HANGING OF THE BAILEY BOYS

                    
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HANGING OF THE BAILEY BOYS

He said that two Bailey boys, Dee and his younger brother went over to Comanche and passed some counterfeit money. On their out there were just opposite the old Nabors place this and were stopped by Green, a deputy U.S. Marshall, and another man. (Green was the uncle of Mr. Cryil Green, whom I knew in Comanche). The boys had Winchester strapped on their horses. The officers were disarming them, and Green started over to get D. Bailey’s rifle, and the latter told him he would get it and hand it to him. He got it and shot and killed Green. Didn’t know how the third man got away. (Believe I heard they ran him off. Sometime later the two Baileys were jailed for something in some other county and were identified as being wanted in Comanche and were taken back there and put in jail.

They went over there from Hamilton, and maybe some Comanche people may have helped. Ac crowd was around before it was over. George Gentry was leader. They looked up to him and thought he knew what he was doing and didn’t question anything. They were young and reckless.... They broke down the first door.... They took them out. Dee protested that he alone was guilty, that the other had nothing to do with it, but they hanged them both.

Gus Leach said that old Captain Hunt out on the Cow House said he saw the Hamilton boys coming back next morning on sweating white horses. Mr. Williams said they sort of had handkerchiefs on their faces. He had the authentic picture of the whole affair, knew most of the men involved.

One of the Baileys was the husband of one of the daughters of Old Man Asa Langford out at Evant. Later she became Mrs. Boys, a strange woman, whom I remember here with some affection many years later. There was the story that she personally went in a wagon over to Comanche and brought the body of her husband back, but probably the best theory is that it was Asa Langford himself who went over and cut them down and brought them back. It was said that someone asked him where the boys were, and that he pulled up the curtain of the covered wagon, and said "There!"

Years ago Evetts Haley and I spent a couple of nights in the old rock hotel at Willcox, Arizona, right off the tracks of the Southern Pacific. They still had the iron horse locomotive with a long read stripe only it and the tender. At night in the lobby people gathered and sat around seems to have been favorite gathering place. The Proprietor behind his desk acted as a sort of instructor. A pleasant white-haired gentleman in a chair smiled, and told me to sit down. Found he was a retired accountant, named Hall, originally from Comanche. He fell to talking about history. I remembered I had heard that before the hanging, Mr. Jack Wright and the Hamilton boss were seen in conversation on the curb. He said, yes, and he could tell me who was over there with Wright, who was a prominent saloon man of the time. Neither would likely have talked so freely if at home. Mr. Pid Rice once told me over the campfires in New Mexico. Men would discuss events that happened here with more freedom of speech. It was considered dangerous to know too much, and certainly, to talk too much.

Several months later his brother Hal came back here and seemed to have been in a little trouble and that Sheriff Sam Terry knew about it and said he was going to have to do something about it and go out and arrest him that night. He was staying with someone out west of town. Mr. Williams went out and told him and that Terry would be criticized. They went out to get Hal’s horses some distance there came a big rain and they slept on the mountain, cooked some bacon for breakfast and he went on west with him as far as Blanket, and came back to spend the night in Comanche.

He came to a livery stable and a man was sitting in front in charge and he said he wanted to leave his horse there. The man said, "Hello Cap." He said, what do you mean by that." Said his hat gave him away....Told this fellow he knew fellows that had been hung for knowing less than that.. He went to see Miss Tucker that night, who later married Ernest Williams of Hamilton. (Of a prominent Comanche family, prominent in Episcopal Church here, died young, and a stained glass window there as a memorial of her).

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CHESLEY'S  HAMILTON COUNTY INTERVIEWS

BY

HERVEY EDGAR CHESLEY, JR.

Born: 21 November, 1894

Died: 17 July, 1979

 

 

 
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People and Places: Gazetteer of Hamilton County, TX
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Copyright © March, 1998
by Elreeta Crain Weathers, B.A., M.Ed.,  
(also Mrs.,  Mom, and Ph. T.)

A Work In Progress