Life and Adventures of Ben Thompson the Famous Texan (1884)

By William Martin Walton

"Thompson's career as Indian fighter, gambler, saloon-keeper, sheriff, and dead-shot killer has been described in such works as...W.M. Walton's 'Life and Adventures of Ben Thompson.' -Austin American-Statesman, Mar. 18, 1958

"The book is written to lionize a man who killed without compunction and terrorize

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookcrop
• Release date: Jul 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088193983

Book preview

Life and Adventures of

Ben Thompson

the Famous Texan

William Martin Walton

(1832 –1915)

Originally published

1884

Contents

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I. A BOY SHOOTS ANOTHER.

CHAPTER II. THE DEATH OF EMIL DE TOUR.

CHAPTER III. ESCAPE

CHAPTER IV. THE WAR.

CHAPTER V. ON THE RIO GRANDE.

CHAPTER VII. THE KILLING OF JOHN COOMBS.

CHAPTER VIII. ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT.

CHAPTER IX. ESCAPE AND FLIGHT INTO MEXICO.

CHAPTER X. SHOT AT FIVE HUNDRED TIMES.

CHAPTER XI. THE BLUE WING SALOON.

CHAPTER XII. KILLING OF BURKE.

CHAPTER XIII. THE BULL PEN-CONVICTION-IMPRISONMENT.

CHAPTER XIV. DEATH OF PHIL COE.

CHAPTER XV. KILLING OF SHERIFF WHITNEY.

CHAPTER XVI. THE DEATH OF CAD PIERCE

CHAPTER XVII. SEVING MILES TO BOSTING.

CHAPTER XVIII. SHOOTING THE KENO GOOSE.

CHAPTER XIX. KILLING OF MARK WILSON AND MATHEWS.

CHAPTER XX. RIDE FOR LIFE.

CHAPTER XXI. SCRAP-BOOK.

CHAPTER XXII. CITY MARSHAL.

CHAPTER XXIII. KILLING OF JACK HARRIS.

CHAPTER XXIV. AT HOME.

CHAPTER XXV. BEN THOMPSON ASSASSINATED.

PREFACE.

Application has been made by numerous publishers to the subject of the following sketch for a brief outline of his life. For years the request was declined, but, in addition to the named pressure, which would not have been sufficient to put him so high on the roll of apparent vanity as to seem to deem that the events of his life were worthy of being placed in book form, various, varied and material slanders have gone into print concerning him; and, for their correction, he has consented to give a fair, candid and truthful account of some of the main incidents of his experience-and here does so.

The scenes depicted, actually occurred; the facts and circumstances narrated as attending the difficulties, and killings, so far as they relate to him, are exactly true. In all cases where a killing takes place, men who stand at different angles see the transaction differently-hence, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, there are two or more sets of what are claimed to be facts in every homicide. Particularly is such the case if there be a combat. None but those who are engaged know just what takes place. In legerdemain, the movement of the hand is so rapid, or else some collateral movement is deftly made, and attracts attention, while the trick is performed; so, in a combat, the attention of one eye-witness is absorbed by one movement, and another by another. One sees the beginning, and another the ending, of a blow-and what one sees the other docs not. In all such cases there is a conflict in the evidence. It is by such conflicts that many guilty men escape punishment, and some few innocent ones are unjustly punished.

It could not be expected that in a work of this character any great detail as to general life should be indulged in; but where a conflict is mentioned, the reader has the right to demand a comprehensive, and at the same time a minute, statement; and it is so given, without regard as to how it may hurt, or who it may affect.

It is not pretended that the style is good, the English pure, or the language elegant. What was sought after was a plain and strong statement of facts, and that, it is believed, has been accomplished.

It is needless to say that the writing has been hurriedly done the reader will readily see that for himself.

The book is given to the public-if it please, well; if it do not please, well also. But, as a matter of course, the desire is that it shall please.

