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ARTICLES GATHER 'ROUND
FOR MORE ON BUCHANAN TALE
The Dallas Morning News - Sunday, October 16, 1988
Author: Kent Biffle: The Dallas Morning News
Our story so far:
On Dec. 19, 1875, Dudley "Dud' Buchanan galloped off in a cloud of dust and
gun-smoke. He left behind a dying man. Sanford Commodore Perry lay crumpled on a
saloon floor in Poor Town, just north of Dallas.
Dud Buchanan rode right out of history -- or seemed to.
Last week, however, an illuminating letter hit our desk.
But first, let's cut back.
The Poor Town saga began unfolding here after an Aug. 21 Texana column described
the Book of Knaves, a catalog of wanted men that Texas Rangers once carried in
their saddle-bags. The column noted:
"In 1878, Dallas County was offering $200 for a murder suspect named Dudley
Buchanan. But a citizen named A.W. Perry,
perhaps a well-heeled relative of the victim, was sweetening the offer with an
additional $500.'
Mention of the reward generated a letter from
Peggy Perry Oliver of Carrollton,
great-granddaughter of A.W. Perry, a
wealthy land-owner:
"When my grandfather, Wade H. Perry, was 15, his older brother, Sanford
Commodore Perry, went into the combination store and saloon operated by George
Poor which was located at what is now Whitlock Lane and Old Denton Road in
Carrollton.
"He was approached by a man who accused him of "fooling around' with his wife.
Words were exchanged, the man threatened to kill Commodore, where-upon Commodore
brashly threw open his shirt and invited the gentleman to shoot -- which he did
-- killing Commodore on the spot.
"The story was related by my grandfather to my father, but my father either was
not told or did not remember the name of the man who had killed Commodore. It
was common knowledge among the family what had happened, but no one could ever
come up with a name. It was a subject not to be discussed.
"Finally, a few years ago, I asked my uncle, H.E. Padgett, about the story and
he confirmed it and told me (in strictest confidence) the man who killed
Commodore was named Buchanan. . . .
"I checked my Dallas County Marriage Record book and see that one "Dud' Buchanan
married Molly E. Win (a mis-reading of "Witt'), 25 March 1875. Whether or not
Molly and Commodore were guilty we will never know. But it does make a good
story.'
Commodore Perry was buried in the Keenan Cemetery at Farmers Branch beneath a
stone that said, "HE WAS A PATRON OF HUSBANDRY.'
Wilton Gravley of Farmers Branch, another great-grandchild of A.W. Perry,
confirmed Peggy Oliver's account and added details.
George Poor's store and the businesses that grew up with it -- a saloon, a
livery stable and a bordello -- were known collectively as "Pore Town.'
Wilton expressed a belief that Buchanan flat got away with murder.
Indeed, Buchanan disappeared like a sock in a washer.
Then last week, under the letterhead of Otis & Rosemary English at the Silver
Falls Ranch in Crosby County and over the signatures of Rosemary and her sister,
Beverly Hunter, came a letter with news of Dud Buchanan.
"The Buchanan and Witt descendents would not wish to start a Hatfield and Mc-Coy
feud with the Perry family but the consensus of several relatives differ from
the Perry version of the Dudley Buchanan-Sanford Commodore Perry shoot-out in
Carrollton, Texas.
"My sister, Beverly Hunter and I are great-granddaughters of George Albert Witt
and Nancy Jane Buchanan Witt. George Witt's sister, Mary Evelyn (Molly), married
John Dudley Buchanan.'
"George Witt was educated at Vanderbilt. The Witts moved to Dallas County in
1845. They owned a store and grist mill (Trinity Mills). George Witt's father,
Wade Hampton Witt, was also a Dallas County commissioner.'
"The Buchanans came from Virginia. Nancy Buchanan Witt's brother, Ewing, married
a Marsh (of the Marsh Lane connection) and remained a prosperous land-owner in
the Carrollton area.
"Now, the story of the Dudley Buchanan shooting incident was equally kept very
quiet in our family. Since your article was printed, I have called several
relatives one generation older than I am. I was 50 years old before I ever heard
the story although the picture of Dudley Buchanan and his wife and daughter have
been in my picture box for many years.
"Dudley Buchanan's wife and daughter were cared for by George and Nancy Jane
Buchanan Witt. Mary Evelyn (Molly) re-married. Yes, it may be that Dudley
survived.
"Please contact our cousin, Ted Hoople for the real story what may have happened
to Dudley Buchanan.
