ELI HOWARD
Another Howard was the Eli Howard who had the girl, Mandy, who escaped
and notified Hendricks and Judge
Pierson about the Leon River school
massacre in 1867. Later she married Bill Massingill. Evidently
they lived further up the river, maybe in the Gustine community.
Massingill he said wanted to get an old man’s money. He said another
took him to the woods, hung him up, burned his feet, tortured him, and
made him tell where he had buried the money. They went and got it but they
hung him and Mr. Williams said he saw the hole in the ground where they
dug it up several weeks later.
(I had thought Eli Howard was also the name of the one who brought in
from the southeast and given a sort of trial (during the Civil War) under
the trees so the east side and hung near the Blansit place down Pecan
Creek. Mr. Williams didn’t seem to be sure about the first name.)
(Then there was the Howard, I think, that Aunt Mandy Evans told Felix
and me about, who had come home as a furlough during the Civil War, and
that they hung, and who she thought was not really guilty of the horse
theft. See her story.)
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CHESLEY'S HAMILTON COUNTY INTERVIEWS
BY
HERVEY EDGAR CHESLEY, JR.
Born: 21 November, 1894
Died: 17 July, 1979