Some two years ago the life of Thompson was written. Much of what was written was taken from his own lips, and the foregoing preface prepared. Thompson never had the MSS. published, but let it rest. His life from that time has been hurriedly, but, in the main, correctly, sketched, and the whole is now given to the public. His wife and children will receive largely of all sales that are made. AUTHOR.

CHAPTER I. A BOY SHOOTS ANOTHER.

Ben, you can't shoot.

Did you ever see me try? No; but I will give you leave to fire at me, and as he thus spoke he turned his back to Ben and stooped down on his all-fours, and said blaze away. No sooner said than a little single-barrel shot gun, loaded with small shot, was fired at the defiant doubter. He was peppered in fine style, and painfully hurt.

The foregoing scene occurred in the year 1856, the actors being Ben Thompson and Joe Brown—the one being thirteen and the other fourteen years old.

Ben Thompson was born in 1843, of English parents ; his mother is still living, an excellent woman, esteemed by all who know her, devoted to her children and grand-children, and now residing in Bastrop County, Texas. The father disappeared many years ago, supposed to have been lost at sea.

The subject of this sketch is now in his thirty-seventh year, five feet nine inches high, rather swarthy complexion, stoutly built, black hair and blue eyes, quick in all his motions, indomitable energy, modest and retiring in demeanor, speaks gently, is a handsome, generous man, the friend of the weak and oppressed, fearless as a lion, and although it has been his fate or fortune to repeatedly take human life, it has ever been done in self-defence, the necessity therefor having arisen from his interposition in behalf of those who were being wronged by the strong, overbearing, or cowardly, who, having the advantage and power, ruthlessly exercised it, regardless of right, place, or circumstances.

The instance stated heretofore approaches more nearly a wanton act (and it was but the freak of a boy without malice), than will be found in all his subsequent career, which has been as varied, and in many things as knightly and chivalric as that of the brave knights who fought for the Holy Land, or righted the wrongs of oppressed or captive women.

The fame of Thompson has spread from the centre to the extreme borders of this country, over its mountains and valleys, through the mines of Mexico, the placers of California, the mineral fields of Colorado, the great emporiums of commerce, on the ocean's deeps, and the far interior, and this fame has been that of a brave, fearless man, retiring and charitable as a woman when not aroused by the perpetration of wrong and injustice on himself, or others, unable to cope with assailants; but dangerous, deadly and quick as a bolt of lightning when the supreme moment of necessity, safety and action came. His eye is soft and laughing, playful and attractive when his indignation is not on fire ; but glittering, piercing and steady as the eagle's, while gazing at and flying towards the sun, on the approach of an enemy bent on mischief, or when his ear is hurt by the groans of distress, drawn forth by the rough hand of the oppressor, or the trembling wail of the weak when trodden on by the strong.

In the adventurous life which he has led he became a gambler, and has visited most of the gambling houses in the West and South, playing high, winning largely, losing heavily, being at times proprietor of such houses, but whether he played on the inside or outside of the banks, he would play with no youth, nor permit them to play at his banks, often has he led the inexperienced youth to the outside of such places and advised them firmly and kindly to depart and never again to come within the unholy influence and actual dangers of such scenes. He would tell them of the desperate life that opened before them if they tasted the deadly poison that gambling distils, and of the circle of fire that would spring up like magic around them should the insatiate and irrepressible passion for gaming be aroused. Some were saved, but the greater number, like the moth about the candle, hovered around until poverty and want were the result of their action ; accompanying disgrace and dishonor put on their awful seal and death in bloody form followed oftentimes ; youthful hopes buried in ashes ; bad passions swallowing up principle, honor and affection; have brought gray hairs of aged fathers and praying mothers to untimely graves.

Revenge was no part of Ben Thompson's nature ; generous to a fault, charitable and liberal, he bore no ill-will to any one ; it was natural for him to forgive a wrong if not resented on the spot, and instances will be shown when

under the most aggravating circumstances, he forgave the injurer, and afterwards, by generosity, made the wrong-doer a friend that money nor after attachments could prevent from interposing his life between Ben and danger.

