Bios: Police Chief John Tom Sisemore, Lincoln Parish, LA Submitted by Kelly Christian Priestly, Simsboro LA ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** The Ruston Daily Leader Ruston, LA Sunday, September 5, 1999 Part I 100 Years Ago: Early police chief lived and died protecting Ruston's citizens By: Wesley Harris "The foulest and most horrible crime ever committed in Ruston" That's how a November 1898 Ruston Leader described the ambush slaying of Police Chief John Tom Sisemore near his home on South Trenton Street one hundred years ago last year. Mystery still surrounds Sisemore's unsolved murder as well as the death of Frank Mullins, a whiskey runner Sisemore killed earlier that year. Sisemore never received the notoriety achieved by lawmen Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, but not for lack of effort. Documents and newspaper accounts place Sisemore among the most active and effective law enforcement officers of the nineteenth century. His short career, he was murdered after less than four years on the job, and his jurisdiction, the unadorned rolling hills of north Louisiana, combined to discourage pulp magazines and books that showcased similar exploits by lawmen in the more exciting and untamed "Wild West." Faded by history, the story on John Sisemore remains. It must be patiently pieced together like a patchwork quilt, using tattered court documents and newspapers rarely viewed by human eyes. Despite the mystery and many unanswered questions, the record reveals John Sisemore's life and death played a significant role in shaping Ruston's future. 1898: A time of change 1898 was a fascinating year for the United States. It marked the beginning of America's rise from a third rate military power to the strongest nation in the world. 1898 was clearly the dividing point between a century of isolationism and a century of international leadership. Electric power, telephones, bicycles, and automobiles were changing the American way of life. The country's century-old agrarian society was transformed into the world's foremost industrial colossus. Ruston was not insulted from these changes. In 1883, Ruston had rose out of the red clay hills when the railroad finally spanned north Louisiana. The Vicksburg, Shreveport, and Pacific Railroad, or the "Very Slow and Pokey" as it was known locally, replaced the Wire Road, the main transportation route from Vicksburg to Shreveport. Many communities on the Wire Road, including Vienna, all but disappeared when the railroad missed them. A boom town of sorts, Ruston grew with the constant migration of new citizens from towns missed by the railroad. With Vienna's demise, the courthouse was moved to Ruston. New schools were started, including Ruston College. By 1894, another college, the Louisiana Industrial Institute (now Louisiana Tech), was created. The Chautauqua program attracted teachers and other for educational and cultural activities amidst shade trees and bubbling springs north of town. William Jennings Bryan and other fiery politicians, preachers, and military men visited the Chautauqua to lecture and pontificate. With the trains, however, came the good and the bad. Crime was a problem, especially routine gunfire and disturbances. Many citizens hungered for a community of sophistication and culture. Believing liquor was the root of the community's ills, in 1894 the town fathers passed an ordinance prohibiting the sale or possession of alcoholic beverages. Sisemore: Big enough for the job Sisemore was not a big man he wore a size four shoe but he was tough and solidly built. His children would later remember townspeople referring to their father as "full of dynamite" and "the shortest six-foot fellar I ever saw." Sisemore was born in Alabama on April 7, 1862, while thousands lay dead and dying on the battlefield at Shiloh, Tenn. His Cherokee father William Sisemore and his mother Mary Davis were wed in their native Georgia sometime in the early 1860's and later moved to Alabama. The Sisemores moved the family to Louisiana between 1868 and 1870, probably seeking better opportunities in the lean years after the Civil War. They were among the many families who left Georgia and Alabama and established farms in a region 20 to 30 miles west of Monroe. By 1873, the area had grown in population to the point a new parish Lincoln was created from portions of the surrounding ones by Reconstruction Republicans. Vienna, the only town of any significance, was designated the parish seat. Around 1894 or 1895, Sisemore became acquainted with United States Marshal James Martin who served the Western District of Louisiana in Shreveport. The Ruston Leader reported Sisemore "fell in" with Martin and eventually was sworn in as a Deputy Marshal. Probably happy to leave the life of a farmer, Sisemore built a new home for his wife and five children on a hill just south of downtown Ruston. Sisemore's labors were as tough as those faced by lawmen taming the wild and woolly towns of the West. He raided stills, ferreted out bootleggers, and captured other outlaws. He did his job so well that the mention of his name struck fear among whiskey runners. One reporter wrote Sisemore was "an efficient officer who made it exceedingly risky for the moonshiner to run his business in North Louisiana. He is a terror to the whiskey element and all outlaws in general." In fact, Sisemore's adventures became regular fodder for the papers in Shreveport, Ruston and other north Louisiana towns. The stories of his pursuit of post office robbers and moonshiners were filled with exciting details as if the reporter had accompanied Sisemore on his raids. He worked often with federal revenue agents who could destroy the stills but relied on Deputy U.S. Marshals for arrest powers. Sisemore and the revenuers would hide for days in the woods watching stills, awaiting the return of moonshiners. These surveillances often developed into running gun battles until the surprised whiskey makers surrendered or escaped. December 1896 found Sisemore chasing down an outlaw named Lish Williams from Union Parish. A year earlier, Williams had shot the town marshal of Junction City and received nine wounds himself. The Shreveport Herald called him "a great daredevil but one of the kind who inevitably steer up against a winning posse." Williams escaped from jail and fled Union Parish and sought refuge further south in Caldwell Parish. In a very unpretentious article, the Herald reported, "Deputy United States Marshal Sisemore has captured the celebrated moonshiner, Lish Williams of Union parish, who escaped from jail and other troubles last March. He was arrested near Columbia after some show of resistance." Even when Sisemore missed his target, he sounded like a hero. In describing the lawman's encounter with one moonshiner, a reporter wrote, "Sisemore, who is a fine shot, could have killed the man, but wishing only to disable him, fired carefully at his legs. The negro escaped and it is not known whether or not he was hit. Had he not first seen Sisemore and [Deputy] Wood his capture would have been an easy matter." TO BE CONTINUED ......