Stories from the Tree - John Henry Boyd - The Sheriff stories

The previous Story from the Tree featured one of the more notable members of the family, John Henry Boyd. Shortly after arriving in Texas John H. began a life of civil service, first as Justice of the Peace, and then as sheriff of Johnson County.

The family stories about Sheriff John Henry Boyd have been repeated and no doubt embellished over the years. I'm sure there's an element of truth and historical fact in each of them, but as Galadriel said in Lord of the Rings, "History became legend, and legend became myth."

These stories were gathered by Thomas Boyd, a nephew of John Henry, and handed down to granddaughter, Barbara Boyd Moore, who wrote a monograph about John H. entitled, "The Life and Times of a Central Texas Lawman," which is the source of this post.

In the early years of his term as sheriff, the jail was in the old court house on the ground floor. On the second floor was the living quarters for the sheriff and his family. Of course, the sheriff's wife fed the prisoners when she fed her family and many of the younger prisoners were taken under her wing. They called her "Aunt Lizzie."

Later, John and Lizzie moved to a house in town, but when there were prisoners in the jail the sheriff or his deputy stayed and slept in the jail. Thomas Boyd remembered staying in the jail "many a night" to keep the sheriff or his deputy company and many of these stories were related from those visits. Some of the stories came from a deputy who was taken in at a very young age and given some responsibility and place to live while he grew up. The deputy, whose name has been lost, loved the sheriff and considered "Aunt Lizzie" his second Mom. Years later, this deputy shared many of these with Barbara's father.

 One night the deputy heard a commotion at the Santa Fe switch yard after dark and went to investigate. He saw a gang of hooded men about to hang a Negro man on the cross arm at the train crossing just off Main Street. The deputy "hot-footed" it to the sheriff's house and caught him just getting up from a late supper, John Henry directly saddled his "ole gray horse" and rode for the rail yard.

Sure enough, about ten hooded men had caught a strange Negro man in the town after dark and were about to hang him off the back of a wagon. The tale goes on that the horse walked through the crowd and slowly pushed each man aside with his nose. As he rode past these men, tJohn Henry called them by name or made a personal comment to each man. Then he rode right up to the wagon, pulled out his Case pocket knife and cut the rope. He placed the man on the back of the gray and rode slowly up Anglin street toward the Fort Worth highway. His parting comment was, "You boys can go home now."

We were told that the man came by train searching for some long lost relatives and when he heard they were not in Cleburne he was trapped in town after dark. The sheriff gave the man train fare to Fort Worth, along with a kind warning to stay out of these small towns at night, and wished him "good luck" in finding his relatives.

He was once called to the home of an elderly widow lady that was keeping the two young children of her daughter, who was involved in the divorce of a brutal, abusive man. While the daughter was away consulting an attorney, the man came out to her farm and told the widow to get the children ready to go. Apparently, the man had persuaded the judge to award the children to him and he would be back out tomorrow to pick them up.

The sheriff got word the next morning that someone had come in the night and murdered the children by cutting their throats. When John Henry went to investigate, he saw that the children were dressed in their best clothes and they were laid out with some care. He also noted some bloody clothes hidden under the front steps and fresh marks on the stove pipe where someone had sharpened a butcher knife.

The sheriff sat down with the widow and consoled her on her loss. It was evident that she was heartbroken to lose the children. He asked her what happened and she said she didn't know, someone just killed them. He said," Ma’am, why don't you tell me what really happened, I'm sure we will all understand." She then broke down crying that she had killed the children to keep them from having to go back to their abusive father. The sheriff promised to get her son from Ellis County to come and handle things and that she would be able to attend the funeral. She did attend and then she was taken to an asylum for treatment and care.

One of the favorite stories of his exploits begins with the news brought to Cleburne that the bank at Glen Rose had been robbed by three masked men. They had escaped after a shooting, headed southeast toward the river. John Henry questioned the messenger and found that two of the men were riding a matched pair of shiny bright red roan horses. The sheriff immediately remembered a farmer who owned a grist mill on the Nolan River south of Glen Rose and raised red roan horses.

