Mason, Texas - The Mason County War |
| A common plot is Western movies is one of a fight against cattle rustlers. In the movies, the heroes and villains are easily defined. Not so in real life. In Texas after the Civil War, cattle ranching was big business. Both the German speaking settlers and the Anglo settlers raised cattle, but did so differently. The English speakers generally let their wild cattle range free. They would round up their cattle and any strays and hold them until the proper owners could be notified. The Germans' cattle were generally tame, and stayed closer to home. They didn't like losing their strays to the cowboys and real rustlers. Germans came to Mason County in the 1840s and were the majority before the war. They voted against secession, and much of the English speaking state viewed them with suspicion. After the war, as more Anglos arrived, the Germans began to be resented for their stance on the Civil War, for their good land, and their language. In 1873, Sheriff John Clark was elected. He needed little or no provocation to arrest, and shoot or lynch actual or suspected rustlers and was widely seen as being on the side of the Germans. In 1875, Clark and his men arrest nine men in McCulloch county. Some made bail and left Mason. Those that didn't stayed in jail to await trial. The body of 17 year old cowboy Alan Bolt was found near Mason a few days later with a note pinned to his back accusing him of rustling. On February 18, a mob broke into the jail and took the prisoners out to be lynched. Two men, brothers by the name of Baccus, were hung, a man named Turley was shot and died the next day, one escaped, and the other was rescued by Clark and returned to jail. The culprits were never identified--even though Mason was a small town--and no one was ever prosecuted. Not everyone was happy with the lynching. One of Clark's deputies, Tom Gamel, gathered 30 armed men to confront the sheriff. Clark left town and gathered his own army of 60 Germans. Fortunately, violence was averted and a truce negotiated that lasted for about a couple of months. In May, Deputy John Worhle was escorting Tim Williamson back to Mason after his bond on rustling charges had been revoked. Carl Lehmberg, Williamson's employer, was riding along to pay his forman's bond. Williamson never arrived in Mason. He was killed by a group of hooded men. Word spread that the hooded men were German, and Peter Bader was identified as being one of the men. The tone of the dispute changed. It became an ethnic conflict, pitting the Anglo residents of the surrounding area against the Germans. Anglo William Cooley killed Worhle. Moses Baird, rumored to have been with Cooley when Worhle was killed, was murdered a few days later, betrayed by Jim Cheney. Baird's brother, John, rode into Mason with Johnny Ringo from Burnet and Anglo men from surrounding areas did the same. Ringo killed Cheney. After a shoot out near Keller Store, Clark resigned and left Mason County, but the killing didn't stop until Peter Bader was killed in 1875. Things slowly cooled down. Ringo and Cooley were the jailed in connection with the feud, but were later released. George Gladden was tried in Llano County for the murder of Peter Bader . He was sentenced to 99 years in the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. He was pardoned in 1884. The Mason County Courthouse burned to the ground in 1877, taking all the records of the feud with it. Rumor has it that it was to help keep old grievances from coming up. Ringo became a Constable of Precinct 4 for a time before leaving Texas and heading to Tombstone, Arizona. There, he got involved in another cattle feud between the Earps and the Clantons. Although the violence ended, hard feelings ran on both sides for many years, lasting into the 1920s. Anti-German sentiment was so strong during World War I that the area schools stopped teaching in German, and most German language newspapers switched to English. Only recently have the wounds healed enough that people have started talking about those times. For more information: Handbook of Texas Online - Mason County War Wikipedia.org - Mason County War Mason County Historical Commission
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