1883 CHRISTMAS DAY MEMORIES SHOW MCDADE’S LESS QUIET DAYS

Elgin Courier December 27, 1990

     About this time of year wild stories of earlier years in the history of our neighbor, McDade, seem to trickle back.  For as we spend some time visiting and recalling this certainly is one of the more interesting tales.  The 1883 Christmas Day Shoot-out in McDade brought a notoriety to that bustling town.  However, the event actually was the end of a year long series of happenings that started when a prominent businessman, Allen Wynn, was beaten and robbed.

          Wynn had brought some cotton into McDade and was traveling home by wagon.  Late in the evening when he was about four or five miles out of town the incident occurred.  He had crossed Yegua Creek and was near the far edge of the dense wooded botton when he heard someone climbing on the back of his wagon.  He recognized the two men who caught hold of his shoulders, pulled him backward from his seat, beat him in the face and took away his money.

          Back in town he gave that identity to a vigilance committee that had been formed.

          McDade, at the time, was a thriving little city-it was the loading and unloading point for all the cotton and freight that went to and from Smithville and Bastrop, as the Katy railroad track through Elgin did not operate until 1886.

          For many years McDade had been the terminus of the Central Railroad as well while that line was being completed to Austin.  Huge freight wagons drawn by as many as six or seven yokes of oxen often made the overland trips to adjoining cities, and a stagecoach was run regularly between McDade and surrounding points.

          Being such a commerce center brought a lot of money to McDade where there were five or six stores, two drug stores, a blacksmith shop or two, a meat market, two or three saloons, two hotels and several other businesses.

          Coupled to the passing of large sums of money was the wide open business of saloons and gambling places.  The many tricksters and desperados who naturally drifted into the area were further induced by the dense postoak sections and big Yegua bottoms.  As a result, thieving, stealing and shooting were almost weekly occurrences.  The more upstanding citizens in the community seemed powerless to remedy the situation.

          So it was that a Vigilance Committee was formed.  The attack on this   well-known and highly respected business man seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

          Since the men who attacked Wynn were occasional visitors at the home of Pat Erhart who lived near the Blue community, a plan was set in action to use his home for a house dance.  Erhart was a fiddler and frequently gave dances.  It was agreed that the ruse would certainly get the “bad guys” in a situation whereby the committee could take action.

          The dance took place and as Pat was swinging the bow to his favorite tunes, some member of the committee would make his appearance and quietly call out the desired men, one at a time.  Five of them were spotted but one apparently caught on to what was going on and escaped.  It was not long before the dancers became conscious of the muffled proceedings.  The more curious slowly excused themselves and went outdoors to see what was happening.  Soon, the news was received in McDade that four undesirables had been hung on a tree.  Soon the dance ended quite suddenly.  Nobody knew when the hung men hung men’s buddies would show up to avenge the deaths, perhaps even on innocent people.

          These hangings took place many months before the Christmas Day shoot-out.  By Christmas Eve, recollections of the incident had dimmed and many people were busy doing last minute shopping, drinking, etc.  Jeptha Billingsley recalled that as he was going home a little past sundown two men stopped him and invited him to go to the Oak Hill’s Christmas tree event.  Billingsley declined the invitation, opting to celebrate Christmas at home.  Evidently, the two men didn’t make it either because, as it turned out they were among those hanged that night.

The account of what happened says that a committee of about 80 men had gone to Oscar Nash’s Saloon and had called out the three men they wanted as victims.  They trooped out of town about a mile, stopped near a branch under a big tree and in a short time the lives of these marked men were snuffed out.  It was during this Christmas Eve hanging that the Vigilantee Committee finally “got” one of the men who had participated in the attack on Allen Wynn of so many months prior.

Mid-morning on Christmas Day, the bodies were still hanging on the tree where they had been strung up when Deputy Sheriff Sid Jenkins, Will and H. N. Bell arrived.  Later in the day Sheriff Bill Jenkins also came to McDade.

          Billingsley gave an eyewitness account of the scene, saying that he knew all three men pretty well.  He helped to cut the ropes and take them down from the tree.  The men’s hands had been tied behind them and the noose slipped around their necks.  He added that it was about the most gruesome thing he had ever witnessed and said he didn’t ever want to see anything like it again.  Sid Jenkins and Will Bell went back into McDade and Joe Simms stayed with the bodies until the wagon to carry them arrived about an hour later.

Before the bodies arrived back in town, three brothers belonging to the notch cutters’ gang came from their home in the country and went to Milton’s store.  Tom Bishop sat on a bench outside the store.  One of the men stopped to talk to him, the other two went inside the store.  Outside the young man said “Some folks in this town are accusing some folks of things they didn’t do”.  As he made the statement he kind of stepped closer to Bishop who whipped out his gun.  The young man grabbed for the gun and in the shuffle the gun went off and the bullet struck the notch cutter in the thigh.  He ran.  In the meantime, storeowner Milton had ordered the other two men out of the store because of remarks they made.  Almost at the same time they heard the shot outside and rushed to the aid of their brother.  Milton grabbed his ever-ready shotgun from behind the door.  Immediately, bullets began to whiz.  Many shots were fired and two of the brothers were killed.  One’s head shot completely off.  The third brother escaped, although he was wounded.  Later that day he was captured and taken to Bastrop to the county jail.

A third man died that day as a result of trying to separate the combatants.  His name was Griffin and he had been in Milton’s Saloon.  Running out at the sound of gunfire, he tried to step between the fighting parties but was hit in the melee.  He was taken t o his sister’s house where he later died.  His brother upon hearing about the young man’s death, came to town and, waving his pistol, declared he was going to kill everybody in sight for the foul murder of his brother.  Somehow friends subdued him and there were no further killings on Christmas Day.

After the smoke cleared the dead notch cutters’ bodies were picked up and placed in one of the stores where they lay for some little time awaiting the arrival of relatives to claim their bodies.  The bodies of the three hanged men were also brought to town.  Later all five bodies were moved to an old vacant house some distance from the stores.  There they remained until relatives came to take them away.  Billingsley said that he was present when the wife of one of the men arrived.  Quite some time had passed because they lived a good distance from town.  He said she knelt down beside her dead husband and prayed one of the most beautiful prayers he had ever heard.

Needless to say, there was a lot of tension in McDade for a number of days.  Children were not allowed to be out of the parents’ sight and some folks deliberately left town.  In fact it was this account that led historians to learn of the arrival of Louis Bassist in Elgin.

It seems that Bassist had been in this county for only three months and could not deal with the gruesome tales of killings and the constant sight of quickly whipped out guns.  He took the first train out of McDade on that Christmas Day and he wasn’t alone.

So it was that after the events of Christmas Day 1883, things in McDade quietened down a little.  For several years people could carry on their business without the fear of hold-ups.

And that’s the story of the shoot-out on Christmas Day in McDade.

Peaceful Area Once Scene of Yule Shootout.