Ben was and is an admirer of woman. So much so, that his life is held as naught when she is wronged or subjected to injustice. Virtue in woman, and its protection from chicanery, fraud or theft, by unprincipled men, had in him a defender, and but few scoundrels had the courage to meet him, and on but one occasion did any man stand to justify himself when detected and made to confront this fearless man. This one did not stand but a moment, but we need not anticipate.

Our readers will see what manner of man we have in hand, and we ask them to patiently journey with us through the scenes taken from actual life that will be herein portrayed.

Much has been said by open defamers or paid slanderers against Thompson, and he has been represented as a bloodthirsty monster, whose pleasure was to shoot down unoffending strangers, and to glut his appetite for blood, with the dying groans of innocent men; misrepresentations of his life, acts and career, have been injected into the political field, into the pulpit, aye, and into the household, about the hearthstone, as the embodiment of lawlessness and crime to be reprobated, and the hero in it to be scouted from the pales of society, as unworthy the protection of the law, or the grasp of the hand of friendship.

Oh, Ben, you shot me. At this cry Ben dropped his gun, ran to the wounded boy, and in every way sought to aid and help him, and to make him understand there was no malice inducing the shot.

Brown: was painfully but not seriously wounded; he was aided by Ben to reach his home, and every care that could be bestowed, given to him. He was soon up again, the mustard seed shot having been carefully picked out of his person. But, that was not enough to satisfy the public sentiment, and properly so. Court was approaching, ana although there was no malice, no ill-will that caused the shot, yet Ben was indicted and put on his trial, charged by indictment with an assault with intent to kill and murder. The case was called, and a young attorney, R. T. Brownrigg, Esq., appointed by the Court to defend the youth who had been charged with so grave a crime. The Court house was crowded with a great mass of people. The grave Judge on the bench, twelve solemn-eyed jurors in the box, the trial proceeded to the end, detailing all the facts and circumstances of the transaction. The jury found the defendant guilty of an aggravated assault, but recommended him to the mercy of the Court and clemency of the executive, because there was no intent to kill and murder, no element of malice in the act. He was held in custody until the Governor, H. R. Runnels, acted, extending pardon, and was then discharged. He again commenced to set type in a newspaper office, which business he had before followed.

At this time the city of Austin was a small village-a few thousand inhabitants—a frontier town. Indeed, the whole country to the west of Austin, divided by a line north and south, was a frontier. The Indians made frequent incursions and often killed men, women and children, and drove the stock away. The wild Comanches were the inveterate enemies of the white people ; fearless, daring, savage Indians, nature educating them to steal property, torture victims and scorn death. Inspired as they are with the traditional belief that the whites were trespassers on their hunting grounds, they determined to break up the fields and habitations and turn the settled country into wide waste over which the deer, antelope and buffalo might range in old freedom, to be hunted by the Indians alone and have them constitute their means of support.

