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A
few weeks ago, Doris and I spent a couple of days at Waco,
attending a history conference.
One of the speakers made a presentation
on Texas lawmen who died in the line of duty. One of the lawmen--Angelina County
Sheriff William Reed (Bill) McMullen-- caught my attention.
McMullen
was one of the men who was killed during a feud between the Gilley and Windham
families at Homer, the county
seat of Angelina County in the 1860s.
The seeds for the feud were sown
by two incidents. On August 1, 1865, John D. Windham and Isaac Gilley met on the
streets of Homer, exchanged threats
and Gilley shot Windham with a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot. Windham
recovered from his wounds and Gilley was indicted for attempted murder in 1866.
But that didn’t end the feud. In the spring of 1866, Gilley rode into
Homer with a Texas flag, hoisted
it on a pole on the courthouse square near the Hudiburg Hotel, and dared any man
to take it down.
Gilley was addressing the jayhawkers and night riders
who were seeking to gain control of the county in an upcoming June election.
Gunfire rang out from the hotel and Gilley and his men took cover as the town
square exploded with pistol and rifle shots from the doors and windows of the
hotel.
Someone rode for Sheriff McMullen, who was eating supper at his
home a mile away. He hurriedly rode into Homer
with his son Foster.
As he approached the hotel, he was killed instantly
with a bullet to his chest. Eli Windham was also killed.
Seeing that McMullen
had fallen, men on both sides scrambled for their horses and rode out of town.
Several
wounded men were treated by Dr. W.W. Manning on his store porch. The Gilley gang
rode to the home of Dr. D.H.L. Hogg to have their wounds treated.
The instability
of the county’s government was worsened by the Homer
shootout. In an election on July 25, 1866, voters elected new county officials,
and the mood was to kick out the unionists.
Sheriff McMullen, meanwhile,
had been buried at Homer Cemetery.
In 1885, after Gilley had fled to Louisiana,
he was hunted down and returned to Homer
for the murder of Eli Windham. However, he was found not guilty.
On March
12, Gilley cleaned his pistol, loaded it with new shells, placed the barrel under
his chin, and pulled the trigger. He died instantly.
July 10, 2011 Column
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Bob
Bowman's East Texas
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A weekly column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers
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