The Killough Massacre Monument outside of Jacksonville honors the 18 victims of what some say was East Texas’ worst and final Native American depredation on Oct. 5, 1838, but there is controversy around the story the monument tells.
A hundred years after the event, a 30-foot-tall pyramid of red stone was placed by the Works Progress Administration where the victims were buried.
In 1837, Isaac Killough Sr., his wife, four sons, two daughters, their wives and husbands, and others immigrated to Texas from Talladega County, Alabama. About 30 people settled on Killough Creek about 7 miles northwest of present-day Jacksonville.
Killough bought the land from the Republic of Texas, but it was part of a much larger tract that had been promised to the Cherokees in a treaty signed by Sam Houston in 1836.
After being pushed out of Western North Carolina, the Cherokees arrived in the area around 1819. They had petitioned the Spanish, Mexican, and Republic of Texas governments for the title to the heavily wooded corner of Texas.
The Killough settlement had been warned of the bitter resentment held by the Native Americans. At one point they retreated to the safety of Nacogdoches, but had returned to harvest their crops.
On that fateful day, the 10 men were killed and eight women and children were carried off. Three days later the survivors staggered into Fort Lacy 40 miles away.
The attackers were never identified. The Cherokees were blamed, but later historians point to Mexicans from Nacogdoches who wanted to start a war between the tribe and the Republic. The result was a retaliatory strike on a peaceful Cherokee village and the expulsion of the tribe from Texas.
The Killough Massacre Monument is the deep woods at the end of FM 3431, about 15 minutes outside Jacksonville. The locals say the site is haunted.
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This article appears in October 21 • 2022.
