LOGAN FAMILY, EL PASO TEXAS
All following information was originally retrieved from The El Paso Times and The El Paso Herald Post.
I have no Logan lineage, to my knowledge, but, I feel someone out there will be interested in this. I hope so! This week, when preparing my 1965 Concordia Cemetery notes for this web site, a dear friend, Dorris Harrison, who is the web master for the El Paso County site, sent me these intriquing newspaper articles which give some great insight into some of Logans. Dorris is well versed on the Logan history due to her participation in the Concordia Heritage Association Walk-Thru, where she played the part of Grace Logan!!
Enjoy this site and to view Dorris' work first hand, Click Here
Jan Parsons Armstrong, August 13, 2000
LOGAN FAMILY PLOT IN CONCORDIA CEMETERY
Fred Hudson Logan 1873- July 24 1940 68 yearsMable Hathaway Logan 1872-1943 71 years
Evalyn Sherman Logan 1877-1937 60 years
Maj. Thomas H. Logan 5th US Inf. (Military Marker, no dates, died 1906)
Paul Hamilton Logan 1867- Oct 27, 1929 62 years
Logan, Lavinia W. 1858-1917
Grace Virginia Logan 1869- April 23, 1935 65 years
Evaline Loney Logan, 11 Oct 1840-19 June 1920, 80 years, wife of Maj. Thomas Logan of the US Army (married Maj. Logan on 4 Aug 1862, Cass County, Indiana)
Charles R. Logan 21 Jan 1866-19 Mar 1908 42 years
Wickman, Frank D., Jr. 2 June 1904-4 Mar 1907 3 years (this is a Logan grandchild, son of Mrs. (Martle Logan) Frank D. Wickham. She died in San Francisco, date not known)
CHARLES RUSSELL LOGAN
El Paso Newspaper, 1908
Charles Russell Logan was born 42 years ago in Logansport, Ind.I was the oldest of seven children. He came to El Paso in 1881 at age 25. On December 21, 1889, collector Dilon appointed him to the customs service where he remained until his death. He was the son of Major T. H. Logan, U. S. A., [retired] who died in 1906. Charles Logan was married about 7 years ago to Sarah Burnham, daughter of Parker Burnham of the police force. In 1889, collector Dilon appointed him to the customs service and this was continuos until his death. One brother, Fred H. Logan, is also a member of the service, having been appointed in 1900.
He is survived by a widow and six year old daughter, Grace, his brothers Fred and Paul, and four sisters, Mrs. Frank D. Wickham, the wife of Captain Wickham, of the 12 infantry stationed at Governor’s Island, New York, Misses Mabel, Grace, and Evaline Logan of 1200 Magoffin Avenue of El Paso.
The funeral will be held from the late residence at 512 St. Vrain street at 10:00 Sunday morning. Chaplain Smith of Fort Bliss, officiating, interment will be had at Concordia Cemetery. McBean, Simmons, & Carr have charge of funeral arrangements of both deceased.
LINE RIDERS KILLED IN TERRIBLE TRAGEDY
Inspector Logan Had Made Charges To Collector Sharpe Against Jones -Officers found Dead in Riv-er Bed from Bullet Wounds.
TESTIMONY AT CORONER'S INQUEST
A tragedy whose mystery will probably never be solved until the lips of the dead are unsealed, was disclosed by the discovery of the. bodies of Customs Inspectors C. R. Logan and C. E Jones, in the abandoned bed of the Rio Grande, - near the International line In East EI Paso yesterday morning. Both men were shot through the breast and had evidently been dead since early Thursday night. The revolvers of both, with exploded shells in their chambers were lying near the corpses and a gentle rain that had fallen after both men had died it had pitted the white sand around the spot with tiny depressions an half obliterated the tracks of the inspectors.It is the general belief of those who know the relations between the two officers that their death is the result of a pistol duel, fought after an argument in the lonely spot, and in which each man inflicted the fatal wound upon the other.
LOGAN COMPLAINS TO SHARPE
On Thursday afternoon, a scant five hours before his death, Logan preferred with United States Customs Collector Sharpe charges against Jones. Alleging that he was negligent in the performance of his duties and that he would not exercise due diligence in keeping a lookout when -riding the line. Mr. Sharpe told Inspector Logan, who declared that he wished to ride no longer with Jones, to make the trip one more night and if conditions were not agreeable a change would be made.And thus the two men rode together from the Santa Fe station at 6 o'clock Thursday evening on their regular beat and camped down at the crossing just at the end of Cebada street in East El Paso in the abandoned river bed near the monument that marks the International boundary line.
What happened during the night is a story that is sealed behind the lips of the dead, and only the conditions at the place found yesterday morning, clothing and lunch here, foot tracks in the sand, the positions of the bodies and the empty cartridges in the revolvers of the dead Inspectors, furnish the basis for conjecture as to how the men met their death.
