John Joshua Crowder (1850 - aft. 1890)

Grim fate arrested the hectic career of Willie Jones on the night of January 26, 1888. The young man and a party of friends consisting of Tuck and Chris Bench and Josh Crowder, who was then sheriff of Jackson County, were engaged in a drunken carousal, near Garrett's Bluff on the Red River. The party was badly intoxicated, save Tuck Bench, and as the supply of whiskey became exhausted, they crossed on the ferry into Texas to replenish their supply. The party became belligerent and particularly young Jones and in the melee which ensued after their return to the Nation, Tuck Bench, in anticipation of drunken threats made by Jones, shot and killed him. Sheriff Crowder, half crazed with drink, witnessed the tragedy and is reputed to have offered no interference and the bullet-riddled body of the only son and heir of Wilson N. Jones was found upon a sand bar on the Choctaw Nation side of Red River, near Garrett's Bluff, the next morning. Tuck Bench

Page 426

fled the country to Northern Arkansas and did not return to the Choctaw country until after the death of Wilson N. Jones. A feud devolped between the Jones and Crowder factions. For some days after the killing, Crowder and Chris Bench went into hiding. The three men were indicted in the Choctaw district court which convened at its court house in the forks of the Bog gies north of Boswell. Tuck Bench was never apprehended but Wilson N. Jones employed Green McCurtain to aid in the prosecution of Chris Bench and Josh Crowder. They were defended by Hon. William A. Durant. Chris Bench was always in attendance when the case was called but was never tried. Crowder never showed up for trial, and although his bond was repeatedly forfeited he experienced little difficulty in giving a new bond, because there was no procedure in the Choctaw Nation at that time which enabled a collection to be made upon a forfeited undertaking and so his case was postponed from term to term.

Some years later Josh Crowder and a companion were out trapping near Shawneetown on the Red River in what is today McCurtain County, when they were waylaid and killed by some negroes. The negroes later were convicted in the Federal Court at Atoka and sent to the penitentiary for life. The prosecution of Chris Bench seems to have been abandoned. Willie Jones married Emelia, a daughter of James McCauley of Atoka, in 1887. His only son and child, Wilson Nathan, grew to manhood only to meet an unfortunate death at Oklahoma City in 1916 and the tragic story of Willie Jones was ended.9