John Henry suspected that the wild teenage sons of this farmer had probably been coerced into a robbery by some hardened criminal. When he formed his posse he told them that these boys were just young kids and if they found them he didn't want any shooting till it was absolutely necessary. No one was to shoot without his order. The posse rode at night and arrived at the farmer's home before dawn. They left their horses at the road and crept quietly down to the house. Sure enough, there were the two red roan horses and a large saddle worn mount tied outside the house. John Henry decided not to enter the house for fear innocent persons might be hurt and he instructed the posse to wait and see if the outlaw came out first. If he did they were to try to take him without shooting.

Predictably, shortly after they smelled coffee, the dawn came and out came the bank robber. He threw the saddlebags of stolen money over his horse and stepped up into the saddle. John Henry was standing about 40 yards away behind a big hickory tree; he was wearing a long cowhide coat, the kind with the hair on the outside. When he stepped out from behind the tree, the gunman saw him at once. John Henry said, “Drop your rifle or I will shoot your head off." The man raised his rifle and fired two or three bullets while the sheriff leveled his gun and fired once. Witnesses said the horse ran out from under the man like he had been "pole axed." The single bullet hit him in the forehead and John Henry had two holes in his new coat.

Later he entered the house and arrested the boys; their father and mother were grateful that they weren't killed. At the trial the Sheriff spoke to the judge, getting them sentenced in a boy's reformatory instead of prison. For many years after the incident, the widows of Sheriff Boyd's family received large bags of ground corn several times a year.

Another time the ole gray horse saved his life when a notorious killer attempted to ambush and shoot the sheriff. The story goes that the assassin waited behind a huge oak tree on the south side of the old road to Glen Rose. Hidden there in the dark, the tired and sleepy sheriff dozing as he returned to Cleburne would never have seen the man in time to defend himself if not for the alertness of the old horse. The gray smelled the man and sensing the danger, stopped dead in the road. The snort of the horse put the rider on instant alert and gave him time to pull his hand gun.

Three things happened at once; two flashes of gunfire blazed from under the tree, the sheriff raised his gun and fired one shot at the shadowy figure and the horse responded to the rider's command and bolted for town at a dead run. That night, his wife noted two bullet holes under the right arm of the coat. The next morning, under the oak tree, his deputy found a dead man, gun in each hand with a single bullet straight through his heart. They say the ole gray horse got extra oats and corn for the rest of his days. [Barbara Moore says,]  know this is true because my own grandpaw told me so. He inherited this horse to ride to school, it was said that he still snorted when he passed by that tree.

Probably the most often told story from his deputy is the one where John H. and another deputy got word that a known killer and "all around bad man" was drinking in the saloon at Alvarado, bragging about his exploits which included train robbery. Since Alvarado is in the jurisdiction of the Johnson County sheriff, John Henry did not feel that he had time to wait for help from the Tarrant County sheriff or the Texas Rangers.

Fearing the bandit might escape, he and his deputy rode to Alvarado, arriving quite well after dark. After casing the saloon and the environs of same, they saw the bandit sitting in an armchair leaning against the far wall of the bar, facing the door with a double barreled shot gun in his lap. His foul mood was quite evident. He was drinking, chewing, spitting and snarling all at once. The deputy thought he looked generally quite dangerous.

 John Henry figured that if he and the deputy came in with guns out and tried to arrest him, someone would surely get shot. So, devising a plan, he and the deputy dirtied their clothes, messed their hair, took off their guns and pretended to be drunk. They entered the saloon singing arm-in-arm, as some drunks will do. They ignored the gunman and went straight to the bar where they ordered drinks and began an argument about whose wife was the meanest. In time the argument got louder and more comical as they both seemed to the gunman to be 'stinking drunk."

 In the midst of the argument, shoving started and the deputy pushed John Henry at the gunman, who was so busy laughing at their antics that he didn't raise his gun in time to keep the sheriff from pinning the gun and the bandit to the chair. The sheriff then took a gun from his boot and arrested the criminal.

Later, the deputy told all who would listen that they put the man on his horse and marched him back to Cleburne to the jail. This "big bad bandit" was so furious at having been tricked that he cussed them with every step his horse took all the way from Alvarado to Cleburne. He was known to be still cussing when the Sheriff from Tarrant county and the railroad detectives came to escort him to jail in Fort Worth. The deputy said you could still his swear words echoing as the train pulled away.

Next, Lawman turns Legislator turns Warden.