Franklin Co. TX - Obits: Ben Bickerstall
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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb by:
June Tuck <juneet@verizon.net>

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From the historical files of June E. Tuck

BICKERSTAFF, BEN - Waxahachie Argus of April 6th - Ben Bickerstall -
universally known in Northern Texas as the master associate of the late Cullen
M. Baker, and Thompson, latterly the most active, energetic and fearless
accomplice of the former, met with a horrible and unexpected death at
Alvarado, Johnson County, on yesterday evening, at about sunset. The
particulars of the tragic occurrence were recounted to us this morning by A.
J. Barnrs, in the presence of Messrs. David and John Myers, all of whom are
citizens of Alvarado, and were participants in the terrible affair.

Bickerstaff and Thompson had been residing for some months near Alvarado, and
it was their custom to visit that place late in the evening and during the
night to institute a carnival of robbery and other crimes. Bickerstaff had
assumed the name of Thomason, and was known to the mass of the community by
that name. Time passed and the criminals became bolder, and their outrageous
acts grew to be more unbearable - consequently on the fatal evening mentioned,
the good citizens of the village prepared themselves with shooting apparatus
for the purpose of ridding their community of these, the greatest pest they
had ever known.

The hour at which the desperadoes usually visited them approached, and with it
came the parties for whom they so anxiously looked. A feeling not unmixed with
anxiety and pain was depicted upon every face. The men rode up to the horse
rack and dismounted, and as soon as they had alighted, a shower of death
dealing leaden balls was directed at them. Thompson was killed instantly, and
Bickerstaff was struck in 3 places. Not with standing his frightful and mortal
wounds, one of which either burst the ball of his right eye, or so contused it
as to render it entirely sightless, he fired two well aimed shots at his
adversaries, one ball passing through the clothes of one of his antagonists,
and one shot striking a gun in the hands of another. He then fired several
shots at random, showing while even in the clutches of death, the desperate
and unconquerable spirit which had attended him all along through his career
of crime. When he was prostrate upon the ground, and his adversaries were
gathered around him, he exclaimed, "You have killed as brave a man as there is
in the South." He was disposed to be communicative, but he failed to get any
interested or attentive auditors. Thus passed from earth a man who had,
doubtless, steeped himself in crimes as heinous and foul as are known in the
annals of this country; and the instance of his lawlessness are, perhaps, only
second in number to those of his former chief, Cullen M. Baker; and that
merely by reason that the latter was more inveterate in the business. Thompson
had been a citizen of Alvarado having lived there, we believe, as a respected
citizen for about 2 years. He was seduced into the vicious career upon which
he had entered by Bickerstaff, a man who was then already well advanced on the
highway to crime. We have learned that some arrest of citizens of Alvarado
have been made, it being suspected that they were accessories of Bickerstaff
and Thompson. We forbear to mention names, as the parties have been highly
respected, and as there is not yet proof positive of their connection with the
deceased.
   (Waxahachie Argus Extra, April 6, 1869)