In the spring of 1865 George and Amelia Lemon with their two sons and two daughters, started to move from Bates County, Missouri, to the frontier, landing in Palo Pinto County.  They were a part of a wagon grain and drove ox teams.  They carried only the necessities of life and often the women drove the wagons while the men walked or rode horseback driving a few cattle.  Children rode or walked beside the wagon train, sometimes stopping briefly to play or even to go swimming or gather flowers.  They could indulge in these pastimes and have ample time to catch up with the wagons.

Arriving in the late summer of 1865, the Lemon family camped for a time at Black Springs and made the acquaintance of the few settlers and the Indians.  They lived on the opposite bank of the river from Jose Marie, Indian Chief.  Later in the year, they with some other settlers, pushed on to a valley where some other settlers had established homes in log cabins.

Dick, son of the Lemons, stopped one day in 1866 at a sparkling spring at the foot of Wynne Mountain, to get a drink and looked up the trail to see a pretty girl, then 13, coming to the spring and blushed and looked as if she would turn and run away, but didn't.

They were attracted to each other from the start and two years later they were married.  Although the parents of the bride thought that 15 was a little young for matrimony, they gave their consent and gave their daughter a "find wedding", on May 9, 1869.

During the days that followed, the girl, Willie Vaughan, busy with spinning, weaving, making wood ash hominy or lye soap, found moments to look out over the hills for a sight of the big bay horse and the tall handsome rider (Dick), but she seldom saw him for duty also called him.  He joined the Texas Rangers and served under Captain J. H. Dillahuty at Stonewall Jackson Camp, 772.  The Rangers guarded the settlement, repulsed Indians and captured bandits and in general, kept order.  He took part in the hunt for Cynthia Ann Parker.

On August 25, 1870, their only child, Claircie Almarene (Rena), was born at the home of her grandmother Lemon in Palo Pinto.  She married William Arthur Beaty, son of Thomas Ross Beaty, another early settler of the county.  Their children were Jetta Beaty (Mrs. John J. Armstrong) of Fort Worth, Otis F. Beaty of Pawnee, Okla., Alma Beaty of Pawnee, Okla., [sic] Alma Beaty (Mrs. Roy S. Meador) of California, and one daughter in Palo Pinto County, Odessa Beaty (Mrs. A. M. Chesnut) of Mineral Wells.

Other descendants are great-great-grandchildren of the early settlers.  They are Laverne Chesnut (Mrs. Donald E. Curmby) and son of Austin; Miss Melba Jean Armstrong of Abilene; Ralph D. Armstrong and sons, David and Paul, of Midland; Lowell A Meador, Norfolk, Virginia; Myrna Lois Meador (Mrs. John Collison) and son Duane of Enid, Okla; and Mrs. Wanda Beaty Pennington and three children of Ft. Worth.

Richard Lemon died May 20, 1905, and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Mineral Wells and his wife died June 24, 1927, and is buried beside him.  Their old home, one room of which is cedar logs still standing, is located on the Dick Lemon (Chesnut) farm in Pleasant Valley, and is owned by Mrs. Odessa Chesnut.  Lemon was a Holiness.

The Lemon early experiences include the following:

One day Richard Lemon went to Weatherford for supplies and left a horse staked near the house to give the alarm in case Indians approached the house.  Before he reached home the horse did give an alarm and Mrs. Lemon looked through a porthole and saw an Indian wrapped in a red shawl creeping stealthily toward the house.  Not knowing if there were Indians, the young mother picked up her infant daughter, Rena, and slipped out the back door and ran to the home of the nearest neighbor.  Two miles away she reached the home of Mr. Nolls, frightened and out of breath and told her story.  The women immediately dressed themselves in men's attire, shouldered rifles and went out to meet the Indians, but none came.  Among the supplies purchased by Lemon were two new Winchester rifles and seven boxes of ammunition and when he reached his home finding his wife and baby gone, he soon found her footprints and Indian footprints followed them.  He started on the trail expecting to find his wife and daughter dead but instead found them with kind neighbors.  There were bits of the red shawl on bushes along the way.  That night, after they returned home, they heard horses fording the river.  Mr. Lemon and Stith Edmondson, who made his home with the couple, dressed hurriedly, took their new rifles and supply of ammunition and stationed themselves behind two large gate posts.  Indians came, driving about 40 head of stolen horses and the attack started.  Mrs. Lemon threw ammunition to the men and as she passed through the door at one time, two bullets passed over her shoulders and others hit the door facing.  The horses became frightened and stampeded and although the Indians tried to hold them a volley of bullets followed and they scurried away.