tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post5762678788975673706..comments2024-03-22T12:20:51.577-06:00Comments on Gainesville, Texas 1862: Doctor Henry Chiles - 1st to be Hanged in the Great HangingTexasRootshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17660759079646051026noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-42530387518540819812019-02-23T16:16:51.651-07:002019-02-23T16:16:51.651-07:00Charles, the P history is set to be published in t...Charles, the P history is set to be published in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly issue for July 2019.Hershel Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03919613095448470289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-22524861381688053412019-02-03T10:35:38.842-07:002019-02-03T10:35:38.842-07:00Charles, the P letter will be in the July 2019 SOU...Charles, the P letter will be in the July 2019 SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY. Hershel Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03919613095448470289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-13683723591350178912019-01-28T08:50:19.670-07:002019-01-28T08:50:19.670-07:00Charles,
Ryan Schumacher says that the "P&qu...Charles, <br />Ryan Schumacher says that the "P" letter will be printed in the SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY issue for July 2019. That's what I hoped--that it would be in one of the first places anyone would look. I repeat my admiration for the family members who immediately put up Mrs. Kahn's letter to the St Louis REPUBLIC after I mentioned it. Hershel Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03919613095448470289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-49490079938544104152018-12-20T21:45:52.557-07:002018-12-20T21:45:52.557-07:00Charles, I would like to have a small publication ...Charles, I would like to have a small publication from this discovery. It needs to be where scholars and descendants will see it. I'll post here what I learn about publication. Meanwhile, what about James Peery for P. Was he a good writer? What other men named P (and in Bourland's group) in Gainesville were competent writers? Of course P does not have to be one of the man's real names.<br />Hershel Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03919613095448470289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-29370308295306092402018-12-20T09:37:05.312-07:002018-12-20T09:37:05.312-07:00To Hershel Parker comment:
Thanks for posting new ...To Hershel Parker comment:<br />Thanks for posting new information about the hanging.<br />Where was the short history by "P" found? Was "P" one of the jurors?<br />Hopefully the TSHA Handbook online will publish it soon.<br />Charlesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-60822589588125068322018-12-15T09:52:25.696-07:002018-12-15T09:52:25.696-07:00Chiles family members, thank you for the perfect w...Chiles family members, thank you for the perfect way you handled my new information. I applaud your posting of the 1894 St. Louis REPUBLIC comment on the article by the "special correspondent." I wish the long article by the special correspondent of the St. Louis REPUBLIC were better known, though Professor McCaslin does quote the most relevant part of it, the last words of one of the hanged men, Joe Carmichael. Still, the writer walked Gainesville and talked to all the eyewitnesses he could find, and what he says is helpful. <br /><br />All of you family bloggers will want to see the 1863 short history by "P" I quote from in my review on Amazon of THE GREAT HANGING (not TAINTED BREEZE). P was one of the Bourland party, and the edginess of his article reveals how profoundly the hangmen were aware of the enormity of what they had done and how determined they were to control the history by how they packaged it. Packaging worked for the North in writing the history of the American Revolution. Two hundred years and more later you look at the index of Gordon S. Wood's THE RADICALISM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1992) and see that North Carolina is mentioned on 10 pages, that the Regulators are not mentioned, nor the Mecklenburg Declaration (which WAS real), nor King's Mountain, nor Pyle's Hacking Party. The American Revolution happened in Massachusetts and New York but there was one big battle down in northern Virginia, at Yorktown! Now, we have had that sort of partial, slanted history of the hangings at Gainesville. What was finally published in 1963 as what survives of the record of the vigilante court cannot be just what was written down in 1862. My cousin Aaron Hill was District Clerk and was apparently one of those involved in taking and in writing down the testimony, but does accurate speed-writing in chaotic circumstances run in the family? Somebody ought to do a detailed examination of all the references to what was being written down and how it was used, and then try to reconcile that with the formal, official look of what we have in 1963. <br /><br />I think the TSHA Handbook online would be the best place for the first publication of the P article I found, and I have submitted it for publication there or in another Texas State History Association site. It should be visible to everyone. The Chiles family did just right, I think, in putting Mrs. Kahn's letter on the family blog. These family contributions are adding to a bigger picture which someone will be writing, I trust. These family blogs are advancing what L. D. Clark began showing--the hangings as atrocities. Soon, one of you family bloggers or a young Texas historian will undertake a coherent story--the full account which L.D. Clark would have wanted to see. Good luck! Hershel Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03919613095448470289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-3134887976593938482018-11-16T10:07:50.584-07:002018-11-16T10:07:50.584-07:00Apparently it is not known that the Special Corres...<br />Apparently it is not known that the Special Correspondent’s letter of 4 March 1894 to the St. Louis REPUBLIC evoked a response about Henry Chiles. Catharine Marsh Kahn from Montrose, Missouri, wrote on 13 March a letter the Republic printed on the 15th under the heading “THE GAINESVILLE HANGING. Relatives of Dr. Childs Give Their Version of the Affair.” Mrs. Kahn identified herself as a grandniece of the widow of Doctor Childs (who is here called “Dr. F. C. Childs”—not Henry and not Chiles. The 1850 and 1860 censuses say “Dr. Henry Childs”) Mrs. Kahn says: “Mrs. Dicey Childs is living to-day, as are her five children [she might have said five of her children, for she bore more than 5] and also several hundred of her relatives. So that awful murder is not soon to be forgotten by one victim’s friends.” She was blunt: “Aunt Dicey tells a different story from the writer in last Sunday’s Republic. Those men were hanged because they were loyal to the Union—simply that and nothing more. There was a farce trial for the first seven or eight, and after that—nothing.” Kahn’s depicts Mrs. Childs as crawling out of her bed of confinement, “scarcely able to walk,” but trudging with other women all the way to Gainesville. I quote several horrific lines:<br />“When they reached the town other women were there before them, weeping, screaming, and begging for the bodies of their loved ones, for they were dead and had been buried some time. And some of the prominent men of the town—fiends they were at the time—mounted horses, and with cattle whips, drove the women before them from the town, saying they would not have them bawling around there.”<br />The "cattle whips" remind us of how little we have on record from the losing side. Now, when you look at G. W. Diamond’s contempt for the weeping women in the section on “Heavy Rain Fall,” you give some credence to Mrs. Kahn. I hope you can post this as a way of honoring these women. <br />Hershel Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03919613095448470289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-23525726471374106222012-02-28T16:30:46.684-07:002012-02-28T16:30:46.684-07:00Just thought you should know that there is a pictu...Just thought you should know that there is a picture of Dicy Chiles and her obit on Ancestry.com. Check it out.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-33557426169303545412011-07-23T08:32:00.035-06:002011-07-23T08:32:00.035-06:00Ephraim Chiles is my Great, Great Grandfather. I...Ephraim Chiles is my Great, Great Grandfather. I am trying to tie Dr Henry and Ephraim together. I would like some documents on Dr Henry and his father. ShirleyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491881440588861540.post-61572097649599387322011-03-05T09:38:49.777-07:002011-03-05T09:38:49.777-07:00Doctor Henry Chiles was my 3 great grandfather. I ...Doctor Henry Chiles was my 3 great grandfather. I have been researching the Chiles family from some time now and have a few documents concerning this and his wife Dicey A Kennedy-Chiles if you would like copies of the let me know.<br /><br />Chris<br />famresearch2009@yahoo.comChristopher K. Whitenoreply@blogger.com