Mineral Wells Index, 31 July 1925.
EMERINE McCOY BOZZELL COUNTY MOURNS PASSING OF ITS OLDEST SETTLER.
Death closed the time-wearied eyes of Grandmother Bozzell Friday morning at 8:30 at the home of her son, John Bozzell.
She was buried this afternoon at five o’clock in the Indian Creek cemetery. The service was held by Dr. Chas. D. Poston, pastor of the Central Christian church. Beetham and Son had charge of the funeral.
On August 29, 1921, the Index published a history of this noble woman who gave the facts concerning the same with a vigor and clearness, she being 100 years old and lacked only one month being 101 years old at the time of her death.
That interview just as it was given to an Index representative, constitutes a complete history of her eventful life and is herewith reproduced:
On Thursday, September first, Grandmother Bozzell, the oldest living citizen of Palo Pinto county, a citizen of this part of the country before the county was organized, is to celebrate her 97th birthday.
Emerine McCoy was born Sept. 1st, 1824, in Barthuma [Bartholomew] County, Ind. but spent most of her young life in Kentucky, where her father, who was a Presbyterian minister, held various charges. It was when the family had again become residents of Indiana that she was married to William Bozzell, in 1841.
In 1852 the family came to make their home in Texas and settled in this part of the country, building a log cabin on the Brazos river, two years before Palo Pinto County was organized. Four years later they moved to Tarrant county, as Fort Belknap had been removed and there was no protection from the wild tribes of Indians. About 48 years ago they returned to this county which has been their home ever since.
Her husband passed away in 1895, but all her children, save one who died in infancy back in Illinois before they came to Texas, is living. The oldest child is now 82 years of age and she has 20 grand children and one great great grand child. Her only daughter lives in Indiana and there is one son, Alonzo who resides in Fort Worth but the other three sons, Arch, John and Bob Bozzell with their families are still living in the place they have grown up from the very beginning – Mineral Wells.
Hers has been a long and useful history crowded for the most part with history making events and she has done her part nobly in the paving of the way for development and progress. Her husband served for two years under General Obenchain on the frontier before the outbreak of the Civil War and at the outset of the great struggle he enlisted and served throughout the four years. During his absence from home she worked the farm, harvested her wheat crops and provided for her household. At one time when her husband was sick while encamped near Dallas, she took her two youngest children and went to see him, riding a mule for a distance of forty miles or more. Without knowing where they were until the next morning, she had camped one night in a cemetery.
Once while they were living in Tarrant county, she said, she and her husband and the children in going back to Indiana on a trip, made the journey as far as Northern Kansas in an ox wagon and were two months on the road. The reason they used oxen rather than horses, she said, is that part of the country was largely inhabited by Indians and that the red men would take away their horses but would not molest their oxen.
Of all her thrilling and wonderful experiences her four years of life in this part of the country, when they lived in a log cabin on the Brazos, before Fort Bellnap [Belknap] was broken up, afford her the most delightful reminiscence. It was the happiest period of her life she said. Previous to their coming here the children and her husband were always sick but while living here not one of them ever had a headache. She thinks it was the fine climate and wonderful health giving waters of the river in which they bathed every day. Her cabin stood on a picturesque entrance on the east side of the river, the place being known as the Peak and the house which Mr. Bozzell had built of hewn logs and white washed without and within was called the White Cabin. Here, she said, she always maintained a House of Prayer, for there was no place in the first years where religious services could be held and every night whoever shared the home with them was asked to take a part in the prayer meeting service. The Indians, she said were of the friendly tribes of the reservation of Fort Bellnap, and from them they never had an unfriendly visit. The fort gave them protection from the wild Comanches and other tribes beyond the river. Their Indian visitors, they always made welcome and always invited them to have food. After coming once these visitors never returned to the White Cabin empty-handed. They always brought bear meat, wild turkey or venison. She said that she never took any precautions for the family, save to put the baby as far away from them as possible lest it be stolen. There were no families anywhere near them save those of Mark Dalton and of Kit Carter, nephew of old General Ross of Missouri.
The nearest trading post was Jefferson from which they had supplies brought twice a year and the nearest Post Office was Birdville, in Parker County. They did not get much mail, she said, but once every six months she sent to the office for a Gody’s Ladies’ Book that her daughter might keep up with the styles. She was the only woman in the county, at that time who had a plank floor in her house which was secured from government wagons that were hauling from Fort Belnap to Fort Jackson, near Jacksboro. These planks she polished with a brush made of a green pecan limb and white sand, until the plank shown like a highly polished floor.
Her husband made her a lovely suite of furniture with his draw-knife and pen knife and her canvas top of the main room was the envy of every one. The moving of the soldiers and equipment of Fort Belnap was a most unfortunate event for the family as it necessitated their leaving this lovely home where they were also healthy and happy.
Mrs. Bozzell is well now and she says she attributes her good health then and now and her children’s good health through all the years, to their healthy life there to the fact that they lived in Mineral Wells for so many years since.
She is now a bright, well informed and very interesting woman. She carries on a delightful conversation, can cook a good dinner and enjoys an outing as well as a young person. The people of this county should be pleased to do her honor on the 97th anniversary of her birth for she had been one of its history makers.
Source: Frost Bowman, “Various Obituaries Taken from the Records of the Beetham and Son Funeral Home, Beetham-Powell Funeral Home, Buzbee Funeral Home, Now White’s Funeral Home in Mineral Wells, Texas, beginning 1912 to 1961” (Mineral Wells, Texas: unpublished manuscript, 1988), pp. 91-97; Boyce Ditto Public Library, Mineral Wells.