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FOLKWAYS
Wm. T. Ervin, P. W.
McLennan COunty,
District 8.
No. of w Is, 1848.
File 240
Page 1.
Reference
Consultant E. F. Forsgard, 1122 North Fourth Street,WacopTex.
was born in Waco in 1870. My father, 8. J. Forsgard,
came here in 1852. He established a store not far from the river.
!My father said that cattlemen driving herds to market and
wishing to cross the river, which would take them a day or two,
sometimes three, with a herd; would leave forty or fifty pounds of
gold with him to be placed in his safe until they called for it,
which would be when they had got their herd across and were ready
to go on. When they would call for their gold, which was usually
in saddlebaggs, they would not count it.
'My father told me, too, about how cotton and money were sent
to Houston before the Civil war. There would be probably fifteen
or twenty bales of cotton to be freighted down there by ox -wagons.
There was a little screw gin down the river where the cotton was
ginned. When the cotton was ginned and baled it was wrapped in
cowhides. The merchants at Waco would want to send money to
Houston to pay bills they owed and to pay for more goods, so they
would all go to the gin, each with his money in a buckskin bag,
and they would put all the money in a bale of cotton and wrap the
bale with a white and black cowhide or other oddly marked bide.
Then they would write the cotton factor at Houston a description
of the hide, and he would know which bale contained their money.
The freighter who hauled the cotton would not know which bale the
money was in.
'When I got to be old enough boy to remember things Waco was
still a pretty wild place. Killings were frequent, in fast it
FOLKBAYS File £40.
1114 V. Ervin, P. W.
McLennan County,
District S.
Page P.
didn't amount to much to shoot a man then, or ti hang him for
cattle -steeling. One day when I was ten or eleven years old my-
self and so e other boys about my Gen age found a man hung to e
tree down on the river not far from where the enter filtration
plant now stands. Te didnit know who he as, it we supposed he
ras some fellov hung for crttle-steeling. There res quite a let
of cattle -stealing going on then. A bunch of =flats ht,d a
rendezvous, or hideoutpon Trading Mouse Creek where there ras a
pretty dense thicket. The officers here didn't bother them,
though, because the outlaws vouid do their steeling at some dis-
tance from here and dispose of it before tLey enme back te their
hideout, which as eight or ten miles from here; and so it eould
not have done the officers here any g)ed te cetch them as they
could not have proved anything on them. To d) that, they would
have had to catch the outlaws with the goods on them. The outlaws
would keep to their hideout here until things lard quieted dovn.
Pity father was e member of the Painger force, end one time he
and about to hundred rangers eere sent after a bunch r Indians
that had made a raid at Comanche. They caught ue with the Indians
over about Brownwood, and killed some of them. They then killed a
cow to get rawhide strips to tie rocks to the bodies of the Indians
so they could sink them in the bayou over there so as not to leave
any signpfer other Indians I sup)ose.
11.(:ometimes cowboys from over in Bosque county or somewhere
else would arive in several head of cattle they had stolen and
sell them to a butcher here in taco for money enough to go on a
spree. They would tell the butcher it was 'jumping stoma', and
FOLKWAYS File P40.
ilha. V. Ervin, P. W.
McLennan County,
District S.
Page 3.
was to be killed at once so it veuldn't be found.
The corboys would come in with herds and stop here and get
drunk and shoot and yell around some, but nobody pnid any attention
to them. If they shot out any show windows in the stores their
boss man would go around to the merchants and ask them what the
damage was and pay it. If the cowboys got to shooting too much,
the storekeepers would gut up heavy vooden shutters before the
windows, and then the boys wouldn't see any glas te shoot at.
*Lots of gambling went on. It was a regular business. There
rere several men who had saloons and gambling halls, usuelly the
gambling places were in e room over the saloon. These men were
square -shooters, they had their families here and they were treated
like any other respected citizens of the town. If they caught
any of their dealers or any player cheating or playing a crooked
game, they would tell him that he had to get out, and would ask
him where he vented to go, and then he told them they would buy
him a ticket there, eat him on the stage ehd see that he left town.
