Freestone County, Texas History News of 1880 Brenham Weekly Banner newspaper (of Brenham, Texas) January 09, 1880 edition - Page 1 John Durham colored, murdered Maud allen, colored, in Freestone county has been given 99 years in the penitentiary. There was vague doubt as to his sanity, else he would have been given the death penalty. ----------------------------------------------------- Brenham Weekly Banner newspaper (of Brenham, Texas) February 06, 1880 edition - Page 1 A negro was sentenced to the Freestone county jail for 4 hours. The county judge said he would have sent him for four and a half but was afraid he would break out in that time and thus injure the reputation of the jail. ----------------------------------------------------- Brenham Weekly Banner newspaper (of Brenham, Texas) March 12, 1880 edition - Page 1 Mrs. Babb, an old lady of Freestone county, has fallen heir to a third interest in an estate worth between two and three hundred thousand dollars. ----------------------------------------------------- Galveston Weekly News - April 1, 1880 - Page 2 THE GIBBET. Two Men Legally Launched Into Eternity Yesterday. John Henry, at Corsicana, and Allen Towles, at Fairfield, Pay the Penalty of the Law for the Highest Crime Known To the Calendar CORSICANA, March 26 – John Henry rested well last night, and when your reporter visited him in jail at eight o’clock this morning, he was not only resigned to his fate, but was cheerful, an ate a hearty breakfast. Mr. Edens gave him a good supply of tobacco and cigars, which he received gratefully, and shared liberally with his fellow-prisoners, giving Doran, his condemned cell mate, the largest share. Though not very talkative he answered all questions promptly, and in a kindly manner. He expressed himself as willing, and thought he was now prepared to die. The gallows was erected just beneath the window of the prisoner’s cell. It was arranged so that a weight snatched the prisoner up instead of dropping him. A large crowd gathered at the court-house, at an old store near the jail yard – on the adjacent trees, fences – on any object that afforded elevation. At precisely 8 o’clock the sheriff cleared the jail yard of all spectators except, those allowed by law. At 3:15 the prisoner was brought to the scaffold, dressed in a black suit of broad cloth. Sheriff Dunn made a short address on the solemnity of the occasion, and was more nervous than the prisoner, who was perfectly calm and quiet. The sheriff then read the death warrant, and at the end of it asked the prisoner if he had anything to say. He replied as follows: “No, I have nothing to say. I am willing to take my portion,” and then added after a short pause and slight shudder: “I am willing to go.” Rev. Z. Pardee then exhorted him to confess any sins, before he died, that he committed in his life. The prisoner replied: “I’ve nothing to confess.” Pardee then made a short address: “This is the most solemn scene I have ever witnessed. The law has been violated and must be fulfilled.” A chapter from the New Testament was read, a prayer was said and a hymn sang, the prisoner was again bid to confess any secret sin of his life, and again answered: “I have nothing to confess.” His hands and feet were then tied. He turned to Mr. Dunn and asked him to give Pardee some money for his (Henry’s) children. The sheriff told him he could say anything he wished. He made the following reply: “I will make a few remarks to make you a warning. This is the only man I ever killed; never desired to kill anybody; I am sorry for my Maker that I did so; hope God will forgive me; I am willing to go; I have no hard feeling for anybody, for the keepers treated me very well. I hope to meet you all in heaven.” Pardee asked: “Do you still believe you will be saved?” He answered, much agitated, “Yes; I have nothing more to tell.” The sheriff then adjusted the black and rope, and, stepping back, said: “Good bye, John.” Deputy sheriff Mallery cut the rope, and the prisoner was jerked up four feet, falling back one and breaking his neck. He remained motionless for two minutes, when he commenced writing, drawing up his hands and feet, and breathed hard for ten minutes. At 3:53 Drs. Blair, Telman and Seale pronounced him dead. At 4:13 the body was cut down. The facts for which John Henry suffered the extreme penalty of the law to-day are about these: On the morning of the day of the murder, John Henry, Jim Young, and a number of other negroes, were congregated at Jim young’s house, amusing themselves by popping an ox whip. Presently the deceased, Alonzo Whitman, came up to the fence where Jim Young was standing, and got into a difficulty with him about an altercation they had had at a party the night before. Young tried to strike Whitman with an ax, but was prevented. Whitman then tried to cut Young with a knife, but Young ran from him down the road about fifty yards from the house, where he got a stick and turned on him. Friends to both parties followed them, and one of his friends got between them, when they tried to get at each other. At this juncture, when they were trying to get together, John Henry ran into the house and got a gun. When he came to the door the belligerents were coming toward the house