BIRD'S FORT

BIBD'S FORT

From: History of Dallas County Texas , 1837 to 1887 by John Henry Brown

In the fall and winter of 1840-41 the fort, since known
as Bird's Fort, about twenty-two miles westerly from Dallas,
on the north side of the Main or West fork of the Trinity,
was built by a company of three months Rangers, under
Capt. John Bird, all residents of Bowie and Red River counties.
They soon returned home and left the post unoccupied.
Not far from the same time, but the precise date is unknown,
Robert Sloan, in command of a detachment from a company
of "minute" men in Red River county, made a hasty scout
through this country, and while here one of the men, named
David Clubb, formerly of Illinois and a soldier in the Black
Hawk war of 1832, was killed by Indians at a small lake on
the Elm fork of the Trinity, a short distance above its mouth
and below the Keenan crossing.

It has been erroneously said
that this man's name was Samuel Chubb, and that he was
killed on the east side of White Rock creek. Sloan was not
the captain of the Red River Company, but a leader of one of
the squads into which it was divided for alternate scouting
purposes.

In the fall of 1841 the families of Hamp Rattan and
Capt. Mabel Gilbert, with a few men, reached Bird's Fort,
and a little later the family of John Beeman. Late in
November, 1841, a wagon was sent back to Red river for provisions.
It stayed so long that three men were sent to find
and assist it, if necessary. These men were Alex W. Webb
(yet living near Mesquite, in Dallas county), Solomon
Silkwood and Hamp Rattan. On the east side of Elm fork, about
a mile and a half southwest of where Carrollton is, while
cutting down a large ash tree to get the honey found to be in
it, and on Christmas day, 1841, Rattan was killed by a small
party of concealed Indians. Webb and Silkwood killed one
Indian and escaped to reach the Fort.