Tom P's Fiddle, A True Texas Tale

Tom P’s Fiddle, A True Texas Tale By Sherri Knight. Softbound (2008), 266 pp., illus.

In the rough and dusty pages of Tom P’s Fiddle, you’ll find murder, betrayal, revenge, and love, proving that the best tales are the true ones...

Unearthed from museum archives, prison records, newspapers, state archives, and university collections throughout the Southwest comes this true, frontier tale of a man from Hill County, Texas.

Strong-willed, handsome, and an accomplished musician, Tom P Varnell is the son of Francis La Docia and Isaac Varnell, a determined, hardworking ranch family. Isaac’s murder in 1876 leaves Docia, Tom, and his sisters to make their own way, and young Tom P to forge his own code of honor. One evening in 1883, Tom and a friend attend a party hosted by the daughters of Jonah Land. Tom’s wiles woo Ella away from the party, and he soon finds himself with a gun in his hand and Mr. Land dying at his feet. Charged with rape and murder, Tom, labeled a notorious desperado, flees as a wanted man.

The ensuing events take Tom across Texas to the New Mexico Territory and back. Love, betrayal, revenge, trials, escapes, and family loyalties fill the pages and reads like an old time, Wild West tale. Tom P’s Fiddle is an entertaining blend of historical authenticity and Sherri Knight’s descriptive narrative. Through the context of real events occurring over a century ago, she sheds light on a media-influenced story bent on imposing moral standards and the impact that can have on a jury verdict and the ultimate outcome of a man’s life. The surprising finale caps the convergence of factors that illustrates life’s unexpected twists and turns.

”Late 19th century ‘Texas justice’ inside the courtroom appeared in Tom P’s Fiddle. Telling a true story with the use of added narrative…a very effective tool to grab and retain the interest and attention of the reader!” —Judge Don Jones, 266th Judicial District, Texas

“Knight’s writing style is punchy and well-paced from the first sentence all the way to the work’s haunting final page…readers and researchers alike will appreciate this book.”
—S. J. Cannady, The Literary Lion

$16.95, plus shipping and handling.

Sins of the Pioneers: Crimes & Scandals in a Small Texas Town

By James Pylant. Softbound (2009), 234 pp. + viii, illus., indexed.

When the Civil War ended, many disenchanted Southerners poured into Central Texas, toting guns and grudges. Shots of whiskey loosened tempers and soon bullets were flying. Within a few years, the Lone Star State had become the nation’s murder capitol.

The small town of Stephenville, where 139 people were hauled to prison between crimes 1864 to 1891, dealt with Comanche warriors, restless outlaws, crime rings, and the ruthless vigilante group known as “The Mob.”

Sins of the Pioneers: Crimes & Scandals of a Small Texas Town explores Stephenville’s emergence from wild frontier to bustling village. Studded with shocking tales—sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant—it tells of crooks, bigamists, prostitutes, saloon brawlers, and mysterious murderers.

James Pylant chronicles John Gilbreath, the intimidating, determined sheriff who bent rules to jail criminals—including his own kinfolks; Julia Williamson, Stephenville's hell-raising madam; armless Jack Hollis and his jail escape; accused horse-thief Jennie Sadler; schemer Gordon Bradshaw’s “accidental” shooting of his wealthy bride; lovely teenaged axe murderess May Bruce; and Annie Cooper, who risked exposing her shady past to rescue a troubled girl.

"James Pylant's meticulously researched tales of all the Indian raids, crimes, hangings, scandals and general hell-raising that went on in the small Texas town of Stephenville proves that no harm is done to good history by making it something that someone would enjoy reading. Stephenville might not have been as tough as old Tascosa during its wild and woolly frontier days, but it was tough enough—as Pylant's riveting stories document."

       —Bill Neal, author of Sex, Murder and the Unwritten Law

$15.95, plus shipping and handling.

SOLD OUT

Also available from these Texas bookstores:

• Texas Star Trading Co., Abilene
  
• Hastings, Brownwood
  
• Comanche Chief, Comanche
  
• DeLeon Free Press, DeLeon
  
• Stockyards Museum Gift Shop, Fort Worth
  
• The Booksatchell, Mineral Wells
  
• Cactus Book Shop, San Angelo
  
• Hastings, Stephenville
  
• The Literary Lion, Stephenville
  
• Stephenville Museum, Stephenville
  
• Hastings, Wichita Falls
  

Vigilantes to Verdicts: Stories from a Texas District Court

By Sherri Knight. Foreword by Judge Donald R. Jones. Softbound (2009), 244 pp. + xii., illus., indexed.

