In 1914, two years after the death of Price Thomas in Lone Oak, Texas, Bob Barnett had another run in with a sharecropper named Harrison Choate. It was a mystery to me how another sharecropper would have any dealings with “Backshooter Bob”, who built the house my wife and I now live in, but I guess times were hard in a time when the German Kaiser was intent on taking control of Europe and World War One.
The story goes that when young Harrison Choate started working on the Barnett Farm, Bob Barnett gave him a team of pitiful mules that were in very bad health. What Bob didn’t know was that Choate was very good with mules and, with a lot of care and patience, would nurse the team back to health.
When Barnett saw that Choate had turned the mules into a healthy and productive team, he told Choate that he was “repossessing them” likely on some pretense. The two came to blows as Barnett not only underestimated Choate’s skills at animal husbandry, but he also underestimated him as a pugilist. It was reported that Choate gave Barnett “a good trouncing”.
By now it had gotten well into June of 1914 and, after the scuffle, Barnett refused to furnish Choate with a team of mules to work the crops. Neighbors offered to loan or rent a team so the young man could get his crop in but Bob blocked their neighborly efforts and told them to stay off of his property. He also told Choate that he would have to post a performance bond to continue to work the crop he already had in the field.
Choate was in a very bad situation, and he knew it. Not only was his livelihood in jeopardy but his very life was too. He started carrying a 45 Colt as he continued working in the hot East Texas sun to get his crop in.
Choate found it cumbersome to carry the heavy weapon in his belt while he worked the field, and he reached a kind of a compromise with himself. He started carrying it one pass and the next he would leave it at the end of the row of crops, only to pick it up again on the next pass. That way he was only carrying the gun half of the time.
While he was working, Bob’s two sons Jimmy (10) and Padgett (15) snuck behind some trees and watched Choate as he worked in the field. When they noticed that he only carried his 45 Colt every other pass, they hurried to communicate that information on to their father.
It was June 26, 1914, just two days before America officially joined World War One on June 18th, when Barnett went into the field with is Winchester 30 30 in hand to confront the unarmed Harrison Choate. Nora Choate was caught between the two men, and it was likely that the two Barnett Boys as well as their mother Bonnie looked on. Barnett looked and saw there was nobody near the end of the row where Harrison’s 45 Colt lay on the ground. What happened next was reported in an article in True West Magazine as told by young Grady VanLandingham who was nearby and quickly on the scene. He was also an eyewitness to the killing of Price Thomas two years earlier.
“When Barnett was about twenty yards from Harrison, he called, ‘Now Bob, I’m not doing anything to you, I don’t want any trouble with you.’ Barnett could see that there was no one near the row where Choate left the pistol. Barnett said nothing, went to a point about 15 steps from Choate and started shooting. His first two shots missed. Caught between the two men, Nora begged Barnett not to shoot her husband. She later testified that the bullets passed dangerously near her. The third shot hit her husband in the left arm and passed through his body. As Nora approached her fatally wounded husband he said, “Tell them all goodbye, I’m gone.’”
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