John Dillinger was a well known gangster who operated in the United States until his death in 1934. He had been born in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 22, 1903. Dillinger’s mother died when he was three years old and he was raised by his father and stepmother, with whom he is said to have had a difficult relationship. The family moved around somewhat and Dillinger dropped out of school. Around 1923, he joined the United States Navy. He was assigned to the U. S. S. Utah but only served a short while before deserting, after which he launched his criminal career. Not long afterward, Dillinger was arrested, tried and convicted for a 1924 robbery of a local grocery in his adopted home town of Mooresville, Indiana and was sentenced to the Indiana State Prison. There he was exposed to fellow convicts including a number who had been bank robbers. Upon his parole in the spring of 1933, he and several associates began to commit a series of bank robberies in Indiana and Ohio.
Black Seminoles of Texas
The account of the Black Seminoles in Texas begins in Florida. Slavery had been abolished in Spanish Florida since the late 1600s and the area became a refuge for freed as well as fugitive slaves. Though some were taken as slaves by the Native tribes that resided there, those of African descent are generally believed to have interacted peacefully with the native tribes, with some amount of intermarriage and more significantly, the adoption of the tribal ways and customs. The people known as Seminoles are sometimes referred to as being a conglomeration of a number of tribes living in the area, including the Creek Tribe, although the Creek Tribe is also usually referred to separately. Tribes included the Lower Creeks, Mikusukis and Apalachicola, among others and they are believed to have migrated there from the areas now represented by the states of Georgia and Alabama.
Dan Waggoner and His Descendants
Daniel Waggoner was born in 1828 in Tennessee to Solomon and Martha McGaugh Waggoner. Daniel was the second of the siblings to be born in Lincoln County, Tennessee before the family moved to Missouri where most of the other siblings were born. The family finally settled in Hopkins County, Texas. Daniel married Nancy Moore in 1851 in Hopkins County. The following year their only son William Thomas Waggoner was born. Nancy passed away in 1853. Five years later, Daniel married Sicily Ann Halsell, daughter of Electious and Elizabeth Jane Mayes Halsell. Sicily was from a large ranching family, also of Wise County. The couple had no children.
Continue reading Dan Waggoner and His DescendantsLaw Officers Killed By The Barrow Gang: Cal Campbell (Victim 9)
Constable Cal Campbell was the last lawman to be killed by the Barrow gang. The list of law officers who were victims of the gang is as follows:
Eugene Moore, Atoka, OK, 8/5/1932
Malcolm Davis, Dallas, TX 1/6/1933
Harry McGinnis, Joplin, MO 4/13/1933
Wes Harryman, Joplin, MO 4/13/1933
Henry D. Humphrey, Alma, AR 6/26/1933
Major Crowson, Huntsville, TX 1/16/1934
E. B. Wheeler, Grapevine, TX 4/1/1934
H. D. Murphy, Grapevine, TX 4/1/1934
Cal Campbell, Commerce, OK, 4/6/1934
Continue reading Law Officers Killed By The Barrow Gang: Cal Campbell (Victim 9)
The Lubbock Brothers
Three brothers figure into the history of Texas. They are Thomas, Francis and Henry Lubbock. Colonel Thomas Saltus Lubbock is the brother for whom Lubbock county and the city of Lubbock is named. He was born in South Carolina in 1817 and came to Texas early enough to participate in the Siege of Bexar in late 1835. He was also a participant in the ill-fated Santa Fe Expedition in 1841. Thomas was captured in New Mexico while Texas troops were on their way to Santa Fe. He was taken to Mexico and imprisoned, but was one of two individuals to be able to escape. He later made his way back to Texas. When the Civil War broke out, he first served in an irregular unit comprised mostly of former Texas soldiers and Texas Rangers as scouts for the Confederate Army. He and some others later joined the Confederate Army and were founding members of “Terry’s Texas Rangers,” the 8th Texas Cavalry. Lubbock was promoted to Colonel and put in command of the regiment after the death of Benjamin Franklin Terry but happened to be ill with typhoid fever at the time. Thomas died the following day on January 9, 1862 before he could take command. He is buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas.
Texas History Notebook 