From reminiscences of old timers to the dusty pages of the court files of Erath County, Texas, the history of justice was recorded. Fed up with the inability of the court system to take care of outlaws, frontiersmen took matters into their own hands by administering swift but sure retribution to those who stole livestock or committed murder. A strong sense of right and wrong traveled with the “nightriders.” Operating in groups, the only evidence of their activity was left hanging from trees. District judges traveled twice a year to sparsely settled counties to administer justice. Law and order was imposed through the efforts of judges, sheriffs and citizens who wanted to back away from anarchy. Slowly, but surely, after Reconstruction the legal means to punish wrongdoers took back control from the vigilantes. Read about the incidents that turned the wheels of justice toward progress. From the quick dispatch of horse thieves, an overturned stagecoach driven by a drunken teamster, the trial of John Wesley Hardin to the hanging of Tom Wright, the pages of Vigilantes to Verdicts: Stories from a Texas District Court will keep you riveted to the events of the nineteenth century. Travel with frontier men and women whose stories built the judicial history of a Texas district court. Sit alongside the judges on the bench who served to bring order to a turbulent and chaotic time.

$16.95, plus shipping and handling.

Order from:

• GenealogyMagazine.com
  
• Barnes&Noble.com
  

Also available from these Texas bookstores:

• Hastings, Brownwood
  
• Comanche Chief, Comanche
  
• DeLeon Free Press, DeLeon
  
• The Three Sisters, Dublin
  
• Stockyards Museum Gift Shop, Fort Worth
  
• Cactus Book Shop, San Angelo
  
• Hastings, Stephenville
  
• The Literary Lion, Stephenville
  
• Stephenville Museum, Stephenville
  
• Hastings, Wichita Falls
  

Kansas Gunsmoke: A History of the Garden City Police Department

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG.
Softbound (2009), 122 pp., illus., indexed.

     Gun fights, jail breaks, bank robbers, bootleggers and murderers.
     Kansas Gunsmoke is local history at its best. From the early days of Newton Earp (older half-brother of Wyatt Earp), the city's first marshal in 1883 who had to deal with loose stock, potholes, collecting taxes, enforcing the dog ordinance, and watering the city's precious trees, to a bleak night in November of 1959 when the grisly murder of four members of the Clutter family took place, the Garden City Police Department protected people and property and along the way created a rich history.

     $12.95, plus shipping and handling.

Order from:

• www.GenealogyMagazine.com
  
• Alibris.com
  
  

Blood Legacy: The True Story of the Snow Axe Murders

By James Pylant
Softbound, 232 pp., illus., indexed.

"I've played hell. . .
She's not the woman I thought she was."

     In 1925 Texans were stunned when a young man’s severed head was found in an abandoned farmhouse near the town of Stephenville. An investigation led to ex-convict F. M. Snow and the mysterious disappearances of his wife and mother-in-law.
     But this shocking, bloody saga began nearly 60 years earlier . . .
     Beautiful, vivacious Samantha Jones had a penchant for dangerous men. Her teenage marriage to gambler Amos Smith ended when he was gunned down in a hit orchestrated by his wife’s alleged lover, who was lynched. The widow then married the abusive Bill Olds, who was later arrested for theft, forgery and murder.
     Violence stalked the next generation when Samantha’s daughter, Maggie Olds, was twice widowed with the brutal murders of her second and fourth husbands. Yet Maggie’s unfortunate choice for a fifth husband, F. M. Snow, led to a gruesome, triple tragedy.
     In Blood Legacy: The True Story of the Snow Axe Murders, James Pylant delves into family history and sheds new light on a tale of twenty shocking deaths fueled by greed, insanity and revenge.
     Brief genealogies are included for the Snow, Rushing, Jones, Smith, Connally, and Polston families.
     $15.95, plus shipping and handling.

Available online from:

• GenealogyMagazine.com
  
• Alibris.com
  
  

Also available from these Texas bookstores:

• The Booksatchell, Mineral Wells
  
• The Bookshelf, Weatherford
  
• Comanche Chief, Comanche
  
• DeLeon Free Press, DeLeon
  
• Hastings, Denton
  
• Cactus Book Shop, San Angelo
  
• Hastings, Stephenville
  
• Hastings, Waco
  
• The Literary Lion, Stephenville
  
• Texas Star Trading Co., Abilene
  
• Stephenville Museum, Stephenville