http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gazetteer2000/chesley/chesley.htm From 'Six Years as a Texas Ranger': On the South Llano lived old Jimmie Dublin. He had a large family of children, most of them grown. The eldest of his boys, Dick, or Richard, as he was known, and a friend, Ace Lankford, killed two men at a country store in Lankford's Cove, Coryell County, Texas. The state offered $500 for the arrest of Dublin and the county of Coryell an additional $200. To escape capture Dick and his companion fled west into Kimble County. While I was working as cowboy with Joe Franks in the fall of 1873 I became acquainted with the two murderers, for they attached themselves to our outfit. They were always armed and constantly on the watch for fear of arrest. Dublin was a large man, stout and of dark complexion, who looked more like the bully of a prize ring than the cowman he was. ( The pursit and capture of Richard Dublin is mentioned through out the book. This is the only mention of Ace Langford) REPORT OF THE ADJUTANT GENERAL OF THE STATE OF TEXAS 1873 CONDITION OF THE STATE ADJUTANT GENERAL’S OFFICE, STATE OF TEXAS AUSTIN, April 18, 1873. SIR: In compliance with your order directing me to prepare a statement of the present condition of the State, I called upon the sheriff’s of the various counties to furnish me with statements of all cases of murder and attempts to murder in their respective counties since the first day of January, 1873. Up to the present time twenty-nine (29) counties only have been heard from officially, and twenty-five (25) unofficially, reporting seventy-eight (78) cases of murder and seventy (70) attempts to murder as follows: CORYELL COUNTY William Bell, found hung near Eagle Creek, February 22, 1873: Henry Burts, Frank McElroy, and John Caroden charged with murder. Wm. Nevill, killed by J.M. Beasley, since January 1, 1873. Mr. Wyatt, shot down at his gate by unknown assassins, January, 1873. Hughes and Payne, killled since January 1, 1873; Asa Langford, Sr., Asa Langford, Jr., and Richard Dublin charged with the crime. (NOTE: http://www.texasgenweb.org/coryell/AdjutantGeneral/html/fugitives1878.html also identifies William Vines as indicted for murder at the same time as Dick Dublin, 1873. From Perry Langford Find a Grave: Perry lived during a tumultous time in lawless Hamilton & Mills County, where several "Mobs" were formed in many counties, over the new large landowners coming in and putting up barbed wire fences, which were being cut by small cattlemen so they could get their cattle to water as they always had. This is an excerpt from a Hamilton County historical book: On Sunday evening, 30 May, 1882, James Henry "Jim" Jones was shot as he was going to the mountain to turn his horses into the pasture while his wife was on the front porch churning and holding their eight-month-old-son, William Charles Jones. Perry Langford and Ves Howard ambushed Jim and shot him from behind. They were tried for the Jones' murder in Coryell County. Howard was not convicted, but Perry Langford was convicted, sent to prison, and released only shortly before his (Perry's) death. Until Perry and Ves were arrested, they with the Langford mob, continued to harass the family. All of the family--Pernina Jane "Nina" Coker Jones and her baby son, William Clift Winters, Harrett Garner (Jones) Winters, James Lemuel Grisham, Sr. and Margaret Amanda Jones Grisham, Martha Ann Jones Snider and Joseph Evans "Joe" Snider fortified the the Winter's house in which they stayed. At night they slept on the floor and stayed out of the moonlight lest the mob kill them also. Members of the mob would shoot through the windows aiming at their beds. The mob also would beat on the walls with whips. According to Grisham legend, Perry Langford had an intense desire to kill any of Jim Jones' relatives Excerpts From Hamilton Co Gazeteer interviews with Mr Chesley. Mr. Williams said he could never understand why so many men seemed to be after Old Man Asa Langford to kill him. That it has worried him and puzzled him, though in those days he didn’t wonder or care in particular. Surprised at some of them whose names he wouldn’t mention. Once the old man came through in a two horse wagon on the way to see William Snell, and two fellows followed to kill him, but he out drove them. Then one time Sam Nations (?) shot at him on the way from Gatesville to Evant; shot through his covered wagon and killed Langford’s little boy sitting beside him. Langford whipped up his horses and got away. That part of the people out there thought him a fine fellow. He helped lots of people. Others were afraid of him; and others always trying to get him. He did not think, as I suggested, that it was because he was against Secession. Belonged to the "Houston Party." That he and Snell were acquainted and pretty good friends. He had mentioned some other time, I believe, that Langford first lived also down on the Leon River. He did not know of Snell ever going to see him. The old man was not part of any mob or gang there. Inasmuch as men were after both of them, I wondered if there was any connection. He said again Snell meddlesome, but a good man, a good man." (One night Old