08/28/2026
What happened to a person who became severely disabled in the 1860s?
There were no modern wheelchairs, rehabilitation programs, disability benefits, or accommodations. Life was difficult enough during the time our ancestors were carving homes and livelihoods out of the wilderness of Southeast Texas. Factor in a devastating physical disability and a question naturally comes to mind:
How could a man paralyzed from the waist down survive—and thrive—in the Big Thicket?
William Fountain “Fount” Simmons was born in 1860 in Polk County, Texas. At the age of 12, Fount contracted “infantile paralysis,” a term used at the time for an illness that was likely polio, which paralyzed him from the waist down.
His niece, Mrs. Minnie McKim, recalled:
“Fount come in one day, said he felt awful bad and he lay down on the porch. He had a high fever and it lasted three days, and they just bathed him with cool spring water and put Madeira vine poultices on his head and chest. You don’t ever hear about that now. Madeira is like an ivy vine, thick leaves and green, and you beat them up and put them in a cloth and they’re just like ice; and my grandma always used them for fever, and my mother used it on us. The third day he couldn’t move his feet and Uncle Fount never did walk from that time on. He got to where he could crawl, and the children would pull him in a little wagon they made with wooden wheels. They carried him to school in it. He had a good education, but he got it himself mostly, by reading.”
Brown Wiggins knew Fount from childhood. When he was 89 years old, he remembered Fount:
“In his early days he was paralyzed. His father was dead and his mother and two or three of the boys, all nearly grown, was on a farm over in Polk County. They had big pin oaks in there with those water oaks, growing in those shallow ponds, and that’s where the squirrels stayed. Fount got him a big goat and trained him good, and got a good-sized wagon, and that goat would pull him all over that open pond and he’d kill a mess of squirrels.”
The 1870 Hardin County Census records 10-year-old “Fountain” Simmons living with his parents, William and Catherine, and attending school. By 1880, the census records Fount as 20 years old, living with his widowed mother, with no occupation. In the language used by the 1880 federal census, he was categorized as “Maimed, Crippled, Bedridden, or otherwise disabled.”
Fount clearly intended to lead a useful life to the best of his ability.
His mother hired a formerly enslaved man named Jimmie to help around the farm. Jimmie was rumored to have been a jockey and was unusually skilled with horses. It was about this time that Fount began riding horseback everywhere he went. It is possible that Jimmie helped Fount develop some of the horsemanship that would become so essential to his independence.
Brown Wiggins recalled:
“He had a high porch on the back of the house and that’s where he had his saddle layin’. He’d crawl out there—he wore knee pads, like a cotton picker—and call that horse and he’d sidle right up to that porch. He’d put the saddle on ’im, ride to the gate, the horse turn around sideways, and he’d reach down and get the latch, go out, then turn around and latch it back. He rode everywhere, up town and in the woods. If that horse had ever fell we never would of found him, ’cause it was wilderness.
“He had a medium-sized horse and when he’d come to your house, or anywhere else—he never got off till he had to—he’d set on his horse and talk to ya two hours. If he ever got off, his horse would stay right where he got off of him till he called him. He was awful stout in his arms ’cause he handled hisself with his arms altogether. He’d catch the horn of that saddle and catch his knee over horse’s mane, and pull hisself up there till he got his knee over that saddle. He could stand on his knees and reach the horn of the saddle. He would o’ been a tall man. I’ve seen him get on that horse time and again, and he’d get up there right quick. When he’d get off, he’d just hang to the horn of that saddle, throw his leg over, and he’d be right up agin’ that horse’s legs, and he wouldn’t move; but he was a good hand to train one.
“They made those big, long, yellow riding slickers, and he’d carry that with him in the woods, and I’ve camped with him. One night it rained all night long and he crawled and got up on a little knoll, lay down on a old blanket he had, put that big slicker over ’im, and slept all night…”
As an adult, Fount supported himself in spite of his disability. Without the use of his legs or a wheelchair, he developed his own ways of getting where he needed to go. When he wasn't on horseback, he crawled, dragging his legs behind him and pulling himself across the ground with his powerful arms and shoulders. Bernie Bailey said that “he could crawl just about as fast as a man could walk on two good feet.”
According to his niece, Mrs. Minnie McKim:
“My grandmother made leggings out of brown ducking so his trousers wouldn’t get soiled crawling. He wore shoes that just had two laces and the toes were pointed and made out of copper. His feet were short because they didn’t grow, and his legs were dwindled away, but he crawled everywhere and never did use crutches. He wore gloves most of the time he was crawlin’. He was a large man and well-developed except for his legs.”
