William Preston (Bill) Longley, outlaw, son of Campbell and Sarah Longley, was born in Austin County, Texas, on October 6, 1851. By April 1853 his family had moved to Evergreen, in what was then Washington County, where Longley went to school and worked on the family farm. Tales of Longley’s criminal career are a mixture of actual facts and his boasts, but it is known that at the end of the Civil War a rebellious Longley took up with other young men and terrorized newly freed slaves.
On December 20, 1868, Longley, Johnson McKeown, and James Gilmore intercepted three ex-slaves from Bell County; this incident resulted in the death of Green Evans.
Longley would later claim that after this he worked as a cowboy in Karnes County and then killed a soldier as he rode through Yorktown, but there is no corroboration for these stories. He also claimed that he rode with bandit Cullen M. Baker in northeast Texas, but this is unlikely.
In 1869–70, he and his brother-in-law, John W. Wilson, were terrorizing residents of south-central Texas, and it was alleged that in February 1870, in Bastrop County, they killed a black man named Brice. In March the military authorities offered a $1,000 reward for them. They were also accused of killing a black woman.
After Wilson’s death in Brazos County, Longley traveled north, later claiming that he killed a trail driver named Rector, fought Indians, killed a horse thief named McClelland, and killed a soldier at Leavenworth, Kansas, for insulting the virtue of Texas women. None of these claims have been corroborated.
At Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, Longley joined a gold-mining expedition into the Wind River Mountains but was stranded when the United States Army stopped the group. In June 1870 he enlisted in the United States cavalry and promptly deserted. He was captured, court-martialed, and sentenced to two years’ confinement at Camp Stambaugh, Wyoming Territory. After about six months he was released back to his unit, where he remained until he again deserted on June 8, 1872. Longley claimed that he lived and rode with Chief Washakie and his Shoshone Indians, which is questionable, and then returned to Texas via Parkerville, Kansas, where he claimed he killed a Charlie Stuart, of whom there is no record. He returned to Texas and Bell County, where his parents had moved, and claimed that he worked as a cowboy in Comanche County and what was then Brown County, allegedly killing a black man and engaging in a gunfight at the Santa Anna Mountains in Coleman County.
In July 1873, Longley was arrested by Mason county sheriff J. J. Finney in Kerr County and taken to Austin so that Finney could be paid a reward. When the reward was not paid, Finney was supposedly paid off by a Longley relative and Longley was released.
In late 1874, Longley and his brother James Stockton Longley rode from Bell County to the Lee County home of their uncle, Caleb Longley, who implored Longley to kill a Wilson Anderson for allegedly killing his son. On March 31, 1875, Longley shotgunned Anderson to death while Anderson was plowing a field, and the two brothers fled north to the Indian Territory. They returned to Bell County in July, where James turned himself in; James was later acquitted of any part in Anderson’s murder.
In November 1875, Longley killed George Thomas in McLennan County, then rode south to Uvalde County, where, in January 1876, he killed William (Lou) Shroyer in a running gunfight.
By February 1876, Longley was in Delta County, Texas, sharecropping for the Reverend William R. Lay. A dispute with a local man over a girl led to Longley’s arrest. He burned himself out of the Delta County jail and, on June 13, 1876, killed the Reverend Lay while Lay was milking a cow.
On June 6, 1877, Longley was captured in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, by Nacogdoches county sheriff Milton Mast; Longley was returned to Lee County to stand trial for the murder of Wilson Anderson. Longley promptly began writing letters to a local newspaper about his “adventures,” claiming that he had killed thirty-two men. On September 5, 1877, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang. He was held in the Galveston County jail until the Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction in March 1878.
In July, as Longley waited in the Galveston jail for court to convene in Giddings so that he finally could be sentenced, he converted to Catholicism and was baptized.
A petition effort was underway in Nacogdoches asking that the governor commute his sentence to life, and an uncle in California, Alexander ‘Pres’ Longley, sent a letter to President Rutherford B. Hayes asking for a presidential pardon. But none of this was to any avail. A heavily manacled Bill Longley was returned in August to Giddings, and on September 6, District Judge E.B. Turner ordered his execution for October 11.
A contrite Longley pronounced himself ‘ready to abide by the decision of the jury.’ As Longley once more entered the Lee County jail, Sheriff Brown busied himself with tightening security to head off any escape or rescue attempt. On the night before his scheduled execution, Longley wrote his brother Jim: ‘I don’t dread this at all. Tomorrow this time I will be in a much better place.’
When Friday, October 11, 1878, dawned, it was murky and rain was threatening. Thousands of people poured into the tiny Giddings community to see Longley’s hanging. Two priests met with the condemned man throughout the morning, and after they left Longley asked some jailers to join him in singing ‘Amazing Grace.’ He carefully dressed in a black suit, with a white shirt and black tie, then combed his long hair and goatee before donning a broad-brimmed low-crown hat. On his lapel he wore a blue rosette arrangement. Longley had been baptized into the Catholic Church and beneath his shirt on a cord hung a small Catholic medal. Only one family member visited him, a 10-year-old niece, and when he kissed her goodbye, even the strongest hearts in the jail were touched.
Shortly after noon, Sheriff Brown placed Longley in an enclosed ambulance wagon for the slow ride to the waiting gallows, escorted by heavily armed guards on foot. At the gallows, cigar firmly clamped in his mouth, Longley took a seat under the gallows and drank some water that was brought for him. In addition to the guards on foot, armed horsemen intently watched the massive crowd. At 2:15, the sheriff, Longley and others began to mount the scaffold. When the rickety stairs appeared to shake or almost give way, Longley warned the others before proceeding up the steps. Attended by two priests, Longley stood as the death warrant was read by Brown. Then Longley discarded his cigar and briefly addressed the crowd, announcing that he thought God had forgiven him and asking that none of his friends attempt to take any revenge. None of Longley’s family attended the execution.
After praying with the priests, he kissed them, then kissed his friend Brown on the cheek.
Before the crowd of some 4,000 people, Longley claimed that he had only killed eight men. Before Brown sent him downward to his death, Longley held up his hand, saying:
“I deserved this fate. It is a debt I have owed for a wild and reckless life. So long, everybody!”
Then he nodded to the executioner and was sent downward through the trap to his death.
On October 11, 1878, before a crowd of thousands in Giddings, Texas, Longley was executed by Lee county sheriff James Madison Brown.