Man John Hammack, of Gatesville, once sheriff was riding horseback along the road through Gholson Gap near Evant at the time narrow and fringed with bushes. He heard the sound he knew to be the cocking of a musket and yelled out, "This is the wrong man; this is John Hammack." And he heard no more. (Judge R. B. Cross to writer.) He did not know why they were after Asa Langford so. Once he came through here in a wagon and they thought he was going to Snell’s. For some reason G-- and P-- started out to kill him, but he avoided them. He didn’t know why. That they told Mr. Williams to establish an alibi, and that he and Bill Fuller rented a poker hall, locked the door, and would have sworn they were in there all the time. Langford was probably tried at Gatesville for killing the boy over the horse race. It was a bad thing. Evant is mostly in a corner of Coryell County, and touches Hamilton County on the north and Lampasas County on the south at Gholson’s gap. THE CAVALCADE COME IN The next day Mr. Williams went out and met them coming in, down beyond the Blansit place on the creek, I think, he said. The three Terrell boys from Bosque County had come over, who were relatives of Snell, and fighters all. And Mr. Pool from Bosque was a first cousin to Mr. Williams’ mother, and a cool man. Evidently he had held these Terrell boys in check. Otherwise there would have been plenty of trouble, likely general battle and shooting. They brought the boys, Kemp, and Hysaugh, on in and put them in jail. This was the old plank jail over in back of the saloon row. (I can remember it in the alley, then used for ice storage. The same prison, I am sure which Mr. Williams tried to hold when they came in and got Garrison, the horse thief out and hung him down near the old grave yard). This must have been January 12th, 1880. There were about fifty men coming on horseback when Pierson was bringing them in. They had all gathered in when the news was noised around. They were coming up the old road toward town from the Leon River country. (In the early twenties I rode with Uncle Tom Pierson, the tax assessor, out to West Texas. He was on his way to see his son Ocran who was homesteading after the War out in New Mexico. It was an interesting experience. Men would know Mr. Pierson on the road. He pointed out to me Martin’s Gap through which marauding Indians came in the old days. We spent a night in the hotel at Ballinger, I believe, and parted in Big Spring, then a smallish town. He had his trip precisely timed. At Big Spring I sat on a bench in front of the courthouse with a little sharp bearded man who told me he was the county surveyor. Said he came from down in my country, said he was a Langford, from the Evant country. Very possibly a son of Old Man Asa Langford. Glad I didn’t start telling how hard I had hears some of them were out in that country. There was another Langford, Henry, I believe, about whom Stanley Walker wrote in "Back Home to Texas," a courtly and courteous man to his wife _andall. Walker told me he was a son of Old Man Asa Langford, a suave and courtly gentleman) (The Terrals above mentioned were as I understood related to the McLendons, for whom the county was named. Some years ago I was reporting a civil case in Meridian in which some of these Terrell, or rather descendants, were involved. They were very dynamic by reputation and the situation people thought could have been explosive. VES HOWARD Ves Howard lived where John Boyer now lives, (see supra, about our visiting the place together.) He was a bad man. He and Perry Langford killed Jim Jones [James H. "Jim" Jones was murdered May 30, 1882 at age the 22. --Elreeta Weathers--Jim Jones was my gg uncle.] This land was called the old Langford place. Evidently before he moved to what was called Langford’s Cove and the present Evant, just north of the Lampasas County line. It was determined by the mob to hang Ves Howard, or maybe to just shoot him. Detailed to perform this service were Mr. Williams, Mr. Jim and Mr. John Livingston and another man. They went out and stood over the house all night and went in at daybreak. His family were there but he was not at home. He never came back. This was an entirely different Howard from the ones who lived out southwest in the mountains. They worked for Old Man Sol Barron, the horse rancher. This was Chap Howard and Add Howard--Old Man Add Howard. Probably they were not brothers but likely Add was the uncle of the other. Believe they were related to the ones that lived down at the bend of the Leon River earlier. (Believe that connects up with what Mr. Price M. Rice told me and what the Connell woman wrote in the Star-Telegram [Fort Worth Star-Telegram] before that. (Probably connected was the Howard girl who was in school in 1867 when the teacher, Anne Whitney, was killed by the Indians, who ran out, mounted a horse and escaped. [See the story of Anne Whitney] (Also, perhaps related to the Howard that Aunt Amanda Evans told Felix Williams and me about their thinking for hanging him for horse business during the Civil War. WILD BILL WILSON Mr. Williams told again about his uncle who was constable down in Falls County having to shoot Wild Bill Wilson when arresting