“By Aileen Penley Baldwin. Remarkable and riveting account of a true heroic pioneer. Sarah Ware was the eldest daughter of Capt. William Ware, who founded the Waresville settlement in Uvalde County in 1852, the remnants of which stand today a mile below the little village of Utopia in the northeastern corner of Uvalde County. Little Sarah was a child of 11 years in 1849, when she sat with her mother in a covered wagon that journeyed from Kaufman County seeking a new home on the Nueces frontier of Texas. Sarah was born April 6, 1838, her father, captain Ware came to Texas,in 1828, in the first tide of immigration to Texas, and settled on Ware’s Creek, Montgomery County, where Sarah was born. On the journey, which ended ultimately in her father’s settlement of Uvalde County, little Sarah’s mother died from the hardships of the journey; so Sarah, and her sister, Eliza Ann, became the little mothers of the orphaned Ware children. In the new home on the banks of the clear, swift-sparkling stream, the Sabinal, the little Ware children played beneath the giant oaks and the shadowy cypresses, until the death of their father, Capt. William Ware, March 9, 1853, left alone in the frontier wilderness Sarah Ware with five younger sisters and a 13-year-old brother, John Ware.

An excerpt from this amazing story: ‘Sarah commanded the children to get under the bed, placing herself between the children and the. approaching Indians. There were two large doors to he house, and one was partly nailed and boarded, leaving a large opening. One of the Indian’s arrows pierced Sarah’s side from this opening, another lanced her arm, entering by way of a crack in the picket of the wall. Nevertheless, Sarah Ware Kincheloe stood before that door, before her babies, attempting to fire the useless rifle, while arrow after arrow hit her shoulders and breasts, all by miracle escaping a fatal portion. Finally, weakened by the loss of blood, and with 11 arrows piercing her body, she called feebly to the trembling Mrs. Bowlin to take her rifle and fight for the babies to her last breath. Believing she was dying, Sarah sank unconscious to the floor. When the Indians saw Sarah fall they rushed towards the room. Mrs. Bowlin stood with the gun limp in her arms in the center of the room, and the two Indians one at each door, raised their bows and simultaneously, two arrows pierced Mrs. Bowlin’s heart. She sank to the floor and her daughters, Ella and Anna crept from under the bed to their dying mother…’ ”

Source:  Frontier Times Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 2, November 1934