Crystal Brown
cbrown@weatherforddemocrat.com
Jean Bennett, the genealogy librarian for the Weatherford Public Library, has recently published a book highlighting hangings in and around Parker County dating back to the mid 1800s.
The book, Twisting in the Wind: Springtown Hangings of the Hill Women and Other North Texas Hangings, features 15 stories of hangings in Parker County and surrounding areas.
“When I started working here I had all these people coming in and asking about the Hill Hangings,” Bennett said. “I didn’t know anything about the Hill Hangings. They kept asking, so I thought I’d better find out.”
She started researching and created a file for her findings. After picking up bits and pieces and listening to stories, she decided to compile her research into a book since so many in the area seem to find the history of hangings to be of interest.
“The more I learned about this history around here, I found out hangings happened a lot in this area,” she said. “It was too far to get to the sheriff and if you are out there and someone is stealing your cows, and for years it was just a misdemeanor, a lot of people just took care of the situation and you didn’t have repeat offenders at that time.”
The first chapter of her 41-page book spotlights on the Hill Hangings where the Hill family in Springtown were nearly wiped out in a week’s time by either hanging or being shot. Her book also features John Luckey who may been hung for supporting the Union forces during the time of the Civil War, the first legal hanging in Parker County and the tale of a Poolville preacher who was able to keep an angry mob ready to hang a man for incest occupied with his war stories until the authorities arrived on horseback to handle the situation.
“Hangings are kind of morbid, but they are an interesting thing to read about,” Bennett said. “I felt funny about it at first because I didn’t want to embarrass anybody who might have had family members who were either hung or who were doing the hanging. But it’s been so long ago that it’s history. Times have changes and people need to realize this is how they did things back then.”
“There weren’t suppose to be public hangings so they’d build fences around where they held them, but thousands of people would still show up and walk by the body afterwards. It’s morbid curiosity. People thinking he got what he deserved. Families bring children to show them this is what happens if you steal, murder or rape somebody. It was a combination of all that.”
Bennett researched historical documents, old newspaper articles, county history books and library resources to make her book as accurate as possible.
“No matter how much research you do, you are still not going to get the whole picture,” she said. “You are going to get what was written down or what someone told someone else. Once you get in three or four generations it does get scrambled up quite a bit, but I did the best I could.”
It took her about a year’s time to complete the project and she has already started on a second volume. Bennett has also published books on obituaries, marriages and murder but she said those were compilations of data and articles. This is her first book to write herself.
Copies are available for $10 at the Weatherford Public Library and proceeds benefit the Parker County History and Heritage which benefits the genealogy department of the library. For more information on this organization visit www.parkercohistoryandheritage.com.