him, and now he kept him under guard in his house, but found the wound was not serious as he had thought. He told again about how Wild Bill had been shot in Missouri Cove, near Evant And how Wild Bill was thought to be one of the fellows harbored by Old Man Jim Langford. Said that this was one of the things that they held against the old man, Asa, that he kept these bad young fellows. Evant near the corner of three counties, was originally called Langford’s Cove, after Mr. Asa Langford, who came from I don’t know where, in an early day. If he did harbor as was said reckless young fellows seems it could have been partly out of feeling for them, for honest services as well as possibly for other uses. The deed records show that once the old man donated four acres to the town to establish "a literary school" which is more than most of them did. One pretty bad shooting of a young fellow was charged against him. Some of the early day people in that community were from Ohio and other older states and very good people. Some like old man Kingsberry were against secession, he going to Mexico and changing his name to Thumb, I believe it was. Once I suggested to Mr. Williams that perhaps one reason so many had it in for the old Man was that he probably belonged to what they called "The Houston Party," that is were against secession. He said he did not think so. Mr. S. R. Allen, lawyer, described the old man to me as thin and somewhat pallid and rather sunken cheeks. He did from the records have rows with his people over property. Stanley Walker in his book "Back Home to Texas." tells of one Mr. Henry Langford who was a man of great courtesy and lordly gentility toward his wife, and so on. I asked if he was a son of Asa Langford, and he said he was. Walker after retirement from being City Editor of the New York Tribune, Herald-Tribune, retired to the old family land just south of Evant in Lampasas County, where I visited him. In the early twenties, I stopped at Big Spring, then a rather small town. I sat on a bench at the courthouse yard, and met an old gentleman with a pointed beard, who told me he was the county surveyor. He said he came from down in my country around Evant. Glad I did now say that they were pretty tough around there, for he later told me his name was Langford. Mr. Williams said he himself was standing near the courthouse corner of the square when Kemp shot Smith. GEORGE W. WHITE Sept. 24th, 1932 I was out at Junction City and a man there was telling me that the fellow that killed Jim [Tom Deaton] Deaton about a year later killed a young fellow, just a kid of a boy, and this boy’s daddy came out and killed this fellow with a Bowie Knife, and said he got him behind a rock house and just cut him into ribbons. Said you could hear him holler for two miles every time the old man would cut him. [Deputy Sheriff Tom Deaton was killed in 1893 at Fairy.] Buck Anderson told me that after the war, he was just a kid of a boy. He said a bunch of fellows came in there and made camp on the Bosque. Nobody knew anything about them, but they were well-armed and did a lot of hunting and when they were not hunting they were practicing shooting at marks, and they were otherwise well-equipped and seemed like good fellows. Somebody had a little old store there and these fellows would come down once in awhile for supplies and set around. Buck was standing around and Old Bill Oars came in and slapped him on the head with his hat or hand. One of these fellows jumped down off the counter and said, "You ... ... ... ... ... ...., I would kill you if you were worth killing. "I will give you just a minute and a half to get out of my sight," which Bill did in considerable less time than that. These men were supposed to be a part of The James Boys and Younger Bunch. Jim Whittaker killed Wild Bill Wilson. Wilson was coming from Gatesville. He died at Winter’s. He did not fall off his horse when he was shot but came to Winters’s. [William Clift Winters at Langford’s Cove] He dropped a mighty good Smith and Weston Pistol where he was shot. He lived a few days before he died. Ault Ferguson and Henry Carter killed a man by the name of Parsons as he sat on a fence. Taylor Hammack staid with them Basham, John was the oldest, then Roy and then Taylor. Taylor was always in trouble. Claunch and Snell, branded SXC. I was coming from Gatesville once, just the other side of 4 Mile timber. Father had bought 9 or 10 cows and calves from Zack Stidham. His brand was Z. S. In them days, you know, they never canceled a brand. They just counter branded below. His mark was a close bob in the left ear and a shallow fork in the right ear. Anyhow, in the bunch father bought was a cow we called "Cotton Head." I hadn’t seen her in 8 or 9 years. This was after the war, and as we were coming along I said to graves, "Marion, that looks like old Cotton Head." We got up there and looked at her and could see the brand SXC and two cross brands that had been canceled. She had a white-faced yearling calf following her around. I didn’t know who owned the brand then as Snell and Claunch had sold out. I was in town and saw Jim Livingston and I said, "Jim, who owns the SXC Brand now?" He said, Perry