Murder of Dennis C Hill

From The Old Scrapbook collected by Frances Estelle Chappell Hill and Lucretia Davenport Hill of Marshall, Texas
newspaper clippings between 1870 and 1900
Courtesy of Jan Craven
p. 43-45 in the "Old Scrapbook" - concerning the murder of Dennis Chappell Hill

Horrible Murder

Sunday morning Mr. W. N. Nail of Carthage rode into Marshall and driving to the residence of Sheriff S. R. Perry handed the following note to that gentleman:
CARTHAGE, February 11, 1888.
Mr. Perry,
Dear Friend:
Our county treasurer was murdered last night in his office and I want your dogs and oblige,
Yours truly,
J.P. Forsyth
Sheriff Panola Co.

As the murder was committed Friday night the dogs could have been of no service and consequently were not sent. News of the murder quickly spread and caused considerable excitement in this city as Mr. D. L. Hill, the victim, is well known and has relatives in Marshall. He was Mrs. A. W. Hill's brother-in-law. We learn the following facts concerning the murder: After supper Friday Mr. Hill went down town and did not return to his home during the night. This did not alarm his family, as he had set up with a sick friend several nights during the week. Not being seen the next morning some uneasiness was felt and Judge Long went to the county treasurer's office, found the door locked and turned the blinds so that he could look in. He was horrified by seeing Mr. Hill lying dead on the floor with a fearful gash in his throat. The door was broken down and it was found that Mr. Hill had been struck twice on the head with an ax and his thoat cut. The doors of the iron safe were open and money known to have been deposited in the safe was gone, showing that robbery had prompted the murder. Up to last accounts no clew had been discovered as to who the assassins were. The theory that seems most reasonable is that Mr. Hill was met somewhere outside the office, made a prisoner, carried to the office, forced to unlock the safe and then killed, after which the murderers locked the door of the room and threw the key away. During Friday he received $1,000 and is known to have placed it in his safe. If the assassins are discovered and arrested, Judge Lynch will probably attend to them. We deeply sympathise (sic.) with the relatives of Mr. Hill. He was one of the oldest and most highly respected citizens of Panola county.

