Don's TV

Death Valley Days
The Man Who Wouldn't Die

Josiah Wilbarger:  Don Collier
Margaret Wilbarger Clifton:  Jan Clayton
Doctor Bigler:  Paul Fix
Host:  Robert Taylor

In this Death Valley Days episode from 1966, we get one of the most incredible dramas in all of Texas history.  It unfolded near present-day Austin in the summer of 1833, and it is the legendary tale of a rugged frontiersman who survived his own scalping and lived...all because of his unearthly vision and a pioneer woman's inexplicable dreams.  Although this episode takes a few liberties with facts, it is historically accurate, as Josiah Wilbarger did become the man who would not die.

Josiah Wilbarger was a surveyor by profession.  In the early summer of 1833, he put his sick sister Margaret on the stage for St. Louis and then journeyed with four men into hostile Comanche country to scout headrights.  By early august, the group was at Pecan Springs, where they stopped to eat.  Unknown to them, a group of Comanches were in the reeds, and when the men stopped for lunch, the Indians attacked.   The Comanches shot Wilbarger with bullets and arrows, and thinking he was dead, his companions scattered.  Two of the others were killed, and two managed to flee, eventually making it back to Wilbarger's neighbors and close friends, Reuben and Sarah Hornsby.

That night, Wilbarger revived, but being wounded, scalped, and left for dead, he was half-crazed.  He looked up to see his sister Margaret Clifton.  She told him that he was too weak to rescue himself, that he was to lie where he was and she would send help.  He then saw her drift away in the direction of the Hornsby's house, many miles distant.  He had always been close to his sister, and although he could not understand how she could get to him so quickly from St. Louis, he did as she said.

In the Hornsby home, Sarah had taken to her bed at the news that Josiah was dead.  She had promised Margaret to take care of Josiah, and she was prostrate with grief.  As she lay dreaming, she saw Josiah lying in the grass, bleeding, but alive.  She immediately awoke and told her husband Reuben that Josiah lived.   After being told it was a wishful dream, she was sent back to bed, but again the dream came to her that Josiah lived.  This time, she would not be stilled.  She said that if the men would not ride out to find Josiah, she would.

The next morning, the men found Josiah exactly where Sarah Hornsby said he would be found.  He was gravely hurt and barely breathing, but he was alive.   Weeks later, a letter arrived from Josiah's aunt in St. Louis.  His sister Margaret Clifton had died of her illness the day before he had been hurt and was already in her grave at the time of his vision.

Josiah Wilbarger never fully recovered from his terrible ordeal, but he did live for eleven more years.  To this day, no one can explain what happened out there on the prairie when a vision and a pioneer woman's dreams saved a man's life.

Now read the true story of Josiah Wilbarger.

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