The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-07-30

tees Executed Their LAVA Woman
In Mans Attire-Death Struggle of
Two Missourians.
From the st. Louis Republic
Valley View, Tex, July 1s.-When the
day comes in which all secrets are to be
made open and all mysteries are to be ex-
planned the prairies of Texas will have
some wonderfully interesting stories to
tell.
There is a grove about three miles west
of the quiet, orderly little town from
which this letter is dated, which will
probably furnish its share of them. 1t is
known through all this country as Hang
mans Grove, and its stories, if they could
be gotten in detail, would probably rival
our most sensational yellow backed nov
els in horror and gruesomencss.
The grove itself is not the dreary, dark
looking place that its name would suggest
The sunlight filters freely through the
scanty walnut and elm trees, upon the
tops of the still smaller black jacks, scrub
oaks and pecans. The murmur OF Indian
creek as it flows into Big Elm is musical,
and would suggest pleasanter thoughts
than those of Winchester rifles, halters
and dead men. The.trees, however, are
of a suspicious height. They are low, but
are Just high enough for the neck of a
man on horseback to come within few
feet of their gnarled, projecting limbs
Hangman's Grove is not used now save as
pasture for the cattle that occa-
sionally find their way in from
the prairie that surrounds it. The last
time 1t was used in any practical
way was when Samp Holder was hanged
there in '73. Samp was "cOw punch
er," as the Texans call it, and lived In
the Era neighborhood, nearly 10 miles
from the grove. Re was a Jolly good fell
low, free hearted and liberal as the
wind. The only thing ever said against
him was a whispered insinuation that
other peoples cattle sometimes managed
to get mixed up with his own, and that
he would punch them just as readily as
if they had been raised on his own ranch
How much truth there was In these ru-
mors, nobody knows; nobody ever will
know.
One winters night, however, about 10
o'clock, someone rode up to his shanty
and called "Helloli'
Samp was sitting before his fireplace
nursing his sick baby.
"Here, hold this baby till l see who
that is" he said to his wife. "rll be
back in q minute.f
If Mrs, Holder had held the baby till
Samp came back she would have been
holding it now. There was no noise on
the outside and no confusion Whatever
was done must have been done suddenly
| and after plan well natured before
| hand. Next morning Sainp was found
hanging cold and rigid FROM the limb of a
| tree in Hangman's grove, nine miles
away
How many were there in the party that
hung Samp Holder} Who were they2
Were they his near neigh bors, men who
had met him and talked to him every day
for months, or were they men from a dis
tance2 These are questions which many
would be interested in having answered,
but which many prefer to leave as they
are. Nobody knows who hung Samp
Holder; nobody ever saw anybody else
who did know; nobody ever saw anybody
who ever heard anybody else ever ex-
press an opinion ON the subject. OF
course the courts took the matter in hand
at the time, but of course they never sue
ceeded in doing anything with it, Mrs
Holder swore that there were at least
three men in the party who called her
husband out, and accordingly Dick Bry-
ant, Joe Downward and John Underwood
were tried for the killing. They were all
acquitted. Dick Bryant committed sui
eide about six months after his acquittal
Poor fellow! They say it was on account
of a love affair in which he had been
Tilted, and perhaps it was.
The Holder hanging was so much like
a long series of others that preceded it
that it may fairly be allowed to stand as
a type of them all. From '65 to about "a
the legislative department of government
in this part of Texas was vested for the
most part in vigilance committees, as were
also the executive and judicial depart
ments. 1t is generally supposed that the
only crime of which these committees
took cognizance was horse stealing, but
this supposition does them an injustice
Cattle stealing and certain classes of muir
der were considered nearly as bad, and
rape was, if anything, considered worse
When man was tried for any of these
crimes he was generally convicted It
soon happened that if a man of shady rep
utation was missing, the first place to
look for him was Hangman's Grove.
However, the bleak monotony of the
long list of hangings was occasionally
broken by shooting, the most prominent
of which was the shooting OF the horse
thieves in 1868. During the autumn of
that year, the people of Cooke county
found it almost impossible to keep their
horses. There were number of strangers
who would appear in the neighborhood
for a few days and then disappear for a
had not all studied logic under a heavy
weight college professor, but they knew
pretty well how to draw an inference,
Notwithstanding They had no idea
where these strangers came from nor
where they went. But one morning in
October six of them were found in Hang
mans Grove tied to some of the large
trees and riddled with bullets The deed
had probably been done the night before
but who did it no one has ever known
There was something about one of the
cold and rigid figures that attracted at
tention. The figure was slight, the face
was beardless, and although set and
drawn with the death agony did not show
that scowl of viciousness so noticeable in
the others. Investigation proved it to be
the body of a woman, seemingly between
% and 30 years old, blue eyes and delicate
ly built. The people who found her had
enough regard for her sex to give her
decent burial near where she was found
What was done with the bodies of the
men your correspondent has never learned.
Probably the buzzards and the coyotes
ate them.
Who was this woman, anyway, and
where did she come from? Was she the
sister, wife or mistress of one of the men
with whom she was killed. There have
been many women who have mysteriously
disappeared from home with the men they
loved. Perhaps she was one of them.
Perhaps some man who reads these lines
may have had sister who did so in the