but were still trying to fight. John Henry then stepped over the fence, raised his gun and shouted “clear the track, God damn it! I’ll settle that fuss!” Young and the other negroes jumped to one side leaving Whitman standing in range of the gun. Henry fired and Whiteman turning, ran a few feet and fell dead. John Henry then said, “I told you, God damn it, I would fix it!” and walked away. An effort was made to prove that Henry and Young were half brothers, but the evidence only showed that they were good friends. Whitman and Henry were both fussy, quarrelsome men, and had not been on good terms for some time. Jim Young fled the country when John Henry was arrested, and has not been heard of since. The colored people of that community (where murder was committed) believe that Young and Henry had plotted the murder before hand. In an interview had by a NEWS reporter with the doomed man some two weeks ago, Henry made the following statement: I am in good health and feel pretty well, but I don’t sleep much. I am 29 years of age. I lived in Matagorda county, this state, till I was 14 years old. My parents either died while I was an infant, or I was taken away from them; anyway I don’t recalled my father or mother. I was never married, but had a wife once. I don’t feel disposed to tell what I have done wrong besides killing Alonzo Whitman. I will say this much, however, I have always worn a good reputation till I killed Lon. I first fell out with Lon, in ’74 at a ball. I walked … on the floor with a lady to dance, and he came betwixt me and her. I told him then, never to cross my path or I’d kill him and he knowed [sic] I means what I said. I did not expect to kill him when I did, but the old passion sprung up in my heart when I say him and two or three other men fighting the rest who had almost been a father to me. The difficulty of the killing commenced on Thursday night before the day I killed him. I saw him at a colored lady’s house that night and he tried to stab me. The next morning, when I say him fighting my friend, I remembered him, and shot him dead in his tacks. I feel very sorry for what I have done. I believe in a ??????, and that if I keep on like I am I will be saved. Before I got in this trouble I didn’t believe in religion, but now I do.” Execution of Allen Towles at Fairfield FAIRFIELD, via Mexia, March 26 – The legal hanging in Freestone county took place today – Allen Towles, colored, paying the death penalty for the atrocious murder of his wife last December. Five minutes before execution the condemned man was interviewed by the NEWS reporter. He accused the judge, jury and officers of unfairness in his trial, and insisted that he had no recollection whatever of any of the circumstances in connection with the murder. He did not deny having committed the crime, but said he was unconsciously drunk at the time. Continuing in a rambling way, he said that in 1874 he had killed, at Bryan, an Irishman one night, dirking him to the hilt in the breast seven times. At Waco, in 1876, he had exchanged shots with a white man and had floored him, but whether he died then, or subsequently, he did not know, having immediately fled the city. He said he had read the Bible and the Age of Reason, and was of Paine’s way of thinking. He believed that Christ had lived, but doubted his divinity – regarding him as a good man, who had by his virtues been had a high priest in his generation,, and when dead had been deified by the ignorant masses, traditions finally attributing his birth as divine. The scaffold erected in 1861 was in the hall of the jail, and his execution was witnessed by only twelve persons. At 2:05 p.m. he was lead form his cell to the grated window in the hall. He spoke as follows: “Colored people, I have only this to say; Take care of my two children; see that I am buried by my wife, and bring the children occasionally to our graves. Farewell.” He was moved to tears. He stopped on the dead fall at 2:10, and four minutes later was launched into eternity without benefit of clergy. His neck was broken and pulse ceased to beat at 2:22, when the corpse was cut down. The crowd around the jail was small, not exceeding 150 persons. Of the four executions in Freestone county, two were for wife-murder, one for incest, and the other for murdering an overseer in slave time. Before leaving the cell the condemned asked to see and speak with a playmate in boyhood. He said to him in substance that he had sent for him to obtain three solemn promises - first, that he would be a father to his children; second, that he forswear drinking; and lastly, that he never touch cards; as those two sins brought him to the scaffold. Before leaving the jail at Corsicana, some two weeks ago, a NEWS reporter interrogated Allen Towles as to his past life. Towles made the following statement: I was born in Alabama and was raised in Georgia. Came to this country when I was seven years old. Lived in Grayson county till ’65, when I ran away from my mother and went to Freestone county. I never did anything mean except kill my wife, and I have been wretched every since then. I had rather die twice over than to suffer in my mind as I do when I think of her and my two little orphan children. Me and my