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101 C H A P T E R S E V E N  Enter John Wesley Hardin B Y the time John Wesley Hardin became a coleader of the Taylor gang, he had developed a criminal career that could match or exceed the deeds of the most infamous of the Texas desperadoes. He committed most of his crimes before he reached twenty-one years of age. The second child of the Methodist preacher James Gibson Hardin and Mary Elizabeth Dixon Hardin, John Wesley Hardin—named for the Englishman John Wesley who founded Methodism—was born on a farm about ten miles southwest of Bonham, Fannin County, Texas, on May 26, 1853, at a place called Blair’s Springs on Bois d’Arc Creek. The Hardins had ten children, nine of whom survived infancy. James Hardin had once been a circuit-riding preacher, but he had his own church by the time John was born. According to Hardin legend and lore, an elderly midwife predicted John’s future, or, more correctly, his possible futures. The woman supposedly told his father that John was “destined to be one of the greatest men of his age, or one of the worst. He will either be [your] staff . . . or he will bring your gray hairs in sorrow to your grave” Although he was born in Fannin County, Johnny, as his mother called him, had no memory of the area. While he was just a toddler, his father moved the family, first to Moscow in Polk County and later to Sumpter in Trinity County, which was adjacent to and just north of Polk. Moscow was a tiny hamlet with a population of about 250, but by the 1850s it had become a trading center for area farmers, complete with general stores, sawmills, and cotton gins. By 1857, it boasted the Mason’s Male and Female Academy, a quality school. But soon the Hardin family moved to Sumpter where Johnny ’s father established a school and preached part-time. Now a ghost town, Sumpter was the first seat of Trinity County. By the 1850s the town had but 102 C HAPTE R 7 a tiny population of less than two hundred souls. Heavily forested like Polk, Trinity by the 1850s was a thriving place that profited from the steamboat traf- fic on the Trinity River. Like Polk, Trinity evolved into an agricultural area, where planters and yeoman farmers grew great amounts of cotton and corn. Still, slavery was slow to take hold in Trinity County. In 1860, only 791 slaves lived within a total population of 4,392. Larger Polk County, on the east bank of the Trinity River, was once the home of the Hasinai Indians, a Caddo tribe. Later came the AlabamaCoushatta Indians. Some Muskogees also originally settled the area. Rapidly settled by white and black Americans from 1835 to 1860, the county evolved into a plantation-slave region, producing 9,307 bales of cotton in 1859. By 1860, slaves made up the majority of the population, 4,198, out of a total count of 8,300. In his largely rural setting, John Wesley came to understand both the plantation South and the yeoman farmer South. He grew up much like a typical frontiersman. Early on, he became proficient in riding and training horses. He learned how to wield a knife and how to use firearms, be they shotguns, rifles, or handguns. As soon as he was old enough, he took to the forests and the streams, hunting, fishing, and learning about self-reliance. Although he was not well educated by modern standards, he attended schools taught by his father. He learned at least the rudiments of reading and writing , and he mastered his numbers. As Johnny matured, he had many of the same experiences that other boys in the area had. The lush farmland, adequate rainfall, and a long growing season attracted settlers. They grew great stands of corn; hills of potatoes, Irish and Sweet; several varieties of beans; squash; tomatoes; onions; pumpkins; some wheat; and a few other eatables. Small orchards bore different kinds of fruit, and pioneers could pick wild berries in their season. Almost all farmers had chickens for meat and eggs; dairy cows for milk and butter along with a few beef cattle; and the ever-present pigs, pork being the mainstay of the Old South. Men supplemented the diet of their families by hunting the white-tailed deer, squirrels, rabbits, and other small game...

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