"Clinton Smith's first person account of life on the frontier, as well as his detailed account of living with the Indians, is both a humorous and grim look at reality on the wild Texas frontier. His initiation into the tribe...is a brutal tale." -San Angelo Standard Times, May 19, 1986
"The Boy Captive...is a thrilling story relating in a realistic manner the adventures of a Texas boy and gives a true account of the most exciting events in Texas history." -Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, July 11, 1909
"A white captive named Clinton Smith...fought with the Indians. Many Comanches escaped into the brush of the river." -Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches (2010)
How did young heroic brothers survive four years of brutal captivity and Indian warfare after being captured by the Comanches and then split up with one brother being sold to the renegade Apache Geronimo?
In 1927 famous western author John Marvin Hunter (author of "Trail Drivers of Texas") interviewed prior Apache captive Clinton Smith and put down into book form the brothers' stories, which now having entered the public domain, have been reprinted here for the convenience of the interested reader.
In introducing his book, John Marvin Hunter writes:
"The reader will find in the following pages a true and correct recital of this man's thrilling life story and which will be of absorbing interest to the reader and the student and which I consider a splendid contribution to history an inestimable legacy and gift to posterity as rare and timely as truth is mighty and eternal.... He has resided on the frontier of Texas all of his life and when he was just a small boy before he was made captive by a band of savage Indians...then came captivity for a period of almost five years...he was thrown among savages to imbibe and absorb the most vicious ideas and develop the most cruel and bloodthirsty nature of the wild men. Notwithstanding these things and though he became a savage and as vicious as any of his adopted tribe the regeneration of Clinton Smith was accomplished within a few short years after his return to civilization and he became a good and highly esteemed citizen and is today known throughout South and West Texas as an upright law abiding honest man...He brings to the fore many hitherto unrevealed facts in regard to habits and customs of the Indians.
"Interwoven throughout the narrative of Clinton L. Smith is the story of his younger brother, Jefferson Davis Smith, who was taken captive at the same time, and who also spent several years with the Indians. This lad was sold into the Apache tribe later, and the two boys were thus separated for months at a time."
About the author JOHN MARVIN HUNTER (1880-1957):
As an amateur historian, Hunter published three historical magazines, Hunter's Magazine, Hunter's Frontier Magazine, and Frontier Times, which began respectively in 1910, 1916, and 1923. Using his newspaper presses, he reprinted a few works, including John Wesley Hardin's autobiography in 1925 and Andrew J. Sowell's Life of "Big Foot" Wallace in 1927. Hunter wrote several books and pamphlets, including Pioneer History of Bandera County (1922), The Bloody Trail in Texas (1931), Old Camp Verde, the Home of the Camels (1939), Cooking Recipes of the Pioneers (1948), Peregrinations of a Pioneer Printer (1954), his autobiography, and The Story of Lottie Deno (1959), which appeared posthumously. In addition he edited The Trail Drivers of Texas (1920, 1923) and coauthored the Album of Gunfighters (1951). In 1927 he founded the Frontier Times Museum and authored "The Boy Captives," based on his interviews with Clinton Smith. During his years in Bandera he promoted the town as a tourist attraction.
