PAYNE KILLS LIVINGSTON

It was about 1898 that Payne killed Livingston. It was Saturday night and they had been, were at Hamilton drinking pretty heavily. James S. "Jim" Livingston it was said had given Payne a severe beating. Later it was said when Payne was standing at the saloon door Livingston came up and called him a "... ... ... ..." and said he had what it took to take care of him. Payne shot and killed Livingston, the ball going through his forearm, upper arm, and into his side, from which it was deduced that Livingston was reaching for his throat.

[William Dennis "Bill" Payne married Olive "Ollie" Dunlap in 1872 in Hill County and relocated to Hamilton County later that year.  William Payne was murdered in Beckham Co OK 12 July 1914.]

(Jim Livingston was taken upstairs to Dr. R. A. Kooken’s office. He was asked if he had any statement to make and he said he did not. ) (Dr. Sterling Price "Tip" Williams ) to the writer. He was reared on the streets of Hamilton in the nineties went off teaching school and had been a distinguished professor in philosophy in universities in Chicago.)

In the trial for killing Poe, Payne was defeated by Judge James A. Eidson (our next door neighbor, later on the Austin Court of Civil Appeals) and acquitted. In the second trial, for killing Jim Livingston, he was defended by Judge C. K. Bell, later attorney general, and assisted by my uncle John C. Main, and was convicted. His reputation was so bad that he was given two years this time and served it. After he came back he did not stay long, but went to Indian Territory, where he was shot by a fellow from some distance with a buffalo gun and killed.

(Several years ago a jovial young man introduced himself to me on the street as Tom Livingston. He was the grandson of Jim Livingston. His father was "Cad" Livingston, possibly named after Mr. Williams. He was born and reared in New Mexico, but at the time was ranching in Oklahoma. He spoke of "White Metal" Livingston, of whom Mr. Williams sometimes spoke, and who Mr. Jim Read, the bartender in Uncle Bill Jones’ saloon in Reserve, New Mexico, told Evetts Halley and me that he knew. We also discussed one of the Livingstons who was an historian in New Mexico, and he told of one who had been a prominent lawyer there.)

(The original Livingston was Mr. Uel Livingston, one of the earliest and best know ranchers in the county, the father of Jim and the others. There was the story that someone visited his home saw a new Bible, and said, "Mr. Livingston, that is a beautiful Bible. Do you read it much?" He answered that it was only in times of bad drought.)

(John E. Chesley, my uncle, who ranched here and later in Stephens County, told me there was a "Red Jim" and a "Black Jim, "that one was a heavy drinker, the other an abstainer, and that the drinker stopped short and the other took it up.")

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