He would ride through the little towns of Edwards County posing as a drunk and shooting his pistol, etc., all the while gathering evidence on the gang. Later, he worked under sheriff Corder in Kimble County and was successful in breaking up a ring of thieves in that area.  Soon, members of the gangs began to suspect Woods.  He disappeared on the way home from Chicago to Ballinger, Texas, after last being seen on a cattle train.

Woods was killed on the Dry Frio River and his body, horse and saddle thrown into a cave where they were found many months later.

The story of Woods’ untimely end later came to Baylor by the name of Jim L— ⁽¹⁾ who lived on the Dry Frio and who was in jail in Uvalde County on a charge of having killed a suitor of his daughter. ⁽²⁾ Lafferty made bond through some of the men whom Baylor suspected of belonging to the gang Woods had turned in.  Some time later while Lafferty was working on the Jack Burt ranch south of Uvalde, he was seen in company with one of his former bondsmen, who, as it later turned out, was also implicated in the thievery.  Baylor went to the Burt ranch and arrested Lafferty as he was saddling his horse preparatory to leaving the country.  He was convicted and given seventy-five years in the penitentiary.⁽³⁾

Some months after he was taken to the penitentiary, Lafferty wrote Baylor and offered, in exchange for his freedom, to carry Baylor to the spot where Woods was murdered and his body hidden.  Baylor was unable to get his release on that condition, but Lafferty drew a plot of the place where Woods’ body was supposed to be hidden on the headwaters of the Dry Frio where his body was thrown in a ravine and covered with brush.

Several years later, his [Woods'] remains, which consisted of a skull and one leg, were found ten miles from the spot where they were supposed to be buried.  It was then that the remains were carried to Rocksprings, where they were identified by Ira Wheat as those of the murdered deputy.

Baylor later remarked that he knew some of the men who were implicated in the crime, but had insufficient evidence to bring about a conviction.  Baylor concluded by saying that there was no doubt in his mind that Woods had been murdered by Lafferty.  These men, no doubt, had Woods a prisoner and sent for Lafferty to come up the Frio and kill Woods, promising in return to help him out of his trouble.⁽⁵⁾

Stovall notes that Bill Chisum was a large cattle rancher in the area who had many legitimate business interests.

1. See Documents & Notes for information from Hardin on Stovall’s use of “L—” for Lafferty in the book.
2. If Lafferty was in jail in Uvalde for killing a suitor of his daughter, that information has not heretofore come to light.  In fact, no actually marriage information has been encountered for Lafferty, nor the births of any children.  He was imprisoned (Rusk Pennitentiary) perhaps between 1893-1891 for killing a U.S. Marshall in Yselta.
3. Stovall has the story somewhat confused at this point.  Lafferty was convicted of murdering Ben Maples in September 1892, and for that crime he was sentenced to 75 years imprisonment.
4. Stoval cites as his sources the following issues of Frontier Times Monthly:  Vols 5, 3, 14, 25, 15, 22, 6, 12.

— In “Early Settlers in the Frio Canyon”

“Ben Maples was killed by a local badman, one Jim Lafferty, for which crime Lafferty was given a seventy-five year prison sentence.  Jim Lafferty’s brother, John, lived in one of Ben Maples’ houses and was a good citizen of the community.  He tried without success to persuade his brother Jim to move out of the settlement, knowing that he was connected with a gang of outlaws and horse thieves, which gang was, later on, to be broken up by the sheriffs of Edwards, Uvalde, and Kimble counties, together with members of the Texas Rangers.  Jim Lafferty killed Maples at the John Lafferty cabin and narrowly escaped being killed himself by one of Ben Maples’ sons.”

“Other men connected with this gang of rustlers were Alvin and Will Odle, Sarge C–, Lon and Jess Bass, and Bill Chisum.  The red-headed detective mentioned in another part of this record (1), later identified as Ranger Jim Woods, became, under pretense, a member of this gang and how he was killed and his body hidden in a lonely cave on the Dry Frio, is also a part of this record.”

