Old Owl and Buffalo Hump are the two earliest documented residents of the area now known as De Leon.  Both were Comanche Indian Chiefs.  This is the story of Old Owl taken from the book Heap Many Chiefs by Roy D. Holt, published by the Naylor Company of San antonio in 1966.  It is supplemented with information from Vol. 65 of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly.

   The name of Old Owl, or Mo-pe-chu-cope, was mentioned frequently as one of the prominent Comanche leaders around the middle of the nineteenth century.  In general, he wanted peace with the white men and was respected by many of the white leaders.

   In March of 1844, Mo-pe-chu-cope wrote a message to Sam Houston, through interpreters, declaring that he rejoiced with gladness over the prospects of peace.  He said, “Although I am not known to you, I am looked up to by all my tribe for council, ever Pah-hah-yuco himself looks to me for council....”   All the Comanches understood that they were at peace with the whites since Pah-hah-yuco had made the treaty with Eldredge the year before.  “I will do all I can for peace,” he continued.  Since his people were scattered however, some having gone to the Rio Grande and some to the Pecos, he could not attend a council that spring.  He promised that he would go to see Houston the next summer, if he still lived.

    At the same time the Comanche chief requested that Houston let all the whites, especially those on the frontier know that the Comanches were at peace and when they went into the settlements they were to be met as friends and brothers, not enemies.  The past was all forgotten.  Superintendent T.G. Western wrote to Houston that his representatives considered Mo-pe-chu-cope to be “a very rational being and inclined to a permanent peace.”

   In July of 1844, Mo-pe-chu-cope and “the Hoish band” were reported as being camped on Pecan Bayou and on their way to the Caddo village of Red Bear to get ear corn.  Early that fall, Agent Daniel Watson with Jim Shaw and John Conner as interpreters went to the Comanche camps on the Clear Fork of the Brazos.  In the council held there Buffalo Hump placed himself in charge, and Mo-pe-chu-cope was silent.  The former did not favor peace.  At length the Comanches were told that this was the last visit to the Comanches in an attempt to make peace.  Mo-pe-chu-cope then said he had given his word and was ready to attend a council. Some of the chiefs joined him but not Buffalo Hump.

    In October of 1844 Mo-pe-chu-cope attended the council at Tehuacana Creek and signed the treaty.  He was given presents of cloth, knives, looking glasses, salt, etc., to the value of five dollars.  At the same time arrangements were made for Superintendent Western to  meet Mo-pe-chu-cope in Austin for a council.

   But, the war party of the Comanches was soon to override the old chief.  In the summer of 1845, Agent Benjamin Sloat and his interpreter, with two white companions, went to the village of Mo-pe-chu-cope on the San Saba River.  The Comanches received the whites in a very friendly manner, but Buffalo Hump soon appeared and again took over.  After the chiefs held a council, the four white men were held as prisoners.  Buffalo Hump apparently ignored the old chief, led all the young worries on a raid into Mexico by way of San Antonio, and took Sloat and Shaw along as prisoners to make certain that Captain Jack Hays would receive the Comanche raiders in peace.  When Sloat and Shaw were released and returned to the San Saba, they were greatly incensed at Buffalo Hump but apparently still respected Mo-pe-chu-cope.

    Mo-pe-chu-cope attended the fall Indian council at Tehuacana Creek in 1845, and was listed as the head chief, with eight civil and war chiefs present.  The chief made one brief talk, promising to bring other Comanche chiefs, such as Buffalo Hump and Santa Anna, in to the council.  In November Mo-pe-chu-cope returned to Torrey’s Trading House with Chief Santa Anna, other chiefs and some forty warriors.  In the council he advised the young men to keep peace with the whites.  He stated that when he was young the old men had advised him to peace and had always regretted that he had not met their wishes.  “There must be peace with the white men,” he stated.

    L. H. Williams, Indian agent who spent numerous years in dealing with the wild Comanche Indians on the frontier, must have had a sense of humor.  Buried among the old routine Indian records of the Republic of Texas is a letter written by Williams to Superintendent Western, dated June 23, 1845.  He stated that a messenger had arrived for Chief Mo-pe-chu-cope, who was then camped on the Colorado above Austin.  One of the chief’s wives had run away from him and had escaped without leaving a trace.  The old chief thought perhaps she had gone to Austin.  He wanted the agents to find her and return her.

    Mo-pe-chu-cope was one of the chiefs who signed the treaty of 1846 at Council Springs.  Preceding the actual treaty making, he had led two hundred warriors to Comanche Peak for a pow-wow with the white commissioner.  He was chosen as one of the forty-one Indian chiefs to go to Washington to confer with the Great White Father.  He made the eventful tip that same year, along with another Comanche Chief, Santa Anna.  Old Owl was evidently so impressed with the greatness of the power of the whites on this trip that from then on he offered no opposition.

  The next year, Old Owl was on hand and signed the treaty between the German colonist of Fredericksburg and the Comanches.  Robert S. Neighbors, Indian agent of the United States in Texas, was present at the time and came to know Old Owl quite well.

    One time Neighbors was in Old Owl’s camp when a large band of Northern Comanches, nearly always hostile to the whites at that time, came by on their way to Mexico to steal horses.  The hostiles took over the camp, but when they showed that they intended to kill the white agent, Old Owl fearlessly stepped forward, declared that Neighbors was his guest and the he could be tanken or killed only over his own dead body.  The hostiles soon departed.

    Old Owl had the reputation of being quite an orator and an Indian who would keep his word.  John S. Ford, an old Ranger and Indian fighter and friend of Agent Neighbors, described Old Owl as one Indian who had the reputation of keeping his promises to the letter.  Ford, in his memoirs stated that he was impressed with the unassuming airs of this chief and continued “Prince Owl was quite a respectable appearing savage.  He had none of the swagger so ostentatiously displayed by Rangers, and self styled frontier celebrities.... His highness was ready to accept anything in the shape of a present from an old tooth brush to a cloth coat.”  Frederick Roemer, the German scientist who made an extended tour of Texas in the late 1840s described Old Owl as a small man who looked very insignificant in his dirty cotton jacket and was distinguished only by his crafty and diplomatic face.”

    In 1849 Ford and Neighbors made an expedition from Austin to El Paso in order to establish a practical wagon route for the rush of gold seekers to California.  Preparations were made for the start of the expedition from Torrey’s Trading House on the Brazos.  Old Owl led the party from the Brazos to his own camp on (the Armstrong just east of present day De Leon).  On reaching the Comanche Camp , about forty or fifty children who had been bathing in the river ran toward the wigwams, all loudly shouting pavito, pavito---white men, white men.  The party camped near Old Owl’s village for some time, and when the whites left the old chief leisurely accompanied them for some distance.

   Old Owl, along with countless numbers of Comanche and plains Indians died in the tragic epidemic of cholera that swept the west in 1849.

   This old chief died with a considerable amount of money, all in coins that he had been able to secure.  After his memorable trip to the capital in 1846, he had an ever increasing desire to travel more and see more of the white men’s cities. He was not able to talk the agents and army officers into sending him on any trips and so he started saving money to pay his own expenses.  Whenever any of his band returned from a raid with coins and asked the old chief their value, hew would tell them that the money was absolutely worthless and advise them to throw the coins away.  The old man craftily watched to see if they threw them away, and then he would stealthily secure the coins and add them to his collection.