Person:Verner Wilkinson (2)

Verner is a Jones name; there are five men among the Joseph Jones / Mary Covalt descendants with this uncommon name. The first was Lawrence Verner "Verner" WYCKOFF, b. March 31, 1842, Hamilton Co., OH, son of Sidney JONES and William Cox WYCKOFF, who d. in Alabama or Tennesse, June 7, 1862, during service in the Civil War (Co. A, 4th OH Cavalry Regiment).

1880 Young Co., TX, census, p.419B, Precinct 4, June 7, 1880, enum.'s name too pale to read: 42/42, Vernon WILKINSON, W M 23, md., cattle raiser, IA blank blank; Maggie, W F 25, wife, md., keeping house, AR VA AR; Gideon, W M 5, son, TX IA blank.

Verner and his brother-in-law, Clinton T. RUTHERFORD (known as "Clint" or "C.T."), were among many Young Co. citizens indicted as a result of the mob ambush on the four MARLOW brothers the night of January 19, 1889, that resulted in the death of two of the brothers (the fifth brother was not yet in custody). Verner and his family ultimately endured three trials over the next two years, one by the State of Texas, and two by the United States. A warrant was issued for his arrest on February 14, 1889, after he was indicted by the Grand Jury for the District Court of Young Co., TX, February term, 1889 (court papers spell his name variously as "Verner WILKINSON" and "WILKERSON"). A year later, January 21, 1890, a jury in Jacksboro, Jack Co., TX, found Verner "not guilty." The jury in the first Federal trial found C.T. "not guilty," November 22, 1890, but was hung concerning Verner's fate. On April 17, 1891, the jury in the second Federal trial found Verner "not guilty." Among the law enforcement officials indicted were one or more U.S. Marshals, two Young Co. sheriffs (former and current), several deputies, at least one jailer, a constable, plus one of the defense attorneys from Graham. While all defendants were steadfastly denied bail throughout the entire affair, one exception was made in March of 1890, six months before the first Federal trial finally began. Verner's father-in-law and C.T.'s father, Clinton RUTHERFORD, an influential officer in the Southwestern Stockraiser's Assoc., posted a $10,000 bond co-signed by Oliver Loving and J.W. Colston, president and secretary, respectively, of the cattleman's assoc., giving rise to heated accusations that the assoc. was responsible for the charges against the MARLOW brothers in the first place (charges that were never proven), and that one or more U.S. Deputy Marshals were on the association's payroll. But one thing was clear -- Clinton's son was out on bail while Clinton's son-in-law was not (Ledbetter, p.120).

Verner's 8 year old son, Clyde, d. of typhoid fever while Verner was in the Grayson Co. jail at Sherman waiting trial (although Verner had apparently spent most of his time in the jails at Dallas and Ft. Worth). He left Young Co. in 1892, possibly after his father d. in May, and went to the Silverton area in Briscoe Co. in the southern part of the TX panhandle. About 2 years later, he settled in Woodward Co., OK Terr., where he was shot in the back and killed in a dispute over a pasture fence he had built.