MURDER MOST DIABOLICAL

No Traces of the Perpetrator Save Bloody Foot Prints and the Burnt End of Matches.
  Longview, Feb. 13 - From H. M. Knight, postmaster at Carthage, who came up here last night, the following particulars of the murder of County Treasurer D. C. Hill, an old man 70 years of age, are gleaned: Carthage is the county seat of Panola county, is forty miles southeast from this place and is thirteen miles from the nearest telegraph station. The court-house is a two-story building, erected two yearsag, and is situated in the center of a public square with business houses on the four sides of the square, which is about 300 x 300 feet. The ground floor offices or rooms are occupied by various county officials. The general shape of the building is a cross, or a main building facing east and west, with two wings or projecting rooms at the centers of the north and south sides. The treasurer used the one on the south, with a door opening from the cross hall of the building into the room on the north side and one to the outer on the south side. The safe stood in the northeast corner of the room.
  Treasurer Hill was methodical in his habits, and, enjoying a good reputation, it was a practice to deposit money in his safe for security; and some of the stolen money was that left by private parties. He had a family living at the edge of town, a wife and three children, two not yet grown, a grown son being married. When he failed to come home Friday night, his family supposed he had gone, as he had intimated, to stay with a sick friend, and felt no uneasiness until Saturday afternoon, when some one, who had come from a distance, wishing to see Mr. Hill on business, went to his house and learned of his absence the preceding night. This prompted a search for him, and the office door being locked, Henry Chamness stood on the shoulders of a friend and looked through the transom over the south door and saw the body of the murdered official lying stiff and bloody in death.
  The door was forced open and the horrible and brutal murder was seen. Probably while locking his safe, about sundown, his usual time for leaving the office, the assassin had approached an with an axe belonging to the office struck Mr. Hill on the back of the head, cutting through the hat and crushing the skull. Dazed by the blow the wounded man had moved towards his assailant, for there were two other axe blows struck, falling about the edge of the hair over the forehead, and then, with his body in front of the safe which he had attempted to guard with his life the murdered treasurer fell to rise no more. To complete the work the assassin, with some sharp instrument, knife or razor, seemingly in a sweeping cut, with a hand of force, almost severed the head from the body, the blood from the arteries and veins spurting spout in jets to a distance from the body, the gash sinking almost if not quite to the vertebrae.
  The assassin, for there is no indication that there was more than one engaged in this tragedy, then locked the doors and proceeded to his work of robbery. From the person of Mr. Hill he took the keys of the safe, the outer doors not yet having been closed, and from the treasury vaults took, it is supposed, the following amount of money:
Belonging to the school fund .....$4000
Belonging to the general fund
(1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th classes)......$750
Deposited by Dr. Waul..............$1000
Deposited by Mrs. Allen.............$480
Deposited by Mr. Brozier............$125
Total ...............................$6355
  The county treasurer's books have not been balanced and these amounts of the county funds are approximations only. The man staid (sic) in the office until after dark, carefully examining the safe, for the remains of some ten or twelve partly burned matches were found where he had dropped them. He did not force open the other compartments of the safe because the county clerk and county attorney were at work in the county clerk's room adjoining on the southeast and the noise might have been heard. The murderer stepped in the blood on the floor, for as he left, walking carefully on his toes; the bloody marks of the part of the shoes covering the ball of his feet were left on the corridor floor. The main hall was carpeted and, covered by the darkness, the assassin crept away silently and without leaving a clew or trace behind him to point to his identity. The blinds had been closed by the treasurer as usual, and it is almost beyond question that the murder was committed by some one familiar not only with the office, but with the habits of the officer, it even being supposed that he knew of Mr. Hill's intended absence fromhome that night. Without any ground for suspecting any individual, from the absence of suspicion prior to the discovery of the murder and the completeness of the work, it is thought some one living in the place did the murder, and some of the citizens question if the murderer has yet left town. Certain it is that he did not leave by the hack line to Beckville, or by the Sabine Valley train from Beckville. But at this time it may be set down as an absolute and clewless mystery - a mark upon the door, a mere bloody smear, either made by bloody garments or hands, the ends of the burned matches and the two bloody prints on the floor, mere formless blotches, are all the traces left by the murderer, apart from the rifled safe and the bloody corpse of his victim.

MURDERED

  The startling news was brought to this city Sunday morning by a runner from Sheriff Forsythe, of Carthage, that the Hon. D. C. Hill, county treasurer of Panola county, had, the evening before, been murdered at his office at Carthage, and the county treasury robbed of a considerable amount of money. It was one of the boldest crimes ever committed, as the murder was committed in the treasurer's office in the court house in the heart of the town, where all the county offices and some of the lawyers' offices are situated. It must have been early in the night, too, for Mr. Hill not coming home, his alarmed family sent to his office and found his mangled body; the head crushed with an axe and nearly severed from his body.
  Two men, Eugene Wiley, white, and Jim Powell, colored, were arrested as the perpetrators of the foul crime, but for want of evidence, were discharged. Both parties live in Carthage. Wiley is an ex-convict, having recently served out a term of four years for burglary. The governor has been asked to offer a reward for the arrest of the assassin.

A MOST STARTLING ARREST

Treaurer Hill's Alleged Murderer
The Sheriff of Panola County's Son, It is Said, Confesses and Gives Up the Stolen Money.
  Teneha, Tex., Feb. 27. - Information has just reached here that Tom Forsythe, a deputy sheriff and son of the sheriff of Panola county, was arrested today, charged with the murder of County Treasurer Hill, some two weeks ago. He has made a confession and given up the money that was taken at the time of the murder, it is said. It is thought he will pull downward on hemp rope before morning.