From the Ft Worth Gazette - January 20, 1885 - P. 8
From a Son of John B. Denton
Who Was Killed by Indians
To the Editor of the Gazette;
Human life is subject to many and strange vicissitudes as will appear from what follows
In 1830 my father came to Texas as a missionary of the M E church bringing with him a wife and five children. After traveling in that capacity about three years he was forced by the meagerness of the compensation he received for his services to seek some more remunerative employment so he entered upon the practice of law and in that profession achieved an honorable distinction as many yet living can testify. About this time from 1838 to 1841 and even later the Indians along the then frontier were very troublesome and he was chosen by his fellow citizens as a captain or commander of the forces raised for the protection of the lives and property of the more advanced settlers and the rank of captain was conferred upon him by the existing government of Texas. While discharging the duties of that trust reposed in him by his fellow citizens and his adopted country
In the year 1841 and within the limits of what is now this, Tarrant county he lost his life being shot through the heart by the Indians from an ambush on Village creek a little to the left of the old stage road which used to lead from this place to Dallas. His body was recovered by his men and carried some 30 or 35 miles north and burled in the limits of the county afterwards named in honor of his name as was also the county seat. The writer is the youngest son of John B Denton whose memory has thus been honored and whose lifeblood has stained the soil of Tarrant county when it was poured out as a sacrifice to the defense of his country. By a series of strange and seemingly unavoidable misfortunes the same writer has been drifted to this city which has grown up in the wilderness whose soil drank his fathers blood forty-four years ago. The writer is here without means and without employment and he feels that he has the right to appeal not to the charity of the public but to the sense of justice and humanity of the business men of Fort Worth for employment by the means of which he may be enabled to gain an honest support.
The writer honest and sober and usually enjoys good health and feels assured that he can render service worth the compensation necessary to constitute a support and is willing to accept any honorable means of making a living. He has had some experience as a salesman and as a bookkeeper and has also collected some but as stated will accept any honorable mean of making a subsistence and he hopes that he shall not have to appeal in vain to the people of this city of 25,000 people in the county whose soil was once wet with the life blood of his father and who in some sense owe the homes and comforts they now enjoy to the self-sacrificing heroism of that father and others such he was.
John B. Denton
Transcribed by Mike Cochran
5/2/2011