THE BODIES FOUND
Two Mexican boys stumbled on the corpses yesterday morning, and, terrified ran to tell the first man they should meet. They told Paul Briesch, who started for the place. J. A. Lowe also heard of the find and hurried to bodies. Here is his story of what was found, as told to Coroner Mitchell at the inquest yesterday afternoon:"I ran across the tracks, met a baker's wagon, and rode near the place. Logan I found on his back, and his feet to the southeast and his head to the northwest, just as he had fallen. "There semi-circle under his under heel, where the right foot had dug into the ground. as his body spun around from the shock of the bullet that end-ed his life. The right leg had been drawn back a little and the vest and coat were thrown open. The vest was not powder burned but he was shot right in left side. The pistol must have been pressed against him when it was fired. The top shirt and undershirt was burned clear away by powder and the skin was burned black. There was a slight dent in his head over the -eye. His right hand was stretched out by his side, and grasped his six-shooter. His finger was on the trigger of the gun and the gun was slightly rusted on the under side, where rain had fallen after Logan had been killed. Lying twenty feet to the north, in a little sandy spot was Jones on his back, and with his legs crossed at the ankles, where his boots had caught in the spurs. There were the tracks of the two men around the place Jones’ mouth and eyes were wide open and the expression on his face looked like he had shouted with his dying breath. The horses of the two men were in the river bottom, tied to one forked cottonwood brush Logan’s horse was saddled and bridled. and Logan's overcoat, tarpaulln, lunch. water-bottle and a morale were under a bush about 75 yards away in the river bed where he had taken them to hide for the night. It was nine steps between the two bodies. There were no tracks around except those of the two men. I heard three shots at about nine o'clock the night before, and thought at the time that it was some drunk going home and shooting into the air. Logan’s gun had two empty cartridges in it, and Jones’ gun had been fired once."
OTHER TESTIMONY
William E. Watkins corroborating the statement made by J. A. Lown, and he said that Jones' His revolver was three feet away from his left hand. Jones' overcoat was speckled with powder marks. It was seventy-five yards to the International boundary, from the sandy opening where the bodies were. Other witnesses that testified to the same circumstances.
SANDS SAYS KILLED EACH OTHER
Sands said that the people in the neighborhood had told him that they heard one shot, there was a pause and then two shots together. He thought the men had quarreled, that Jones had struck Logan with his revolver; that then both men had fired almost simultaneously the fatal shots. -He said that Mrs. S. C. Davis had heard someone crying out after the shots had been fired.
THE FATAL WOUNDS
The bullet that killed Logan entered at the fourth rib on the left side, three inches from the sternum, passing one-fourth inch from the border of the heart, the left lung, and came out between the seventh and eight rib close to the spine.Jones was shot through the third rib on the right side, two inches from the sternum, the bullet passing through cutting the arch of the aorta, through the left lung, and out between the fourth rib and the scapular.
Both men were killed with 45-caliber bullets, which is the size of the revolvers they carried. Logan’s gun was loaded with black powder, and Jones’ gun with smokeless powder.
OPINION OF LOGAN'S BROTHER
Fred Logan, also a customs inspector and brother of the dead man believes they killed each other. He can account for their deaths in no other way.There are some of the customs officials that persist in the opinion that both were shot by smugglers. J. W. Hadlock, sewer commissioner, who was formerly a customs inspector and who worked with both men, says it is a mistake to think for a minute that they would kill each other. He says that people at his house Mrs Frank Hadlock, Mrs. W. A. Hadlock, and William Hadlock, heard at least seven shots fired about 9 o’clock Thursday night. He believes the inspector fired one shot to halt a party of people they heard crossing the old causeway near where they camped, and that they fired two other shots to stop them. Then he believes that they went up to the party and commanded them to put up their hands, a command he thinks met with a fusillade of shots, in which Jones and Logan lost their lives. Hanlock cites that the men were found 100 yards away from their tarpaulin, and says they heard a noise and went to investigate it’s origin when they were murdered.
In connection with his complaint filed with Colloctor Sharpe again Jones, Logan also reported what I thought to be a suspicious circumstance that he had noticed while riding the line a few nights before.
On Thursday evening he called the city hall about 4 o'clock and told Mayor Sweeney that a few nights before he had heard a number of people talking in the bosque down the river bank, he said he distinguished words. “That is clearly demonstrated” and he believed the party to be a part of a gang of Lawbreakers. He asked the mayor to detail a number special police for service to investigate, but Mayor Sweeney suggested that Collector Sharpe would be the proper man to take the matter up, so Logan told the same story to Mr. Sharpe.
It is believed that Logan and Jones, who, it is said, had quarreled before and between whom, ill-feelings is said to have existed; made camp down the river: that Logan took hiss lunch, tarpaulin and water bottle from his saddle and them in the bed of the stream where he could watch the causeway, and that before Jones took his lunch from the back of his horse a quarrel started.
Finally, thoroughly angered, it is thought that Logan told Jones of the complaint of neglect of duty laziness that he had preferred with the Collector, and this is believed to be the climax of the trouble that brought out the guns. Which then fired first is mere conjecture. Some think that Jones pressed his gun against Logan's body and fired, at that as he fell mortally wounded, Logan fired two shots quickly, one of them taking effect. Others think that Logan fired once at Jones, missed and that both fired the bullets that brought death.