By Paige Gurgainers
Claiborne Parish Historian and author Wesley Harris was the featured speaker at Monday evening’s “Night at the Museum” at the Dorcheat Historical Museum in Minden. Harris was there to give an enlightening lecture on the topic of his new book, “Wild Boys: Outlaws Link Waggonner and Tom Kinder and the Policy of Violence in 1890s Louisiana.”
It was during that period, a couple decades after the Civil War, when this surge of violence pertaining to the cases of the “Wild Boys” took place mostly in Webster and Claiborne parishes.
“They (Waggonner and Kinder) dearly hated each other. They wanted to kill one another,” said Harris. “A part of that goes back to the fact that Waggonner was always wanted for something and Kinder was a special deputy sheriff in Claiborne Parish.”
According to Harris, before the Civil War there was not a lot of internal violence, but that changed following the war particularly in North Louisiana. Factors for this included cultural values, social and economic structure breakdown, political turmoil, racial tension and corruption.
“It was really a time when every political leader was in it for himself. There was corruption at every level,” said Harris.
Waggonner was responsible for six known murders spanning across three parishes – Bossier, Claiborne and Webster.
While Kinder was one of the primary killers in the Ramsey-Tuggle feud. Harris explained, this feud was “much, much bigger” than the more famously known Hatfield and McCoy feud. “There were only about six people killed in the Hatfield & McCoy feud, but there were about 20 in the Ramsey-Tuggle Feud,” he said.
Kinder was an ally of the Ramseys – a well-off family that held numerous political offices and leadership positions in the parish. A lot of the feud took place on the road now known as White Lightening Road in Claiborne Parish.
“It’s hard to know who killed who because most of the time the killings were from ambush, but it appears Kinder was responsible for a great number of the killings,” said Harris.
Some of the murder took place on the public square and in front of witnesses with a few of the victims just being innocent bystanders.
Harris explained that most local news outlets would not run stories on it and the few that were courageous enough to do it were from outside of the state.
Ultimately, both Waggoner and Kinder end up in the Webster Parish jail in adjoining cells. There are claims that Waggoner told the sheriff, “If you just five us both Winchesters, we’ll just shoot it out right here.” The sheriff didn’t go for that, said Harris.
It seems that Kinder developed a type of nervous condition while he was imprisoned. He was given morphine regularly while his brother also supplied him with whiskey to curb his symptoms. He was the first of the two outlaws to go to trial where he was permitted to lie on a bench in the courtroom. While the jury is out for deliberation, Kinder ends up passing away. The jury found him “not guilty.”
Waggonner’s trial starts immediately following Kinder’s death. During the process of picking a jury, there was a break-in at the jail. Waggonner attempted to hide in a chimney fluke, but the other prisoners pulled him out and held him against the cell bars. He was then shot 12 times in the chest. Nobody was ever identified in the shooting.
“Finally, those two outlaws who had terrorized North Louisiana for several years are gone,” said Harris. “There are others that take their place, but nothing like we saw with those two.”
The last Night at the Museum event of the year is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 4 at 6 p.m. and will host guest speaker Dawn Glass sharing her life story and maybe a song or two.