Meeting of the Denton County Vigilante Committee,
July 1860

Call to order and summary of recent incendiaries:

President presiding: Good evening elected members of the Denton County Vigilante Committee. As you well know the recent troubles here in Texas have threatened our homes and lives. For a long time now we have combated the fanatical preachers and Abolitionists who have invaded our good state, preaching the anti-slavery question and stirring up trouble among our slaves. You will all recall the problems we had just four years ago and that trouble was summarily dealt with by rope and hanging tree.

Now the trouble seems much worse. You are all aware that Sunday afternoon on the 8 th of July one of our good citizens “discovered a fire in the counting room of James M. Smoot’s store, which was located at the corner of Elm and Hickory Streets.” Despite the intense heat, which was measured at over 110 degrees that day “a stiff breeze sprang up from the southwest that spread the fire and within minutes the stores of S & H Jacobs and Baines and Mounts were wrapped in flames. The latter store contained twenty-five kegs of power and exploded with a tremendous amount of force, scattering fragments of the buildings and goods in every direction; pieces of burning timber, fragments of chains and casting were scattered for hundreds of yards, penetrating the buildings on the other side of the square, and setting several of them on fire exertions of the few people that happened to be in town that the remaining business portion of our thriving village was saved. . . . As it is, the whole west side of the public square, with the solitary exception of Blount and Scrugg’s store, on the extreme northwest corner, is in ashes. The losses are as follows: Mr. Smoot saved comparatively nothing: books and all were burned. $50,000 will not cover his loss. Jacobs’s total loss, $7,000; Baines & Mounts saved their books and a portion of their goods; their loss is estimated at $20,000. A building belonging to Ed. Row, partly finished, and a store house belonging to the Aldridge estate, were also destroyed; valued at some $1,200. B &S’s store was in great danger, and was probably only saved by the explosion spoken of. The loss was over $80,000.”¹

Although, good neighbors, we believed the fire to be an isolated event, by the end of the week we realized that more than a half dozen fires in other communities began almost simultaneously with our own. Let us now organize a central committee of Safety for the County and adopt resolutions to ensure peace.

General discussion followed with a vote and the election of a committee of five appointed to adopt resolutions for safety. The following resolutions were adopted unanimously by the committee:

“Whereas, numerous fires and depredations have of late occurred in this and the adjoining counties, under circumstances that lead to the inevitable conclusion that there exists in our midst a regular organized band of abolitionists and scoundrels, who are not only committing outrages and depredations themselves, but are inciting our slave population to the most barbarous acts of murder, arson, and robbery, thereby rendering ourselves, as well as our women and children, in imminent danger of nightly assassination, and our property wholly insecure; and

Whereas, our county as well as the adjoining counties are infested by a class of persons of at least doubtful character, some of whom are fully believed by this meeting to be abolitionists and horse thieves; and

Whereas, various papers and documents are weekly received through the Post Office at this and other places in the county by some of these suspected persons, known to be of the blackest and most incendiary character, therefore—

Resolved, that we, the citizens of Denton County, in mass meeting assembled, do hereby pledge ourselves to use our utmost endeavors to ferret out and investigate the conduct of all suspicious persons who may now be, or who may hereafter come into our midst.

Resolved, that the Central Committee of Safety . . . be fully empowered and authorized to appoint sub-committees in each neighborhood, not to exceed fifty, for the purpose of carrying out the object of their appointment; and said Central Committee is fully authorized and required to arrest, or cause to be arrested, any and all suspicious persons who may be found within the limits of the county, and to cause a full and fair investigation of his or their conduct, business and history; they are also fully authorized to examine the various post offices in this county for suspected documents, letters and papers, and when found cause, the same to be delivered up to them for investigation.

¹Daily Picayune (New Orleans), July 24, 1860, quoting the Houston Telegraph, July 21, 1860.
²Austin State Gazette, August 11, 1860.

1. Rumors circulate that Dallas burned. You go to investigate.