Taming the Wild West

By John Hallowell

    I once took a college course in Western Civilization, which covered centuries of (mostly European) progress in the arts and sciences, politics and war, industry and commerce.

    I got another view of “western civilization” over the Christmas holidays, when I read the journal of DeWitt Clinton Thomas, who served as sheriff, soldier, mayor, clerk and judge during the late 1800’s in the Texas Hill Country.

    The abrupt transition from the Wild, Wild West to the stable agricultural communities of the early 1900s was a rough, dangerous time (further complicated by the War Between the States), and the “happy ending” was made possible only by the courage, faith and fortitude of some remarkable people. “De” Thomas was one of those.

    I want to thank Lamar Griffin, of Mullin, for providing the manuscript, written by his great-uncle between 1878 and 1912 in Lampasas.

    DeWitt Clinton Thomas was born on January 22, 1835, in the small town of Moulton, Alabama. His father was a prosperous merchant, but the bankruptcy of a supposed friend left him liable for some sizable debts, and he was forced to sell his business and start over in the “Promised Land” of Texas. The family of seven, accompanied by two orphaned teenagers (brothers) and three slaves, arrived in Burleson County (east of Austin) in the winter of 1844.

    Illness, drought and poor crops made life difficult for the first three years, but in 1848, De’s father purchased 300 acres in what is now Lee County. Masters and slaves lived together in a dirt-floored log cabin. Life wasn’t easy, but De describes the time as “the most happy years of my life.”

    “The country was beautiful beyond description,” Thomas wrote. “Horses, cattle and hogs kept in fine condition on the range and without feed. Deer, turkeys and all kind of small game abounded everywhere. The streams were full of fish, and all my spare moments were spent in the woods. I loved my gun and my dog, and looked anxiously forward every week to the coming Saturday evening. There were half a dozen boys within four or five miles of me, and after a week’s labor we would contrive some way to spend our Saturday evenings together.”

    The farm prospered, and “civilization” made inroads into the area. De’s father was elected County Judge, and De was able to attend school for a few years.

When he was 16, a carpenter came to live with the family, and De became quite proficient in woodworking. He then learned the wheelwright’s trade in a wagon-and-carriage shop. When he was 18, he became a partner in a mail contract, carrying mail between Austin and Caldwell. His share of the contract was $600 per year, and he earned another $30 per month trading horses along the route. “I do not say this boastfully,” he wrote later in life, “but I was never idle.” (He did note, somewhat regretfully, that, as a “ladies’ man,” he spent too much on clothing.) He also wrote, “I lost no opportunity to make a dollar honestly, and at the same time was making for myself a little name and character that has been of service to me since.”

    His promising business career was interrupted in 1861, when Texas seceded from the Union, and a call went out for volunteers to fight the Yankees. De made known his intention to enlist, and eighteen local boys volunteered to go with him. Arriving in San Marcos, he was chosen “Second Lieutenant of Company A, First Regiment of Texas Mounted Rifles.”

    The first order of business was clearing Texas of Union soldiers, and Thomas’s regiment obtained the surrender of the 8^th U.S. Infantry at Castroville. They then guarded the frontier near the present site of Fort Concho for several months before heading to Vicksburg, Mississippi in August of 1862.

    Fourteen months later, while on a scouting mission in the small town of Chulahoma, Thomas was surrounded and captured by Union cavalry. For the next two years, he would be a prisoner of war.

    Much of the journal that Thomas wrote for his children is concerned with his adventures in captivity, and he commented sharply on the difference between the courtesies with which he had treated the 8^th Infantry and the privations he suffered as a Union prisoner. The first year was spent at an old penitentiary at Alton, Illinois, and the second at Fort Delaware, near Philadelphia. Cold, hunger and disease decimated the prison population, and Thomas himself was near death several times, but through it all, though his health was ruined, he won the respect of guards and prisoners alike. When he was chosen as “foreman” of the Texas barracks, his treatment improved, and he was allowed double rations and an extra blanket (which probably saved his life).

I’ll quote a few of De’s tales to illustrate his prison experience:

    “After dark, the first night of my stay in Delaware, I could hear the pat-pat of many feet . . . It was my fellow prisoners running or trotting by the hundreds to keep from freezing. I found after a while that their plan was . . . for part of them to have all the blankets while the others by violent exercise would try to warm up, or at least to keep their blood in circulation. After this detail would become exhausted, they would arouse the others and take charge of the blankets, whilst the ones just aroused would strike the trot to keep from freezing.”

    De Thomas told of “a pair of pants, which had been made out of a very fine Mexican blanket during the winter of 1864. I regretted the necessity of cutting up my fine blanket, but was determined that the Yanks should not have it, and being convinced that they would take it away from me either by force or by stealth, I cut it into pants, and again I was very much in need of them. By wearing these pants of many colors, I was known by every man in prison, both Yankees and Confederates.”

    “Among the attendants at the (dining) tables was one old villain who carried a club, and seemed to delight in walking up and down the tables seeking some pretext to whack a ‘reb’ over the head with his stick. One day, just before dinner, he leaned back against the wall on the inside of the dining room, and this brought his rear over a knothole in the wall. Quick as thought, a prisoner on the outside drew a pen knife, and through the knothole stuck it to the handle in the old scamp’s rear.”

