Reminiscences about the Troubles

“. . . There had been a great deal of burning going on in the country—farmers’ homes, their feed stacks and cribs were burned—and no one knew how. One day as Crill [Miller] was at his father’s a little negro boy, whom he called Bruce came running in crying and saying: “Oh, Mars Crill, three white men came and made me fetch them some water and then they set fire to the barn and the house.” Crill could see the smoke issuing from his place, but he said nothing then. After he had worked on a few clews [sic] and put this and that together he one day took Bruce from the house and in the presence of a committee of white men told him that he would have to tell them who had burned his house else they would kill him, and he informed him that if he died lying the devil would get him sure. Bruce confessed that he himself fired the place and that he had been put up to it by another negro. This led to the revelation of a plot, which included every negro in the country except three, and one of the three was old Uncle Clayton Miller. He knew about the plot, but under threatened penalty of death he dared not reveal it. A part of the plan was to poison Uncle Billie (W. B.) Miller and his wife and divide their property among the blacks. When the scheme was fully disclosed it was shown to have been instigated by two white preachers from Iowa. They were in the county about two years prior to the outbreak, but they left and returned again, it was charged, to fully develop their plans, which were evidently laid during their first visit to the county. As soon as their connection with the scheme became known a committee composed of Judge Hord, Uncle Billie Miller and mr. Knight, Judge Burford’s father-in-law, started to wait on them. One of them was seen. When the committee approached the negro quarter where he was stopping Uncle Billie Miller called him out to acquaint him with the committee’s mission. He was eating breakfast and he reached back to get a gun which was standing against the wall near him. At that moment a shot was fired from the outside. The preacher then commenced crying and asked me to keep the men from shooting him. He promised to get out of the state in five hours, and the committee left, but before he could get away he was captured somewhere on Farms Branch, brought to town and put in jail. The other preacher was captured and that night they were both taken out, whipped and told to get out of the state instanter. They left but we heard of them during the [Civil] war circulating stories in the north about us. After the burning of the town, which occurred on July 10, 1860 [sic. July 8, 1860], when the mercury stood 110 degrees in the shade, we whipped every negro in the county one by one. One of the negroes whipped became very sick afterward and thinking that he was going to die, he made a confession to his old mistress, telling her all about the plot, which contemplated the murder of herself and her husband. He confirmed the statement of other negroes that the two Iowa preachers had instigated the entire plot. Upon his confession he with two other negroes, one of whom was a preacher, was taken out and hanged on the bluff just above where the Commerce street bridge now stands.”

“Judge Nat M. Burford’s Version: IN his search for additional particulars concerning the burning of the town and the trouble with the negroes, THE NEWS reporter yesterday called on Judge Nat. M. Burford at his home on Akard Street. If Judge Burford lives until the 8 th of next October he will have been a resident of Dallas forty-four yesars. Although one of the oldest settlers and one among the patriarchs of the city, he is young in step and memory. The reporter found him mowing grass in the back yard. Showing the interviewer to his room he said that he could not recall dates with accuracy, but he had a vivid recollection of the scenes transpiring about thirty-two years ago in Dallas.

‘I was then district judge and I was holding court in Waxahachie. I adjourned court there Saturday and started to my home in Dallas, but I did not get here until Monday, the day after the town was burned. There was no railroads in those days and the travel was slow. I then lived on Main Street where the St. George hotel now stands. When I got home I found the largest portion of the town in smoking ruins. Nearly all the buildings on the square, about fifteen business houses, were burned. One two-story brick house was left standing on the southeast corner of the square. It was a saloon and I believe a saloon is kept in the same building today. Residences as far as my house had been burned. I remember that when I got to town everything was quiet. It was almost a death-like stillness. People talked in whispers, but they were determined-looking. They were desperate. They gathered in groups and they were sure that nothing was said in the presence of anybody who was not known to be with them. A little after dinner, T. C. Hawpe, the sheriff, came to my house and told me that a meeting was being held in the courthouse. He was afraid they were going to hang all the negroes in the county and so entail a great loss of property. He said that three were known to be guilty and he did not think that any more should hang. He asked me to go down and address the crowd and do what I could to hold violence in check. I went and when I got to eh courthouse door—it was a brick courthouse, the second built on the spot where the new one is being erected—I encountered a doorkeeper. The guards were admitting only those whom they knew to be all right. The doorkeeper asked me if I would abide the action of the people’s meeting. I replied that I would and went in. The first man I found inside said: ‘Now, we must vote to hang them three negroes, but it won’t do to hang too many. We can’t afford it. After we get the three let’s call up some rich man’s negro and make a fight to save him. If we save the rich man’s negro the meeting will not then turn around and vote to hang the poor man’s negro.’ I saw that he had an eye to business and I thought it was a good suggestion. I went up to the courtroom and talked about three-quarters of an hour. Being a judiciary officer I then left the meeting and took no part in subsequent proceedings. However, the three negroes were condemned to death by a jury of, I think, fifty-two men. The fourth negro brought out belonged to Billie Miller, the riches man in the county. Sure enough a fight was made to save him and succeeded, but Miller said that the negro shouldn’t stay in the country and he afterward sent him away. The moderation wing of the meeting compromised with the other faction by offering and voting for a resolution to whip every negro in the county. The resolution was adopted and a committee was appointed to do the whipping. I remembered my cook was shipped, but she said they didn’t whip her hard and her husband at the time got the only whipping ghe ever had in his life. He was a fine mulatto, a splendid blacksmith, and he would have nothing to do with the negroes. He opposed the abolition of slavery and thereby engendered the ill will of all the negroes. He is living now on Elm Ford, about seven miles from here. The public meeting in the courthouse was held Monday afternoon, and I think the three negroes condemned were hanged the following Wednesday in the forenoon. I was not at the hanging and I had no part in it, but most of the people had their negroes there to witness it.

