Ben Kinchelow

Ben Kinchlow was born in 1846 in Wharton, Texas. His mother, Lizaer Moore, was enslaved by Sandy Moore. His father was a white man named Lad Kinchlow, whom Ben never knew. When Ben was a year old, his mother was freed, given money, and sent with Ben and his older brother to Matamoros, Mexico, traveling in a mule-drawn coach. They lived there about twelve years, then moved to Brownsville, Texas, where his mother made a good living taking in washing.

He described the open country of South Texas before barbed-wire fences, when a man could ride all day without opening a gate, hunt deer, quail and wild hogs freely, and drink coffee made from parched corn. Neighbors pooled their deer hides and took them to Brownsville to trade for supplies.

In February 1879 he married Christiana Temple at Matagorda, and they had six children. He later married Eliza Dawson, and they had been together forty years when he was interviewed at 91 in their home in Uvalde, Texas.