The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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ENTRAPPED UNDER A WAGON BOX
By S. C. Turnbo
One day during war times my brother Layfayette Turnbo who we called Bubby and who is dead now went to the George Woods Mill on East Sugar Loaf Creek in an ox wagon. There was another boy with him both of which were small. The names of the oxen were Buck and Tom one of the cattle was red and the other was a speckled one and were good oxen. The wagon box was stout and very heavy. The weather was hot which made the oxen unruly, on their return back home on White River they met a serious mishap which come about in this manner. Just before they arrived where Tom Patterson lived in Locust Hollow known now as the John Trimble Place they come to a place in the road where a limb had broke off of a big white oak tree and fell in the road, and in passing around this obstruction in the road the cattle being warmed up in traveling and thirsty for water raised the trot and before my brother could halt them to lock a wheel with a log chain brought a long for the purpose, the heated cattle ran down a hill and the boys were not able to control them and away they went down the hill in a rush, some 50 yards. from the top of the hill while the cattle were going as fast as they could the wagon wheels come in contact with a log and the wagon turned bottom side upwards and caught the two boys under it like a trap catching birds. No doubt they would have been killed or seriously injured but fortunately as the wagon was capsized the ring which hung from the middle of the yoke slipped from the notch under the end of the wagon tongue which freed the end of the wagon tongue from the ring, thus saving the boys. The cattle ran on as if they were scared nearly to death. The two captives experienced a great deal of trouble before they gained their liberty but they felt thankful that it was no worse.
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