MCGOUGH SPRINGS, ELLISON SPRINGS, BLAIR’S FORT, AND MANSKER LAKE: SITE OF EASTLAND COUNTY’S FIRST PIONEER SETTLEMENTS
Several articles have been written by this writer to establish the history of the first Pioneer settlements in Western Eastland County. These settlers came in the late 1870s, after the frontier had been pacified from the raids of the Kiowa and Comanche Indians. In Eastern Eastland County, settlers came as early as 1857: W. H. Mansker came to the southern part of Eastland County in 1857 and camped near a lake that now bears his name; James Madison Ellison built a cabin in 1858, where an Indian battle was fought in 1864, and a spring was named for him, called Ellison Springs; C. C. Blair built a log cabin in 1860 at Blair’s Fort; W. C. McGough camped near a spring 4 ½ miles SE of the future site of Eastland City in 1861, known later as McGough Springs. (credit given to Jerome Lively, Langston’s History of Eastland County Texas (1904), Eastland County History (1989), and the Internet) McGough Springs is 4.5 miles SE of Eastland, or W 32.348 Latitude, and N 98.784 Longitude. Ellison Spring is W 32.2404 Latitude and N 98. 63006, or 2.84 miles from Gorman, along the old road to Desdemona, now FMRD 8, and just north of the intersection with CTRD 421. The Ellison Springs Cemetery is just up the road to the north and on the east side of the pavement. Later it changed its name to Alameda Cemetery. There are the graves of: Alvin R. Kinnison, 1894-1895, Amanda Kinnison, 1897-1900, Ella Kinnison, 1887-1890, Infant, no name; Mollie Alexander, 1881-1901, Ila Browning, 1909-1909, John Story Browning, 1856-1933, Lanie Elizabeth Browning 18601941, William Browning, dates unknown; Cansada Gilbert Ellison, 1835-unknown, Eliza Jane McGough Ellison, 1843-1910, Francis M. Ellison, 1835-unknown, J. T. Ellison, 1866-1886, James Ellison, 18131876, John Madison Ellison, 1840-1923, J. M. Ellison, 1863-1893, Nancy Beard Ellison, 1818-1876, Robert B. Ellison,1856-unknown; Edna Udona Jones, 1888-1888; Vinnie Kuykendall Jones, unknown; Leslie Rene Roberts, unknown- 1990.
Although researchers rely heavily on Langston’s book of 1904, after doing in depth research in the Texas Indian Papers that are on microfilm, some misinterpretations have been found in that author’s writings. For example, on page 17, and I quote, “In 1865 the United States Government, having decided to pursue the policy of placing the Indians on reservations, established the Comanche . . . on a reservation, on the Clear Fork of the Brazos.” The Medicine Lodge Treaty was signed with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache near Wichita, Kansas, in 1865, placing them on a reserve near Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
