'A real Old West outlaw' by Jeanne Williams/Temple Daily Telegram: Outlaw Bill Longley

A real Old West outlaw

by Jeanne Williams

Temple Daily Telegram - December 8, 2008

Texas outlaw William Preston “Wild Bill” Longley robbed a

Milam County deputy in 1876 in Milano. As the story goes,

the deputy lost his horse and his nickel-plated Smith &

Wesson six-shooter. Courtesy photo

MILANO - Scores of books have been written about the Old West, many times glamorizing

the conflicts between outlaws and the lawmen who dogged their trails.

Milam County in the 1870s had its fair share of lawbreakers, but aside from a reformed

member of the James Gang operating a livery stable in Rockdale, encounters were rarely

heard of between Milam County lawmen and key villains of the hour including John Wesley

Hardin, Sam Bass and Bill Longley.

Milam County sheriffs of that era, William Edward Mitchusson and Mitt Livingston, no

doubt had heard of Hardin gunning down Brown County deputy sheriff Charles Webb; Bass’

four train robberies in the Dallas area; and numerous shootings credited to Wild Bill

Longley.

As the public gobbled up newspaper accounts and pulp novels of the outlaws’ reign of

terror in the west, law officers kept up with the desperados’ movements through

bulletins, lists of fugitives and wanted posters. Likely, Milam County’s peace officers

surmised the rural, agricultural-supported, cash-poor county to be safe from

confrontations with pistol-packing hooligans.

Thus, on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 19, 1876, Milam County sheriff’s deputy Matt

Shelton did not recognize the infamous William Preston “Wild Bill” Longley when he met

the outlaw on a road outside the railroad town of Milano.

A thriving community, the Milano of 1876 unfolded across 12 city blocks platted in 1873

by the International & Great Northern Railroad. The town, about a mile west of today’s

Milano, boasted a U.S. Post Office, Lawson McCelvey’s grocery store, Joe McGee’s

saloon, A.S. Russell’s hotel called the Russell House, a school, a section house and

homes for railroad workers.

Deputy Shelton was headed into Milano on horseback “returning from Cameron and when

within a few miles of Milano, he came upon three men armed with shotguns and six-

shooters,” the Galveston Daily News reported on the second page of its Nov. 25, 1876,

edition.

“He was riding faster than they and as he passed him, they asked about some horse

thieves, whom they said they were hunting,” the paper reported.

After exchanging a few words with the deputy sheriff, one of the men “lowered his gun

upon Shelton, the others at the same time presenting their six-shooters and ordering

him to dismount.”

Shelton was ordered to turn over his valuables, about $20 and a “fine six-shooter.”

Leaving Shelton unharmed but on foot, the trio rode away, taking his horse, which they

released on the road about a mile away. Shelton retrieved his horse and enlisted help

from “several large parties,” but the three men had disappeared. Law officers

mistakenly believed the perpetrators belonged to “a regular gang” who made frequent

trips from beyond the Brazos River.

The newspaper reported that law officers thought they were “returning with the fruits

of their last incursion and took Deputy Shelton in just for the fun of the thing.”

A year later after Longley was apprehended and gave detailed confessions of his crimes,

law officers learned that the man who stole Shelton’s nickel-plated Smith & Wesson six-

shooter was indeed the notorious Bill Longley.

Ed Bartholomew’s book “Wild Bill Longley, a Texas Hard-Case” described Longley’s

version. Longley had freed his friends, brothers Jim and Richard Sanders, from the

custody of a deputy sheriff and after visiting Longley’s girlfriend, Miss Lou, learned

that a law officer had seized a photograph of the outlaw and planned to circulate the

likeness across the state.

Longley devised a plan to pose as a lawman taking two outlaws into custody. “They

journeyed through many towns and villages and Bill later said that they were not

questioned or detained,” Bartholomew said.

Riding from Delta County through Corsicana, Mexia and Bremond, the trio arrived in

Milam County to visit a third Sanders brother, George Sanders. The next day, the party

left, but was stopped by a deputy sheriff somewhere on the road to Milano, Bartholomew

wrote in his book.

Longley attempted to bluff the officer claiming he was trailing a horse thief.

The officer was suspicious, so Bill dropped his irons on him and took his pistol from

him. Then they took to the oak barrens, leaving his horse some distance down the way.

Bill took his Smith & Wesson and still had the pistol in his possession “when he was

taken for good,” in De Soto Parish, Louisiana.

After leaving the Milam County deputy on the road, Longley and his companions departed

for Old Evergreen in Lee County, where they learned that the new governor had placed a

higher price on Longley’s head.

Another Longley biographer, Bell County Attorney Rick Miller, detailed the outlaw’s

encounter with the Milam County deputy in his book titled, “Bloody Bill Longley.”

Longley told Shelton he was a peace officer hunting a horse thief, but when the deputy

offered to accompany the trio to Milano, the outlaw feared he would be asked to produce

papers.

“So I thought I would just take his pistol and quit the road,” Longley was quoted in

Miller’s book. “I did so and we left him standing in the road, a-foot as we took his

horse, which we told him we would turn loose a mile down the road and we did so.”

Shelton apparently learned that he had encountered Longley the next year when the

deputy rode to Giddings to take Longley’s friend Richard Sanders into custody and

return him to Milam County.

Longley told law officers after his arrest that after disarming Shelton, they rode to

Lee County and spent a few days in the vicinity of Evergreen.

Longley was captured June 6, 1877, by Nacogdoches County Sheriff Milt Mast and two

deputies, while he was residing in De Soto Parish, Louisiana, under the alias of “Bill

Jackson.” He was taken back to Texas, tried for murder in Lee County and sentenced to

hang for the murder of Wilson Anderson. His appeal was dismissed in March 1878.

On Oct. 11, 1878, Longley was hanged in Giddings. He was buried in the Giddings

Cemetery.

The Brenham Daily Banner of Washington County reported in January 1881 that Milam

County Sheriff Wyatt Lipscomb had bought the gallows on which Longley had been hanged

“to remove it to Cameron to hang one ‘Hubby.’” Milam Hubby, a convicted murderer, was

sentenced to hang on Feb. 4, but the death sentenced was commuted to life in prison by

the governor.

What became of the Longley gallows was not reported. Neither is there any evidence that

Matt Shelton recovered the pistol that was stolen from him.

All articles from the Temple Daily Telegram are published with the permission of the
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams
and the
Temple Daily Telegram