Nancy Hill's Hanging

The Texas frontier, distantly removed from most societal institutions, became a refuge for people of 'suspect character'. As lawlessness grew on the frontier, secret groups formed with the express purpose of ridding their communities of these unwanted types. Lord Acton's words, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." rang true in his time, and certainly spoke true of most vigilante groups who more often than not degenerated over time to administering self-serving vengeance. In some Texas communities, counter-vigilante groups emerged to watch over the vigilance committees.

In 1873, a vigilante group operating in Parker County pursued and hanged horse thief, Nancy Hill in Montague County. Hill is notable as the only woman ever hanged in Montague County. After Hill's demise, vigilantes grabbed Nancy's sisters, Katherine and Martha and hung both three miles south of Springtown. The vigilantes then proceeded to burn the Hill farm and pursue the remaining family members. Nancy's mother, Dusky, and sisters, Adeline and Eliza, were captured, shot, and killed.

Due to the violence shown the Hill family, most historians believe their murders were the result of prejudices that labeled the family as "Yankee Sympathizers." Father, Allen Hill, was killed ten years earlier over the considered prejudices and eldest brother, Jack Hill, was killed in early 1873 after an argument with Aaron Bloomer.

Only the two youngest Hill children, Belle, (12) and Allen Jr. (11) were spared the mob's wrath. Belle and Allen Jr. were turned over to "Good Samaritan" citizens in Springtown, Texas. After that, both Belle and Allen Jr. become lost in history.

None of the murdered Hill women were buried as citizens feared the vigilante mobs who had hanged or shot the family. Sometime later, it was reported that former Texas Rangers, Al Thompson and Dock Maupin defied the watchmen and buried the decaying bodies of the women in Springtown.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

Charles Stillman

In 1849 Charles Stillman, a steamship magnate who founded Brownsville, challenged one south Texas ranchero, Rafael Garcia Cavazos, an heir to the 1781 Spanish grant, El Agostadero del Espiritu Santo, in court. Stillman claimed land title based on his purchase of squatter's land in the Espiritu Santo grant. After years of legal battles, Cavazos prevailed, but was forced to sell to Stillman's lawyers several months later after the attorneys threatened to appeal the court verdict. Cavazos relented, as he could not finance further legal battles. Stillman later purchased the disputed land from his attorneys.

The Espiritu Santo litigation was indicative of the struggles of many Hispanic landowners in south Texas. Most historians believe that Juan Nepomuceno Cortina's rise as a bandit was a direct result of the Espiritu Santo court battle. Cortina's mother was one of the heirs to the El Agostadero del Espiritu Santo grant. Cortina protested the loss of Mexican land to Anglos by rustling cattle from ranches in south Texas. Cortina, a common thief to Texans, and a hero to Mexicans, was also known as, "the Red Robber of the Rio Grande"

In 1850, the Bourland-Miller Commission was established to consider all claims in the Nueces Territory and establish procedures for claimants. By 1852, the legislature approved the majority of claims in favor of the Spanish and Mexican applicants.

Stillman's son, James, had two daughters, both of whom married into the William Rockefeller family.

Mike Kearby's Texas copyright 2010

The South Texas Plains

The brush country of south Texas, also referred to as the brasada, is home to numerous and varied species of plant life, each equipped with its own armament of thorns and barbs. The brasada of 1878 was thick with prickly-pear, cats-claw, Spanish dagger, black chaparral, twisted acacia, all-thorn, wild currant, and mesquite. Photo- Longhorns in the South Texas Brasada

The brasada required that a brush cowboy’s equipment be suited to working in these dense and dogged thickets. Every brush hand’s armor included toe-fenders on his stirrups, leather leggins that covered his legs all the way to his waist, (no respectable brush cowboy ever referred to his leggins as chaps), gloves that extended past his wrists, and a wide-brimmed hat that could be tied around his chin.

J. Frank Dobie wrote in A Vaquero in the Brush Country, that, “In running in the brush a man rides not so much on the back of the horse as under and alongside. He just hangs on, dodging limbs as if he were dodging bullets, back, forward, over, under, half of the time trusting his horse to course right on this or that side of a bush or tree. If he shuts his eyes to dodge, he is lost. Whether he shuts them or not, he will, if he runs true to form, get his head rammed or raked. Patches of the brush hand’s bandana hanging on thorns and stobs sometimes mark his trail. The bandana of red is his emblem.”

The brasada was also home to Texas and Mexican bandits and desperadoes. In the parlance of the time, they were known as owl hoots, bad men who rustled, robbed, and murdered at their own will. Texas and Mexican bandits used the brasada as an exchange point. The Texas rustlers often had Mexican cattle to dispose of that carried no known state brand and contrariwise.

Mike Kearby's Texas Copyright 2010