The prairies were wide and beautiful, filled with all the charming flowers that grow in such rich profusion in this warm and benignant climate ; the red, white, blue and yellow blossoms, large and lasting, that grow in tropical countries, dotted the open expanse as far as the eye could reach. As the sun rose and shed its bright rays on the dew-laden blooms, the eye was greeted with the delusive appearance of millions upon millions of sparkling diamonds. The golden plover from a thousand directions filled the air with their weird yet pleasing and soothing notes. The soft south breeze kissed the bending flowers, the waving grass and ruffled the plumage of fluttering birds. A paradise of nature opened its gates and welcomed the masterman. The Colorado winding down through the mountains looked as if a serpentine chord of silver reaching from the high peaks to the low, level rich valleys. The arching sky above, blue in the aerial vault, contrasting deeply with the bright silver stream, and the green and verdant plains made a scene which to look on was to be happy, and the great natural wish to live after death given a new hold upon the heart. Here and there, at far distant points, the smoke from the frontier cottage wreathed itself into fantastic shapes and in curious forms ascended towards the heavens. Peaceful, quiet, lovely scene. Plain and hill, river, valley and sky, all inspire security, hope and rest. The day passes and evening comes ; the moon in splendor rises from her bed of rosy fire and sheds a subdued light on this almost holy and sacred scene, when as if from out the earth itself there burst into view a band of horsemen in wild array, but free from confusion, dividing into parts one, two, three, and each band noiselessly, yet compactly, following its leader, and he directs his rapidly flying horse to the cottages where but a moment before all was quiet. The spear is thrown, the tomahawk glistened through the moonlight, and each band circling, unite again. Men are dead, women scalped, and each band has children in the arms of the horsemen, raped from the arms of the screaming mothers. Indians, Indians ! flying messengers scream; men huddle together, affrighted women clasp their remaining babes yet closer, grow pale and call on God for help. The daring warriors ride for life. Now they in part have revenge.

Thompson was but a youth; but, quick as man can act, he was ready, with horse, gun and pistol, to join the pursuing party, and to relieve the captives or die in the effort. The ride was one noted in this frontier country, made by frontiersmen, who stay not, weary not, when neighbor, friend or child has been seized by the ruthless savage. It will never be forgotten by those who made it, or by those whose children were recaptured in the chase. The passes through the mountains were as well known to these riders, white and red, as are the harbors on the sea coast to the captains who sail ships. The ride here, on the one side and the other, was for these passes, just as the captain of the ship strives for safe harborage when the storm pursues, ready to swallow him and his vessel. The flight was for life on the part of the Indians; the pursuit was to save children from a captivity worse than death.

The moon rises high in the heavens. Her bright light renders the woods, the trail, the prairie, as light as day; but there was no use for light. The direction and the distance were the governing points. Still the moon rises higher, and, if possible, brighter. The men fly over the ground like the wild huntsman. Life! death! liberty! The hills fade behind, the valleys roll themselves up, the mountains open their arms, and, thank God, the pursuers outride the pursued. The pass is gained. Thompson is one of the first to dismount, secrete his horse and take position to surely and securely entrap or kill the marauders and save the children.

Hark! they come; come rapidly and, for a wonder, carelessly. They have in their boldness forgotten caution; they ride into the arms of death. Unable to restrain himself, Thompson fired his rifle shooting the leading horseman through the heart; and, drawing his pistol, fought with a wild, reckless desperation not surpassed by one who defends himself from death; but he was not alone; though premature in the attack, his companions joined with such prompt fierceness and activity, but one Indian escaped. The fight by the Comanches, although they were taken by surprise and at fatal disadvantage, was like their nature, savage, relentless and vindictive; but the whites actuated by revenge at the wrong the savages had done, and contempt of life, aided by their advantage, gained in the surprise of the enemy with the loss of one man and wounding of two others, won the night fight, and rescued all the children (five in number), except one, who, by the rough treatment received from the Indians, died soon after the fight was over.

It is needless to speak of the great joy of the people, when, late the next evening, the horsemen returned home, and delivered over the children who had been recaptured, to their well-nigh broken-hearted parents. Still but a boy, from this day, Thompson not only regarded himself as a man, but was so regarded by the people among whom he lived. From this time, however, no more Indian raids penetrated the country as far down as the City of Austin.

The chase of the Indians in the instance narrated, is but one among many, and is not at all exceptional, except in being more successful than usual. The Burlesons, McCulloughs, Fords, Lees, Bells, Jack Hays, Wilbargers, Hornsbys, Bowies (James and Resin), Caldwell, Ross and hundreds of others, could, while living a few of them are still alive-have filled volume on volume with kindred occurrences. Children have been captured and raised among the Indians, forgetting their country parentage and language.

