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Something like seventy years ago, in 1852 to be exact, my father, George W. Hazelwood, emigrated with his family from Mississippi to the plains of Western Texas.
There being no railroads or other means of transportation at that time, he came by the mule team mode of conveyance. The country was sparsely settled after reaching the Texas line, and the trip was a long tedious one. The family would travel for days without meeting a human being, only coming in contact with vast herds of wild buffalo and numerous tribes of still wilder Indians. The journey occupied several months, and my father with his family eventually located in Panola county, Texas. The country being wholly an open range, and the pioneers who blazed the way into this new western civilization being extremely few and far between, the early settlers apparently did not remain very long in any one place, but moved about from location to location, seeking a better range, more ample water and greater safety from marauding Indians. Fort Worth, in Tarrant county, was the nearest trading point, and all provisions and supplies of every character and description was brought into the Western country by freighters, sometimes accompanied by United States troops, but more frequently they traveled in little bands for better protection against Indian raids.