There is a considerable amount of legend and folklore connected to the Fort Davis and Big Bend area. Whether it is fact or fiction, the tale of “Indian Emily” is an interesting one. The story supposedly originated in the mid to late 1800s at Fort Davis. According to the National Park Service, it first appeared in print in a 1919 book called “The Romance of Davis Mountains and Big Bend Country” written by Carlysle Raht. About ten years later, the story reappeared in a Texas newspaper and southwestern periodical with more detail. It was essentially the same narrative but with slight variations.
The core of the legend: She is portrayed as a young Native American woman who is discovered suffering from a serious wound around the time of an Apache attack in the vicinity of Fort Davis. On a routine patrol, the woman is found with an arrow in her side by an officer named Easton, a member of the Eighth Infantry. In the story, ill and delirious, she is brought back to the fort and treated by the camp surgeon for her injuries. Given the name of Emily, the woman begins to recover and is offered a place to live in the residence of the Easton family, the parents of Lieutenant Thomas Easton. Over time, Emily recovers and remains with the Easton family as a servant or companion. While living with them, she is said to have fallen in love with the Lieutenant, but he is engaged to a southern woman by the last name of Davenport. Disappointed and depressed, one night Emily slips away from the fort and residence and returns to her tribe.
Once those in the fort discover that Emily is missing, search parties are sent out to look for her, since she has become a favorite of the whole camp. The searches are fruitless, and she is not found. A few know of her affection for Easton, but Easton’s romantic relationship is still with his absent fiance Miss Davenport.
The legend continues with Emily’s return to the fort one night as normal evening activities continue, including the marriage celebration of Easton and his bride. As Emily approaches the fort in the darkness, she is mistaken by a sentry to be a raider moving outside the stone walls of the fort. The sentry fires one shot from his rifle, striking Emily. Hearing the shot, the celebration comes to an abrupt halt. The inhabitants go to the fort’s wall to find the sentry bending over Emily, now mortally wounded. She sees the face of Easton and his bride and just before she dies, she tells those gathered around that her tribe is planning an imminent attack and that she has escaped their camp to warn Easton and the others. Forewarned of the attack, those in the fort are able to prepare and successfully defend the camp when it occurs. Thanks to Emily’s sacrifice and warning, no lives are lost among the inhabitants and the attack is routed. Emily’s remains are taken to the mountains where she is interred.
The story was repeated in print from time to time. Variations of it refer to the tribe as Comanche. The officer’s name is sometimes said to be Esson. The fiance’s name is sometimes called Nelson. Emily is also sometimes referred to as the daughter of a tribal chief, a princess.
The National Park Service website notes that over the years, research has been attempted. Their findings were that they could not determine that there was a documented Apache or Comanche raid or attack on the fort, except perhaps when the fort was unoccupied during the Civil War. The NPS also notes that Texas Rangers had occupied area forts and camps and reported activity in the general area. From time to time Native Americans, either captured or found injured, were brought to various outposts. One supposedly tells of a young woman who was killed by unknown assailants while she was detained before her planned transport to the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico. However, none of the accounts closely resemble the Indian Emily story.
The May 26, 1935 issue of the San Angelo Standard-Times noted in an article by Barry Scobee that in 1891 some three hundred military graves were exhumed at Fort Davis and transferred to Arlington Cemetery in Virginia. At the time some 44 years earlier, Scobee says, two graves were left untouched. One was that of a soldier who had committed suicide and the other was Indian Emily. On May 30, 1935 in celebration of Decoration Day (today’s Memorial Day), her grave was to be remembered. The author dramatizes the story by adding that the Lieutanant’s mother had spread the word to visitors and stage coach personnel to be on the lookout for Emily but she is never found until the fatal night in which she was mistakenly shot. Scobee refers to the location of her grave as having been identified by Warren D. Bloys and Herbert D. Bloys, sons of W. D. Bloys (a name familiar to Big Bend residents as the founder of the cowboy camp revival meetings). According to his account, the Bloys family was aware of the grave’s location because it was marked with a wooden headstone once bearing the painted words “Indian Squaw, Died By Accident.” It was later fenced in with barbed wire and net wire. Scobee ended his article by noting that over the years people would return to the grave site and leave flowers, long after the crude marker was gone. The Associated Press repeated the story in other newspapers.
In connection with the Texas Centennial, a granite marker was placed to commemorate the story. This is the wording, “Here lies Indian Emily, an Apache girl whose love for a young officer induced her to give warning of an Indian attack. Mistaken for an enemy she was shot by a sentry, but saved the garrison from massacre.”
The NPS page: https://www.nps.gov/foda/learn/historyculture/indian-emily.htm
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