Merrill." I said, I have a cow and calf out home and that I don’t want them counter branded and that he had better come to see me about it. He later told me that Perry Merrill made Snell and Claunch pay him. A fellow named Brown lived below Gatesville. He knew old man Groomer. They were both members of the same Masonic Lodge. Old Man Brown gave the Bucket Bail Brand. This fellow wrote Groomer that he would like for him to come and get his cattle. Groomer went down there and Brown said a heifer yearling came there several years before and we got 10 or 12 head of cattle--the increase off that one heifer that old man Brown had been taking care of for Groomer all that time. He said that she had lost one big steer. The last time I ever saw old Ace Langford, me and Graves was coming along over there and met Ace coming along with a bundle of oats and his saddle bags on his arm. We stopped and talked a minute with the old fellow. He went on in Spurlin’s store and I told Marion I bet he had a six shooter in them bags, and Marion said maybe two. We went on in the store and Ace had laid his saddle bags down. I was kinda leaning on my elbows and eased one around so I could feel the bag and sure enough there was a pistol. There might have been another gun in the other bag. Old Squire Potts used to always carry a gun in his saddle bags, and when he would get off his horse, he would carry his saddle bags around on his arm. I remember one time Jim and Henry Carter and a bunch was fighting in the snow. Old Potts came along and evidently wanted to go across for something. He stood there for quite a while. Finally he walked right by them, and one of the boys started to hit him with a snow ball. He turned around and said the first man that hits me with a snow ball, I am going to shoot his ... off, and the old ... would have done it too. Gabe Smith, Ace Langford and Sam Gholson--there was something between them before the War. You remember Rice used to be the head of a little bunch. One time they were out looking for Sam and Sam had placed his men in a narrow canyon and made a trail for Rice and this other bunch to follow into the canyon. But it seems that the other bunch crossed the trail and messed things up. Gholson was laying for them and would have killed them all. They kidnapped Gabe Smith and carried him over across Cowhouse to a little house. When they got over there at this house, they brought in Sam Gholson with his hands tied and Gholson was complaining about them uniting Gabe and keeping him tied. The next morning they turned Gabe loose to go home. He got a little way off and in the timber, when he looked back and thought he saw them taking Gholson down there to shoot him, but they had kept Gabe’s horse down there, and it was Gabe’s horse that he saw them leading. This was all a sham about having Sam tied . I heard that they was going to hang Gabe, but old Ace was mad about something and failed to show up, for they was going to hang Gabe and burn his body in the brush. Old man Smith would have killed old Ace at Gatesville, but his pistol snapped twice. Vardeman, a lawyer in Gatesville, got lots of money out of Ace and liked to joke Smith. He told him that Ace was coming down and stay all night with him. Smith says, "If he ... ... HANGING OF THE BAILEY BOYS He said that two Bailey boys, Dee and his younger brother went over to Comanche and passed some counterfeit money. On their out there were just opposite the old Nabors place this and were stopped by Green, a deputy U.S. Marshall, and another man. (Green was the uncle of Mr. Cryil Green, whom I knew in Comanche). The boys had Winchester strapped on their horses. The officers were disarming them, and Green started over to get D. Bailey’s rifle, and the latter told him he would get it and hand it to him. He got it and shot and killed Green. Didn’t know how the third man got away. (Believe I heard they ran him off. Sometime later the two Baileys were jailed for something in some other county and were identified as being wanted in Comanche and were taken back there and put in jail. They went over there from Hamilton, and maybe some Comanche people may have helped. Ac crowd was around before it was over. George Gentry was leader. They looked up to him and thought he knew what he was doing and didn’t question anything. They were young and reckless.... They broke down the first door.... They took them out. Dee protested that he alone was guilty, that the other had nothing to do with it, but they hanged them both. Gus Leach said that old Captain Hunt out on the Cow House said he saw the Hamilton boys coming back next morning on sweating white horses. Mr. Williams said they sort of had handkerchiefs on their faces. He had the authentic picture of the whole affair, knew most of the men involved. One of the Baileys was the husband of one of the daughters of Old Man Asa Langford out at Evant. Later she became Mrs. Boys, a strange woman, whom I remember here with some affection many years later. There was the story that she personally went in a wagon over to Comanche and brought the body of her husband back, but probably the best theory is that it was Asa Langford himself who went over and cut them down and