wife went to Fairfield, the day of the night I killed her, to buy some things for Christmas. After we bought them, I got drunk, and she went home. Towards night I went home and went to bed. That’s all I remember until after I had killed her. The witnesses said I went to bed with her. After I had been asleep a little while, she woke me up and called my name, and I told her if she knew me I would kill her. She answered and said, “Why, Allen, do you suppose I don’t know you?” As soon as she said that I shot her. I am willing and I know I ought to die. I hardly know what to think of a hereafter. I have been treated very kindly, with only one exception; since I have been here. Whenever a woman comes in jail, the jailer jokes and tells her not to come near me; that I kill women. I don’t like to hear this; it grates on my feelings. Otherwise the jailor is as kind as he can be. ----------------------------------------------------- Brenham Weekly Banner newspaper (of Brenham, Texas) February 27, 1880 edition - Page 2 A greenback convention held at Fairfield, Freestone county the other day and was attended by just sixteen persons. ----------------------------------------------------- Brenham Weekly Banner newspaper (of Brenham, Texas) May 21, 1880 edition - Page 2 A farmer writing to the Examiner says that Lang can carry Freestone county. ----------------------------------------------------- Brenham Weekly Banner newspaper (of Brenham, Texas) July 01, 1880 edition - Page 1 The greenback convention met at Austin on the 23rd inst. About 160 delegates are present, 40 of whom are from Travis county. Thirty-four counties are represented. A large majority of the delegates are non-professional men, and eight or ten of them of the colored pursuasion. R. T. Kennedy, of Freestone county, is president, Jno. T. Gano of Dallas, and Alphabet Loe, of Travis, are secretaries. It is thought that Gano will be nominated for governor and Loe for the second place. ----------------------------------------------------- Galveston News - July 8, 1880 – Page 6 Over The State. Special Telegrams to the Galveston News Celebration of Independence Day – Death from Morphine - Etc. MEXIA, July 4 - …. Mr. J. F. Teague, an old and very highly respected citizen of Freestone county, died at his home, near Cotton Gin, on the 3d inst. ----------------------------------------------------- Galveston News - July 15, 1880 – Page 2 Over The State. Special Telegrams to the Galveston News Fourth District Greenback Convention BRYAN, July 7 – The greenback convention of the fourth congressional district convened here to-day. The attendance is estimated at 250 or 300. Dr. Rankin made a speech last night, and speeches were made to-day by Col. Kennedy, of Freestone county, Capt. A. N. Smith, of Robertson, and Col. Brady, of Houston. ----------------------------------------------------- Brenham Weekly Banner newspaper (of Brenham, Texas) August 12, 1880 edition - Page 1 Freestone county has a population of 14,923, a gain of 6784 since 1870. [same issue, same page] Fairfield is a live and progressive town; it now has the "flying ponies," watermelons at a nickel a head and will soon have a tournament. Hurrah for Fairfield. ----------------------------------------------------- The Galveston Daily News - Wednesday, August 18, 1880 - Page: 4 FREESTONE Fairfield Recorder: A little son of Mr. Orand, of Ward prairie, was trying to ride a hog, and it commenced "pitching" and threw him off, dislocating his right shoulder. ----------------------------------------------------- Brenham Weekly Banner newspaper (of Brenham, Texas) September 02, 1880 edition - Page 1 Complaint is made that nearly all negro boys in Freestone county carry pistols. A few days ago a negro boy about 20 years old shot and mortally wounded his mother, who was cooking, while he attempted to draw his pet out of his hip pocket. It was an accident. ----------------------------------------------------- Brenham Weekly Banner newspaper (of Brenham, Texas) November 11, 1880 edition - Page 1 The Fairfield Recorder appeals to his dear sweet subscribers to haul him wood. In the winter season the very existence of a country newspaper depends upon wood and more than one paper has suspended publication for want of it. [same issue, same page] The Fairfield Recorder gives notice that Fairfield does not propose to furnish pretty girls for wives for the young men of Mexia and all the towns around. ----------------------------------------------------- Galveston News - November 18, 1880 – Page 1 Seventeenth Legislature Of Texas. House of Representatives District 43. B. P. Philpott, dem.; Freestone, farmer. ----------------------------------------------------- Galveston News - December 30, 1880 – Page 8 State Press. What the Interior Papers Say Mr. Geo. K. Anderson, editor and publisher of the Freestone Herald, in consequence of long-continued ill-health, and upon the advise of physicians has been forced to suspend publication of the Herald and devote his time to a more active business. He takes an appropriate farewell to the profession. The Herald was an excellent weekly and useful representative of the interests of its county. It was characterized by good sense, independence and moderation.