Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-11-17
ENDED BY DEATH.
Last Of the Gases Growing Out
OF the Killing of Kyle Terry
THEY ARE ALL DISMISSED.
Review of the Faction Warfare Between
the Woodpeckers and gay i;irds
of Fort Bend County-A
Bloody Record.
Special to the Gazette.

Special to the Gazette.
SAN ANTONIO, Tex, Nov. ia Texas
tragedy ended here TO day in the Forty-ffth
district court with Judge W. W. King pre-
siding. Fort Bend county is in
the black belt along the Brazos
three to one. They are Republicans, and
eight out of ten are purchasable. In no
other section of Texas are the conditions
Of The slave states of the South so exactly
reproduced and the land is the same fertile
and wet. Behind each plantation stretches
the swamps and the negroes
are the same, straight African descendants
of the thousand tribes OF the west coast,
mulatto, qUadroons, and all the diversified
forms of mixed blood. The native whites
are Il duplication of the classes of
Louisiana, Mississippi or South
Carolina educated high tempered, brave,
generous and implacable. The shotgun is
the arbitrator of dispute, and such thing
as suit for seduction or divorce IS un-
known. The Fort Bend county planters
and the sons of planters shoot
straight. They have cultivated
courtesy. They are not earnest resPecters
of the statute which says that the man who
is wronged must sue for
DAMAGES Gan in H., court OF law
brothers. sweethearts. and husbands. self
willed. imperlous. enthusiastic and game.
In such social conditions troubles naturally
arise. Irhey were, of course. political and the
whites divided into two factions. One was
called the Wood-peckers,' in derision of
their ceasrless effort to handle the negro
vote. and the other was called 1.-THE Jay
bird" in derision of their desire to handle
the vote if they could. Most prominent
among the Wood-peckers was Kyle
Terry, a nephew of the cele
brated California Judge of that
name who slew Broderick years ago, was
the leading counsel in the divorce suit
brought by Sarah Althea Hill against Sen
a tE Sta subsequently mar, mar
killed by Deputy Marshal Maggie. Kyle
Terry was a similar man, but more danger
Gus because he was younger, possessed q
surer aim, and was of deadiler dis
position. Four years ago he
killed Fred Gibson, one of the most
prominent of the Jaybirds' faction. The
weapon used was a shotgun. Gibson did
not know what hit him. All that section of
the country was in a ferment. But for the
strong arm of the law Terry would not
have lived an hour.
The case against him for the murder of
Gibson, by change of venue, was sent to
Galveston. On the 10Th Of JAN, $780, Terry,
backed by his friends. entered the Calves
ton courthouse and started up stairs to
stand his trial. Volney Gibson, brother of
the dead man, stood twenty feet away. and
as Terry placed his foot upon the steps he
fell, shot through the body. Volney Gibson.
his revolver in both hands, looked at
him with smile. AS an evidence of
Terry's indominable character, it may be
said that with the forty-fve caliber bullet
through him from side to side
he desperately reached for his pistol.
and when picked up stone dead his fingers
were clasped about the butt of the weapon
IT, his face was white despair terrible to
see. \ general fusilade between the factions
followed No other was fatally hurt.
All gave bond. Volney Gibson died at
Corpus Christi Of consumption, and to-day,
under change of venue to this county,
his companions appeared for trial
as accessory to the murder
of Kyle Terry. The state
dismissed the cases. The Announcement
said that Volney Gibson was dead and there
was no evidence that the man before the
bar had shot at Terry. 1t was in the evil
dence that they had been fired upon by the
opposite faction and had returned the i~e.
Their names are James Mitchell, Daniel
Ragsdale, T. S. Blake, Will Andrews, W.
j. Mcfarland and ". r Little. They will
be tried in Galveston county for carrying
concealed weapons, and it is thought that
the result of the days trial ends the feud
in Fort Bend county. The principals are
dead.