Wood County History

By LOU MALLORY — Chairperson, Wood County Historical Commission

William Jesse McDonald, a colorful lawman   3-4-06

William Jesse McDonald, who became a captain of the Texas Rangers, was the son of Enoch and Eunice (Durham) McDonald. He was born September 28, 1852 in Kemper County, Mississippi. His career as a peace officer spanned nearly four decades.

His father was killed at the Battle of Corinth in Mississippi in 1862. “Bill Jess” moved to Texas with his mother and other relatives after the Civil War and settled on a farm near Henderson in Rusk County in 1866.

He was involved at 16 in a conflict with Union authorities, tried for treason and acquitted.

McDonald graduated from Soule’s Commercial College in New Orleans in 1872 and taught penmanship in Henderson until he started a small store at Brown’s Bluff on the Sabine.

In the 1870s he established himself as a grocer at Mineola, where he became closely associated with James Stephen Hogg who, at that time, was justice of the peace in Quitman.

Through Hogg, McDonald met Rhoda Isabel Carter whom he married in January 1876. While attempting to succeed in business, he also tried to earn a living as a police officer. In the early 1880s he served as deputy sheriff of Wood County.

In 1883 the McDonalds moved to Wichita County, where McDonald occupied himself first with cattle, then with lumber. After reinvesting in cattle, he filed on school land in Hardeman County where he became deputy sheriff, then a special ranger. He then assumed duties as a United States deputy marshall for the Northern District of Texas and the Southern District of Kansas.

His bold tactics drove the Brooken (or Brookins) Gang from Hardeman and his raids on cattle thieves and train robbers in No Man’s Land and the Cherokee Strip made him a Texas legend.

At the beginning of 1891 Governor Hogg selected McDonald to replace Samuel A. McMurry as captain of Company B of the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers. As a Ranger captain from 1891 to 1907, McDonald played two key roles: investigating crime and carrying out administrative work.

His administrative duties ranged from hiring and firing personnel to handling citizen complaints and sending reports to superiors.

“Captain Bill” and the Rangers under his command took part in a number of celebrated criminal cases from the Panhandle region to South Texas. These included the Fitzsimmons-Maher prize fight in El Paso, the Wichita Falls bank robbery, the murders by the Murder Society of San Saba, the Reese-Townsend feud at Columbus, as well as the Conditt family murders near Edna, the Brownsville Raid of 1906, and the shootout with Mexican Americans near Rio Grande City. In these endeavors one Ranger, T.L. Fuller, lost his life.

Although McDonald was nearly killed in a gunfight in 1893 in Quanah with Sheriff John P. Matthews of Childress County, he was no mythical western gunfighter. His reputation as a gunman rested on his easily demonstrated marksmanship, a flair for using his weapons to intimidate opponents, and the publicity given his numerous exploits.

Yet McDonald had the ability to track outlaws, to evaluate physical evidence found at the scene of a crime, and to stand off mobs.

His admirers see him as one of the “Four Great Captains,” along with John A. Brooks, John R. Hughes, and John H. Rogers.

McDonald’s detractors have portrayed him as an irresponsible lawman who accepted questionable information, precipitated violence, hungered for publicity, and related tall tales that cast himself in a hero’s role.

In April 1905 he served as bodyguard for President Theodore Roosevelt who was visiting Texas. Roosevelt later entertained McDonald at the White House. In August of 1906, McDonald’s handling of black troops in the 25th Infantry made him known as “the man who would charge hell with a bucket of water.”

In his last Ranger exploit, he and his men shot their way out of an ambush in Starr County. Governor Thomas M. Campbell made McDonald state revenue agent in January 1907. McDonald’s enforcement of the Full Rendition Act caused great criticism, but increased the state tax valuation almost a billion dollars in two years.

McDonald acted in 1912 as bodyguard for Woodrow Wilson, who later as president, appointed him marshal of the Northern District of Texas.

McDonald died of pneumonia at Wichita Falls on January 15th, 1918, and was buried at Quanah. His motto is engraved on his tombstone: “No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that’s in the right and keeps on a-comin’.”