Letter written to Verner's wife: "Bellevue, Tex. Feb. 9th 1891. / Mrs. MAGGIE WILKERSON. / Dear friend:-- / I have been thinking of writing to you for sometime, but we have been so busy that I have neglected it until now. / I have been home about a month and a half from Sherman, where I was attending a Commercial School. The day before I came home, I went to see Mr. LOGAN and Mr. WILKERSON. They both looked well--so much better than I expected to see them. They seemed in good spirits and were hopeful that when their trial comes off, that they will be acquitted. We all hope so too, and deeply sympathize with you in your trouble. I don't think anyone could have a worse trouble than you have had to bear for so long. But it is not long until March, then I hope your husband can return to his home and loved ones again. / Everyone who went to see him in Sherman, liked him so much. The papers spoke so highly of him and sympathized with him so when your little boy died. We were so sorry to hear of his death, but he is better off than any of us, who are left. / LUCY said she would write some but she hasn't time to-day. I suppose you know she has a fine girl. She is nearly three months old, and is just as sweet as she can be. Her name is JANIE MAUD, but we call her LOUIE, after Mr. WEBB's brother. Of course, we all think there never was a baby like her. / MARY came home Saturday. She is teaching about five miles from here. JANIE is clerking for Mr. WEBB and his partner. She talks of going back to school with me in March. ROBERT is here attending school. / Where does COUSIN LIZZIE live now. We heard she had moved, so don't know her address. / Give JENNIE my love. Kiss all the children for me. I would like so much to see you. I hope all your trouble will be over soon and you can be a happy family again soon. Love to all, your friend, ANNIE M. BROWN." [Today, Bellevue is in Clay Co., TX, next NE of Young Co. Annie's identity is not known. "Jennie" could be Verner's sister, Jennie GREGG, or Clinton RUTHERFORD's dau., Jennie SEAMAN. The identity of the others is not known; WEBB is not in my database.]

Selected text from Glenn Shirley in The Fighting Marlows: Men Who Wouldn't Be Lynched (Fort Worth: TX Christian Univ. Press, 1994), and selected court records, trial transcripts, and newspaper articles as quoted by Glenn Shirley: (p.57) "Charles and George MARLOW [and others] would testify that they recognized Eugene P. LOGAN, Clint RUTHERFORD, Vernon 'Verna' WILKERSON [and others]. . . . WILKERSON ranched in the northern part of Young County and lived nine miles north of Graham, on Farmer Road." (p.79) "Sheriff Moore continued: 'I saw Verna WILKERSON, Waggoner and Levell there . . . knew WILKERSON.'" (pp.88-89) James Duty testified: "'[County Attorney] Martin [and I were] standing near the gate . . . when a horseman passed between us. He bid Martin 'Good evening,' turned east on the Weatherford road and put his horse in a gallop. I asked who the man was, and Martin beckoned his head north saying, 'A fellow who lives up country.' I asked him again, and he said it was Verna WILKERSON. WILKERSON lived north from Dry Creek." (pp.105-08) "In January 1890, the Dallas [grand] jury found four new indictments" [two of which included Verner WILKINSON and Clint RUTHERFORD; No. 492 was filed February 11, 1890, as Case No. 33; No. 493 was filed as Case No. 34 which stated, in part:] "'Count 3 -- That Verna WILKERSON did strike and penetrate the body of Alf MARLOW with leaden bullets . . . of which mortal wound Alf MARLOW did immediately die. Count 4 -- That Clint RUTHERFORD did shoot off to, at and against Alf MARLOW a shotgun . . . loaded with buckshot . . . strike and penetrate Alf MARLOW in the breast and side of the body . . . of which mortal wound Alf MARLOW did immediately die.'" "By virtue of capiases or warrants issued by the Circuit Court, LOGAN, Williams, WILKERSON and RUTHERFORD were arrested by Marshal George Knight, confined in the county jail at Dallas, and denied bail. This set off a furor of legal maneuvering." (p.112-13) [The Graham Leader reported October 29, 1890:] "'Eugene LOGAN, Wm. Williams, Vernon [sic] WILKERSON and Clint RUTHERFORD were arraigned yesterday. . . . They plead 'not guilty. . . .' LOGAN and WILKERSON seem quite well and hearty, despite their long confinement in prison [Dallas jail].'" (p.115) "The trial of Eugene LOGAN, Verna WILKERSON and Clint RUTHERFORD began November 6, 1890." (pp.116-18) "Martin summarized events leading to the Dry Creek fight, then continued: "'I heard some parties out in the road a little distance from me . . . walked out there and spoke to them. They were Verna WILKERSON and Bee Williams. Williams had a dark cloth over his face. WILKERSON had his face blackened and was armed with a double-barreled shotgun . . . said he thought he got two of them [the MARLOWs]. . . . WILKERSON told me that Clint RUTHERFORD was wounded. . . . Verna WILKERSON told me Harmison was wounded but had gone back again . . . said he tried to keep Harmison from going. . . . WILKERSON and I remained there with LOGAN until the prisoners left the hack. Then WILKERSON and I went down to inspect the battle field. I suggested that a crowd would be coming out from town pretty soon, and WILKERSON said he had better go down to the creek and wash the black off his face. I did not go to the creek with him . . . did not see him any more until he rode out of the pasture gate after several parties came out from town." (pp.119-20) "Prosecution and defense closed their arguments November 18. The jury reported November 22: "'We, the jury, find the defendant Clint RUTHERFORD not guilty. The jury cannot agree as to Eugene LOGAN and Verna WILKERSON.' Judge McCormick discharged RUTHERFORD from the indictment and entered a mistrial as to LOGAN and WILKERSON. LOGAN and WILKERSON moved for bail, which McCormick denied, then committed them to the custody of the U. S. marshal until the next term of court. WILKERSON was returned to Dallas. LOGAN was delivered to the custody of the Grayson County jailer, at Sherman, by Deputy Lon Burrison." (pp.128, 132) "The government began taking testimony [in the second trial] Monday evening [March 30, 1891]. . . . A verdict was rendered at 6 o'clock Friday evening, April 17: "'We, the jury in Consolidated Case No. 34, United States vs. Eugene LOGAN and others, find the defendants Eugene LOGAN, Sam Waggoner and Marion Wallace guilty of the conspiracy as charged in the indictment, and we further find said defendants not guilty of murder as charged in the indictment. We, the jury further find the defendants Dick Cook, John Levell, Will Hollis, Verna WILKERSON not guilty. G. R. Patton, Foreman of Jury.' Said the Graham Leader: 'Cook and WILKERSON immediately left and were soon in the bosom of their happy families.'" (p.146) "Verna WILKERSON sold his ranch [true] and moved to Wilbarger County [Briscoe Co., TX,* ca. 1892; then Woodward Co., OK Terr., ca. 1894], where he was killed [true] in a dispute over a cattle sale [pasture fence he had built] shortly before the turn of the century [true]."

