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Mabel M. Ha:lilton
Palestine City Guide
Pioneer,R.H.Davis
C e r' 4-4-T-1--
riters Project
District /8
Palestine, i'exas
Interview of Pionesr by: Isaac .DevisllahhartsTexas
Ion of 11.1f.Davis
I was attending my first dance the night that Ural. Randolph Hassell
was murdered. Altholmh I was only a youngster in my teens and soewhat over-
joyed being at this dance, I could not have failed to notice Randolph Hassell,
as he would walk downstairs, (The dance was in the hall over the store of John
Burke in Rlkhart) and look toward his wife's lighted window, 300 yards away,
so often that anyone could tell he was worried about somet!ing.
Soehow, Randolph had a feeling or prelonition that trouble was in the
air" for he had told his attractive wife to keep a light in her window until
his return so he would know all was well in his home- but the murderers never
gave her a chance to extinguish the light, for it continued to glow and light
the face of their sleeping baby until Ra-dolph came hoiats about midnight and
found his wife missing and signs of the awfullest tragedy this county has ever
known. Perhaps the reason Randolph had felt the possibility or tragedy was be-
cause only a few days previous to that fatal night he had experienced trouble
in arresting a negro by the name of Will Rogers and had found it nesessary to
knock the negro down with his six-shooter) Hassell realized this had incurred
a grudge within the negro. Furthermore, Mrs. Hassell had also just made the
negroes, Andy Jackson, and wife, Lizzie Jackson, mad because she had given
them orders to either quit getting water at her well or else quit making a
water
sloppy mess around it. They carried/from the Hassell's to their house which
was about 200 yards south.
That night when the dance broke up aroand midnight Al2.88811 left
iumdiatelyfor home. I left for my home just about the same time with a few
of my friends and going in a different direction from town and did not learn
of the tragel7 until a few hours later. But on the way home we heard a negro
yell behind us. It was hill Rogers, one of the murderers. *his negro worked
for my father on our farm. never forget his first words as he reached
our side that night, they were: "What a fox I meat" But he was not such a "fox".
Mabll hi. Hamilton
Palestine City Guide
Fionner,R.R.Davis
Writers' Project
District #8
Palestine, Texas
Page 4
Tatty -six hours later when I saw him hanging from the limb of an oaki
My older brother, Jim, did not Leave town with us that night but continued
to loiter around. Soo it was, when only a few minutes after ilassell had left
until he returned totown, and almost prostrated with fear and grief, he gave the
news of his wife's disappearance. In a short while my brother, in company with
livery an in 'amen, began the fateful search for the missing wife. A.thin an hour
or so, my brother, along with Billie Morriss, found her body. She was lying in
a thicket about 200 yards to the rear of her house with her neck cruelly slashed.
It was palnfully evident that criminal assault had been committed upon the help-
less mother.
Just as an insight to the hideous crime, the inhuman action of the negro
murderer, Andy Jackson, is the fact that he helped "hunt" for her with the party
of whites, and, went so far as to help carry her body 'acme.
needless to say, feeling was run,ing high by daybreak when a mob of two
hundred or more men gathered and rounded up every negro in this section. They
it the negroes in confinement in an old abandoned storehouse in Elkhart and
guarded them vigilantly while others in the mob would take the negroes out, one
at a time, in effort to scare the truth from them. Finally, aftor many unsuccess-
ful attemrts to fix the guilt, they drug a batch of them to the top of the hill.
(?here the Elkhart hL h school now stands) and told them that they were going
to hang ther all in order to get the guilty ones. any of the begroes fell to
the ground and started praying and pleading. In this bunchlpraying-negroest Was
Will Rogers; about the only one who was not praying was the negro,Frank Hayes,
who worked with the railroad sectinn gang. Finally he began cursing profusely,
and, looking down at the praying negro, Will Rogers, he sneeringly said," Dam
you, prayers ain't glwine to help you, we are guilty as hell". -_hereupon, he
told them that Andy Jackson, a carpenter by trade; Joe Norman, a negro farm hand
of my uncle Tom Davis; ill Rogers, farm hand of my father,D,T.Davis; Lis Jackson,
wife of Andy Jackson; amd himself, Frank Hayes, mere the guilty ones. After many
Mabel v. Hamilton
Palestine City Guide
Pioneer013.Davis
1.1.ersl Project
District 03
Palestine, Texas
Page t6
attempts to find if any others were imnlicated they finally decided this was all.
This negro, Bill Hayes, had an insideoos courage, he told it all in horrible
detail and punctuated with curse words. He boastlingly told that they had
ha'Aled Irs. Hassell "just as we wanted to", and afterward had cut her throat.
This negro died while cursing as he dangled from the oak.
Upon the evidence that Lit Jackson was only partly implicated she was
turned loose with the warning to "get going and never come back". She came back
to get her snufft kvbereupon, she was promptly swung up and her life snuffed outi.
Andy Jackson was swinging from an oak alone; but near -by in a larger
post-osk the other four were dangling like ebon ghosts when I saw them a short
thirty-six hours after their crIne had been committedt
4y. father, D.T.Davistand my brother, Jim, both now deceased, were among
the ring -leaders of this mob. The law never gave them any trouble for their
action; after all, an atrociously criminal deid had been committed upon the wife
of one of their own brother officers, naturally their feelings were in sympathy
with the vigilante. Oat human could have felt otherwise after knowing an in-
nocent mot1Jm had been brutally nulled from beside her baby, drug into the woods
and forced to undergo the hell of savage beasts until her throat was laid open
for deatht
-THE END...