As late as 1868, in the county of Llano, about one hundred miles north and west of Austin, the Indians committed a most frightful massacre, an account of which is given in Thrall's History of Texas, page 470, in an epitomized shape.

The Indians, numbering twelve or fifteen, attacked the house of Mr. Jno. S. Friend, about sixteen miles from Llano town, in Llano County, in Legion Valley. When first discovered by Mrs. Friend (the only living witness of the awful scene), the Indians were in the yard, and directly commenced tearing down the house. The only resistance made was by Mrs. Friend, who contended as bravely as any woman that ever lived. The Indians succeeded in getting into the house. Mrs. Friend attempted to shoot one, but the gun was wristed from her hands; the Indian attempting to shoot her, she knocked the gun out of his hands with a chair. She afterwards succeeded in knocking the Indian down with a flat iron; she was then shot in the breast with an arrow, and fell; she was also badly cut across the hand and shot through the arm with another arrow; she was then scalped and left for dead; she saw the Indians start off, one of the barberous wretches thinking, perhaps, she was not dead, returned, and taking hold of the arrow, still in the woman's breast, jerked it backward and forward, watching while he did so, to see if she would finch; she did not flinch but remained as if lifeless during that extreme torture. She saw the Indians take off as prisoners, Mrs. Boy Johnson and her child, Mrs. Babe Johnson and her child, Miss Townsend, little Miss Cordle, Mrs. Friends own little son, seven in all. Mrs. Friend having slightly recovered, she went to the house of the widow Johnson, about one and a-half miles away, where Mr. Bradford was living. He pulled the arrow out of her breast, placed a wet cloth over her scalped head, and fled to the woods, leaving her alone. There she remained until next morning; the news spread rapidly; every available man mounted and took up the pursuit; it was too late; the Indians had thirty-six hours the start. Following the trail, however, the child of Mrs. Boy Johnson was found next evening dead; next morning Mrs. Babe Johnson's child was found with its throat cut from ear to ear; following on across a mountain the bodies of the two Mrs. Johnson's were found murdered and scalped; the same evening Miss Townsend was found murdered, scalped and horribly mutilated; little Miss Cordle and Mrs. Friend's son are supposed to be still in the hands of the savages. Parties watched the passes and tried to follow the trail, but the Indians eluded all. Old Mr. Smith was killed and scalped the same day.

The antagonism between the red and white races is irrepressible. It is but a question of time when the Indian will disappear from the earth as a type of the human race. From an unknown origin they pass into eternal oblivion, without history, monument or signs for language.

CHAPTER II. THE DEATH OF EMIL DE TOUR.

Wearying of the monotonous, confined and laborious life of a printer, Ben drifted to the great Southern city, New Orleans and there cast his lot for a time with the miscellaneous population that inhabits that ancient and wonderful place, full of peoples from all nations of the earth, dominated, however, by those of French extraction. The Americans represented in great measure the business character of the city, but the French and creole composed the essential elements of society and made and unmade usage and custom both as to man and woman. The duello was still the fashion, and the simplest insult resulted in a call to the field of honor, and really the grade in rank or esteem of the offender made but little, if any, difference to the challenger. Considering himself affronted, his angry honor could seldom be appeased by less than the crossing of swords in mortal combat. Tho' hurtful consequence in such encounters was the exception to the rule.

Thompson wandered around the city poor, adventurous, handsome in person, with no definite object in view, and thus for days he was on the world, but knew that whether here or in another part of the world life was an open way and could be made to minister to the living, the hope, ambition, elevation, or depravity of man. Poverty is teacher from whom all learn. Hunger a master in whose presence no man can stand and smile.

Ben was mortal and subject to the same natural laws as others. Boy tho' he was, his mature reflections and firm resolution were far ahead of his age in years. A knocked about boy becomes a man in action long before the law or society recognizes him as such.

