William Lewis Booth, and Hill County justice (and politics)

My great great grandfather (father-in-law of yesterday's post about Eugenia Witty Booth here) was known as a lawyer and judge in Hill County Texas, in the early days.  I don't know where the title Colonel came from, as I don't find records of any military service, but it was probably an honorific.

He lived from Feb 17, 1818 to Feb 24, 1894.  His obituary in the Dallas Morning News of Feb 27, 1894, reads as follows:

"Col. W. H. Booth - Hillsboro, Hill Co., Tex. Feb 26 - Col. W. H. Booth died last night, age 76 years.  He was about his business all day and was suddenly taken sick at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.  He waas one of the oldest settlers in the county and assisted in laying off the city of Hillsboro.  He was a republican, and during the administration of E. J. Davis he was county judge of Hill county.  He was chairman of the Hill county republican executive committee.

I knew he'd been a republican during reconstruction in Texas, but decided to look into E. J. Davis for more information, as he'd been a Governor of Texas who didn't want to give up his office when another governor had been elected...at least that's all I remembered. See Coke-Davis controversy.

Some background on E.J....

Davis was a Whig until the mid-1850s. In 1855 he joined the Democratic party in a fusion against the American (Know-Nothing) party, and he remained a Democrat until after the Civil War. In later politics he supported Sam Houston and opposed secession in 1861, when he ran unsuccessfully to become a delegate to the Secession Convention. After secession Davis refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Confederacy, and the state vacated his judgeship on April 24.

As a result of his opposition to the Confederacy, he fled the state in May 1862. With John L. Haynes and William Alexander, he went to New Orleans, then to Washington, where the men met with President Abraham Lincoln, who recommended providing arms to troops that they wanted to raise. On October 26, 1862, Davis received a colonel's commission and authorization to recruit the cavalry regiment that became the First Texas Cavalry (U.S.).

Following the war..."he represented the border district and was president of the Constitutional Convention of 1868–69. In this period he consistently supported political programs that would have restricted the political rights of secessionists, expanded rights for blacks, and divided the state

In the election of 1869 Davis ran for governor against Andrew J. Hamilton, another Republican, and won in a closely disputed race. His administration was a controversial one. Its program called for law and order backed by a State Police and restored militia, public schools, internal improvements, bureaus of immigration and geology, and protection of the frontier. All of these measures encountered strong attacks from both Democratic and Republican opponents and added to the controversy surrounding Reconstruction in Texas. Davis ran for reelection in December 1873 and was defeated by Richard Coke by a vote of two to one. Davis believed that the Republican national administration was partly responsible for his defeat, and relations between the governor and Washington were strained until he was removed from office by Democrats the following January in what is known as the Coke-Davis controversy.

 From 1875 until his death Davis, contemporarily described as a "tall, gaunt, cold-eyed, rather commanding figure," headed the Republican party in Texas as chairman of the state executive committee. Davis died in Austin on February 7, 1883, and is buried there in the State Cemetery.

 Why all the info about the governor, the General, the reconstructionist? Well let's see about how the law was going about things following the Civil War in Hill county, Texas...

HILL COUNTY REBELLION

Ricky Floyd Dobbs

HILL COUNTY REBELLION. During Reconstruction Governor E. J. Davis and the Radical Republican-dominated Twelfth Legislature of 1870 attempted to control crime in the state. In October 1870 Davis threatened Hill County with martial law for its tolerance of criminals. Conditions in the county seemed improved by late 1870, but in December a freedman and his wife were murdered in neighboring Bosque County, and State Police Lt. W. T. Pritchett moved into Hill County chasing suspects James J. Gathings, Jr., and Sollola Nicholson. Pritchett raised the ire of James J. Gathings, Sr., by seeking to arrest his son. The elder Gathings, Hill County's largest landowner, incited a mob that pushed county officials to arrest and detain the State Police troopers in Hillsboro in early January 1871. On January 11 Davis declared martial law in Hill County and dispatched adjutant general James Davidson and the State Militia to rescue the jailed police. Davidson arrived on January 15 with fifty state militia troops from Georgetown, commanded by Capt. E. H. Napier. Davidson arrested the elder Gathings, his brother Phillip, and his sons-in-law, James Denmember and Dr. A. M. Douglas, for hampering Pritchett's investigation. The adjutant general fined the four $3,000, rather than assessing the entire county as mandated by law. Martial law ended on January 17. Controversy over incidents in Hill and Walker counties led to an investigation by the state Senate committee on militia in February 1871. The committee supported Davis's actions; the senator from Hill County, G. P. Shannon, a Democrat, was the lone dissenter. In 1874, despite a strained budget and Democratic attacks upon Radical extravagance, Governor Richard Coke signed a bill that returned Gathings's money.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

Ann Patton Baenziger, "The Texas State Police during Reconstruction: A Reexamination," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 72 (April 1969). Barry A. Crouch, "A Spirit of Lawlessness: White Violence, Texas Blacks, 1865–1868," Journal of Social History 18 (Winter 1984). Ricky Floyd Dobbs, `A Slow Civil War': Resistance to the Davis Administration in Hill and Walker Counties, 1871 (M.A. thesis, Baylor University, 1989). Hill County Historical Commission, A History of Hill County, Texas, 1853–1980 (Waco: Texian, 1980). A Memorial and Biographical History of Johnson and Hill Counties (Chicago: Lewis, 1892). 

...as published by Texas History On-Line HERE.

 

Even though Judge William L. Booth (where did his obit get the initial "H"?) isn't mentioned in the conflicts in Hillsboro, I'm sure he was part of the attempts to have some justice. 

 

Some descendants used some W.L Booth stationary upon which to write a few records of the family...(done originally by Anna Booth Calder and then by Laurie Mae Booth Calder, probably cousins of mine through Billy Booth, his son.) I think the stationary belonged to him and the Calder line is through him.

 

 

 Another obituary tells a bit more about his life.

 

 

 Here we find his personal religious beliefs...a Spiritualist.  "He was president of the Spiritual association of Texas during the life of that association." (Perhaps it was no longer active at the time of his death?)

 

Survived by "Charles Booth of  this (Hill) County, a sister in Minnesota, three children, W.L. Jr, Miss Cinnie and Mrs. H.F. Attaway of Hillsboro, Texas."

 

His sister was Lucinda Booth Slocum who lived until 1906 in the Minneapolis area.

 

W.L. Jr. was really William Legrand Booth...not a true Junior.  And he was known as Uncle Billy in Hillsboro, Texas.  He had 5 children, and his wife successfully divorced him in 1882.  

 

The daughters of William Lewis listed in that obituary are Miss Cinnie, named Lucinda, who never married and lived until 1920, so was a great source of historic information; and Mrs. H.F. Attaway, born Annie Booth and married to Henry Franklin Attaway, and she lived until 1948.

 

Thanks for reading through all this history of one of my ancestors.  I've mentioned him before on my blogs here,  and Here, and about Texas reconstruction HERE. 

Today's quote:

No one dies so poor that he does not leave something behind," said Pascal