Mrs. John Lee Letter about the Feud

Fannin County TXGenWeb
Mrs. John Lee

Letter sent to the Frontier Times Publication in Responce to the Article about
the Feud that Had been printed Dec.1924,
this article is on page 15,Frontier Times Magazine Vol.2 No.5
Feb. 25th 1925 issue "Keeping the Record Straight.Frontier Times is pleased to publish the following letter from Mrs. John: Lee, of Upland, California.Mrs. Lee is a sister-in-law of Bob Lee, who was mentioned in an article which appeared in Frontier Times a short time ago: Upland, California, December 3, 1924. Editor Frontier Times :--

"I wish to correct a statement made in Frontier Times, No. 1, 7ol. 2, by Mr. T. U. Taylor, regarding the killing of Bob Lee. The Federal soldiers never killed Bob Lee in Fannin county. He ,vas killed three quarters of a mile from my home, on the road to his home, by Henry Boren, who, with a crowd of bad men, waylaid him in a thicket. Boren shot him in the breast with a double-barrel shotgun. As soon as Boren shot him off his horse he ran to Bob and tried to get him to talk to him, but Bob would not answer him. Henry then went home, four miles below in Hunt county,where he
had lived neighbor to Bob Lee from boyhood, and gave a dance that night. Early the next morning, after the dancers had all gone home, Henry Boren was shot down by his nephew, Bill Boren, at the corner of his own house. Bill Boren and Bob Lee had fought as oomrades for four .years in the Confederate army, and stuck together to the last. I de not know what 'be-came of, Bill Boren, be was a. fine man and well thought of.
Robbery was the commencement of Bob Iee's troubles. The Boron bunch of robbers came to Bob Lee's house one night and took his brace of fine ivory-mounted pistols and pretended to arrest him. They took him to a big creek bottom southeast of Sherman, and told him if he would give them $2,000 and leave the country they would turn him loose. The federal soldiers were stationed at Sherman at the time, and these fellows pretended that they. had orders from the federals. But this was later proved false. Bob sent word .to father that he was held prisoner by cer-tain men and that they intended to kill him if he did not procure the ransom money. His father and brothers tried to raise the money, but could not do so, and they went to the thicket and told the kidnapers that they believed if Bob was free he could get the money from his friends. They made a pen out of goose quill, and my husband, John Lee , made some ink out of powder and the kidnapers wrote a note for the amount and forced Bob Lee, his father and brothers to sign it. Then they told Bob to get the money and have it at a cer-tain place and they would give him back the note. Later the affair was taken into the courts, but owing to the union sympathy that existed for the robbers they were acquitted . One day at Pilot Grove some .of these fellows shot Bob Lee from behind, the ball entering near his left ear, and ranging toward the roof of his mouth. He was taken to a physicians house, where he was tenderly cared for, and one night the assassins called the physician to the door, and shot him down. I have forgotten this physician's name.
I am now nearly 83 years old, and have forgotten many names. Bob Lee's father and all his brothers are dead."

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