East Texas Historical Journal Volume 37 Issue 1 Article 1 3-1999 ETHJ Vol-37 No-1 Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj Part of the United States History Commons Tell us how this article helped you. Recommended Citation (1999) "ETHJ Vol-37 No-1," East Texas Historical Journal: Vol. 37 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj/vol37/iss1/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the History at SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in East Texas Historical Journal by an authorized editor of SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VOLUME XXXVII 1999 NUMBER 1 .. '..tH. HISTORICAL JOURNAL EAST TEXAS mSTORICAL ASSOCIATION 1998·1999 OFFICERS Patricia Kelt., """ ,, """ President r>onald Willett ,, ,,, , FlCst Vice President Linda S. Hudson ,, , Second Vice President Portia L. Gordon , Secretary-Treasurer DIRECTORS Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Ir ,, Wichita Falls , , 1999 Clayton Brown ,, Fort Worth ,, 2000 Ty Cashion , Commerce , ,,..2000 JoAnn Stiles "" , Beaumont , 2000 Ianet G. Brantley , Atlanta ,, 2001 Kenneth Durham ,.•. ", Longview .. , ," 2001 Theresa McGinley ,, Houston ,, ,,,200 I lames Speer., ,, , Nacogdoches .. ,,, ex officio Carol Riggs , Lufkin ,, "'" ex*President James V, Reese ,,, Nacogdoches , ex-President EDITORIAL BOARD Valentine J. Belfiglio :, , ,.. , Garland Bob Bowman , ,, ,, ,..Lufkin Garna L. Christian , ,, Houston Ouida Dean.. ,, ,, "" , NHCogdoches Patricia A. Gajda ,, ,, , Tyler Robert L. Glover ,, ,,, ,~ ..Flint Bobby H. Johnson ,, , Naoogdoches Patricia Kell , , , ,, , , Baytown Max S. Lale , , Fort Worth Irvin M. May, Jr , ,, Bryan Chuck Parsons ,,, , ,yorktown Fred Tarpley , , , Commerce Archie P. McDonald EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND EDITOR MEMBERSHIP INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS pay $100 annually LIFE MEMBERS pay $300 or more -BENEFACfOR pays $l00t PATRON pays $50 annually STUDENT MEMBERS pay $12 annually REGULAR MEMBERS pay $25 annually Journals $7.50 per copy P.O. Box 6223 Stephen F. Austin State University Nacogdoches, TX 75962 409-468-2407 © Copyright 1999 XXXVII - No. 1 - East Texas Historical Association EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL JOURNAL Volume XXXVII 1999 NUMBER} CONTENTS OUR GUNFIGHT hy Richard Murphy........ 3 DAVID CROCKETTS VISIT TO THE RED RIVER VALLEY hy Skipper SteelY £~:' ~ -': ;~ q 16 THE YELLOW PESTILENCE: ' ',' I,", ',' A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TIlE 1853 Vp.LLOW;J;:EVER EPIDEMIC IN NEW ORLEANS AND THE: . , GALVESTON, TEXAS SCOURGE OF 1867: by Heather Green CampbeJl , 23 "'f I' ' ~. ~ DASTARDLY SCOUNDRELS: THE STATE POLICE AND THE LINN FLAT AFFAIR by Barry A. Crouch and Donaly E. Brice 29 THE KELLYVlLLE INCIDENT hy Fred McKenzie , 39 TEXAS CLAMORED FOR QUAIL IN THE 1930s b.v Rollin H. Baker .42 "WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD AM I TO DO? THE BOTTOM WAS OUT OF THE BALLOT BOX" C.R. YARBOROUGH'S 1932 COUNTY COMMISSIONER ELECTION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON RALPH YARBOROUGH'S POLITICAL CAREER by Patrick L. Cox .47 BOOK I\TOTES , 62 BOOK REVIEWS 66 Archie P. McDonald, Executive Director and Editor STEPHEN F. AUSTIN STATE UNIVERSITY P.O. BOX 6223 NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS 75962 409-468-2407 2 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION BOOKS REVIEWED Morris, £1 Llano Estacado: Exploration and Imagination on the High Plains ofTexas and Ne};..' Mexico, 1536-1860 by Chuck Parsons Thompson, A Wild and Vivid Land: An Illustrated History ofthe South Texas Border by Charles Spurlin Alonzo, Tejano Le.glK)': Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, 1734-J9(X) by Jack Jackson Todish, Alamo Sourcebook, 1836: A Comprehensive Guide to the Alamo and the Texas Revolution by Bob Bowman Sheppard, An Editor's View of Early Texas: Texas in the Days of the Republic as Depicted in The Northern Standard by Skipper Steely Hook. The Alabama-Coushatta Indians and Perttula, The Caddo Nation: Archaeological & Ethnohistorical Perspectives by Daniel J, Gelo Robinson, The Indian Trial: The Complete Stury ofthe Warren Wagon Train Massacre and the Fall ofthe Kiowa Nation by Wallace Davison Robinson. Satanta: The Life and Death ofa War Chief by Chuck Parsons TyIerIMurphy, The Slave Narratives ofTexas by Randolph B. Campbell Johannsen/Belohlavek/HietalaJWatsonJHaynefilMay, Manifest Destiny and Empire: American Antebellum Expansionism by Nathaniel A. Jobe Cotham, Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston by Ralph A. Wooster Campbell, Grass-Roots Reconstruction in Texas, 1865-1880 by Barry A. Crouch Ryan, The Hardisons, A Southern Odyssey by Dennis Bradford Young/Gould, Texas, Her Texas: The Life and Times of France~' Goff by JoAnn Stiles Silverthorne/Fulgham, Women Pioneers in Texas Medicine by Barbara Cordell GriderlRodenberger, Te:tas l{-¥)men Writers: A Tradition of Their Own by Sarah R. Jackson CrawfordIRagsdale, Texas Women: Frontier to Future by Priscilla Benham McLeRoy, Red River Women by Sarah Greene Stroud, Gate»'ay to Texas: History ofRed River County by E. Dale Odorn Smith, Trinity River: Photogrophs