Richard R. Booth, my murdered great grand

Repost from blog When I Was 69 dated 2/7/2017

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 NOTE: I am so embarrassed...well Blogger should be! All the comments that have been coming to this site for the last year (and it's not really many) didn't get sent to me as notifications (like I'd asked Blogger to do.) They've been sitting in a folder "awaiting publication" over here, and I never looked at it before today (June 18, 2018) because I was under the impression that I'd be getting emails when people commented.  That used to be the way of Blogger.  Sigh.  I haven't had a chance to answer them, and all those comments were really valuable.  So sorry.

Richard R. Booth was born 23 Sept 1846 in Jackson, Indiana.  He moved from Indiana to Texas with his father, William Lewis Booth, an attorney. The Booth family emmigrated (with William's, brother Charles M.) from western New York state (Farmington, Ontario County) to Indiana and (then in 1849) to Genesee Twp, Whiteside, Illinois, to Hempstead, Waller County, Texas, and Hillsboro, Hill County, Texas.

Present day photos of farm now on Booth homestead, "2nd farmhouse north of SW corner of section 22 on Coleta Rd," Genesee Twp, Whiteside, Illinois

Present day photos of farm now on Booth homestead, "2nd farm north of SW corner of section 22 on Coleta Rd," Genesee Twp, Whiteside, Illinois

Richard also became an attorney...or lawyer.  By 1855 his father had purchased the land for his home and Richard was living in Hillsboro,Texas.

Richard's first wife was Jemima J. Johnson, who gave birth to two children.  When she died the same year as her second child, (1868) Richard didn't long remain a widower with 2 year old WIlliam Lewis, (1866-1940, named after his grandfather.)  On July 20, 1869 he married his second wife, Eugenia Almetta Whitty, in Hillsboro, Texas, where they lived according to the 1870 census.

I think his father William, was living in Hempstead, Texas prior to 1880, though he had returned to Hillsoboro when he died in 1893.  

Richard's son Edwin Whitty Booth was born in 1871 in Hillsboro. The William L. Booth Sr. family home in Hillsboro may have been where Richard was living with his wife and children, but apparently he was working in Hempstead as well.  The top of the following photocopied page names my great-grandmother, Eugenia Almeta Booth, daughter of Richard R. Booth, born in 1873 in Hillsboro, Texas.  They had one other daughter (unnamed) who died at birth in 1875.

The following notes are photo-copied onto his Ancestry.com pages, and give a source of his lineage back to his great grandfather.  It also tells of how he was shot by a man named  Richard Dilk, of Springfield.  Richard Booth died either on July 29, or May 30, 1879, at age 32, in Hempstead, Waller County,Texas.  I think Richard Dilk was said to have been a man he was prosecuting.  (The notes below give date of death in July, while Ancestry.com gives the May date.)

  

Early notes on Booth genealogy

originally by Anna Booth Calder and then by Laurie Mae Booth Calder.

There are maybe a few mistakes in these written records, since William Lewis Booth is said to have been born in Livingston County, NY, rather than Farmington, Ontario County, NY (as Ancestry lists)  I wish the whole page had been copied also, since many dates kind of slide off the edge.

Texas Index Cards, (a source that kept track of Texas biographies I believe,) said Richard R. Booth had been an "attorney 1876-1878, Waller County and Navarro County Judge."  I wish there was access to whatever biography the index card refers.

At one point in my many years, I held a newspaper clipping which told of the murder of Richard R. Booth, which was in the possession of my Great Aunt Margaret.  I can't find any records from Hempstead archives, nor Hillsboro.  I wonder which publication printed that article. 

William Booth Home, 208 N. Waco St. Hillsboro, TX, purchased land on 12 May 1855, (photo 1993)

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.

A young attorney was gone too soon

William Booth home, built around 1856.  His son, Richard was raised there.

I'd like to feature my second great grandfather on my mother's tree...Richard R. Booth (1846-1879). He was an attorney like his father, His father, William Lewis Booth, outlived many of his children and their spouses, dying at age 76.

Richard R. Booth was born Indiana to the second wife of his father, Hannah Conn Booth. William's first wife, Mary Ann McManus Booth gave birth to three children and died at only 24 years of age. She died in July 1842 (as well as the 3rd child who was 5 months old.)  Hannah was married to William in Febrary 1843. Hannah Conn Booth gave birth to 8 children and lived to be 66, five of her children living to adulthood.

Hannah's son Richard was born on 23 Sept. 1846, her third child, while she had become stepmother for 2 others. At that time the Booths were living in Indiana, but by the next child's birth, the family had moved to Illinois along with William's brother Charles Booth's family. And by the 1850s the family moved to Hills County Texas. 

There are stories that William and Charles went to California for the gold rush with a nephew who stayed there. The older Booths returned to Texas.

Son Richard was happy to follow his father's education in becoming a lawyer. He is listed in several clippings about his involvement in Hillsboro's politics...with a brother and father, being delegates in the Republican Party. 

Father William was apparently a Colonel in the Confederacy, and regained his position in the community following the war. There's no record of Richard in the Confederate Army, but at 15 in 1861, he might well have, His older 3 brothers also must have taken part in the war. Very few able bodied men were excused, except the older ones who were considered "Home Guard." (Anyone in Texas who had not been in favor of the succession of the Confederacy either was killed or left town in a hurry. When the vote was taken in Austin, General Sam Houston may have been against succeeding, but he was able to hide it from those interested in war.)

