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Old Farmer Beats Off Two Armed Attackers on Preston Road -
By Natalie Bauman -
We have all heard of Preston Road. It has been a means of travel here for almost 200 years, and perhaps longer, by other names. It has been used as an Indian trail, a cattle trail, a means of immigration by pioneers, and for one more thing – highway robbery.
You’ve probably heard of the Keystone Kops who ran around in confused incompetency, incapable of accomplishing anything. This can also be true of some guys on the other side of the badge – Stupid Criminals. Some of these inept “Knight’s of the Road” in the following true story thought they had selected an easy target for their crime - they were wrong.
An elderly farmer named Crabtree had a peculiar experience with would-be robbers in October of 1901 about dusk. Mr. Crabtree had been in the city with a load of produce, and started home in his wagon according to the Dallas Morning News.
When about a mile and a half west of town, on the Preston Bend road, two men, one white and one black, ordered him to stop his wagon. They both had guns, but they could not stop Mr. Crabtree. Mr. Crabtree said later he had completed his business and had no need to stop and instead whipped his horses into a faster pace.
The white man attempted to get in the wagon, so Mr. Crabtree took his driving whip, the end of which was loaded with lead, and struck the man on the head. He fell off the wagon, and the black man struck Mr. Crabtree on the head with a pistol. Then the white man who fell, came back at Mr. Crabtree, and the two men assaulted him, striking him over the head with their pistols.
They made no attempt to shoot him until Mr. Crabtree knocked one of them off the wagon the second time. They fired two shots at the old gentleman, neither of which took effect. The black man climbed up on the wagon again, placed the pistol close to old man Crabtree’s side and fired. The bullet entered his coat and passed through his shirt and vest, blistering the skin on his abdomen, but doing no further damage. With a final heavy blow on the head delivered by the elder Mr. Crabtree, the black man fell off the wagon and did not renew the attack.
Two young criminals with pistols against one older farmer in a wagon with only a horse whip. Who would you have thought would win that one?
Both men decided to flee from the scene before further damage was done - to themselves - hoping for better luck next time, or maybe looking for hold-up classes. Better yet, perhaps they contemplated a new line of work. (Perhaps their best career choice might have been clown college.) For them that day, crime certainly didn’t pay.
For more such stories, I would be honored if you would read one of my Grayson County history books.
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