SARAH ADELINE LINDSEY AND THE PANTHER

The Lindsey’s were a pioneer family whose farm backed that of the Jesse Holloway Heard family. Both families were among the earliest settlers of Dry Creek Community, arriving there in the early 1800’s. The Heards came from Georgia and the Lindsey’s from Kentucky by way of Arkansas.  

When John Thomas Heard went off to fight in the Civil War, he went with his 3 year older neighbor, Asbury Monroe Lindsey. The 2 men endured the Siege of Vicksburg together before returning home. After the end of the War, John Thomas married his neighbor (and Monroe’s Sister) Sarah Adeline Lindsey. In the aftermath of the War, times were hard in Louisiana. One fall day (year not known), Sarah Adeline left her home (the Heard log home that stood until the 1980’s) early and rode the family’s big black saddle horse over to her parents’ home to help them butcher a yearling bull. She worked all day at the hard and bloody job. In the late afternoon when she was ready to go home her Dad, Burkett, strapped a fresh hind quarter of beef across the horse behind her saddle, and her mother put the beef liver (as a treat to be cooked for the babies) in a leather bag that hung from the saddle horn. They started home through the bottom land along the creek. Big pines had not been completely cleared behind the fields, and along the creek it was heavily wooded with hardwoods — oaks, sweet gums, hickory, chinquapins. The big trees in the swampy bottom made it dark and cool and shady and very quiet. The horse was nervous snd skittish and Sarah Adeline didn’t know why until she heard a strange cough sound behind her. The horse jumped and almost threw her and she looked behind and saw a big panther on the limb of a big oak. She kicked the already frightened horse and he ran breakneck down the twisting trail through the trees. Sarah Adeline knew she could cut the side of beef loose and the big cat would stop to eat, but she was too stubborn to give up the food her family needed. Instead, she whipped the horse with the reins and prayed he didn’t step in a hole. Behind her, she could hear the panther gaining on them. When the horse burst out of the woods and into the Heard fields, the cat was on the horse’s heels. Sarah Adeline began screaming for her husband, who heard the noise and grabbed his gun. As his wife raced across the field, he took aim and shot at the panther behind her. He didn’t hit the big cat, but the noise was enough to frighten it. Before he could reload, the cat disappeared into the woods. As the story was told the panther was black, but zoologists swear that there were no black panthers in the region, and that the legendary black panthers of the southern swamps were actually golden or spotted. When the story was told, Sarah Adeline was described alternatively as either brave or stubborn or both. The honor her family accorded her can be noted by the numbers of her descendants who are named Sarah, or Adeline, or Lindsey.