• Verner's wife's half-sister, Adaisia Jane "Jennie" RUTHERFORD, and her husband, Henry Christopher SEAMAN, moved their family from Young Co. to Silverton, Briscoe Co., TX, ca. 1890-1891 where they opened a furniture store. Jennie died October 23, 1894, shortly after her last child was born.

Logan v. U.S., 144 U.S. 263 (1892); LOGAN et al. v. UNITED STATES. April 4, 1892. Verna Wilkerson [Verner Wilkinson] and his brother-in-law, Clinton Rutherford are among those identified in the first paragraph. The last paragraph states: "Judgment reversed, and case remanded to the circuit court, with directions to set aside the verdict, and to order a new trial." However, a new trial, which would have been the 4th trial in this case, never took place. Verner's father died in neighboring Denton Co., May 13, 1892, and Verner moved his family out of Young Co. soon thereafter. Complete transcription of this U.S. Supreme Court decision at http://www.healylaw.com/cases/logan.htm

"The earliest recorded incident in Woodward County [OK] of a shoot-out between a rancher and homesteader occurred in October of 1897 with the death of Vernon [sic] Wilkinson.

  Wilkinson had filed on land eleven miles northeast of Curtis.  Following the custom of the day, he simply fenced his 160-acre claim within the larger fenced pasture of Chapman and Morris.(33)  A.J. Chapman . . . vowed to be rid of all small farmers and ranchers in the area.  When he and Wilkinson met, words and bullets were exchanged.  Wilkinson died with Chapman's bullet in his heart, but not before he shot the cattleman's right hand.  Because of the intense feelings in Woodward over the event, Chapman's trial was held at Taloga [Dewey Co.].  He was acquitted, but Wilkinson's widow and children, who had been absent the day of the shooting on an outing to the Bat Caves, stayed on the land, refusing to give way to the cattlemen.(34)"  --Louise B. James, Below Devil's Gap:  The Story of Woodward County (Perkins, OK:  Evans Publications, 1984), 76, 79.