“Dan MacMillan, a bad man himself, married one of Ben Maples girls.  After his marriage, he became a guard at the penitentiary where Jim Lafferty was being held.  MacMillan took advantage of his authority as prison guard to avenge his father-in-law’s death by ending the career of Jim Lafferty with a charge from his double-barreled shotgun.”

1. – It’s unclear what “record” Stovall is referring to.  Perhaps the prison record or trial records of the Maples murder?  These records, which may have been borrowed by Stovall to write the book, have disappeared from the Texas State Archives, according to Donely Brice.

Jim was the troublesome brother of John Henry.  The Lafferty/Cox Agreement gives his age as having been born in 1856, yet his prison records indicate that he was born in 1849.  There are no census records found (to date) that would corraborate either date.

Jim is well known to Lafferty/Cox researchers for having murdered Ben Maples, wife of Serilda Cox, in 1892 after a quarrel whose boundaries are a little vague.  Trial testimony points out a couple of things about Jim’s life — his brother states that “he had left the country before this to go to New Mexico, and had returned two days before the killing. “  Additionally, John Henry testifies, “My brother was in the penitentiary at Rusk several years, and I did not see him.”

If Jim was born in 1856, he would have been about three years old at the time we believed that he lost his mother, who was likely killed or captured by the Comanches from the ranch along the Pendencia Creek.

Excerpted from Along the Rio Grande, by Tracy Hammond Lewis
Published in 1916 by Lewis Publishing Company
Accessed (full version) in GoogleBooks

Of other publications of older date, such as D. Woodman’s ” Guide to Texas
Emigrants;” David R. Edwards’s “The Emigrant’s, Farmer’s, and Politician’s
Guide,” provided with maps, the notes about the country west of the Pecos,
even west of the Colorado River, are perfectly worthless, the maps not much
better than fictions.
The life and adventures of L D. Lafferty, by A. H. Abney, claiming to be
truth, mentions the presence of gold in Texas. Other publications, though
some of them are quite interesting, do not extend their narratives west of the
Staked Plains, and state more the adventures of the parties (surveyors and
hunters) than the approximately correct (geographical, etc.) character of the
country.

Source:  Geological Survey of Texas; Report of the State Geologist 1890.  GoogleBooks

A narrative of a series of extraordinary personal
adventures, which, according to the preface of the
work, was recounted to the author by Mr. Lafferty
himself. It is probably fictitious, but with most of the
important features of the historical setting correct. Mr.
Lafferty is represented as visiting Texas at intervals from
1818-1832, and thereafter living in Arkansas until 1855,
when he returned to Texas to remain. The visits are so
timed as to give him a share in both of Long’s two
expeditions, the Fredonian war, and the battle of Velasco.
The intervening periods are rilled in with Indian fighting,
the details consisting of desperate encounters, narrow
escapes, and fearful experiences in captivity.

Upon reading the “Life and Adventures of L.D. Lafferty,” by Hon A.H. Abney, I became struck with the discrepancy between the statements of this “historical” publication and the reports that I had been accustomed to hear passing current as the true story of General Long’s expedition.

I took occasion to hand the book to Mr. McHenry, who partipated in that expedition throughout, with the request that he peruse its contents with care and attention; to which he assented, and stated as the result of the perusal that he was morally convinced that Lafferty could not possibly have been a participant in General Long’s expedition.  He said that the battle so graphically detailed by Mr. Abley as having occured on Aransas was purely a myth — no such fight had any existence in fact; the only fighting took place at La Bahia (Goliad), as stated in the foregoing narrative, which is substantially the statement of Captain John McHenry.  Equally fictitious is Lafferty’s account of the so-called surrender.

But on the principle, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, we will dismiss the Abney-Lafferty concoction for better game.

