TEXAS INLAWS

TEXAS INLAWS

John Hansford

"Trot out the wicked and unfortunate, and let the cotillion commence." Thus court was opened by one Dodge City judge.

Not all judges faired as well as Isaac Parker and Roy Bean. In 1840 a Texas politician by name of Charles Jackson shot and killed Joseph Goodbread. Jackson only wanted to avenge a friend Goodbread had cheated, however, the murder touched off a four year war, spreading through five counties. At least fifty men were killed with burning, lynching and looting thrown on the side. Justice needed to be served.

Called in to serve as judge was District Court Judge John Hansford. As he took a look around the town of Pulaski, Texas, he saw 150 armed men, 20 of whom followed him to the courthouse. Also armed was the defendant Jackson. When Hansford fined the sheriff for allowing the defendant to be armed, Jackson was outraged. The sheriff happened to be the friend Jackson had committed murder for. Throwing his guns on the judge's bench, Jackson then demanded the trial begin.

Though Judge Hansford had gotten through the first day (even choosing a jury), he had second thoughts. He left a note with the sheriff saying he could no longer preside and ordered that court be adjourned the next day. Defendant Jackson was then given a mock trial, pleaded self-defense and was acquitted. Judge Hansford wasn't so lucky...a few days later, he was found shot to death a few miles outside Pulaski. It was wild and woolly in the days of the Republic of Texas!

Judge Isaac Parker

'The Hanging Judge'

When he volunteered for the judgeship of Fort Smith, AR, in 1875, Isaac Charles Parker was only 36 years old. As she looked around at the desolate town, Mary Parker told her husband they had made a mistake coming there. Judge Parker replied, "No, Mary. Were faced with a great task. These people need us. We must not fail them." In his first eight weeks, Parker tried 91 defendants. Court was open from 8:30 a.m. to nightfall six days a week. Night courts were sometimes held as well. Two of Parker's more notorious prisoners included Cherokee outlaw Ned Christie and Rufus Buck. Buck and his boys swung from the ropes of George Maledron. Belle Starr, though at Parker's court, was spared further trials when she was killed in 1889. Parker also fought for the Native Americans' rights. In 21 years on the bench, Judge Parker tried 13,490 cases. Nine thousand, four hundred fifty-four cases resulted in guilty pleas or convictions. Parker passed onto his Judge in November 1896.

Judge Roy Bean

'Law West of the Pecos'

A Kentuckian by birth, Texan by choice - so was Roy Bean. Serving twenty years as the law in Langtry, TX, Bean began presiding over cases even before he was appointed a justice of the peace. Smitten with actress Lilly Langtry, the town as well as the saloon were named for her. Almost all fines were kept by Bean and when asked about his accounts, the judge replied, "My court is self-sustaining." When told his power to grant divorces was beyond his power, Bean answered, "Well, I married 'em, so I figure I've got the right to rectify my errors."

William A.A. "Big Foot" Wallace
Living on a pay of $1.25 a day, providing their own arms and ammunitions, horses and other necessities, the Texas Rangers in the 1830's were stuff that legends are made of. One such Ranger was William A.A. "Big Foot" Wallace. Look at a picture of Wallace sometime and you will see why he is so aptly named.

In 1842, Wallace and other Texas Rangers were assigned to ill-fated mission...the Mier Expedition. The Texans were captured and beans were drawn to see who would live and who would die. Lucky for Wallace, he drew a white bean and lived to tell about the experience. The "Black Bean Episode" still played on people's minds when war broke out with Mexico in 1846.

The Rangers were known at this time as "Los Diablos Tejanos"...the Texas Devils. Fierce in their fighting, they became subjects of songs, poems and stories.

Samuel H. Walker (1815-1847)
In Jack Hays' company of Texas Rangers in 1836, Walker led an extremely productive and exciting life. He was a scout for Capt. Jesse Billingsley, captured in the attack of Mier and marched across the desert in chains. He then was forced to draw a bean in Santa Anna's "Black Bean" occurrence, luck being with him in drawing a white bean. Later Walker served with Gen. Winfield Scott, his crowning glory being that of developing the Walker Colt in 1847. His talks with inventor Samuel Colt led to the revolver coming into existence, a far superior weapon than those already in use.

October 9, 1847, saw the demise on Samuel H. walker as he was leading a charge into Huamantla, Tlaxcala, Mexico. His body was returned to Texas for burial in San Antonio.

