Stories from the Tree - John Henry Boyd - The Statesman/Warden Years

The previous two posts have featured one of the more notable members of the family tree as John Henry Boyd has transitioned from teen-age Civil War soldier, businessman and lawman. You and I would be ready to retire, but John Henry was just getting started. Again, thanks to cousin Barbara Boyd Moore for much of this information.

During "retirement," John started a run of political appointments and offices held, and the term "yellow dog Democrat" fit him well. This political activity culminated in his election in November, 1896 - again, by a wide margin - as Representative of the Sixty-ninth district to the Twenty-fifth Texas Legislature.

He is remembered for “favoring legislation that will compel foreign corporations doing business in Texas to pay their just proportion of Taxes; an assignment law that will protect all creditors from fraudulent assignments, and the enactment of laws that will have a tendency to prevent minors from growing up Io be gamblers, horse-racers or profligates of any kind.”

John H. led a busy life as a member of various House committees, such as State Affairs, Contingent Expenses, County Government and County Finance, and Labor, and, favoring his lawman background, was also a member of the sub-committee that visited the penitentiaries and convict farms.

After his term in the legislature, he was called on by the Governors Hogg, Sayers and Culberson to serve in various prisons and work farms. He was the deputy warden in Huntsville, then he served at the new Rusk Prison, running the smelter with prison labor. During this time he sent back several letters to the family describing the activities there - here is part of a letter describing the smelter operations:

There is a man living on top of a high hill close to the Pen that has plowed over the Iron Ore and raised peach trees on his old white sand & I never thought it was worth a dollar an acre till recently and on account of its being so close by we bought ore off the land that lies just under the top about two feet - we pay him 17 1/2 cts per ton now that looks small don't it - but I fully believe he has got $200 or $250 an acre for it - how is that, and that leaves the soil. We just get the rock.

We make now all the way from 60 to 100 tons of pig iron a day - now thats some pigs aint it.A little over two tons of ore makes a ton of pig iron - we make all sorts of iron pipe- we make all of the sash irons that are sold in Texas. We make from a thousand to fifteen hundred a day- we sell car loads every week. We pay $30,000 a month to the Cotton Belt railroad freight. We make all the window sash weights sold in Texas. 

My payroll is about $4000-per month- I have one man at $250 - 9 men at $150 - 5 men at $50 - 6 men at $35 - 2 men at a thousand a year and Lord knows how many $25 and $30 men. I have as many as 20 married men who lives in this town that don't eat a bite at home, not even on Sunday- but they drown their salary with marked regularity - if the prison was to blow up, every mother's son of them would starve to death. Whole families never saw a cent in their lives only out of the State Treasury.

In January of 1909 he was asked to be the superintendent of the Gatesville State School for Boys. While there, he changed the prison policy toward the care of young boys. “Uncle John" and "Aunt Lizzie" as they became known, actually believed that these boys, if treated with love and respect and given some type of responsibility could turn their lives around. He was known to have instituted the "Open Door" policy. The boys were put on their honor to stay inside. The guards were given other duties, like teaching and organizing sports activities.

The boys were put on their honor, and the doors were not locked. Also, when needed, the boys were given emergency leave for a family illness or Funeral. Many went out to funerals and all returned, They say he never lost a boy in the 19 months that he and his wife were there.

Barbara Moore states, "In 1933, when my father, Thomas Boyd, was having dinner at the Prison Doctor's house at Danamora Prison in upstate New York, he was seated next to a Warden from Sing Sing Prison. When Warden Laws learned that my father was a Boyd from Texas. He asked if he knew a John H. Boyd who had been at the Gatesville Boys School. My father was most happy to tell him that it was his great uncle. The warden related that he had been reading about his methods in handling young prisoners and he quoted from a noted book on the subject of prison reform, saying that many thought these methods tried in Texas would work other places too."

And Barbara continues, "During World War II, my father's brother, Major Jack Boyd,  a career Army Officer, met and talked with the famous hunter "Bring 'em Back Alive" Frank Buck, who was a graduate of the Gatesville Boy's School himself. Frank Buck remembered "Uncle John" and "Aunt Lizzie" and their son Moss (who was nine or ten at the time) as great influences in his life. He told my uncle Jack that things might have been a lot different for him if he had not gone to Gatesville, but had been sent to Huntsville instead."

John Henry Boyd and his horse "Lady" - Clovis New Mexico

John Henry retired in fact and deed, and he and Lizzie moved to a nice country home in Clovis, New Mexico, living there briefly until his death in 1912. Lizzie followed him in death 11 years later, and the two are buried in Hereford, Deaf Smith County, Texas.