colt."

Colt patented his practical repeating firearm -- Colt's Patent Revolver -- in 1836, but it didn't appear in Texas in any numbers until about 1839. Most accounts say the first use of the Colts in an Indian battle took place on the Pedernales River north of Seguin in 1842 in a fight between Jack Hays' Rangers and Comanches. But was the battle on the Pedernales the first use of the Colts in fighting Indians in Texas? A.J. Sowell in "Texas Indian Fighters" wrote that the first use came in a battle near Corpus Christi the year before, in 1841.

Sowell noted that Hays and 12 of his men ran into 75 Comanche warriors near Corpus Christi. A fight ensued in which some 30 Indians were killed or wounded. This victory, wrote Sowell, was due to the use of Colt's revolvers that the Texans used for the first time, to the great astonishment of the Indians.

The usual Indian tactics in such a fight were described in another battle on the outskirts of Corpus Christi, this one in 1844. The town was hit by Comanche warriors on a horse-stealing raid. The Indians took some horses, but were hotly pursued by town residents. They chased the Comanches to an area west of town (near where the airport is today). Both sides dismounted for a fight.

At this point, the Indian chief rode to the front, holding up his shield of tough buffalo hide, and yelling insults at the Texans. The Texans fired repeatedly at him, but their bullets were stopped by the rawhide shield, said to be as tough as iron. The chief's taunting antics were meant to draw the fire of the Texans and then, before they could reload, the warriors would charge. But this tactic would no longer work, as the Indians soon learned, after the appearance of Colt revolvers.

Whether on the Pedernales or near Corpus Christi, Colt's Patent Revolvers made a revolution on the frontier. Maj. W.W. Chapman, an Army quartermaster who first came to Corpus Christi with Zachary Taylor and again in the early 1850s, was one of the original distributors of Colt firearms in South Texas.

There's another local connection to Samuel Colt. In 1856, he and his brother bought 14,000 acres on the Lamar Peninsula and Goose Island with plans to engage in land speculation. The Civil War intervened, then Samuel Colt died in 1862.

Last 'Indian' slaying

In frontier times Indians were often blamed for crimes they didn't commit. There was a killing near Corpus Christi in 1850 that was blamed on Comanches, but they probably had nothing to do with it.

A mile and a half west of Portland on the Nueces Bay front was a natural spring known as Doyle's Watering Hole. It got its name from a tragic shooting. A boy named James Doyle was given a gun for his 16th birthday. He and a friend took the gun and crossed over the reef to the Portland side. At the spring they were surprised by Indians, the story was told, and Doyle dropped his gun and ran. The friend hid in some bushes. The Indians, it was said, picked up Doyle's gun and shot him to death. His companion witnessed the slaying from his hiding place. After the Indians left, he crossed back over the reef and spread the alarm.

Rosalie Hart Priour wrote that she never hoped to witness such distress and grief as that at the funeral of young Doyle. His death "came near killing his mother; she seemed to reproach herself for as long as she lived for buying him the gun. This was the last person killed by Indians in the immediate vicinity of Corpus Christi."

But were Indians responsible? Ranger "Rip" Ford was in Corpus Christi at the time of the shooting. His account of the incident is told in "Rip Ford's Texas." Ford was in town on business and he gathered a few of Capt. John J. Grumbles' company of Rangers and a few of his own, and made an effort to follow the murderers. But Ford found that it was impossible to discover the trail. "If the act had been committed by Indians, they were on foot and left no visible tracks."

What Rip Ford didn't say says a lot. Reading between the lines, it's likely Doyle was killed in an accident or an argument and the blame put on non-existent Indians.

Murphy Givens is Viewpoints Editor of the Caller-Times. Phone: 886-4315; e-mail: givensm@caller.com.

(3) User Comments:

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Posted by 328048 on December 12, 2007 at 3:48 p.m.

I look forward to the Wednesday paper to read your columns, and enjoy them very much. For many years I cut them out and put them in a scrap book for future reference, but I missed many of them.
1. Are you ever going to put them all in a book for public purchase?
2. How can I go about going back to the beginning of your series on the CT web site to read and or copy the ones I've missed?
Thanks
Tom Stewart

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Posted by 452435 on December 14, 2007 at 8:27 a.m.

It sure is nice to read about some interesting history. I get tired of reading all the negative politics and violance in the varios media. I feel like I learned someting worth repeating from this article.
Good job. A well written article.

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Posted by 237151 on December 14, 2007 at 10:45 a.m.

During the late 40's my cub scout pack went on a field trip to Lamar. The "old" man conducting the excursion pointed out the spot where Sam Colt had a shop or barn. As I recall, he said the first Colt revolver was made there. Seems not to be the exact truth but I wonder if Colt might have perfected a later model here. I've always wanted to explore the area for possible artifacts.
Keep up the fine reporting...Phil