History of the Killough Massacre:

The story begins soon after the Texas Revolution. There was a lot of bad blood in Texas at that time. A lot of Mexicans and some black and white folks were still agitated after the war; particularly a man by the name of Vincente Cordova.

A prominent member of the Nacogdoches community, Cordova served as the Alcade of Nacogdoches (a role similar to that of mayor) prior to the Texas Revolution, but lost his job when Texas became independent. With the help of other Mexican officials in Texas, Cordova secretly orchestrated a plan to take back Texas for Mexico. His plan involved inciting anger among the local American Indians toward the new white settlers of the East Texas countryside.

He wanted the American Indian uprisings to distract Texas troops while Mexican troops invaded Texas from the Rio Grande border. Cordova’s capability to win the allegiance of Chief Bowles of the Cherokee tribe would determine the success of his plan. Cordova used the failure of the Houston-Bowles Treaty of 1836 to fuel the American Indian’s resentment against white settlers.

Sam Houston, the president of the Republic of Texas, negotiated the treaty in 1836 with his personal friend, Chief Bowles of the Cherokee tribe. The final draft ensured peace between the American Indians and new Texas immigrants, and assured the American Indians that white men would never confiscate their land. The Texas Congress refused to ratify the treaty, claiming Houston negotiated it on “false promises and false pretenses”.

The 30 Killough family members (which included extended family) moved from Alabama on Dec. 24, 1837, after purchasing a tract of land the failed treaty declared belonged to the American Indians. They built cabins, cleared the land, and planted crops when spring
arrived. But in the August of 1838, the family caught wind of an uprising among a band of Mexican and American Indian rebels in their territory. Before abandoning their homes, crops and some of their livestock to seek shelter in the Nacogdoches settlement, the Killoughs reportedly made an agreement with the East Texas Native Americans that would allow them to return unmolested to their land until the first white frost. In early October, the Killough returned to their homes to harvest their crops. For several days the group took their guns out to the fields for
protection as they harvested their corn. But on Oct.5, they neglected to take their guns since they had nearly completed harvesting the fields and the work would not take very long. Before they reached the fields, a band of Mexicans, American Indians, a black man and a painted white man attacked them, and 18 of the family members were killed or captured. Eight family members escaped, and three women and a baby were left on the scene.

The survivors of the massacre believed they recognized the white man in the band of attackers as a man named Hawkins. He had been at odds with the family while they lived in Alabama, and he was the first one to spread the word about the attack to their mutual acquaintances back home in Alabama.

The three women and baby fled the scene of the massacre to seek shelter at Lacy’s Fort, 40 miles away. The women traveled by night and hid during the day; after three nights of hiking through the East Texas woods without food, a friendly Native Americans found them and helped them to Lacy’s Fort.

Nathaniel Killough, who fled the massacre on horseback with his wife and child, made his way safely to Lacy’s Fort. Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar took office in the end of 1838 and did not believe white Texans could make peace with the American Indians, and ordered the
Cherokees to leave Texas peacefully.

Some people question the actual involvement of the American Indians in the massacre. It might have been mostly Mexicans that did it. But President Lamar wasn’t friendly towards the American Indians like Sam Houston. He basically blamed the American Indians for the attack, and put an end to the Cherokees in Texas.

Under the leadership of Chief Bowles, the Cherokees refused to flee their homeland, and met the Texans in battle on July 15, 1839 three miles north of present-day Chandler. Eighteen American Indians were killed, and two Texans were killed in the battle. The American Indians left the scene, but on the next morning, the Texans caught up with them in present Van Zandt County, and engaged them in the Battle of the Neches. Chief Bowles and 100 American Indians were killed, marking the end of the Texas Cherokee nation. The surviving Cherokee retreated beyond the Red River along with many other peaceful East Texas tribes that could not stand against the white man.

Now that the history lesson is over, I can talk a little about why did we do an investigation at the site during the day. Well if the theory holds true that residual haunting is defined as "A Psychic imprint of a scene which is repeatedly played out, where the witness of such phenomenon essentially is peering into the past and the ghostly participants of these time-displacements often seem unaware of their living observers" holds true we should be able to observe these phenomenon during the day as well. After all these folks were killed during the day.

The Experiment:

The question is how do we accomplish this with the Sun beating down on our heads? First of all lets take a look at the equipment we can use for this type of investigation.

