ON THE ROAD FROM FALLS COUNTY

                    
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ON THE ROAD FROM FALLS COUNTY

SEES FERGUSON . SEES TO THE HORSES

 

In the Spring of ‘77 [1877], the next year, Mr. Williams rode down to Falls County to look after their horses, to see about the breeding of the mares, the breaking of the colts, and cutting out the horses. They were mixed with some wild horses, and he had considerable trouble, rode a stud horse because he thought he would be faster. He could run them but they would cut in and run back and he didn’t want to injure the stud.

This experience was impressed on his mind because that year or the next they brought the horses up to this county. On the way back to Hamilton County he took a trail for a shortcut through woods. He saw three horsemen, with packhorses coming up the trail and he recognized Ault Ferguson, and another man named Humpy Dave White--nothing much to him one way or another--and the other man he couldn’t remember. At one time I feel sure he said he was the fastidious young man by the name of Clary who was with Adam Witcher and others the time they shot up the church, and that nobody ever saw him again so far as he knew. He had made his getaway.)

He knew that Ferguson would know that he, Cad, would be a material witness against him, and therefore would have a motive to get him out of the way. And Mr. Williams said he slowed up and waited till he met them, ran his hand down to the saddle bag where he had his six shooter, (Born in 1861, he was only 15 or 16 years old at this time.)

The other men were armed with Winchesters, which were under the sweat bands, and he figured he could if necessary kill one or two of them before they had time to get him. They stopped and had a friendly conversation for ten or fifteen minutes. Ferguson, who had been on the dodge, asked about many people, and before they parted, he said, "Cad, don’t tell anybody you saw me." He told him he wouldn’t and he didn’t until he got back to Hamilton. Many years later when he was brought back to Hamilton and tried, Ferguson told him that shortly after seeing him in a brawl down there at a tavern he was shot in the leg.

(It was my father who, as deputy under Sheriff Bird had a writ from Governor Jim Hogg, brought Ferguson back from Arkansas for trial.)

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CHESLEY'S  HAMILTON COUNTY INTERVIEWS

BY

HERVEY EDGAR CHESLEY, JR.

Born: 21 November, 1894

Died: 17 July, 1979

 

 

 
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People and Places: Gazetteer of Hamilton County, TX
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Copyright © March, 1998
by Elreeta Crain Weathers, B.A., M.Ed.,  
(also Mrs.,  Mom, and Ph. T.)

A Work In Progress