brought them back. It was said that someone asked him where the boys were, and that he pulled up the curtain of the covered wagon, and said "There!" Years ago Evetts Haley and I spent a couple of nights in the old rock hotel at Willcox, Arizona, right off the tracks of the Southern Pacific. They still had the iron horse locomotive with a long read stripe only it and the tender. At night in the lobby people gathered and sat around seems to have been favorite gathering place. The Proprietor behind his desk acted as a sort of instructor. A pleasant white-haired gentleman in a chair smiled, and told me to sit down. Found he was a retired accountant, named Hall, originally from Comanche. He fell to talking about history. I remembered I had heard that before the hanging, Mr. Jack Wright and the Hamilton boss were seen in conversation on the curb. He said, yes, and he could tell me who was over there with Wright, who was a prominent saloon man of the time. Neither would likely have talked so freely if at home. Mr. Pid Rice once told me over the campfires in New Mexico. Men would discuss events that happened here with more freedom of speech. It was considered dangerous to know too much, and certainly, to talk too much. Several months later his brother Hal came back here and seemed to have been in a little trouble and that Sheriff Sam Terry knew about it and said he was going to have to do something about it and go out and arrest him that night. He was staying with someone out west of town. Mr. Williams went out and told him and that Terry would be criticized. They went out to get Hal’s horses some distance there came a big rain and they slept on the mountain, cooked some bacon for breakfast and he went on west with him as far as Blanket, and came back to spend the night in Comanche. He came to a livery stable and a man was sitting in front in charge and he said he wanted to leave his horse there. The man said, "Hello Cap." He said, what do you mean by that." Said his hat gave him away....Told this fellow he knew fellows that had been hung for knowing less than that.. He went to see Miss Tucker that night, who later married Ernest Williams of Hamilton. (Of a prominent Comanche family, prominent in Episcopal Church here, died young, and a stained glass window there as a memorial of her). The Bailey Boys: The Bailey boys had been counterfeiters. That was what they were after them for when they killed Green near Comanche. Green was a deputy U. S. Marshal and they were stopped by him. (He was an uncle of the Mr. Green whom I knew at Comanche.) That little Asa Langford was killed, but that Perry was much worse. It was Captain Wright, a saloon man, at Comanche who came over to Hamilton and got them to go after the Baileys. That Frank Wilson was sheriff at Comanche then, he knew him, and also was in the same office when John Wesley Hardin was tried there and sent to the penitentiary. The story of Asa Langford and Langford Cove are what wild west movies are made from. Attached are a few of the stories. Earl ----- Original Message ----- From: <> To: <> Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 1:21 AM Subject: [LANGFORD] asa langford story In 1855 the Langford Family moved to the western corner of Coryell County and settled on a creek in a valley surrounded by hills all around except on the northeast. The small creek came to be known as Langford Branch. In their family at the time were the children, Mary Elizabeth, Juriah Ann, Jane Adaline, Asa, Jr., Asa's mother, Mary, and two slaves, Sukey and Anderson (also known as Dudley) and a boy named Latham. The first white child born in this area was born to Asa and Elizabeth October 10, 1855, Charlotte Langford. Other early settlers were Robert Carter, James A. Carter (no relation), Frederick Bookerman, William Beauchamp (J.A. Carter´s brother-in-law), James Wicher, Dr. Williams, John Willis, John Hurst, and Samuel Sneed. When Coryell County was organized, it still left the seat of county government 25 miles away ... a very long trip by horseback or wagon. Law enforcement was meager; the area was under the judicial jurisdiction of Burnet county. It was a natural hangout for lawless men; Indians were still a problem too. The citizens of the area made an unsuccessful attempt to have their area separated from Coryell and annexed to Hamilton County. Hamilton was about twice as close to them. When travelers stopped by the farm, it was the custom to give them a meal, a place to sleep, and to exchange horses with them. Miss Naomi Adams, of Waco and a granddaughter of Jane Kouger, a Langford slave, recalls hearing her mother tell about the schoolhouse massacre at Hamilton in which a young school teacher named Ann Whitney was murdered by Indians, and about tonkawa Indians who camped near the Langfords for protection from their dreaded Comanche enemy. Her mother played with the Tonkawa Indian children and learned to speak their language; Miss Adams can still count to ten in the Tonkawa language. After the Civil War her family moved to Gatesville to become a part of the black community there. The first post office was established February 23, 1876 under the name of Cove, instead of Langford Cove. Asa was the