I am satisfied the town was fired by negroes. Mr. Cameron, who lived on the Fort Worth road, twelve miles form Dallas, had a negro boy about 12 years old who came to town every Sunday to get the mail. When he got back home that Sunday after being in Dallas his master saw the smoke from the burning town and asked him what it was. He replied that Dallas was burning. He was asked how he knew it. He said that as he was going to Dallas that morning Uncle Cato, who was then a notorious negro in these parts, told him to look out, that Dallas would be burning before he got back home. This to my mind was most convincing proof. Old Cato was captured and he implicated the other two negroes who were hanged with him. Their stories were corroborated by other negroes, so that there could be but little doubt that the negroes started the fire. They stated that two white preachers from the north put them up to it and a committee waited on the preachers. I never saw them, but after the committee waited on them they were whipped and told to leave the country. At that time there was a good deal of house burning all over the country, but the war soon came on with its exciting events and that is the reason I reckon nothing was ever recorded about the burning of Dallas and the threatened slave insurrection. It almost passed out of the minds of people.”

A talk with one of the Jurymen

“The NEWS reporter ran down a member of the jury of fifty-two, a majority of whom sent the three negroes to their execution. He declined to be interviewed, saying that this was a bit of southern history that was not good. ‘The two white preachers, I believe to have been guiltless of the charge laid against them. When the preachers were captured, one of them doubtless would have been shot in his buggy, but his wife threw her arms around his neck and threw herself in front of him, so that the vigilantes could not shoot him without shooting her. She made such a piteous pleas for her husband’s life that they decided to spare it. The elder of the preachers was not wanted, but he refused to leave his brother of the cloth. He said that he would return to Dallas and go to jail with him. The preachers were afterward whipped and told to leave the country. I think that about the extent of their connection with the negroes was that they had been seen perched on rail fences talking with negroes several times and once or twice they felt it their duty to preach to them. I don’t believe they instigated an insurrection. In fact there was no insurrection. People became frightened and almost panic stricken.

When the town was burned it was a hot day—so hot that matches ignited from the heat of the sun. Wallace Peak had just finished a new two-story frame building and in the upper story that day a number of men were lounging and smoking. Piled up near the building was a lot of boxes filled with shavings, and I think a cigar stump or a match was thrown into one of the boxes, and from that the fire started about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Several fires had occurred; there was a great deal of excitement about the apprehended negro uprising; somebody had to hang and the three negroes went. There was a merchant in the town of Henderson who wrote to a friend here that he would pass through Dallas on a given date. Incidentally in the letter he mentioned the fact that the day when Dallas burned a box of matches I his store took fire from natural heat and he barely saved his stores from burning. This incident was cited by those supporting the theory of accidental origin, but he merchant was denounced for being in collusion with the negroes. It happened that he originally came form the north and there were threats of lynching him in case he appeared in Dallas. His friend wrote to him to keep away from Dallas and he did. At that time there was considerable wagon immigration to this country from the north and the idea somehow gained currency that those northern people were coming down here and supplying the negroes with firearms and ammunition. People actually held up the wagons and searched them as they entered the town, but nothing was ever found to confirm these suspicions.”¹

1. You learn that the Paris Press argues that the plot has been invented by Texas politicians. You investigate.