first mayor was a man by the name of Griner. All records of city officials for a period of thirty or forty years seem to have been lost, and we now have very scant record of city officials until 1890. At one time all the records of the city of Clarksville were practically destroyed by fire: however, there was an interim after the close of the Civil War in which there was little attention paid to city government and city officials. Clarksville had not reached or gained a sufficient number of citizens until 1870 to be classed as a city.

By way of a little interest to the general public, let us report here an incident in the Indian warfare of Texas. Just after the close of the Civil War one of the worst massacres of the white settlers by the wild Indians happened in Jack County in what is known as Lost Valley. Capt. Jim Clark, his brother, Dr. Pat B. Clark, James B. Donohue, Old Man Len Ward, George Dickson and quite a number of other citizens of this county, hearing of these Indian depredations, rushed to the front in defense of the white settlers. James Clark reported that one of the worst and most horrible sights that ever met man's eye met his in Lost Valley in the first house he entered. There on the floor was a mother stabbed to death and scalped with an infant crawling around the floor in its mother's blood. I heard him relate this incident in telling of the friendships he formed with other men under such trying circumstances, friendships