Texas Methodist Historical Quarterly (accessed via Google Books)
HENDERSON S. LAFFERTY.
I. M. Lafferty, of Gurdon, Ark., writes me that the above named old Texas preacher was his great uncle, and he desires me to give some information concerning his life and work in Texas.
“My first knowledge of this old preacher was in 1859, up in the Sabinal canyon, at that time an Indian Country. I was young, green in the work, and poorly prepared to meet the issues of the day. I was holding a protracted meeting and exhorting as best I could. Unexpectedly H. S. Lafferty came to the meeting. I had heard of him. He preached at every hour of service for several days. He was evangelistic in his methods and worked a polemic, fond of controversy with opponents of Methodism, doctrinal in matters,
thoroughly versed in Scripture, logical in argument, and would preach one hour and a half. The people up in the canyon had never heard such great preaching before. He administered the sacrament and baptized the people. That meeting was held at the house of Bob Kincheloe. To it everybody came armed, for Indian raids were common. During the war, when the men were all gone the Indians attacked Kincheloe’s ranch, carried off his horses, and shot his wife with many arrows, leaving her on the floor for dead. But she recovered and is still living, and is a staunch Methodist. Well do I remember how faithfully she looked after the interests of that meeting, cooking, providing lights and rejoicing over the conversion of sinners. It was not far from the place of this meeting that Andrew Jackson Potter had several of his dangerous encounters with the Comanches. But this was in the long ago and nearly everybody who knew and heard Lafferty is now dead. Some of the greatest preaching that laid the foundations of Methodism in the old Rio Grande and West Texas Conference was done by Henderson S. Lafferty.”
Robert Kincheloe lived in Sabinal, Uvalde County, in 1860. Henderson was likely in this area because he was seeing to the health of his brother, L.D., who was attacked by Indians in September 1859 on the Pendencia Creek. L.D. might have been brought to Eagle Pass to stay with Ludovic Colquhoun to mend. If Henderson was going to Eagle Pass from his own home in DeWitt County (Concrete), he would have quite likely passed through Sabinal on the way. Looking at the 1860 census pages for Sabinal, the writer notes many unoccupied homes listed, which was likely due to the Indian troubles in the area. Fort Inge, with the 2nd Cavalry – Company C, is enumerated on these pages. There’s also a Ranger Camp with about 8 young men. Among Kincheloe’s neighbors we find John Fenley, who is mentioned in connection with “Indian Depredations” along the Nueces River in the Josiah Wilbarger book.