The blacksmith Hawkins, who lived over in the west part of town a long
time ago, and had a boy named Harry--was a brother to the second Mrs.
Lewis Paulin. He told them the incident, with which I was familiar, of his
first wife being caught in bed with the hired man; how he shipped her back
to Georgia; tried to forget about it, but it seems there was so much
street gossip about it that Paulin went out to Coleman County and shot the
man, named Henderson off at a haystack. There was a long report of the
case in the Southwestern Reporter, or Texas Court of Appeals, what
troubled the court being the long delay after the provocation and the
shooting, whether or not the cooling off period was too long. Seems they
found it wasn’t and reversed the case.
He said that Paulin was a sheep man, and had Mexicans on his place to
grub. So he was not very popular. But he was a pretty good fellow pretty
rough shod, and that you had to know him to like him. The he went fishing
with him and other boys on the Cow House. Told a story, not clear now, and
something Joe Williams had done that caused Mr. Paulin to say it was just
some of his "impertinence." After that the boys called him
"pert."
Told of the incident when Paulin down on the Leon drank so much
moonshine whiskey that he fell off of a log, and that they kidded him lots
about it afterwards. After his trouble he moved to Hamilton and read law,
lived on our street. He ran in the Populist preliminaries against Ernest Kingsbury
of the Evant community, for county
judge and that Ernest beat him bad. He said just to wait till the Shive
box came in, his home precinct and see. When it did, he lost even more
heavily. Supposed to be pretty well-to-do.
Probably disgusted after all his trouble and defeat here, he shook the
dust of the place from his feet and moved to Indian Territory, where he
was reputed to have become rather prominent. (... ... later I recall he
came back on a visit and had dinner in our home, sort of blusteringly good
humored. Rev. John D. West, Lena’s father, was teaching in an Indian
school near Durant. One of the small boys was ill and Dr. Leach, brother
to Dr. Dave Leech, here recommended that they move west to a dry climate,
and suggested Hamilton County. Mr. West knowing Mr. Paulin came from
there asked his advice, He told him it was all right, but that he
"was leaving a ... ... ... .... .... than he was going to!")
Mr. Williams said that Mr. Paulin told him that C.
W. (Neilly) Rutherford stayed with him in his trouble up there. Rutherford
had practiced law in Hamilton.