    “The rebs scattered in a hurry to avoid his club, but no one would tell who had a knife.”

    The old coon never knew who knifed him, but flew round with the blood running down his leg and the seat of his pants all gory, striking right and left at everyone he saw. Under almost any other circumstances this would have been too rough for a joke, but we enjoyed it hugely, for he was heartily despised by us all.”

    And, “Large printed bills were posted over the prison stating that  . . . prisoners would be permitted to receive anything by express not contraband of war. Supposing that they might now receive provisions,” more than a thousand captives wrote to friends asking for food and clothing.

    “In a few days, the boxes began to come in, and the old steamboat fairly groaned under her load. They were landed, but at the fort, and from thence carried to the residence of the Commanding Officer, A. Schaeff. This was a cool joke, and the old coon realized about one thousand (or perhaps twelve hundred) boxes of hams, bread, cheese, pickles, preserves, can fruit, apple butter and many other things too good for a rebel. The poor starving fellows could . . . only bite their lips, look sober and, of course, use some very profane language.”

    When the war ended, Thomas took the mandatory oath of allegiance and started for home. He arrived, after four years away, to find his brothers and sisters living in poverty. His parents and a sister had died in his absence, and the family had given him up for dead, as well. De took charge of the family farm, and planted crops, but his strength for manual labor was almost gone, and to earn a living, he decided to run for sheriff.

    Being held in high regard throughout the county, De was easily elected, but resigned his office just a few months later, when “Yankee radicals” replaced Governor James W. Throckmorton with their own choice, E.M. Pease.

    After a short ranching effort in Burnet County, and an aborted cattle drive to California, De took a job with a Lexington merchant named C.P. Vance. He married Vance’s niece, Jennie Lee Hewlett, in 1871 (at the age of 36).

    With Vance’s backing, the couple set up their own business in Lampasas just before the huge flood of 1873. Losing everything and starting over (once again) was not easy, but in 1875, friends persuaded him to run for County Clerk, and his excellent reputation again brought him a convincing victory in the election. In the meantime, three children were born to the happy couple, and it was for them that DeWitt Clinton Thomas began to write his memoirs in 1878.

    It was a grim time for the Texas Hill Country, with outlaw “mobs” ruling the countryside, and carpetbaggers from the North holding all the power in the official government. Honest Southerners such as DeWitt Thomas were under constant pressure to cast in their lot with the outlaws, but he and others held true to their ideals, and “western civilization” is deeply in their debt. As violence raged around him, Thomas sought to do his duty, regardless of the consequences. In 1878, he received the highest number of votes for any candidate in Lampasas County history.

    De Thomas was not one to brag, and much of my impression comes from reading between the lines, and from the newspaper clippings that accompanied the memoirs. He briefly mentions feuds and murders in 1879 and the arrival of the railroad in 1882; he notes the building of “a fine new courthouse” in 1884 and the death of his first-born son in 1885. The insight into his character comes from the pages of good advice that he leaves for his children, and the overwhelming margins of his electoral victories testify that he practiced what he preached. (he says proudly, “I remained in my office and continued my work, without soliciting votes.”) The book, “Texas Personnel,” by L.E. Daniel, quotes General Henry McCulloch as saying, “De Thomas is one of the most honorable and upright of men, and most highly honored and respected by the citizens of Lampasas. He was a brave soldier, and one of God’s noblemen.”

    In 1888, Thomas was elected County Judge (his portrait hangs on the wall at the Lampasas County Courtroom), where he served two terms before retiring in poor health at the age of 57. He was lured out of retirement by the appearance of an upstart third party, which he considered a threat to the welfare of the county (Thomas considered himself a “Jackson Democrat”). In 1900, and once more in 1902, he was handily re-elected; even after retiring from his position as judge at the age of 69, he worked part-time in the County Clerk’s office. The Lampasas County history book says that he also served at least one term as mayor.

    In May of 1902, he wrote, “I have to the best of my ability tried to discharge my duty under the law of the land, have tried to provide for my family and do what I could for suffering humanity. Of course, we are all more or less selfish, but I hope that I have been as kind and charitable to the poor as my circumstances would admit of.”

    “If I had my life to live over again, I know that I could improve on the past, and now only do all in my power to atone for the errors and shortcomings of my youth, relying on strength and wisdom from the only One who can give it; my Heavenly Father.”

    These self-effacing remarks belie the true influence that DeWitt Clinton Thomas exerted in Lampasas County. Shortly before his death in 1917, Thomas listed some 40 noted Texians who had been personal acquaintances. Among them were Governors Sam Houston, James Throckmorton, Richard Coke, J.S. Hogg, and F.R. Lubbock (and those are just the ones I have heard of!). He said then, “Although the above were noted men and have their names in history, they were no better, braver or truer men than my many good friends who toiled for their daily bread . . . If a man is good, kind, high-minded, honest and honorable, I care not what his occupation may be; he is one of nature’s noblemen.”

    This is the kind of person who made the Hill Country what it is today. This is the kind of man who civilized the “Wild West.”

By John Hallowell

John Hallowell is the past editor of several Hill Country publications. He has been exploring the Texas Hill Country for almost 20 years.