Common Grave
Newcastle, Young County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Three youths slain by Indians in an Elm Creek raid, July 17, 1867: Rice Carlton, Age 19; Reuben Johnson, born 1847, son of J. Allen Johnson; Patrick Euell Proffitt, born March 7, 1848, son of Robert S. Proffitt. John Proffitt, a brother, was donor of cemetery tract.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This grave holds three young men — Rice Carlton, Reuben Johnson, and Patrick Euell Proffitt, all in their teens or early twenties — killed together during an Indian raid along Elm Creek on July 17, 1867. A brother of one of the slain, John Proffitt, donated the cemetery land where they were laid to rest. Their common grave marks the deadly reality of frontier settlement in North Texas in the years just after the Civil War.
Why it matters
It is a stark reminder that the postwar frontier remained a place of violent collision between settlers and Native peoples defending their lands, a conflict that shaped the settlement of Texas.
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Related people
- · Rice Carlton
- · Reuben Johnson
- · Patrick Euell Proffitt
Related events
- · Elm Creek Raid
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Proffitt Cemetery
Newcastle, TX
The Proffitt family settled this Young County area around 1862, and son John Proffitt built up land, a gin, and businesses that gave the community its name. The cemetery began in 1867 with the common grave of three young men killed in an Indian raid, and its many infant and child graves testify to the hardships of frontier life. Burials peaked between 1910 and 1920 amid the World War I-era influenza epidemic, and veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars rest here.
Indian Raid on Elm Creek, CSA
Newcastle, TX
With frontier defenses stripped thin during the Civil War, the Texas borderlands suffered repeated raids, and one of the worst struck near here at the Fitzpatrick Ranch on October 13, 1864. Comanche raiders killed seven ranch people and five Confederate soldiers, carried off six women and children, and drove away thousands of cattle. Among those who lost family that day was Brit Johnson, an enslaved man who later won the raiders' trust, recovered captives, and eventually died at the hands of Indians on the plains.
Joseph Alfred Woolfolk
Newcastle, TX
Kentucky-born and Louisville-trained in law, Joseph Alfred Woolfolk came to frontier Belknap in 1858 to survey Peters Colony land grants and soon served as a Young County official. He joined a home-guard Ranger unit and then the Confederate army, was captured in West Virginia in 1863, and spent the rest of the war imprisoned in Ohio. Back in Texas, he gained notoriety in 1871 when the court appointed him to defend the Kiowa chiefs Satanta and Big Tree at their murder trial after the Salt Creek raid.
Old Fort Belknap Powder Magazine
Newcastle, TX
This powder magazine is the best-preserved original building of Fort Belknap, one in a chain of federal posts strung from the Red River to the Rio Grande to shield settlers after Texas joined the Union. Named for its builder, Brig. Gen. W. G. Belknap, the fort held sixteen stone and picket houses by 1853 on the edge of contested frontier country. The State of Texas restored the magazine in 1936.