No. 13
According to historical accounts crime in Van Zandt County, back in the early days of its existence, was not a significant factor in the county’s on-going daily happenings. Even so, as part of the county’s organizational responsibility, law and order was an important function. Probably no other part of the law and order function has deeper historical roots than that of the County Sheriff. Just as a factor of human history, the function of law enforcement spans hundreds of years dating back as far as records exist. Of course many of our particular cultural norms, social practices, and governmental characteristics date back to our English heritage, as does the origin of the county’s chief law enforcement officer - the Sheriff. In early England people lived in rural communities whose citizens were often at odds with each other, so to better defend themselves they banded together in large groups which they called a “shire.” A Shire was the forerunner of what became the County. For its leadership each Shire would elect a chief who they called a “reeve.” Among other duties, it was the responsibility of the shire’s reeve or the “Shire-Reeve” to maintain law and order within the county, with assistance from the citizens. The term Shire-Reeve eventually became the modern English word – Sheriff, the chief law enforcer of the county. Naturally this came to North America and later to Texas with our ancestors. The first Colonial American counties were established in Virginia in the early 1600’s and the first recorded election of a Sheriff was in 1651. It wasn’t long before the chief law enforcer, who was also responsible to incarcerate law breakers, was forced to take on the responsibility of county jails. And again as Americans moved westward, so did the office of Sheriff and the use of jails. So, when Van Zandt County was formed in 1848 one of the first orders of business was to elect a County Sheriff. Sheriff P.S. Benton, served a very short term as Van Zandt County’s first Sheriff, with his service ending for unknown reasons, in 1849. And his was not the only short service time, as for reasons we can only imagine, the Sheriff position in Van Zandt County changed almost on an annual basis between Sheriff Benton and the next fifty years to 1900.
As previously stated, those early years were relatively low in crime in Van Zandt County, but when crimes were committed and the culprits were caught they had to be prosecuted in some fashion. That process was begun by the Sheriff but eventually moved to the District Court. In those early days the more serious crimes in Texas were handled by a federal judge who held court in Galveston and had jurisdiction over the whole state. In 1857, in order to handle those more serious crimes on the state level, the state was divided into two districts, the Eastern District and the Western District, so as to have two District Judges to handle the more felonious crimes across the state. The prosecutor that worked in each district was responsible for pursuing the State’s case against criminals and was known as the District Attorney. These district attorneys travelled, as did the district judge, to each county seat on a rotational basis to prosecute cases. Eventually counties created a County Attorney to represent the State in the prosecution of local cases. It is believed that the County Attorney, still referred to as such in some counties, evolved into the District Attorney configuration that most counties in Texas still have today.
Many crimes in Van Zandt County were of a rural nature usually involving property, such as theft of animals, or larger scale rustling or horse theft. But most crimes were those committed one person against another. Of course in those days most men were armed and it was somewhat common for local disputes to end up in armed confrontations that many times resulted in the loss of someone’s life. Many bad actors went unpunished because it was common for there to not be significant enough facts, witnesses, or evidence to charge them or bring them to trial. There was an occasional act of jealousy or marital deceit that resulted in one or more murders and those were so striking that they became an exciting local event with crowded courtrooms, major gossiping and publication of the major events.
(Insert Courthouse picture)
Initially, criminal cases were conducted every first Monday in an old framed courthouse in the middle of Canton’s town square that got so old it became quite an eyesore. In addition there had been such growth around the public square and the building of new brick businesses that in 1894 the Commissioner’s court voted to tear down the old building and replace it with a new brick building. An injunction filed by the Populist Party, not wanting the expensive new building, delayed the construction for a couple of years. However, the beautiful and picturesque new courthouse was finally completed in 1896. It was the towering symbol of a thriving community and was able to serve the county for the next forty years as its center of law and order and county administration. The current courthouse took its place in 1937.