HANGING OF GARRISON
At the last interview, April 8, 1943, Mr. Williams said it was 69 years
that night since Garrison was hanged. It was at the live oak tree about
thirty steps south from the wall of the old cemetery. The limb is still
there extending southeast. They made him (Cad) go along to the hanging,
but then let him go. He had a herd of cattle bedded down at the Blansit
place down the creek and he was afraid that the mob would leave going by
in a hurry and cause a stampede of the cattle, because he knew that most
of them were from out that way. But it didn’t happen. His brother Hal
started on with the cattle and he caught up with them the next day. That
was the way he fixed the date. (It seems that would make the date of the
hanging April 8, 1884.
(I think this story is written up in more detail somewhere else.
Garrison, a stranger with a big red moustache, was member of a ring of
horse thieves operating at that time. Horses stolen would be brought from
one place to another so they would not be recognized, and in this way
passed on out of the country. This man was a bad operator and a bad
influence on the younger boys. The law had seemed apparently unable to do
anything about them evidently there was an organized conspiracy to get rid
of him. Sheriff Sam Terry [S. D. Terry was sheriff
from 1884-1886--Elreeta Weathers] seemed to have some business
elsewhere, and he detailed Mr. Williams, one of his deputies at the time,
with another fellow, maybe Cooper, to go to the jail and guard it, for
Garrison had been arrested and locked up at the time. The mob gathered
about the square wearing raincoats, though it didn’t look like rain,
milling along. Old Judge Pierson heard the
noise, came out on the upper porch of the Pierson Hotel in his nightshirt,
and they yelled, "Judge, go back in." Mr. J. T. James with his
family at that time lived in a building on the west side of the square.
Mr. James stepped out the door to see what was going on and was truck with
the butt of a rifle and told to get in. Many years later a man named Price
Yale, or going by that name, recognized him out in New Mexico, and asked
if he remembered the time he made him go back in the house. At the jail,
which was in the alley back of saloon row on the north, made of planks
nailed one on top of another. Mr. Williams and the other tried to resist
the mob, which came surging and threatening on. The other man asked Mr.
Williams if they should shoot and he said, no, he had too many friends in
the crowd. Under further pressure they had to give up. A saloon keeper
yelled out to Garrison, who at first thought it was a rescue party and not
a hanging party, :You will be in hell within an hour!" He was led on
to the place he was hanged. Next morning Mrs. Ed. Secrest, Aunt Mollie,
and her sister, out early looking for their cow, saw a man hanging on a
tree. This matter was taken up perfunctorily by the grand jury. They had
Mr. Williams as a witness. "Cad," asked the foreman,
"did you recognize any of the men. Then he said that he did.
Foreman: "Are you going to tell their names?" The foreman began
to redden. Mr. Williams said, "No, I am not." The foreman, who
lived out near Evergreen, looked relieved,
as well he might, because he was said to be the leader or one of them of
the gang.
The man that built most of old Rock
House was Old man Stout.
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CHESLEY'S HAMILTON COUNTY INTERVIEWS
BY
HERVEY EDGAR CHESLEY, JR.
Born: 21 November, 1894
Died: 17 July, 1979