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