Believing that he could better his fortunes by going to the gold fields of California he concluded to shape his life to that end and at once applied for work at his trade as a printer at the, Commercial job office, and being favorably received, no time was lost; his labors were commenced industriously, and so constantly and energetically did he apply himself, and so economical were his habits, that in a little less than two months he had saved money enough to pay a steerage passage to San Francisco, and bear his personal expenses on the passage. So soon as he found his funds sufficient for his purpose, he went to the agency, bought and paid for his passage, provided himself with a satchel of clothes, and was ready to bid a long farewell to all he had ever known, and live and die on the Pacific slope, where danger, adventure, death, readily acquired fortune and immense wealth lost, were the experience of all; but through some misunderstanding the steamship left her wharf hours in advance of the time Ben had understood it would steam down the great father of waters, through the Balize and into the stormy gulf. On the banks of that river the poor boy stood, realizing that all his high hopes had turned to ashes and he again turned adrift, moneyless, friendless, and almost, if not quite, hopeless. He sat down on a cotton-bale and pondered his situation ; a fond mother more than a thousand miles away, an old gray-headed man, the father wonderingly, as the wreaths of smoke curled upward from his pipe, questioning where the boy Benny was. Tears coursed down the cheeks of the disappointed despondent youth. He was not wayward then. He wanted to do what was right; he desired to make money and an honorable name and to send back to the aged couple the money he should earn in honest toil. But such was not to be the case. Clouds he knew not of were fast gathering. He sat, pondered and wept. There was no recourse save to again return to the case and types.

Brave by nature, energetic by habit, and resolute by necessity, he wended his way towards the old stand where he had earned and hoarded.

On the way, and it was a long distance, he thought he would relieve the distance by taking passage in an omnibus. Street cars were then unknown. He did so. Into the omnibus he went. In it was a gay party, returning from a ball, then so common with the aristocratic French residents. Humbly and quietly he seated himself unobtrusively in a corner of the vehicle. In the omnibus was a young Frenchman, Emil de Tour, who at the ball had taken too much wine. He was not only in high spirits, but inclined to assume and domineer to a degree that must have been offensive to his companions. Aboard there was also a young girl, who seemed to shrink from the gala feeling that characterized the party. This Frenchman, forgetting himself, his manhood and honor, approached her and offered a direct insult. Friendless and alone, she knew not what to do. He cautiously, but determinedly pressed on her his insult, sat down by her side, forcibly took her hand, and tried to kiss her, much to her evident fright, consternation and alarm. She resented him and his advances as well as she could by resistance ; called for help, but none came, the gay crowd being engrossed in their own pastime. The girl again and again appealed for help, not loudly, but piteously and earnestly. She received no notice. Ben rose from his seat and approached the scene of confusion. As he neared the point, the young Frenchman glanced at him, and demanded why he came, and why he did not remain where he was and attend to his own business. Ben said: Sir, I can. not see a lady call for help and not respond.

The Frenchman, angered beyond self-control, retorted : You American puppy, get away from here.

He could speak English plainly. Only a few more words passed. Ben said: Leave that girl ; I will assume to protect her. Thereupon the now maddened man insultingly struck Ben in the face with his hand; but no sooner was the blow given, than he received a stab in the side with a knife in the hands of the assailed. His blood flowed not only freely, but it was feared that his very life had been taken. In a moment the wild, good humor, was ended, and friends gathered about the wounded man, oaths came thick and fast, secreted arms were drawn, and the boy who had thus defended woman's honor was forced to flee for his life.

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I WILL GIVE YOU LEAVE TO FIRE AT ME.

He could not stand and defend himself, the array of infuriated men was too great, and even the women, too, called for the life of the offender. Strange ! he had defended the honor of a sister in sex, and yet they would have seen him murdered. Ben, at the risk of his life, jumped from the omnibus to the rough, hard stones of the uneven pavement and took refuge through a cafe close at hand.

The Frenchman was not wounded as seriously as at first thought, and in the course of a few days he was able to be on the streets and in his usual haunts; he sought the youth who had wounded him and despoiled him of his