Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC
www.historypress.net
Copyright 2015 by Richard Zelade
All rights reserved
First published 2015
e-book edition 2015
ISBN 978.1.62585.454.4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015948350
print edition ISBN 978.1.62619.917.0
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Austin is the spawn of murder and mayhem.
If you are a Bible-toting Texan like most of us are, murder and mayhem go back to Cain and Abel and have been faithfully practiced ever since, Austin being no different than any locality of any size anywhere. This compendium of crime runs from the founding of Austin through the end of the Roaring Twenties. Not that murder and mayhem havent continued to thrive in our pretty little city, but you can only stuff so many tawdry tales into one slim volume.
Most of the stories I have chosen, I realized as I was wrapping up the manuscript, involve the three Ls: lawmakers, lawmen and lawyers, with some soldiers and servant girls thrown in. Was this the product of serendipity? Or some sort of Freudian flippancy? After all, I have always enjoyed taking pot shots at the pillars of our society, la John Dowell. I cant decide myself.
HOW DO YOU SAY PLEASE DONT KILL ME IN COMANCHE?
In his welcoming address to Republic of Texas president Mirabeau Lamar on October 30, 1839, Edwin Waller, chief contractor and Austins first mayor, noted that since his construction crew had commenced building Austin in May of that same year, they were liable every moment to be interrupted by the hostile Indians, for whom we were obliged to be constantly on the watch; many-tongued rumor was busy with tales of Indian depredations, which seemed to increase in geometrical progression to her progress through the country.
The March 11, 1840 issue of the Austin Sentinel featured a remedy against Indian arrows, given by Henry Mollhausen, captain of artillery and Austins first architect: Take 16 to 24 sheets of blotting paper, interspersed with layers of silk or cotton, wrap it around your torso like a jacket, and you will be invulnerable to arrows and bullets. The Sentinel also printed a brief dictionary of the Comanche language for the convenience of its readers.
The city was thrown into considerable excitement two nights later, when a man named Ward, a butcher, was found dead. His corpse was shockingly mangledshot with three rifle balls and an arrow and scalped by a party of Indians who had ventured into town for the purpose of plundering and stealing. Scouting parties immediately got up and made an unsuccessful search. The next morning, another corpse was found about a mile below townthat of a ditcher, Thomas Hedley. He was attacked while alone, in his camp. Endeavoring to escape, he had gotten some two hundred yards from the camp, in the direction of the city. He was pierced with twelve arrows (most of which passed through his body), his throat was cut from ear to ear and he had been scalped. Future Texas president Anson Jones noted in his diary that the suburbs of the town had been plundered of all the horses and he heard Hedleys cries while under the hands of the Indians.
The good citizens of Austin were so rattled that Mayor Waller felt compelled to issue a public declaration on March 15, urging everyone to preserve strict quiet, avoiding all unnecessary noise of any description, particularly the discharge of fire arms. Acknowledging a likely repeat of the events of the thirteenth, he laid out a plan of action:
It is expected that every citizen will have his arms in order for immediate use. Any incursion of hostile Indians into the City will be denoted by two discharges of the Cannon, which is under the direction of Captain Henry Mollhausen, and the Citizens are requested upon hearing the report, to assemble instanter, at the office of the Quarter Master General, on Congress Avenue opposite the Capitol, where those who require it, will be furnished with arms and ammunition. Particular attention is requested to these suggestions, that unanimity and vigor of action may be insured and the apprehension of the female portion of the community, in some degree quieted.
That night, Secretary of State James Mayfield was slightly wounded by a shot fired by an Indian while escorting a lady from a party to her home.
The Indians were skulking about through the streets at night with impunity during the summer of 1841, frequently dressed in white mens clothing. Scarcely a night passed without someone seeing Indians in town; they were thick as hops, and occasionally they knocked over a poor fellow and took his hair.
During November, the Indians were daily robbing and murdering the inhabitants on the frontiers, frequently in sight and in hearing of this city. When Congress came into session, the cannon was stationed in the street with the expectation of an attack from the Indians.
But there was danger lurking within, as well as without.
SHOOT, DAMN YOU, SHOOT!
In a state where some of the highest elected officials make no secret of the fact that they carry concealed weapons on their person at all times, it should not be surprising that politics in Texas has long beenand still isa deadly game.
As recently as the 2015 legislative session, a representative from Houston cursed a colleague on the House floor before threatening to hurt a Department of Public Safety officer, according to the officers incident report.
Political violence in Texas precedes the founding of Austin.
James Collinsworth, Peter Grayson and Mirabeau Lamar were locked in a bitter, three-way race for the presidency of Texas in 1838. On May 24, Grayson accepted a candidacy for the presidency. Shortly afterward, he was chosen to serve as minister plenipotentiary to the United States. On his way to Washington, he shot himself to death on July 9 in Tennessee. Since Sam Houston could not succeed himself as president, James Collinsworth was chosen as the Houstonian partys nominee. On July 11, Collinsworth died after jumping off a boat in Galveston Bay after a week of drunkenness. Lamar won the election.
Austin became the most enduring fruit of Lamars victory.
In 1842, the capitol building was a cabin of rough Bastrop pine with two large rooms, one each for the House and Senate.
After the House of Representatives had adjourned for the evening on January 6, 1842, David Kaufman, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who had represented Nacogdoches County from 1838 to 1841, attacked former secretary of state Mayfield, now the member from Nacogdoches, because of some very pointed and severe remarks Mayfield had made in the House earlier that morning about Kaufmans political character.
