The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953 Page: 410
641 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
The Indians had long ceased their raids on the moonlight nights
in August, and John Wesley Hardin-the personal devil of Co-
manche County-had been behind bars for eight years, but night
riding continued. Fierce tempers, made more fierce by the
drought and the political disturbances, were making their points
by threats of lawlessness. Mobs in the nominal strength of the
law had paid several visits to the little village of Hazel Dell-a
collection of mills, saw and gin, that rated its reputation as the
toughest town in Texas-and had come away with prisoners to
be left on the first stout limb. The Hazel Dellers, however, were
not idle; a sample of their work is this anonymous letter which
was reprinted in the newspaper, Town and Country, as an edi-
torial inspiration:
Hazel Dell, June ig, 1886;
John Stone, you are notified to leave Comanche County by the
First of July, if you are not gone by that time you are to abide the
consequences. You take your sons Jim and Jay Stone, Red Pruitt,
and Red Stone. Take Warning in time.
(signed)
Committy of One Hundred
The editorial comment on this masterpiece, made by L. B.
Russell, reflects the general atmosphere of the times:
Mob law is a fearful thing, but it becomes necessary sometimes to
use it as a weapon of self-defense against such fiendish mobocracy as
is indicated in the above letter.8
Comanche County was one watched pot that was beginning to
boil.
The explosion came on Saturday, July 24, 1886. An eighteen-
year-old Negro killed Mrs. Ben Stephens, the wife of a farmer
who lived about nine miles north of Comanche on the De Leon
road, by shooting her in the back. Stephens had come into
Comanche to buy supplies, and his first knowledge of the death
of his wife came while he was in the J. R. Greene Store buying
parts for his plow. A man on a mule rode up and called to him,
"Stephens, Tom just killed your wife a while ago."9 Stephens
7 Town and Country (Comanche), June 2o, 1886.
slbid.
9Mrs. Tom Conaway to Mrs. Leona Allen, personal interview (signed statement
in Archives Collection, University of Texas Library).41o
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953, periodical, 1953; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101145/m1/482/: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.