"All of our family believes that the shooting resulted from a gambling dispute.
The Witts and Buchanans were hard core Baptists with extremely strict rules.'
I rang up Ted Hoople, a grandson of George Witt. Hoople is an 81-year-old
retired rural mail carrier who lives in the Crosby County town of Lorenzo.
Hoople said, "The way I got it, after the shooting Dudley Buchanan rode to his
brother's place. He got a fresh horse and took off for Oregon. And that's where
he hid out.'
Hoople joined Rosemary in doubting that Molly had been playing around with
Commodore Perry. Hoople said, "She had that baby daughter and she was very
religious, a good Baptist. Of course, you never know about those things.
"I'd always heard that the Buchanan-Perry dispute was over a poker game,
although I don't know the amount of money involved.'
A suspicious mind might note the congruence of the period of human gestation and
the lapsed time between the March 25 marriage and the Dec. 19 shooting.
But hold on. An account of the shooting published on Christmas Day 1875 in the
Weekly Herald (an early Dallas periodical acquired in the 1880s by The Dallas
Morning News) takes a different tack:
"The affair grew out of some reflections that Buchanan had cast upon the fair
name of the wife of Hardin Perry, brother of the victim, at a party a few nights
previous.
"At the time he was shot, young Perry was acting as a pacificator between his
brother and Buchanan who had renewed their quarrel. . . . '
The sheriff promptly sent four deputies "in active pursuit of the assassin.'
The article, found in the Texas Collection at the Dallas Public Library,
continued:
"The whole community in the vicinity of the murder were so outraged by the
lawlessness of the deed that pursuing parties were at once organized and a
thorough search for the murderer was instituted.
"We think it hardly possible for him to escape, considering the active exertions
made for his capture. . . . '
But Dud Buchanan's exertions were also active, extremely so.
The story noted:
"William Buchanan, brother of the murderer was arrested and brought to the city
last night. He was placed under guard to await action of the grand jury. . . . '
Although the story doesn't say so, this brother, a.k.a. W.Y. Buchanan, may have
been suspected of providing a fresh horse for the fugitive, as Hoople noted. I
found no mention of grand jury action against the brother.
But the experience may have been an inducement for W.Y. Buchanan to go west. He
established a ranch near Abilene, in sparsely populated country along Blue-berry
Canyon, south of Merkel in Taylor County.
Whether the 1875 newspaper story accurately presents the cause of the shooting,
it provides details on the wanted man:
"Dudley Buchanan is described as a young man about 23 years of age, five feet 10
inches high, red complexion, smooth face, light hair, blue eyes, and, in general
appearance, rough looking.'
Hoople told me, "After living with the George Witt family at Duncan, Okla.,
Molly married again and lived on a big ranch near Abilene where she had another
child, a son. Throughout her life she was active in the Baptist Church.'
Molly's daughter, Ruth, grew up and moved to Idaho, he said. There in 1928, an
old man called on Ruth and convinced her that he was Dud Buchanan.
"He tried to get some money from the daughter, but she wouldn't have anything to
do with him,' Hoople said. "So he left.'
That's the last word on Dud Buchanan.
BUCHANAN-PERRY SAGA ISN'T OVER BY A LONG SHOT - Descendant
divulges new details on 1878 incident
The Dallas Morning News - Sunday, September 4, 1988
Author: Kent Biffle: The Dallas Morning News
A joy of this job is reading letters. Readers offer me tuition-free lessons in
Texas history. And they provide welcome ideas for columns about Texans.
To dig up or dust off a splinter of history and find that it has personally
touched a reader is a real reward. And, on the subject of rewards, Peggy Perry
Oliver of Carrollton writes about one offered for a fugitive a century ago:
"This past Sunday I was amply rewarded. I refer to the paragraph indicating a
reward had been offered for one Dudley Buchanan . . . '
(Texana, August 21 -- "In 1878, Dallas County was offering $200 for a murder
suspect named Dudley Buchanan. But a citizen named A.W. Perry, perhaps a
well-heeled relative of the victim, was sweetening the offer with an additional
$500.')
she continues:
"When my grandfather, Wade H. Perry, was 15, his older brother, Sanford
Commodore Perry, went into the combination store and saloon operated by George
Poor which was located at what is now Whitlock Lane and Old Denton Road in (now)
Carrollton.
"He was approached by a man who accused him of "fooling around' with his wife.
Words were exchanged, the man threatened to kill Commodore, where-upon Commodore
brashly threw open his shirt and invited the gentleman to shoot -- which he did
-- killing Commodore on the spot.