(33) Unpublished manuscript of Emma Wilkinson [Elmore], owned by Lucille [Elmore] Rockey, Friona, Texas. [from taped interview made June 1970; see below] (34) Ibid.; Woodward News, October 29, 1897; November 26, 1897.

Original newspaper article: "SHOOTING! / Vernon [sic] WILKINSON Killed and A[bner]. J. Chapman Wounded. / Dispute Over Pasture Land the Cause. / Last Sunday evening, Oct. 24th, the shooting and killing of Vernon WILKINSON and wounding of A. J. Chapman, occurred in the big Chapman & Morris pasture, on Maine creek, 11 miles northeast of Curtis [Woodward Co., OK Terr.]. The particulars are about as follows: As we understand it the WILKINSON pasture is located inside the Chapman & Morris pasture, which is the cause of the trouble, and WILKINSON with a man named Bugsbee were riding in the pasture when they met Chapman and some of his hired men. Some words passed between them, then guns were drawn and shots exchanged. A ball from Chapman's six-shooter entered the left breast of WILKINSON, penetrating the heart and passed out under the right shoulder blade, and the shot from WILKINSON's Winchester entered Chapman's right hand, between the second and third fingers and out at the wrist joint. The shots which took effect must have been fired in quick succession. / Mr. Chapman came to the city Sunday evening, and occupied a room at the hotel Central, where his wound, a very painful one, was dressed by Dr. Munger on Monday. He was placed in jail, and arraigned before Probate Judge Lawhon Wednesday and pleaded "not guilty" to the charge as read. His preliminary hearing was set for Monday, next, at 9 o'clock a. m. Mr. Chapman is manager of the Chapman & Morris ranch. / Mr. WILKINSON was about 40 years old and leaves a family. / The Coroner's jury consisting of C. R. Cowen, foreman; Geo. Seay, E. V. Chick, Jas. Harrington, J. W. Hill and J. H. Atkins went to the ranch of the deceased and held an inquest Tuesday and returned with the following verdict: 'We the jury selected and employed by the coroner of Woodward county, to inquire into and a true verdict render as to the cause of the death of Vernon WILKINSON, do upon our oath find that the said Vernon WILKINSON came to his death by a pistol shot wound, said pistol being then and there held and discharged in the hands of A. J. Chapman in Woodward county, O. T., on Maine creek, on Oct. 24, 1897. J. M. Workman, Coroner.' / R. J. Ray, of this city, and Sample & Noah of Alva, represent the defense; County Attorney B. B. Smith will appear for the prosecution."