Fount went out in public and crawled whenever he had to. What was important was that he never allowed his disability to keep him at home, avoiding life or the stares of others. Everyone knew Fount and was accustomed to seeing him crawling around, then hoisting himself unaided into a chair or onto his horse.
That was just Fount.
But for someone who had never met him, it could be an unnerving experience. Bernie Bailey told the story of the first time he ever saw Fount Simmons:
“When i was a youngen, we lived, at Big Sandy clost to Dollards-ville, there was a man lived clost to us, the first time i seen him he rode up to the house, and i was playing clost to the gate, the man rolled down off his Horse and started crawling towards me, it like to have scared the daylights out of me.
“I ran for the house yelling for Pa and Ma, they come out on the porch, and asked the Man what was rong, nothing he told them, i am your new neighbor, and i am paralized from the waist down, so i have to crawl instead of walking, the man's name was Fant Simmons, he lived by us for thirty years…”
One of the most remarkable things about Fount is that even with his paralysis, he lived alone and independently until he died at 88 years old.
I have so many questions. How did he draw water? How did he change his sheets? How did he take care of his stock?
The fact that these seemingly Herculean efforts are not recorded in history suggests to me that people became so accustomed to seeing Fount do the impossible that the impossible just seemed normal to them.
Fount had several occupations and taught himself the skills he needed to make a living. His niece, Mrs. Minnie McKim, said:
“Uncle Fount could do almost anything. He started half-soling shoes, just on his own, and he had a good business. Then people got to bringing their deer hides to him to cure. He soaked them in lime water overnight to loosen that hair, and he had a long board with slots in it and he would pull the hide back and forth until the hair would come off. Then he would beat up eggs and soak it in a egg solution—eggs about ten cents a dozen then. People would buy those hides, and they were dressed the prettiest you ever saw. The little fawn hides, lot of them was so white you’d think it was white suede, it looked so pretty.
“Then Uncle Fount started making baskets. He would go into the woods and cut small hickory trees, as many as he could drag, and tie them to his saddle, get up on his horse and drag them in home. Sometimes he hired someone to bring him white oak logs. Then he would fasten them someway and pull the bark off and cut them into thin pieces that he could weave into baskets. He made all kinds of baskets. He made little ones with handles, and picnic baskets, and great big ones. We had horses and cows then, and he made one to measure corn in. He made those baskets for years and sold every one he could make.
“Our fence needed painting, and he painted it. He could pull himself on his knees and kind of brace himself and stand up on his knees to reach. He could do nearly anything.”
As a hunter, Fount excelled. He hunted for a living and sold meat to the cooks at the timber camps. Bernie Bailey remembered:
“Fount would take a stand sitting on his horse, when a Deer come by he would shoot him, then he would rope the Deer and drag it to a tree with a limb hanging out he would throw the rope over the limb and drag the Deer up high enough, he could ride under it and load it onto his Saddle, he told us one time, he had killed over 3000 Deer in his lifetime, and had loaded them all that way, he had never walked so it never bothered him.”
Brown Wiggins recalled:
“When he killed a deer, he’d put a rope on him, throw the rope over a limb and ride out and fasten it around another tree so he’d have the deer about a foot off the ground. Then he’d get down and skin it and cut it up, put him in a big piece of duckin’, put it over his saddle and go into the nearest town and sell it. When the Santa Fe Railroad was being built from Beaumont to Summerfield they had a big work camp at Votaw, and Fount contracted to supply them with deer meat, and he always had it there. He was a good shot and had lots of patience. He’d dress the hides and sell them for a dollar a pound.”
It was also said that when Fount got off his horse to gut and skin a deer, he had to work quickly because panthers would smell the kill and come.
It is hard to imagine the resolve of a man who was comfortable hunting alone in the wilderness when paralyzed, getting off his horse and dressing a deer while knowing that a predator might be approaching.
When Fount retired from public service and hunting, he moved back to his farm near Votaw. He lived until 1948, when he died at the age of 88.
Fount's legacy is perseverance. Whatever hardship was set before him, he found a way. If it seemed impossible, he tried harder. And if it WAS impossible, Fount invented a solution.
Today, his specially adapted saddle remains in the hands of his relative, James McKim, Chairman of the Hardin County Historical Commission who also told me about this remarkable pioneer. Fount Simmons's saddle may be viewed at the Museum of Hardin County.
Sources: Jimmy McKim, Chairman, Hardin County Historical Commission; Francis E. Abernethy, Tales of the Big Thicket; Lynn Loughmiller, Big Thicket Legacy, pp. 75–76; Harold W. Willis, A Short History of Hardin County, Texas, Hardin County Historical Commission. Museum of Hardin County
