The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1886-12-14
by JOHN HENRY BROWN.

regard to the long mysterious, cow
ardly and midnight murder OF Capt.
Il. Teal, of the Texas army, in his tent
on the Navidad river, in the spring OF
1897. Gen. j. b. Robertson, OF Goliad
in an otherwise correct and valuable
contribution to the history of that
day, states that two men named Quick
and Shultz, executed at Harrisburg or
Liberty in 1889, confessed to the MUIR
der of Teal. This statement is wholly
erroneous. Shultz, as l stated at the
time in communication to the Stand
ard, was hung in Galveston in the
summer of 1855 for the murder OF
Simeon Rateman and - Jett, near
Virginia Point, about January, 1915,
more than ten years before. He con-
fessed to having killed Capt. Teal and
other persons in and out OF Texas,
and was the only man have ever seen
hung.
The execution of Quick and Jones
at the same time, but for different
crimes, was in the second year of the
existence of Houston as a town, and
was the first judicial punishment
by death in the Republic
of Texas; and at the request
of several old citizens and lawyers of
Texas. and Mr.. G.. Nelson Smith, 1928
Madison Square, Philadelphia, SOL
der of 1886 and a citizen Of Texas
thence till 1910, who witnessed the
execution. am induced to recite the
facts in that case, as well as those con-
nected with the trial and exc cution Of
Michael Campbell, in the same yea',
in the town Of Victoria, being the
second case of the kind in the Repub-
lic
The precise dates of the killings
cannot be given, but they were in the
first three months of 1888.
John G. Quick was talented young
LAWYER from Washington county, Mo-,
ON a prospecting tour to Texas. and
had decided to locate in Houston as
soon as he could return and bring out
his family. He had taken passage on
a schooner, lying at Houston, to New
Orleans and had his baggage on
board. Pending her departure OH the
next day, while strolling over the new
town. Quick, for the first time in his
life, entered a gambling tent 1Iewon
on a game Of faro, the first game, and
the last, on which he ever bet. In
dispute about the winnings he killed a
gambler named Bigham or Bingham.
David Jones, a native of Wales, a
gallant soldier who escaped from the
Fannin massacre and was discharged
on the disbandment Of the army in
Nav, 1887, rode into Houston,
hitched his pony near tent
saloon, entered and was soon
under the influence Of whisky. After
a time he went out, to find his pony
gone, which, supposing it TO have been
stolen, enraged him. Re-entering the
tent and drinking more whisky, he
again went out, and as he did so his
former fellow soldier, Mandried
Wood. rode up on the pony to rehitch
him, having taken him to ride on some
little errand, rs one friend would do
with anothers horse. But Jones,
crazed with whisky and having loudly
vowed vengeance on the supposed
thief. waited not for an explanation,
but shot Wood dead. These were the
controlling facts elected OH tho trial.
Both Quick and Jones were tried
and convicted before the Hon. James
w. Robinson, Judge of the Fourth, or
Western District, sitting in Houston
by exchange with Judge b. G.. Frank
lin, of that district, on the 23d day of
March, 1888. They were sentenced on
the oath and hung together on the
2Sth of the same month.
Mr.. Ct. Nelson Smith, who witnessed
the execution, standing arm-in-arm
with Capt. John Holiday, Pennsyl-
vanian, and like Jones, one of Fannin's
escaped men, his fellow soldier and
bosom friend to the last, says:
"Therc was great sympathy for
both. Deep sympathy was felt for
Quick because of his being a stranger
and the justification for the act COM
United. The sympathy for Jones was
because of his heroic services to the
country. Had it not been for the
clamor i'm the States about lawless-
ness in Texas, neither of the men
would have been hung. 1t was to
prove that law was supreme in Texas
that they were executed. They were
the first victims of the law in the Re
public of Texas"
In letter to me dated Philadelphia,
|, Dec. 9th, 1886, Mr.. Smith says: "Quick
was learned man, an able lawyer and