The story as related by Verner's dau., Emma WILKINSON ELMORE, June 1970: "This man Chapman, that had bought Jones and Morris out, he had made his brags that he would run the nesters out and one of the men that was working for Jones and Morris said: 'There's one man that you won't run out, he's a good man.' Chapman said: 'I'll run him out or they will have to haul him out.' / This Sunday morning (the day Verner was killed) the people that was working for Jones and Morris at their ranch house and some friends of theirs from Amarillo came and they wanted us to have a picnic. My brother, Ivy, had been at the Bat Caves where they wanted to go and they wanted him to take them. / They came for us early that morning and just as we were getting into the wagon to go, one of Daddy's hands, Richard Gardner, came riding up and told Daddy that Chapman's cattle were all in Daddy's pasture and he wanted us to come and help them separate them and get them out. (The Jones and Morris lands completely surrounded our pasture.) So Daddy said that they would go do that instead of going with us to the picnic. We went on to the picnic, and that evening as we came in from the picnic, this same Richard Gardner came riding up to us as fast as his horse would go and called our wagon driver to the side and said that Chapman had killed my father. He had said that he and Red Buck (a hired gunman that worked for Chapman) were riding together; and my daddy and Chapman had been riding together all day getting the cattle separated. I suppose my daddy was afraid of Chapman, he had heard of Chapman's brags. / He had kept his horse back of Chapman's when they'd get to a tight place where one horse would have to go ahead of the other. The horse my father was riding was a sorrel pacing horse and his name was Kiowa and he was real fast and wanted to lead all the time. Daddy held him back, I think all day, but when he came to this particular place, it was a gully river road that they could ride up through and Kiowa jumped in ahead of Chapman. Chapman held his horse back on purpose. Daddy had a rifle in his scabbard on his saddle; Chapman pulled his six shooter and shot Daddy in the back; Daddy pulled his rifle out of the scabbard and turned and shot part of Chapman's hand off and the handle of his gun. / Richard Gardner heard the shots and said to Red Buck: 'I believe something is wrong.' Old Red Buck said: 'No, there's not, they're just shooting at a rabbit or something.' Richard said: 'I'm going to go and see.' Red Buck dared him to go, but Richard went on and found my father laying there on the ground. He had been shot off his horse. / Chapman and Red Buck just took off as fast as they could go and they went to Curtis and caught the evening train out of there to somewhere in Kansas. / Mrs. Bugal [sic] who ran a Curtis hotel asked Chapman what was wrong with his hand . . . he had torn off part of his shirt to wrap it up in. / He said: 'Well, I came out with this but the other guy has to be hauled out.' She didn't have any idea who the other guy was, or she would have taken her gun and shot him right there, which he deserved. / So as we came back from our picnic, just as we came through our front gate in this wagon, Richard Gardner came up as fast as he could and called this man off to the side that was driving our wagon that day and told him that Chapman killed my father. And that was the way we got the news. I was about eight years old at the time. / I was so small at that time, so young that I don't remember too much about the trial and all, but I was there. They moved the trial to Taloga in a different county [Dewey Co.] and they didn't do a thing to him. It was a fixed trial. They just turned him loose, and let him go free. But he still had part of his hand gone, he had three fingers and the bottom part of his right hand was gone, so he was marked good for life. / But they didn't do a thing with him, they just turned him free. / Later on he killed a man, I forget where it was, but anyway, he had killed a man and while they were having the trial . . . it was similar . . . similar to that trial . . . and one of this man's sons got so mad during the testimony that he jumped up and stabbed Chapman in the back and they didn't do a thing to him because they said Chapman had it coming."

Grand Jury Indictment, December Term of Court, Woodward Co., Terr. of OK, December 16, 1897; filed December 21, 1897: ". . . do find & charge him the said Abner J. Chapman with the crime of murder." District Court, Motion for Change of Venue, December 18, 1897. Court papers, Taloga, Dewey Co., OK Terr., no date: "We the jury duly empaneled and sworn to try the above named cause find the defendant, A. J. Chapman, not guilty."

Court papers and newspaper accounts erroneously have Verner's name as "Verna Wilkerson" and "Vernon Wilkerson." --Glenn Shirley, The Fighting Marlows: Men Who Wouldn't Be Lynched, (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1994), 57, 79, 89, 105-09, 112-15, 117-18, 120-21, 126-27, 132, 146

Barbara A. Neal Ledbetter, Marlow Brothers Ordeal, 1888-1892: 138 Days of Hell in Graham on the Texas Frontier, (Graham, TX: by the author, 1991).

Verner and Maggie are buried in Miller Cemetery south of Quinlan, Woodward Co., OK. WILKINSON: Margaret E., b. Feb. 6, 1854, d. Dec. 21, 1934; Row 3 Lot 2 Verner, d. Oct. 24, 1897, aged 41 yrs 6 mos and 27 days; Row 3 Lot 3 http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ok/county/woodward/miller.html