postmaster. After Asa came Henry Sawyer, September 26, 1889; Alexander Wurts, December 31, 1897; Bessie Langford, September 12, 1912; Gyln D. Shave, November 1, 1947; James L. Inabnet, November 30, 1949; R.D. Rhodes is the present postmaster at the time that this article was written. The post office changed its name from "Cove" to "Evant" January 29, 1885. The town was named Evant May 23, 1884. Mr. Brooks laid out a 240 foot square block in the center for a public square (he hoped it would one day hold a courthouse - perhaps for the newly formed county of Mills to the west). Such was not to be, but the square is really an asset to the people of Evant, even without a courthouse. The only financial institution in Evant is the First National Bank of Evant. It was founded as the Evant State Bank 24 September 1912, with a capital of $10,000.00. The first president was W.C. Brooks; the first vice-president was J.W. Burney. The dawn of public education came to Langford Cove when Prof. Raleigh Hazard taught a school there about 1857. There is no record of any schools having been taught during the Civil War. Andrew J. Hunter taught a school just east of Langford Cove about 1872. In 1875, Asa Langford donated four acres of land at the south east edge of the present town "solely for literary purposes"; the present day Evant school plant occupies a part of that tract today. In 1878, a one-room rawhide lumber building was erected on the north west corner of the four acres; it was ready for occupancy in the fall of 1879. By 1892 Evant had incorporated a four mile square school district and had a two-story, native stone, 30 X 60 foot building with a one-story, 30 X 40 foot annex of the same material. From 1933 to 1937 a transportation system to the outlying areas greatly increased the number of students and helped upgrade the school system as well. A gymnasium was added in 1936. See a picture below of the gym now. The Evant Independent School District is located on a central campus on Highway 281 in Evant, Texas. It is a community oriented school committed to providing quality academic and extracurricular opportunities to their students. LANGFORD COVE: Asa Langford arrived in the area in 1855 and purchased land--210 acres in Coryell County and 750 acres in the unorganized territory in what was to become Hamilton County in 1858. In January, 1860, a group of residents of Langford Cove petitioned the Committee on County and Country Boundaries in the Texas Senate to attach to Hamilton County three square miles of Coryell County so that Asa Langford, T. T. Ragsdale, James Witcher, and Samuel Sneed would live in Hamilton County. The petition was denied. Langford Cove was about eighteen miles south of Hamilton. In 1879 Joseph Hardy Dixon was given a contract to teach five months in Langford Cove School . His salary was $14 per month and $1 per month for pupils over and under scholastic age. Trustees were W. W. White, Evant Brooks, and A. J. Gilbreth. Langford Cove School No. 24 was in Hamilton County. In 1881 J. H. Richards was employed to teach in Langford Cove School Community, No. 21, which was in Hamilton County. Trustees were A. F. Smith and Isaac W. Seale. Raleigh Hazzard probably taught the first school in Langford Cove in 1857 or 1858. Mr. Hazzard was paid $92.58 on November 2, 1857, by the Coryell County Commissioners from the county school fund. Attending the first school were the children from the families of Asa Langford, James Witcher, Dr. Williams, John Willis, John Hurst, and Sam Sneed. The Witchers, Williams, Willis, Hurst, and Sneed families had moved into a valley across the mountain from the Langfords in 1855 and 1856. The classroom for this first school was under a brush arbor built north of Gholson Gap. Later a log school was built west of Cove for another session of school. The Civil War brought an abrupt end to education in the South. Not until 1872 did classes resume under another brush arbor east of Langford Cove with Andrew J. Hunter as the teacher. Asa Langford donated four acres of land on the southeastern edge of the Evant for literary school purposes. This is the current location of Evant ISD. By 1878 a one-room rawhide lumber school was erected with classes beginning in the 1879. When this school burned in 1887, it was replaced with a stone school building. The 1889-90 school term began with two teachers, M. L. Stallings and Miss Rude Atherton in the new stone school building. In 1892 Bull’s Point School was consolidated with Cove School into an independent school district by a special act of the state legislature. Hamilton County added a second story to the stone building of the newly formed school district. Labor for constructing the second floor of the school was donated by citizens of the community and was completed by 1892. A gym was completed in 1936. A transportation system used from 1933 through 1937 increased the size of the school by bringing students from other school communities into Evant. Rodney C. Love came to at Evant in 1948 as teacher, principal, and coach. The Liberty School consolidated with Evant in 1954. A new school building was erected in 1975 for students who came from Hamilton, Coryell, and Lampasas Counties.