When the Indians went on a rampage back in the early days, it took lots of help to make home-life.  With homes far apart and people scattered, when Indians were warlike, all of the men folk who could turn lose and leave, followed the Indians to try to convince them to stay away from homes and settlers.  Such was the case in the battle of Little Salt Creek, west of Jermyn May 16, 1859, when men from Jack County, Palo Pinto County, Parker County, Young and Tarrant County participated.

From this county were Shaff Carter, Henry Harrison and Bill Crow.

Fifty-seven Indians were in the fight, with 12 cattlemen from the above mentioned counties.  The fight started at 10 a.m. and ended in the afternoon.

The men were on a cattle hunt into northeastern Young County under the guidance of "Uncle Billy" Kutch near where Jean and Markley are now located.  They had rounded up quite a few cattle and had driven them into a brush pen built near Markley for the night.  Getting afraid of Indians, the settlers moved their horses away from the pens that night.  Next morning when the men returned to the pens they found the cattle unmolested but there were Indian tracks all around the place.

It was on the date of May 16 that they set out looking for more cattle, this time in a westerly direction.  Mid morning they found some cattle and Kutch and Shaff Carter started after them.

Henry Harrison called to them just as they were about to make a charge to cut the cattle off.  They knew something must have happened concerning Indians.  The Indians had rounded up the boys, cattle and all and were holding them and not a shot had been fired.  Kutch and Carter went to the boys, prepared to stand their ground.  The Indians rode out to meet them and as they rode up with the others, John Lemly cried, "Rush for the timber."

Some of the Indians could understand what he meant and the Indians opened fire on the settlers.  The settlers dropped into a ravine, turned their horses loose and prepared to fight.

Bill Crow was killed at the beginning and only three of the cattlemen were not wounded.  Harrison, although a stranger in the area, agreed to go to a nearby ranch for help, the Harmison Ranch was the nearest.  With the help of the ranch cook and chuck wagon, that sufficed for an ambulance, the wounded men were placed in the wagon.  Kutch and several of the other men still had spikes of the arrows sticking in them.  The rancher sent to Jacksboro for the post doctor at Fort Richardson, and also had sent to the Salt Creek Ranch of Dave Terrell's for help.  Lemly died before they could get him out of the wagon into the ranch house, when the chuck wagon bearing the wounded arrived.  Bob Whitten pulled two arrowheads out of W. C. Kutch's shoulder with a pair of bullet molds.  Kutch pulled the third one himself, out of his leg.

Dr. Grim arrived that night from Fort Richardson and he worked all night on the victims.  Wagons were provided to bring the men back.  The teams were rested at Flat Top Springs, north of Graham, and there one of the men, Shaff Carter of Palo Pinto County, died.  The rest of the men were taken to a salt works, located where the town of Graham now stands.  The doctor stayed there with the woundeed men three that were able to travel were started on the horseback ride home.

The settlers lost 200 cattle, more than a score of horses and all their provisions.