The Dowdy Tragedy of 1878
Mountain Home, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The pioneer family of Susan (1830-1913) and James Dowdy (1818-1900) moved from Goliad to Kerr County in 1878 and settled on Johnson Creek. Shortly after the family arrived, four of the Dowdy children, Alice, Martha, Susan, and James, were killed by Indians while tending sheep near their home. The attack occurred on Oct. 5, 1878, at a site about 3.5 miles northwest of present Ingram. The victims were buried the following day at Sunset Cemetery, northwest of Ingram. This incident was one of the last Indian raids in Kerr County. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1878 the Dowdy family moved from Goliad to the Texas Hill Country, settling along Johnson Creek in Kerr County. Only weeks after they arrived, four of the children — Alice, Martha, Susan, and James — were killed in an Indian raid while tending sheep near their home, and were buried the next day at Sunset Cemetery. The attack, on October 5, 1878, was among the last such raids in the county.
Why it matters
The Dowdy tragedy marks the violent, closing edge of the frontier in Central Texas, when settlement and Indigenous resistance collided in the region's final years of open conflict.
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Related people
- · Susan Dowdy
- · James Dowdy
Related events
- · Dowdy children killed, Oct. 5, 1878
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sunset Cemetery
Kerrville, TX
The oldest marked graves in Sunset Cemetery belong to four Dowdy children killed in an 1878 Indian raid soon after their family reached the Texas Hill Country from Goliad. Nearby lie four Byas children lost to an 1880s typhoid epidemic and pioneers like H. L. Nelson, who founded the Mountain Home post office. Assembled over decades from several landowners, the cemetery preserves the hardships of frontier Kerr County.
Nichols Cemetery
Kerrville, TX
Rowland Nichols, a Kerr County commissioner born around 1805, was killed by Indians and buried in 1859 beneath a live oak on his own farm, just as he had wished. His grave became a gathering ground for the dead of a scattered frontier community, including J. C. W. Ingram, namesake of the nearby town of Ingram. For more than a century this shaded plot has held the region's pioneers.
Site of the McDonald Massacre
Harper, TX
In 1863 the family of pioneer preacher Matthew Taylor built a cabin near the source of the Pedernales River, deep in the contested Texas hill country. In August 1864 a band of Kiowas attacked, killing Eli McDonald and a young woman and carrying off several women and children, who were taken as far as Oklahoma before being ransomed. Others survived by taking refuge in the cabin or hiding in a nearby cave.
Old Spanish Trail
Kerrville, TX
The Old Spanish Trail threaded through the Hill Country from San Antonio past Bandera Pass, Camp Verde, and Kerrville, a route used for centuries by Comanches and Lipan Apaches. In 1732 Spanish forces under Juan Antonio Bustillo y Cebalos fought the Apaches at Bandera Pass, and over following decades soldiers, missionaries, and adventurers followed the trail toward the San Sabá country and its rumored silver. By the 1850s Camp Verde and Camp Ives anchored military patrols along the same ancient path.