Wednesday, April 24, 2024
CORYELL MUSEUM
This is another letter to Zelma Scott (A History of Coryell County, published 1965) from David Grubb whose family lived in the Purmela area. Zelma was writing her thesis for her master’s degree and had written many letters to friends to collect information. We have found several hundred letters on every subject you can imagine from friends and family. We also found letters to the railroad, gas company, and electric company for historical information on these subjects. She must have spent hours at the Texas State Archives and had to hand copy every piece of information she found. She researched many subjects again in the 1960’s to refresh her information for her book.
David Grubb recalls a man he and his father, Wiley, knew and the events of his trial. Below is his letter to Zelma.
Dear Zelma,
My next story will be David Leon Kemp, the beardless boy in a difficulty with one of the Mr. Snells of Hamilton County. He killed Mr. Snell and he was arrested and placed in the Hamilton jail, but later his trial was moved to Gatesville.
Judge C.K. Bell was District Judge when the case was called for trial in the District Court Room upstairs. This was in the old court House previous to our present Court House. This case attracted lots of attention.
My father, Wiley Grubb, was a petit Jurors for the week. He listened to all the evidence in the case but he was not on the jury.
After all the evidence was in before the jury, the lawyers reviewed the evidence. The jury retired and came in with the verdict. Judge Bell read the verdict of all the jurors, and they found Mr. Kemp guilty and assessed his punishment by giving him a death sentence. Mr. Kemp was a young man and he “took a running to and jumped out of the upstairs window and hit the ground below”. He was “badly stove up and crippled bad, so he was”. He made it to a horse and saddle and was getting his foot in the stirrup and would have soon been gone. Mr. Weck Lutterloh was the only man down stairs. He caught him and they put him in jail. He afterwards got a new trial and was out on bond. I will never forget these events and Tom (Tom Grubb) and I were small boys.
Mr. Kemp was quite a young man and beardless boy.
He came to our house with a bunch of cow hunters. They all took seats on our long plank gallery to our log houses and there were thirty-one men in that long row. My Mother cooked dinner for all that bunch of cow hunters besides our own family. They had a long string of horses, each man had about three horses. The men were gone several weeks and over several counties. They all had rawhide hobbles made out of beef hides. Each horse had a pair of rawhide around his neck them. When night came these hobbles were used on the horses front feet. Each man hobbled his own horses except the ones they rode at night herding the cattle. These hobbles could not be “broke.”
My Father got well acquainted with David Kemp. He told Father his troubles, and said if he ever got out of it, and if a man ever spit in his face he would not resent it. He afterwards was tried and beat the case and came clear. He went to New Mexico and was sheriff for many years and made a brave officer. He was well liked and held in the highest esteem. He later returned to Texas in Lipscomb county where he was sheriff for a number of years. He retired, but was appointed Deputy Sheriff and was holding the office at the time of his death. I am enclosing you a write up of his death. He made a fine man, useful in many ways. I hope you are enjoying your School.
Your friend,
Dave Grubb, Oct, 21, 1945
Coryell Museum is open Wednesday thru Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and we love having visitors! We brought our grandson, Jensen, to see his favorite parts of the museum again recently and he especially enjoyed the old cars. Bring your grandchildren, family group, and friends to see our museum. We have over 24,000 square feet of wonderful exhibits.
