Just like a scene from the movie, LONESOME DOVE.   Two cowboys throw a rope over a tree limb, a few words spoken to the third cowboy about to be  hanged,  a sad ending for a cattle thief.

Except this is a real true life story about the hanging of our great or great-great Uncle James Anderson, that takes place in the year 1860.  James Anderson, our Albert’s brother, had been caught stealing cattle and changing the brand to his marking.  The cattle were stolen from his brothers John Henry and Mitchell Anderson.  They took the law into their own hands and hung James, their oldest brother.

The year 1860 in west Texas is best described by S.C. Gwynne book  EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON,  “one of the bloodiest years in the frontier”.  Following many Comanche  raids, all hell broke loose.  People panicked and fled the frontier as fast as they could.  Within days there were hundreds of deserted farms in the area west of Weatherford, Texas.  The raids were remarkable because the panicked whites in that arc of settlement west of Fort Worth did not seem to be able to do anything to stop them.  Governor Sam Houston had authorized Colonel M.T. Johnson to raise a regiment of Rangers to punish the Indians.  It was a failure.

Yet not everyone was leaving. Our great-great grandfather, Henry M. Anderson and his sons James, Albert, Mitchell, John, William and Phillip were in the cattle business with no intentions of leaving.  In 1830 there were an estimated 100,000 head of cattle in Texas; by 1860 there were between four and five million.  The Anderson boys would round up the wild un-branded longhorn cattle and place their brand on them, all very legal.  Each boy had his own brand, grandfather Albert J’s brand was A J..  They would later drive them up the Western or Chisholm Trails to the railroads in Kansas where they would be shipped back East.

Back to the story of the hanging of James Anderson.  The following report was obtained with the help of Mr. Dorman Holub, a professional researcher and Ms. S. Krehbiel.  Facts of the inquiry were requested by our distant cousin, JoRetta Lewis, a descendant of Lucinda Anderson.  Lucinda was the sister of the Anderson boys.

In the Texas State Archives we find the following:

Young County district Court Records,  Vol. 1, page 53, no. 32. (1860)  The United States vs. James Anderson. Marking and Branding Cattle.

James Anderson had been stealing cattle from two men, then changing just a little slant on the cattle brand, to make the brand like his.  The two men’s brand was so close to James Anderson’s , making the change simple.  The Young County Sheriff caught James stealing cattle from the two men, and he was taken in.

In this case, the death of the defendant was suggested and the case abated.        (James had already been hung so there was no reason for the above case. Local rumor indicates that John and Mitchell Anderson, hung their brother.  Perhaps they didn’t want the community to hang him. Perhaps they didn’t want their brother James to face another trial. When the first jury could not decide, maybe they felt they should carry our justice themselves.  The true reasons we may never know).

Page 56, Thursday May 24, 1860.  Indictments of John Anderson and Mitchell Anderson. Assault with intent to kill.

Page 76 Friday, November 9, A.D. 1860.  Court met pursuant to adjournment present and presiding as on yesterday. Case 51

The State of Texas vs. John Anderson and Mitchell Anderson.  Now at this time came the district attorney presenting the pleas of the state and the defendants in person as well as by attorneys, and the parties announced themselves read for trial, whereupon came a jury to wit: M. A. Thompson and 11 others good and lawful men, who being men and truly sworn to the issue penned, return the parties and after hearing evidence, the argument of counsel and after our deliberation had thereon returned in to the court. “WE THE JURY CANNOT AGREE. M. A. THOMPSON, FOREMAN”.  It is therefore advised by the Court that the jury be discharged and that a mistrial be entered on record and the that the case stand continued until the next term of the Court.  Judge R. L. Waddell, district Judge, Young County, Texas.

Page 83, August 8, 1861.  Grand Jury. Mitchell Anderson, John Anderson

District Court would meet two more times before final dismissal: March 25, 1861 and August 8, 1861.  The jury was suspended and the District Court in Young County ended on August 8, 1861, DUE TO THE INDIAN UPRISING IN THE COUNTY.  Hence, the court case never came back up for continuance.

One of our cousins wrote “it would have been hard to get 12 Jurors to convict the Anderson brothers for killing a cattle thief, when the law in Texas was “hang a cattle thief”.

 We will probably never know how their parents, Henry and Sarah, took the loss of their son James.  Several years later John Anderson wrote his sister Lucinda and said “I will say this much that I will never come to Texas any more to live”.  The reason could not have been the dangerous life in Comanche country,  the boys were simply not afraid.  Our distant cousin wrote, “I now  feel that his memories of Texas and Young County and his brother so burdened his heart that he would never return to live there”.

I want to thank our distant cousin, Barbara Close of Berkley, California, for information that helped tell the story of John and Mitchell Anderson.  Mitchell would have been Barbara’s great grandfather.  Our next blog will cover the Anderson boys and the Civil War.

Jim Lee