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Indianola,
Texas, county seat of Calhoun
County, September, 1875. Most of the adult males in Calhoun
County were at the Indianola
courthouse, a jury panel for the trials of two suspected murderers.
William Taylor was charged with the murder of Gabriel Slaughter
aboard a steamship docked at Indianola.
Joe Blackburn was charged with stagecoach robbery and first-degree
murder. The cases the district attorney built were strong. There was
little question both Taylor and Blackburn would be convicted—and,
ultimately, hanged—for their crimes.
That morning the wind began to blow and the sea began to rise. The
first of the two massive hurricanes that would spell the end of Indianola
as Texas’ primary seaport was blowing
in. The second, in 1881, finished the town. As the water began to
rise—it would ultimately crest at over ten feet—the jail, which stood
on the courthouse square, was emptied. The prisoners, including Taylor
and Blackburn, were brought to the second floor of the courthouse,
along with the jury panelists—and three horses. One was the sheriff’s
personal mount, the others were cart horses belonging to a couple
of the panelists. They were the only three horses in the town to survive
the storm.
Apparently
both Taylor and Blackburn were strong swimmers. As the waters rose,
people in danger of drowning began to float by the courthouse. Both
of the accused murderers stripped to their drawers, leaped into the
raging water, and began pulling citizens to the courthouse’s second-floor
windows, where jury panelists—and jailbirds—pulled them to safety.
How many citizens of Indianola the two men rescued we don’t know for
sure. The source says ‘scores.’ Twenty is a ‘score,’ so in order to
reach ‘scores’ they had to pull at least forty people from the water.
After the waters receded and everyone managed to get out of the courthouse,
Sheriff Busch was addressing the crowd. Since Taylor and Blackburn
had behaved so heroically during the storm, the deputies had dismissed
all thought of guarding them. Blackburn got close enough to the sheriff
to grab his revolver from the holster. He then ordered the deputies
to disarm themselves, which they did. Taylor picked up one deputy’s
gunbelt and strapped it on. Then, mounting the sheriff’s horse double,
the two made their escape.
A mile out of town the pair encountered Guy Michot, a Black man, and
‘persuaded’ him to give them his horse. Blackburn gave Michot a ten-dollar
bill as a ‘rental’ for the horse. He was told to tell Sheriff Busch
that the horses—and the guns—would be returned as soon as the pair
had no further need for them. Sure enough, within a week both the
sheriff’s horse and Michot’s, together with the sheriff’s and deputy’s
revolvers, were returned to the Calhoun County courthouse—along with
a substantial sum of money for Michot.
What subsequently happened to William Taylor and Joe Blackburn? We
don’t know. They were never recaptured and never tried. Of the hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of people who died in that hurricane, Taylor and
Blackburn were able to rescue only a few. It is doubtful, however,
that the potential jurors, having witnessed their heroism during the
storm, would have been willing to send them to the gallows.
© C. F.
Eckhardt July
26, 2011 column
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