After the Choctaw Tom massacre last month, the Anadarko and Caddo Indians tried to take the case to court. January 19, 1859, Judge Battle ordered Ranger Captain Rip Ford, for the second time, to arrest the 17 Erath County vigilantes. The Ranger Captain refused, fearful that state authority was too weak to support an arrest and trial. The names of the murderers continue to show up in Erath County history as honored members of the community, one of them, W.W. McNeil even has a street named after him.

Dan Young, The Erath History Calendars, 1979-1989.