Richard married Jemima Johnson in 1865, and they had one son in 1866. Then in 1868 Jemima died giving birth to their second son, who also died on that date. 

Richard married again in 1869, at age 22. Eugenia Almeta Whitty Booth was 17, having her first son in 1871.  They lived close to his father's family, and my great grandmother, Eugenia Almeta Booth Miller was born in Hillsboro TX in 1873. By 1875, mother Eugenia Almeta Whitty Booth gave birth to her third child, a girl, and they both died on July 13, 1875 in Hempstead, Waller County, Texas.  Richard apparently had moved there to work in the courts as well as his father. The children went back to Hillsboro where grandmother Hannah Booth lived still.

Richard Booth died in a gun fight at a tavern in the wee hours. Apparently he was shot by a deputy sherrif, who was a shady character with a lot of friends in town. He left town, and later was arrested for shooting some other people

You may have seen westerns portraying life in Reconstruction Texas following the Civil War...but I'm guessing they have all been pretty cleaned up for entertainment purposes. There were a lot of men who were strong believers in one side or another, and using guns to prove they were right. Law courts were busy with cases, and that's probably why William and Richard Booth moved with families to Hempstead, a growing metropolis of the times.

So his murderer only got 25 years in the penitentiary for murder of two other men. I am doubly sad that justice wasn't handed down, and R. T. Springfield probably lived a long life.

On a more positive note, I have a cousin who is a descendant of Richard's also, from a son of his first wife. Cheryl Richardson sent me a lot of good information about the Booth family.

Sharing this week with 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks over on FaceBook.

Richard R. Booth's birthday

My great great grandfather...who lived only a short life.  I've already posted about him here.

b. 9.23.1846, Jackson County, Indiana,
d 5.30.1879 killed by person he was prosecuting, Hempstead, TX
married 7.20.1869 (his second w.) Eugena Almetta Whitty

I think I'd like to look at his first wife, who isn't in my direct line, but I do have a cousin living who's contributed to Ancestry...her line goes back through Jemima Johnson Booth, while mine is through Richard's second wife Eguena Almeta Witty Booth.

Jemima Johnson's parents were Harvey Johnson (1810-1870?) and Sarah (Sally) Kelly Johnson (1815-1860?).  They had married in 1832 in Randolf County, Indiana. There's no death date for Jemima's father, and we don't even know who his parents were.  He probably came from Virginia, and his widow applied for veteran's benefits in 1865, which details that he was in the 3rd NY Cav.

Sally had been born in 1815 in Kanawha County, Virginia (which became West Virginia.)  The original Ancestry listing said she died between 1852-1860.  But then how could she have requested widow's pension for her husband? She isn't listed on the 1860 census when Harvey W. Johnson was living with his 4 youngest daughters, including Jemima.  Their youngest daughter, had been born in 1852.

I noticed Thomas Johnson was the next farmer listed in the 1860 census, so I thought perhaps he was related to Harvey.  But even though I found Thomas' parents, I couldn't find a Harvey in the family.

When I tried to find out more about Jemima's mother Sarah Kelly Johnson...well I just threw up my hands.  I'm pretty sure she was the daughter of a second marriage, but there are confusing lists of siblings, and dates of marriages.  Jacob Kelly was probably her father...from Virginia.

Harvey Johnson is also on an 1870 census, which was just  added to my information at Ancestry while I've been writing this.  He was living with a Jacob Johnson.  He didn't have a son by that name, and their ages were too close... Jacob was also born in Virginia and was 55, while Harvey was 61, and listed his occupation as carpenter, while Jacob was a farmer. I am not going to go back into Jacob's family.  Aren't you proud of me to not go on another wild-goose-chase? (however, I'm making a note to see if Jacob was Harvey's brother...which could possibly give me his parents' names.)

Jemima was the fifth child of 7, and had only one brother, Zachariah.  She and Richard Booth married in 1865 in Hillsboro, Hill County, Texas when they were both 18.  The Booth family had moved from Jackson County, Indiana to Whiteside Illinois then to Texas.  In 1860 Jemima had still been living in Randolf County, IN.  Richard must have gone back to Jackson County IN, since he'd moved with his family to IL when he was just 2.  He probably didn't know Jemima until he visited IN sometime when his family was moving to Texas. They were there by the time he was 7.  It is possible that he stayed with relatives as his family moved first to IL then to TX, but there's no record of that.

When he was 4, in the 1850 Census, he lived with his parents in Whiteside, IL. And when he was 14 in the 1860 Census, he also is listed with them in Texas.

So the mystery remains, how did Richard R Booth meet his future wife, Jemima Johnson?

They had 2 children, William (Willie) Lewis Booth (1866-1940) and James L. Booth who lived from May to Sept of 1868.  Jemima died at his childbirth.

Richard R. Booth married my great great grandmother, Eugenia Almeda Witty Booth in 1869, and they had 3 children, the last dying when just 7 months old, and her mother died at the same time, which sounds like an epidemic of some kind.