The Horrell Wars: Feuding in Texas and New Mexico

Chapter 9: “The Latest Blossom of Lampasas Chivalry”

Chapter 9 “The Latest Blossom of Lampasas Chivalry” For the Horrells, January 1877 began with determining guardians for the children of John and Ben Horrell. For some reason, Samuel and Annie Horrell’s guardianship case was separate from that of their sister Nancy. The court ordered “all persons interested” and the children to appear in court on the third Monday of January (January 15). On January 16 the Horrell minors were assigned case numbers and the cases were “continued to perfect services.” Samuel and Annie were assigned case number 30, their sister Nancy, 31. Thomas Horrell, Ben’s son, was assigned case number 32. Not surprisingly the children’s mothers were named guardians.1 These mundane affairs would soon give way to a violent confrontation. The Horrell-Higgins feud was small by Texas standards. It lacks the intense hatred exhibited during the Hoo Doo War. Nor does it have the staggering body count of the Sutton-Taylor War. Unlike the infamous San Saba County War that dragged its murderous fury onward like an evil albatross, the feud spanned only a few months, not decades. Nor does it have the uniqueness of the Johnson-Sims feud of being Texas’ 108 The Horrell Wars last blood feud. Regardless, it has been written about numerous times due to the involvement of the Horrells, and in the telling and retelling it has acquired its own folklore. As with all feuds the Horrell-Higgins feud is rife with historical sins, both of commission and omission. John Calhoun Pinkney Higgins, always called “Pink,” first saw the light of day on March 28, 1851, in Macon, Georgia. His parents, John Holcomb Higgins and Hester West, moved to Texas in 1854 and in 1857 arrived in Lampasas County, remaining only until 1859 when they resettled in Bell County due to the Indian threat.2 The family was back in Lampasas County for the 1870 census when Pink’s father is listed as a farm laborer with a combined total wealth of $875.3 Pink Higgins was a Ku Klux Klan member, a high-ranking officer according to some, and vigilante.4 Like many young men of the era he became a drover, pushing cattle for others to distant parts. On January 1, 1875, he married Delilah Elizabeth Mitchell May, a widow with a daughter named Ida. The traditional story of the feud’s origin was voiced in the Lampasas Leader in 1889. According to the paper, on the morning of May 12, 1876, Pink Higgins rode into Lampasas and found one of his yearlings tied to a tree on the public square. It was conveniently located close to where “Jim Grizzell had a meat market.” Upon inquiry Higgins learned “that Merritt Horrell had sold the yearling to Grizzell.” The Leader’s account went on to say that a warrant was sworn out against Horrell for theft of the yearling. According to the Leader, “it was clearly proven that the yearling was the property of Pink Higgins and that Horrell had no claim whatever to the animal, but the jury, for reasons perfectly satisfactory to itself, rendered a verdict of ‘not guilty.’” Enraged over the turn of events, Higgins threatened Horrell that “he would never bother the law with him again, but would settle the matter for himself with a Winchester rifle.”5 This is the common version provided by subsequent historians. Writing in 1934, Charles Adams Jones, using the alias Watson for Horrell, wrote that the Horrells “had a meat market in town, with corrals “The Latest Blossom of Lampasas Chivalry” 109 and a slaughter pen some distance out in the country.” Jones contends that the Horrells were “so bold that they would hold stolen cattle in their corrals before slaughtering them.” It was here “on one or two occasions” that Higgins found some of his cattle and turned them out. “When he reported the matter to the Watsons, they would laugh and say, ‘Some mistake, we guess.’” 6 This was also the version Bill Wren provided in 1930. For instance he [James Gillett] says no one knows what started Higgins Horrell feud. I know exactly it had its inception in April 1876 sometime early in the month Pink Higgins was looking through a heard [sic] of cattle that was leaving the county and found a cow of his in the heard [sic]. The owner of the cattle told him he got the cow from Merrit...