by c.P. Barton Young, Galveston and the Great West by Alexander Pratt Casad, Texans ojValor: Military Heroes in the 20th Century by Max S. Lale Carleton. A Breed So Rare: The Life vfIR. Parten, Liberal Texas Oil Man, 1896-1992 by L. Patrick Hughes O'NeaL Tex Ritter: America's Most Beloved Cowboy by Bob Bowman Pugh, Ernest Tubh: The Texas Trouhadour by Francis Edward Abernethy Kennedy, Music From the Heart: The Fifty-Year Chronicle of His Life in Music by Charles Gardner Ladino, Dese/.:regating Texas Schools: Ei!J'enhowel; Shivers, and the Crisis at Mansfield High by Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr. Little. A Comprehensive Guide to Outdoor Sculpture in Texas by Gail K Beil Brooks, Be\'t Editorial Cartoons ofthe Year: 199R Edition by James G. Dickson Cox, Stand - Off in Texas: "Just Call Me a Spokesman jor DP5. .... by John P. Harlan Valdez, George Herbert Walker Bush: A Photographic Profile by Max S. LaIe Flemmons, Jerry Flemmmzs! More Texas Siftings: Another Bold and Uncommon Celebration ofthe Lone Star State by Bill O'Neal EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATTON 3 "OUR GUNFIGHT" by Richard Murphy When 1was growing up in San Augustine no one talked much about "The Gunfight" for fear, I suppose, of stiffing up old hostil1ties. There was bad blood between the Bodines and Hortons and might be yet - if there were any Hortons left. Except for one son who moved away to Wichita Falls, Great­ Great-Grandpa Alexander Horton was survived only by daughters, so his East Texas line just disappeared when he died in 1894. But there were plenty of Bodines and, although the event seemed ridiculously remote, some of them still nursed a kind of wistful resentment against the Horton devil who killed old John Bodine in that famous San Augustine "difficulty" in the long long ago. Grandma Josie Whitton (nee Bodine) lived to be 102, and right up to her death in 1980, a hard little glint would come to her eye when someone men­ tioned the Hortons. My mother, who at eighty-eight still operated a beauty shop in San Augustine, shared Grandma's disdain. In moments of pique, Mom was not above reminding my dad, a direct descendent of Alexander Horton, that "Your old granddaddy killed mine in cold blood!" Dad usually handled this accusation with the undiplomatic rejoinder: "Well, he probably needed killing." Why this preoccupation with ghosts? To understand you have to know San Augustine. The past seems very close in this redlands town of 3,000. Perched on Ozarkesque hill sides among staggered cedar, pecan, and locust trees that defy time, are over thirty old houses practically unchanged from the days of the Republic. Almost everyone has a "colonel" in his family tree and the cemeteries are shrines for ancestor worship, Like an aging maiden lady clutching her hope chest, the town cleaves to yesterday, Especially the 1830s. In that decade San Augustine was an important place. As the first Anglo settlement on £1 Camino Real, the town became a major staging area for immigrants who flooded into the Mexican province of Texas during the 1820s and 1830s. Sam Houston lived there and practiced law. David Crockett and his Tennessee boys were feted on their way to San Antonio. In 1836 two companies were raised and sent to fight at San Jacinto, By 1839 the glory days were over and the town had already begun its slide into obscurity. With no more Mexicans or Indians to fight, the citizens began to feud among themselves. Both sides of my family had their own versions of "Our Gunfight" and these versions differed sharply on all important details. Being a great-great­ grandson of both principals, I never knew which story to believe. When talking with Grandma Josie or my other Bodine relatives, I would usually side with old John Bodine. At other times, especially while reading Grandpa Horton's memoirs, my Horton blood would surge to the fore. As I grew older I devel­ oped a nagging curiosity to know what really happened, Several years ago, Riclwrd Murphy live.~ in San Augustine, Texas. 4 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION with nothing better to do, I decided to make the hundred-mile trip from Orange, Texas, where I lived, to talk to ~ome of the San Augustine old-timers and check the records. State Highway 96, the most direct route from the coast, slices through the heart of East Texas, bisecting the forest domain of old John Henry Kirby, the pioneer lumber king. From Orange, all the way to Kirbyville, the land is flat, but as you approach Jasper the country becomes hilly, the traffic thins out, and the forest closes in. As you approach San Augustine, there are stretches where the traveler, if in a properly nostalgic mood, can convince himself that he is going not just due north but back in time to the days of the Republic of Texas. Wishing to sustain this delusion as long as poss.ible, I avoided the bus­ iness district and, turning right at the first caution light, drove along a narrow secondary road that meandered across the Ayish Bayou and up steep Mission Hill at the top of which stands a small granite monument marking the spot where once stood the Mission Nuestra Senora de Dolores de Los Ais, built by the Spanish in 1717.