Texas History
By Jul. 26, 1881, the desperate young cowboy had put a hundred miles between him and a blood-splattered barroom in Bryan.
Three days of hard riding in the broiling summer heat must have seemed like an eternity to Reuben Stillwell. But with the Brazos County sheriff breathing down his neck, the 21-year-old cowpoke dared not stop.
Never in his worst nightmare could he have imagined Saturday would be the fateful day that changed his life forever. After taking in the horse races with his best buddy Lucien Reed, the two adjourned to their favorite watering hole to get out of the sun and to quench their thirst.
Stillwell and Reed did their drinking standing up with their backs to the table, where the town doctor and the Porter brothers sat. The trio had started an argument over a bet at the racetrack, and now they tried to pick a fight by taunting the boys at the bar.
Stillwell could tell from the look on Reed’s face that his companion had had about all he could take.
“Let it go, Lucien,” he advised, draining the last drop from the glass.
But the tipsy physician would not leave well enough alone and, without a word of warning, sprang at Reed like an arthritic tiger. The doctor landed face-first on the younger man’s fist and collapsed unconscious to the floor.
An article in the fall 1998 issue of Old West magazine described what happened next: “Instantly, the Porters leaped to their feet, and out of the corner of his eye Stillwell saw them going for their guns. Instinctively, he and Reed went for their own and four shots roared out.”
Even through the thick gun smoke, two dead bodies were plainly visible. Porter had taken a bullet through the brain, and brother Cicero had caught one in the heart.
Stillwell panicked. Maybe a jury would see things his way — a clear case of self-defense — and maybe not. He was not going to hang around to find out.
Stillwell kept the threatening throng at bay, as he retreated toward the door. He urged his accomplice to join him, but Reed turned down the invitation.
“I got no place to go,” he said with a shrug and wished his friend well.
Stillwell was long gone by the time the sheriff arrived on the scene. He locked up Reed, organized a posse and rode off in pursuit of the double-murder suspect.
Stillwell had no way of knowing the law was never hot on his heels. After three weeks on the run, he risked showing his face in Waxahachie, a jumping-off place for northbound cattle drives.
He heard a beef baron from the Pacific Northwest was hiring hands to drive a herd of longhorns all the way to the Idaho Territory. The fugitive figured that was far enough and signed on as “Tom Hall.”
The cattle caravan provided safe passage out of Texas, just as Stillwell had hoped. Instead of wandering aimlessly and attracting attention, he stayed in Idaho. The cold climate was a tough adjustment, but practically everyone was a stranger in the sparsely settled territory and work was easy to come by.
Stillwell’s lonely existence ended in February 1886, when he married Anna Nelson. Only after they tied the knot did he tell her his terrible secret. Anna took the truth in stride but insisted he marry her a second time under his real name.
That may have been what put D.D. Dawson on the Texan’s trail. The new sheriff of Brazos County showed up in Silver City, Idaho in September 1887 with an arrest warrant. After he convinced his counterpart that well-liked “Tom Hall” and killer Stillwell were one and the same, the two sheriffs and a deputy rode out to the couple’s ranch.
Stillwell did not go along quietly. No shots were fired, but Stillwell and a loyal friend put up a heck of a fight before they were finally subdued at gunpoint. Fearing an attempt to free the popular prisoner, Dawson left for Texas that very day.
Once back in Bryan, the sheriff had to worry about a different kind of mob. Some folks wanted to spare the county the trouble and expense of a trial, but armed guards at the jail and the appearance of Stillwell’s aged mother silenced the lynch talk.
Encouraged by her mother-in-law to show support for Stillwell, Anna Hall/Stillwell made the long trip to Texas. Weakened by the difficult journey, she soon took sick and died.
Since there was no doubt as to Stillwell’s guilt, his March 1888 acquittal must have been a show of public sympathy for his private tragedy. Jurors could not find it in their hearts to send the grief-stricken widower to prison.
The story of Stillwell does not have a happy ending. He returned to his Idaho ranch after the trial but was wiped out by the worst winter on record.
After tending bar in mining towns for more than 25 years, “Tom Hall,” as he continued to call himself, wound up a guard at the Idaho state penitentiary. He never remarried and died alone in 1934 at the age of 76.
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