"The story was related by my grandfather to my father, but my father either was
not told or did not remember the name of the man who had killed Commodore. It
was common knowledge among the family what had happened, but no one could ever
come up with a name. It was a subject not to be discussed.
"Finally, a few years ago, I asked my uncle, H.E. Padgett, about the story and
he confirmed it and told me (in strictest confidence) the man who killed
Commodore was named Buchanan.
"I have never been able to come up with a first name but now I feel confident it
was Dudley Buchanan, as my great grandfather, A.W. Perry, would never have
thrown around $500 without great cause.
"I checked my Dallas County Marriage Record book and see that one "Dud' Buchanan
married Molly E. Win, 25 March 1875. Whether or not Molly and Commodore were
guilty we will never know. But it does make a good story.
"Commodore was buried at Keenan's Cemetery in Farmer's Branch. His grave-stone
and that of many others is now gone, but in 1970 it was still intact and
read-able. Along with his birth and death date, in bold letters was a most
apropos slogan: "HE WAS A PATRON OF HUSBANDRY' . . . '
Well, I wouldn't touch that line with a borrowed 10-foot pole.
Charged with murder on Jan. 13, 1876, Buchanan was still at large in 1878. His
name appeared in that year's List of Fugitives From Justice, the Texas Rangers'
so-called Book of Knaves.
And Buchanan's name duly appears in the 1878 List of Fugitives reproduced this
year by Jim Wheat of Garland. I didn't know about this work from Jim's firm, The
Lost & Found, 1202 Oriole, Garland, 75042, when I wrote about the fugitives.
Jim's 92-page 1878 List, transcribed from the original at the Texas State
Archives in Austin, includes the names of more than 1,900 fugitives from
northeast Texas. ($7.50 postpaid, including tax.)
Similarly, he has re-printed Part VII (the only part I've ever seen) of the 1891
statewide List of Fugitives, providing descriptions of about 700 charmers.
($2.95 postpaid, including tax.) The casual reader may favor the 1891 List
because its entries are generally more detailed than those of 1878.
Some enterprising publisher should now re-print the huge 1900 List of Fugitives,
the last of the Ranger books compiled from Texas sheriffs' reports. The 1900
edition's word sketches of outlaws are, yes, arresting.
Wilton Gravley of Farmers Branch, another great-grandchild of A.W. Perry, told
me about old A.W., who settled near Dallas in 1844, sired 14 kids and became a
prominent land-owner.
A.W. Perry must have been pretty torn up by the shooting of Commodore. The Perry
patriarch wasn't exactly famous for being quick with a dollar, but the $500
reward he offered was a most impressive bundle in those days.
He noted that the date of the killing was Dec. 19, 1875. The saloon was between
what is now Carrollton and Trinity Mills. George Poor's store, and the
businesses that grew up with it -- a saloon, a livery stable and what Wilton
styled "a house of ill repute' -- were known collectively as "Pore Town.'
Wilton believes Buchanan flat got away with murder.
Neither Buchanan nor the $700 in standing rewards for him are mentioned in Jim
Wheat's 1891 List of Fugitives. More than three dozen wanted men are named by
the Dallas County sheriff -- but no Dudley Buchanan.
That's odd. A.W. Perry was still much alive and prosperous in 1891. (He died in
his 85th year on May 22, 1904.) Even 13 years after the slaying, the sheriff's
failure to mention a man with $700 on his head would be a major over-sight.
If Buchanan had ever been caught and if the reward had ever been paid, such
dramatic events would have surely been etched permanently in Perry family lore.
Questions beget questions like great-grandchildren.
But we can speculate a bit. Perhaps Buchanan was dead before the 1891 List was
published. Did he die with his boots on? Did old A.W. have it done? A Texas
frontier hit man like notorious Deacon Jim Miller, for example, would have
cheerfully done in Buchanan for less than $500.
Conversely, another ticklish question arises. What -- if anything -- would have
dampened old A.W. Perry's fires, his quest for justice or his lust for
vengeance? Could it have been the prospect of a trial in open court and
attendant newspaper coverage -- public display of a family scandal?
Could there have been some truth to Dudley Buchanan's claim?
Did Molly Buchanan, at some point, confess to A.W. Perry or others that
Commodore Perry had indeed been "fooling around' with her?
A letter from a reader who knows the story of fugitive Dudley Buchanan could
close this case.
One letter could solve the mystery of Passion in Pore Town.
Stay tuned.
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