Leander H. McNelly 1844-1877
Leander McNellt was born in Virginia and came to Texas with his family in 1860. When he was 17, he joined Company F, Fifth Regiment Texas Mounted Volunteers and fought in parts of Texas, Louisiana, and the New Mexico Campaign during the Civil War. In 1870 he was commissioned as one of four captains of the State Police. In 1874 with the reorganization of the Texas Rangers, McNelly was named commander of a special force to quell the Sutton-Taylor Feud.

Unfortunately, tuberculosis cut McNelly's awesome career short and he passed on in 1877 in Washington County, Texas

Lawrence S. "Sul" Ross
Born in Iowa, Lawrence Sullivan Ross came to Texas with his family in 1839. In 1859, Ross was made a captain in the Texas Rangers by Sam Houston. It was Ross who led the famous attack on the Comanches at the Pease River. Quanah Parker's father, Chief Peta Nicona, was killed and Quanah's mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was recaptured. In 1861, Ross resigned as a Ranger to join the Confederate Army, rising in rank to Brigadier General.

When the Civil War was over, Ross returned to Waco and began farming and his political career. In 1886, he became governor.

Sul Ross passed on to the other side January 3, 1898.

Alfred Y. Allee (1855-1896)
Born in Dewitt Co., Allee was named deputy sheriff of Karnes Co. as an adult. It was reported he shot a robbery suspect but some said it was murder, Allee settling an old score. Then Allee was made deputy sheriff of Frio Co. where he and another deputy, named Rhodes, argued over who was faster on the draw. Both men drew, opened fire and four bullets found their way to Rhodes' heart. Again Allee was acquitted of murder when witnesses claimed Rhodes drew first.

In September 1888, Allee was assigned to track down Brack Cornett, train and bank robber. Though Cornett had out-run the Texas Rangers, Allee caught up with him as the outlaw headed for Arizona. Guns drawn, the two men gallopped their horses toward one another, Cornett shot dead from the saddle.

Allee was killed in Laredo on August 19, 1896, when he was stabbed in a barroom brawl.

Manuel 'Lone Wolf' Gonzaullas(1891-1977)
Born in Cadiz, Spain to a Spanish father and a Canadian mother, Manuel Gonzaullas served as a Mexican army major at 20, worked five years at the U.S. Treasury then joined the Texas Rangers in 1920. He was nicknamed "El Lobo Solo" (The Lone Wolf), Gonzaullas went after bootleggers, gamblers and drug runners alone.

In 1933 Gov. Miriam "Ma" Ferguson fired Gonzaullas and other Rangers. In a counter action, the Texas Legislature created the Department of Public Safety in 1935, Gonzaullas appointed Superintendent of the D.P.S. Bureau of Intelligence. The crime lab he created was second only to the FBI's. In 1940, Lone Wolf resigned the D.P.S. and rejoined the Rangers, this time with Company B in Dallas. He helped found the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, leaving all his memoirs, scrapbooks and other personal papers to the museum when he died.

P.C. Baird
P.C. Baird served in Company D, Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers. In 1884, with two other Rangers, Baird met up with fence-cutters near Green Lake. The five outlaws were captured, Baird killing John Bailey (aka John Mason).

Baird was elected sheriff of Mason County in 1888.

A gunfight broke out in Garner's Saloon in 1889. As Baird and his deputy ran towards the saloon, two brothers, John and Jesse Simmons, stepped out with shotguns firing at the lawmen. As Baird and his deputy stood calmly against the drunken outlaws, the sheriff aimed and with a single shot killed John Simmons. The deputy disabled Jesse.

Serving as sheriff until 1898, Baird then retired. He died in San Antonio on March 9, 1928.

Tom Smith
Tom Smith, born in Texas, became a lawman in Texas and Oklahoma. He was also a U.S. deputy marshal in the 1870s. More than ten years later, Smith would work with Frank Canton, Joe Elliott and Fred Coates at Powder River to rid the area of Nate Champion. Champion was cut down by Smith himself.

In spring 1892 Smith was sent to Texas to recruit men for the Johnson County War. He found twenty-six men who were willing to work for $5 a day and an additional $50 for every homesteader they shot down. These men, called “Regulators,” were given a list of seventy men to target. However, before their plan could be carried out, the men were driven out of town. Smith was held until summer of 1893 then returned to Gainesville, Texas. he was killed by a man with whom he had a quarrel with on a train.