Week 30 (July 23-29): In the News - murdered great great grandfather!

Who was in the news?

There was my murdered second great grandfather on my mother's tree...Richard R. Booth (1846-1879).

His murderer was part of the Reconstruction Texas forces that weren't entirely sure the Civil War was over, let alone lost to the north. That happened a lot, and there were some really unruly characters.

My grandfather Richard was shot during an argument with a Deputy Sheriff, just outside a salloon. Richard was an attorney, who had been defending some outlaw probably. It was written up in the local news in such a way that Richard and the Deputy Sheriff had been drinking and had an arugument.

Two items to note. Richard was the ex-county attorney, which meant he wasn't representing anyone in court at that time. We are to assume it was Waller County, where he currently was practicing, Hempstead being the County Seat of that county.

Where is it you ask? I'm glad to find a bit of map for you...since Texas is so big.

Hempstead is in upper left quadrant, with Houston of today. At that time Galveston was losing some of it's status as the biggest shipping port in Texas, as Houston began to build a canal for it to become a port also. Anyway, Hempstead was the seat where a lot of cases were being tried. 

But Richard's father, William L. Booth, also an attorney, had moved with his family to Hempstead from their home in Hillsboro TX...which was much closer to Dallas. His Hillsboro home was kept active for that's where the children of Richard lived ,and where William retired after the death of his son.

The yellow flag in the upper left is now Hillsboro Texas, the home of the Booths.

Back to the gunfight resulting in the death of Richard R. Booth on July 30, 1879.

Other reports say he was shot by the man he was defending, on the steps of the Court House. I haven't seen that clipping in quite a while, however. My great aunt did show it to me, (over 50 years ago) and I think a copy was in my sister's possession at one time...but she didn't send it with the other information she copied for me.

I've shared before how difficult it was for the law to arrest it's own. When Deputy Sheriff  R. Springfield was jailed, his friends got him out easily enough.... 

Deputy Sheriff Springfield was one of the prisoners taken to Austin, Travis County for safe keeping in their jail.

It wasn't until he another member of his "gang" were tried for another murder, that R. Springfield finally met justice. And the trial had to be shifted several times, perhaps because of the influences that were brought to bear on the legal system, but the excuses seem valid enough in black and white.

The trial was first scheduled for Houston TX. But something happened either with the judge retiring, or there were 2 key witnesses missing, so it was carried over to Galveston in Dec. 1888. And finally Springfield was sentenced to 25 years in the pennitentiary, on 20 Dec 1889. Then the appeal in March of 1890 resulted in affirmation of the sentence.

Fort Worth Gazette, Mar 6, 1890...clipping shows the sentence for R. Springfield.

By 1890 my great grandmother, Eugenia Almeda Booth, was 17, and probably living with her grandfather (her mother had died when she was 2, her father when she was 7) in Hillsboro TX.  Her grandmother had died in 1885, but William T. Booth lived until 1894.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday, where my friends are patient enough with my long winded stories about my ancestry. I'm sure they've got interesting posts about old cars.