Source:  Reminiscenses: Fifty Years in Texas, p. 75-76, by John Joseph Linn (Juan Linn)

Being of a true biography of one of the most remarkable men of

THE GREAT SOUTHWEST

From an adventurous boyhood in Arkansas, through a protracted life of almost unparalleled sufferings and hairbreadth escapes
Upon the FRONTIER of Texas

in which are given many highly interesting incidents in the
Early History of the Republic of Texas

with a brief review of affairs in Mexico during the same period

by A.H. Abney
of Rockport, Texas

“THE author hereof first met the subject of this sketch in Attascosa County, Texas, in the spring of 1869 ⁽¹⁾, at which time he learned the principal facts herein narrated. Though, at that time, he had no intention of preparing them for publication , yet a subsequent acquaintance with Mr. Lafferty, and frequent conversations with gentlemen of unquestioned honor who fully vouched for his veracity, induced the writer to undertake this work.⁽²⁾

However, in making his debut before literary connoisseurs, he very frankly asks their indulgence, as he lays claim to neither elegance of diction nor originality of style; but simply details facts, the truth of which he verily believes. Indeed, many of them can be established by irrefragable testimony.

It is but justice, too, to the author to state that the work has been gotten up at intervals between the pressing cares of business, which has claimed most of his attention; hence he has not had sufficient time allowed him, in  the preparation of the work, to insure either rhetorical excellency or grammatical accuracy ⁽³⁾.

Neither is it improbable that there are some slight errors in the dates of the first few chapters, owing to the fact that Lafferty could neither read nor write until in the year 1824, being six years after his first visit to Texas ⁽⁴⁾; therefore, he has had to trust to memory for dates as well as for other facts connected with his early history.

And as there may be those who knew him some years ago, when, apparently, he was leading an irreligious life, who may doubt the character herein given him, as a believer in Christianity; to such we would say, that when he permanently located in Texas, wrecked in his domestic hopes and happiness, he very unwisely did just what thousands of good men before him had done: he gave way to a feeling of desperation, and, lending a listening ear to the allurements of the Evil One, fell into sinful practices which he -now deplores, and of which he sincerely repents ⁽⁵⁾.

That “truth is often stranger than fiction” is clearly shown in this biography; yet should it be asked, why a man possessed of such extraordinary powers has been so little known, our answer is this: When he first came to Texas, in 1818, he was uneducated, and had no ambition to acquire fame or notoriety; and as he never became a permanent citizen of Texas, during the days of the Republic, but merely fought as a volunteer during the several periods of revolution, from 1818 to 1832, returning to his home in Arkansas at intervals ⁽⁶⁾, he was not sufficiently known to attract special attention. And, furthermore, he had acquired, during his long residence among the Cherokee Indians ⁽⁷⁾, in early life, much of their peculiar habit of reserve and dignified retirement, and hence shrank from any public recognition of his services in behalf of the oppressed. Nor would he render himself conspicuous by thrusting into the public prints an account of his early contests with the Osage, Pawnee, and Kickapoo Indians.

And it was not without much persuasion, as well as logical argument, that he finally consented to allow the leading adventures of his eventful life to appear in this volume ⁽⁸⁾. In chronicling his connection with the Texans in their early struggles for liberty, it became necessary for the author to consult freely the best historians of that period, in order to test the correctness of Lafferty’s statements by a comparison of the same with those given by accepted history; and on a careful examination he finds that in the main they agree. In tracing the rise and progress of those early revolutions, the author has followed the account given by Yoakum in his excellent ” History of Texas,” ⁽⁹⁾ and to that able and trustworthy historian the author would acknowledge his special obligations for valuable information embodied in this work.

Perhaps the exploits of our subject are not recorded in that vivid and thrilling style which would commend them to the favor of the mere novel-reader, whose vitiated taste has so long fed on the romantic and the marvellous as to be incapable of appreciating plain literary food; yet, as a matter of fact, it is believed that no chapter in this book will prove entirely without interest. The author has carefully sought to eschew all display of mere words, and has endeavored to confine himself within the pale of truth. However, if in the perusal of these pages the reader should discover any want of embellishment in the portraiture of our hero, he can draw on his imagination to complete the picture.”