They wouldn't allow any toughs to day in town or any cheap gamblers.
If any came in, they would tell them to get out in twenty-four
hours, and if he didn't, they ran him out.
'Tour or five or six of thtse big gamblers tould s,)metimes
get together in one of their places and play poker. ;:.ometimes the
game would run for as long as a leek. If _me uf them wanted to
leave thc game for awhile to take a nap or go out in town, he'd
count up the money he had, the banker would make a note of it, and
the gamblcle would stack it t,) one side on the table, and it would
be there when he came back, even if he was gone a day or two.
*A lot of gambling sould go on right on the square., the cow-
FaULWAYS File 240
Wm. T. Ervin, P. IN
McLennan County,
District 8.
Page 4
boys, gamblers and Mexicans would come into town and tie their
horses to the hitchrack on the square, spread down a blanket,
get out their cards and have a game right there among their horses.
III saw Lam Bass when he passed through Waco on his way to
Round Rock to rob the bank there, and was killed there by rangers.
He stopped at the old Ranch saloon on the square, there were two
or three others with him. They stayed a -day or two. They had
some friends here they stopped to see. I don't remember just who
their friends were. Bass figured to hold up a bank here, but
think the big gamblers told him to move on. We didn't know who he
was when we saw him, but we looked his and his men's horses over
pretty well. When we heard of what happened at Round Rock, we
were able to connect up certain things, descriptions, and so on,
and knew then that we had seen Sam Bass. He was about a medium-
sized man; had sort of brownish gray eyes. He was not so much out
of the ordinary looking, but he was a man th-t when you had seen
him once, you would know him when you saw him again.
"'Myself and my son, Sam, were with the Winchester Repeating
Arms Company for between seven and eight years as firearms demon-
strator. We were expert shots with rifle, shotgun and pistol. I
have won a good many trophies at national and international meets.
won one trophy by hitting twenty-five live birds in twenty-five
shots. Over a year's time I have hit 2,077 shots out of 2,100.
!My frther said thIA in Lhe c_.rly days if man czae into
V;aCo vdth his fi1y and vts brake th people would see that he
and his family had something to cat and a place to stay, and they
naked no questions. They figured that if he was a good man, he
FOLKWAYS File fAO.
V. Ervin, P. 1.
McLennan County,
District 8.
Page 5.
would prove himselfeand that if he was a crook and a thief, they
would find that out *tout him, too. If he was ell right and it
was necessary, they would build him a home end keep him and his
family in suppli(e until he was in a position to take care of them.
"ly brother Semi, rhe was a satalllboy, and some other boys
were killed when a loll of the Orand livery stable collapsed in
1.676. It was a net brick wall, and the cement wasn't dry, and
they were running en* playing on ton of it when it fell. end crushed
them.
"I saw Judge Garald and the Harris brothers have their gun
battle, when the Arises were killed; and I say Brann, the icono-
clast, then he shit end killed the man who had shot him. The men
fell off the eidemelit into the gutter, and Brann kept shooting him.
Brann was shat anae through the left chest, zied I don't believe he
w)uld have died, but the officers were so excited and afraid of
more shooting that they took hold of him and ren with him all the
way to the jail, 41d he lost so much bleed that I think that was
whet killed him. I believe he would have lived if it hadn't been
for that. He died about t week later.
"There were some of those oldtimers thet wouldn't back up for
anybody. The officers were afraid to try to arrest them. If they
het a verrant for one of them, they'd send him ward that they had
a warrant for him iAlid he'd send word back that he teuld be down to
see them in about thirty minutes, and these fellows always kept
their eord to come Lk. It went too hard eith their pride to submit
to arrest. They wOuidn't submit to anything without a fight, and
I have seen them ark, even some of the nerviest officers crawfish
and talk nice.