The Turnbo Manuscripts

by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925


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ONE OF THE FEARLESS DEFENDERS OF THE ALAMO
By S. C. Turnbo

Mrs. Amanda R. Wood widow of E. W. (Ed) Wood is a daughter of George R. Ward and Ollie (Day) Ward and was born in Blaiburne County Tennessee December 10, 1848. Mrs. Wood said that her parents brought her with them from Tenn. to Webster County Mo. when she was 7 years old and settled on Osage Creek three miles east of Marshfield. She said, "My father was born in Granger County Tenn. in the year 1803 and died in the western part of Oklahoma territory at the age of 92 years. My mother died In Christian County, Mo. and is buried in the Finley Graveyard on Finley Creek. Mrs. Wood says that she remembers the first school she was sent to which was taught on Osage Creek near her fathers home in Webster County. The school was taught by Mrs. Victoria Maupin in a log cabin with puncheon floor and split logs for benches and a wide fire place. Some of the young ladies who were school mates of mine at this 3 months subscription school were Lorinda Pendleman, her and I were considered the champion spellers at this school. There were two of the Garvin girls - Lizy and Sally, Dollie Smith and two of the Evens girls Jennie and Mary and Louisa Calloway all of which were my school associates. I and Mr. Wood was married at Bellfonte Ark. April 9, 1868. He died near Protem Taney County Mo. August 25, 1905 and is buried in the cemetery at Protem."


It is well known is history that the Alamo at Austin Texas fell on the 6th of March 1836 and its surviving brave defenders were all slaughtered without the least show of mercy toward them. Among some of the most noted men who fell there were Davy Crocket, William Travis, and James Bowie. The last named was the maker of the Bowie knife. All of the men who fell in the Alamo were devoted and fearless and yielded up their lives in defense of Texas. Mrs. Wood says that her grandfather Thomas Benton Ward was one of the number of those brave fellows who were massacreed by the Mexicans in the Alamo. He went to Texas from Knoxville Tenn. "My grandfather Ward also fought in the war of 1812. My father informed me that when he was only 9 years old he taken grandfather to the place of appointment where the men were enlisted in the army of the war of 1812." When Mrs. Wood give me this information she was living on the Hester Place near the Hester school house in the south east part of Taney County, Mo.

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