1. We still can use the trusty audio recorder to capture EVP's or
electronic voice phenomenon at any time, it does work during the daytime.

2. EMF meters also work during the daytime and are not effected by the
sun.

3. Video cameras with night shot capability are also used with a couple
of minor filter add-on's. A 1000nm, 950nm, 850nm and 720nm IR filter is used depending on the intensity of the sun. Bright sun, use the 1000nm filter, light cloud cover use the 950nm filter, etc., these filters are placed over the lens and the night shot is turned on. This in effect turns off the sun and you are in the dark, this is similar to using a IR camera on the DVR, you are only capturing IR reflection.

4. Last but not least is the trusty old 35mm SLR using IR film. You can still by this film from a number of dealers on-line. The film I am using is Rollei Infrared IR400 - 35mm x 36 exp that I purchased from digital truth photo out of Houston Texas. You will need to have a little skill in developing your own film and afterwards can take it to your local Wolf Camera and have the film put on disc. You will also need a Hoya IR72 filter to place over the lens. It may take a little time to experiment with the film to get the settings that work best for you.

I will focus on the 35mm camera photos. After you take a little time to learn to work with IR film, you can start daytime investigations with it. The way I work it is to place the camera on a tripod and take a series of three photos in an area of interest. You must focus the camera first and then place the IR72 filter on the lens and then take the photo. By taking a photo with IR film and the IR filter, you have turned Day into Night, if the theory holds true, at some point you will be able to capture an apparition during the day.

After developing the film and having it put on disc, look the photos over. What you are looking for is an anomaly between the 3 shot series. I have seen a number of these done and the results are phenomenal. I think the photos are clearer and of better contrast than night shots and you can get rid of the ORB effect so common in night time photography. Orbs Don't Impress Me! I'm looking for the Free Floating, Full Torso, Vaporous Apparition.

So enough of my technical babble, lets get to the investigation. I really wanted to test some of the IR film I got from the photo shop and called one of the other TSS investigators, Chris Travis.

Once we got to the Killough site and got out of the car, things started to happen. I don't take much credence in feelings as I am a scientist and need the cold hard facts, but the feeling of overwhelming sadness hit me like a tone of bricks, I wanted to just walk away. Pressing on we set up a couple of audio recorders, one on each side of the monument area. Chris set up a Sony video recorder in one corner of the monument enclosure, no IR filters were used on the Sony, they had not arrived yet.

I set up a Canon A1 camera on one of our Nikon tripods and moved it outside of the monument an down the road about 25 yards so I could cover the whole monument in the photos. I took a series of 36 shots and packed the camera. We had a chance to take some EMF readings and ask our standard line of questions to the dearly departed. We were there most of the morning and then packed it up and went home. Just wanted to look at the photos and listen to the audio.

Texas Spirit Seekers Investigators:
Lance Brooks, and Chris Travis.

Date: 03/01/2008

Time: 0930 hrs – 1200 hrs

Location: Killough Monument
Jacksonville, Texas

Weather: Partly Cloudy, 60F

Instrumentation:

Cameras: 35mm: Canon A1 / Rolli 400IR Film

Video: Sony HDR-SR1

Thermometer: Fisher Scientific IR Thermometer with external air probe.

Audio: 3, Olympus VN-4100PC

EMF Meters: TriField Meter – Alpha Lab, Extech EMF Meter

Comments:

We had a number of personal experiences during the investigation, personal experiences only go so far as they cannot be quantified. Both Chris and I had the overwhelming feeling of sadness upon entering the site. We picked up a few EMF spikes in the Southwest corner of the site. I developed and reviewed all of the 35mm IR photos and did not notice any abnormalities in the series. No video to report, but we did get an interesting EVP saying "Retreat" in a very clear voice.

Lance Brooks (Co-Founder and Lead Investigator)

Conclusion:

This was a first for our group, up until now we have only had investigations after dark. With some of these new techniques we will be able to expand the timing and duration of an investigation. Is Killough Monument Haunted?, I really cant say as we don't have enough evidence to say one way or the other is It interesting? Interesting enough that we plan to revisit it a number of times. At this time we can neither confirm nor deny the haunting of the Killough monument.

Lance Brooks (Co-Founder and Lead Investigator)