St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-10-05
AHEHT HAHGMAh'S GROVE.
KAHY WILD STORIES ABE TcL0 OF
THIS WEIRD SP0E.
MARKED OUT FOR HORRORS.
In All Texas There Is No More
III Lovely Place Here Was
81 Where Grim Vigilance Commit
tees Executed Their stern and
- Unreienting I.aws--A Womanin
20 Mans Attire-i Death Struggle

Unreientin ing I.aws--A Woman
70 Mans Attire-i Death Struggle
When the day comes in which all Sc
cretS are to be made open and all mys-
teries are to be explained, the prairies
OF Texas will have some wonderfully in
teresting stories to tell, says the St,
LOUIS Republic.
q There is grove about three miles
west of the quiet, orderly little town of
valley View, Tex, which will probably
furnish its share OF them. 1t is known
through all this country as Hangman's
grove. and its stories, if they could be
gotten in detail. would probably rival
our most sensational yellow-backed
novels in error and gruesomeness.
The grove itself is not the dreary
dark-looking place that its name would
suggest. The sunlight filters freely
through the 'anty 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 the Big Elm is musical. and woul
suggest pleasanter thought than those of
Winchester rifles, halterS and dead men
The trees, however, are of q suspicious
height. They are low. but are Just high
enough Tor the neck of man on horse
back TO come within few feet of their
gnarled, projecting limbs. Hangman's
grove Is uot used now save as pasture
for the cattle that occasionally find their
way III from the prairie that surrounds
it. The last time it was used in any
practical way was when Samp
Holder was hanged there in rs.
Samp was ''cOw-puncher," as the
Texans call it, and lived in the Era
nelghborhood. nearly ten miles from
the grove. He was Jolly good fellow,
free-hearted and liberal as the wind.
The only thing ever said against him
was whispered inS!nuation 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 i'm these
rumors nobody knows; nobody evor will
know.
sAMP HOLDER HANGED.
One winters night. however, obout 10
O'Clock. some one rode up to his shanty
and called "Hello!"
Samp was sitting before his fireplace,
nursing his sick baby.
Here, hold this baby till see who
that is" he said to his wife. .'I'Il be
back in minute''
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. What
ever was done must have been done
suddenly and after plan we'll matured
beforehand. Next morning Samp was
found hanging cold and rigid from the
lin of a tree in Hangman'S grove, nine
miles away.
How MANY men were there in the
party that hung Samp Holder? Who
were they? Were they his near neigh
DorS, men who had met bin and talked
TO MIN every day for months. or were
they men from a distance? These are
questions which many would be inter
ested in having answered, but which
many prefer to leave as they are. No
body knows who hung Samp Holder:
nobody ever saw anybody else who
did know; nobody ever saw anybody
who ever heard anybody else ever
express an opinion on the subject.
Of course, the courts tookthe matter in
hand at the time, but, of course, they
never succeeded in doing anything with
1t. MIS-. Holder swore that there were
at least three men in the party who
called her husband out, and accordingly
/. Dick Bryant, J0e Downward aud john
Underwood were tried for. the killing.
They were all acquitted. Dick BRYANT
committed suicide about six months aft
er his acquittai. Poor fellow! They
say 1t was Oh account of love affair
III which he had been Tilted, and per-
hapS it was.
RIDDLED WITH BULLETS.
The Holder hanging was so much like
long series of others that preceded it
that it may fairly be allowed to stand as
type of them all. From 10 TO about
IA the legislative department of gov
eminent in this part of Texas was
vested for the most part in vigilance
committees, as were also the
executive and judicial depart
meuts. 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 GER
tain classes of murder were considered
nearly as bad, and rape was. if any,
thing. considered worse. When a man
was tried for any of these crimes he
was generally convicted. 1t soon hap
pened that if man of shady reputation
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 a shooting, the most prom
lnent of which was the shooting of the
horse thieves in 1868. During tie autumn
OF that year the people of Cooke county
found 1t almost impossible to keep their
horses. There were number of strang-
ers who would appear in the neigh
bOrhood Tor a few days and then
disappear fol-, week or two. The
Texans of those days had not all
studied logic under heavyweight
college professor, but they knew pretty
we'll how TO draw an Inference. notwth-
standing. They had no idea where these
strangers came from nor where they
went, but one morning in October six of
them were found in Hangman'S Grove
tied to some of the large trees and rid
died with bullets. The deed had prob
ably 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 attention. The figure
was slight, the face was beardless, and
although set and drawn with the death
agony did not show that Scowl of vi
clouSness so noticeable in the others.
Investigation proved it to be the body
of woman, seemingly between twenty
five and thirty years old, blue eyes and
delicately built. The people who found
her had enough regard Cor her sex to
give ner decent burial near where she
was found. What was done with the
bodies of the men was never learned.
Probably the buZzards and the coyotes
ate them.
MYSTERIOUS WOMAN.
Who was this woman, any way, and
where did she come from2 Was she the
sister. wife or mistress of one of the
men with whom she was killed? There
have been many women who have mys-
teriously 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 or
wife who did so in the years long gone by,
and perhaps she may be the woman now
filling the solitary grave in Hangman's
grove. Perhaps it is just as well that
she does The soft murmurs of Indian
creek, the plant Of the dove by day and
the screech of the owl by night are the