At our Burge Family Reunion in Branson Missouri in 2001, there was a story told by Ivan Page (an older family member who remembers Tom W.) about Thomas Wilson Burge having killed a man. The actual details of this story were not remembered but it was remembered that Thomas W. himself said that he was aquitted and never spent a moment in jail. While looking at some things in the Fayette County website, I ran across the following story and I truly believe it to be the account of the story of his having killed a man.......the spelling of the last name in the story is "Birge" but like so many things during that time, someone probably spelled it like they thought it should be spelled........at any rate, in my mind anyway, it is too much of a coincidence for this not to be him.
The Murder of Constable Charles Hendrickson Null
By Allen G. Hatley
Cattle raising in the rough sand hills and sparsely settled area where Fayette, Bastrop, Gonzales and Caldwell Counties came together, was an important part of the local economy in the 1890's, but it was also sometimes a dangerous place. Back in those days there was very little of the land in that part of central Texas that was fenced or had good grass for grazing a large herd of cattle.
As a result, much of the cattle raised in the western part of Fayette County roamed across county and private property lines, and it was mostly open range up into the twentieth century. What was often difficult was proving ownership of the unbranded cows and calves when they were cut-out for branding or sale. As a result, the theft of livestock went on pretty much all the time. A number of family feuds were born out of those accusations of cattle theft.
After Reconstruction, the Stagner family was among the largest cattle raisers in the area, but during the 1890's, they had fallen on hard times. Bunk Stagner was no ordinary cowboy. He was an important local man, who had once owned 600 head of cattle, over 1,200 acres of land in several tracks, a one-third interest in the rock quarry and several buildings located in Muldoon, along with the liquor stock in two local saloons. He and his family were also mixed up in the ongoing theft of livestock. The Stagner family was far from the only suspected cattle thieves in the area, as a mixed group of both black and white men were suspected, occasionally accused and sometimes arrested for trading in stolen cattle.
By 1891, a number of cattle owners hired a detective agency out of Waco, to help identify the thieves. In July of 1892, Bunk Stagner's oldest son, Charles, was charged with 8 counts of theft in which 52 head of livestock were taken in Fayette County. Charles pled not guilty and his case was never brought to trial. In the spring of 1895, Charles Stagner was charged with, tried and found guilty of the theft and butchering of two oxen in Bastrop County. He was sentenced to 4-years in the Texas State Penitentiary. Only a year before in May of 1894, another of Bunk's sons, William J., had been shot at while hunting stray cattle, and when that developed into a gunfight, he was finally shot and killed by a neighbor, Tom Birge. That fight was allegedly due to suspected cattle theft. Tom Birge was tried, but acquitted of murder and their feud was joined.
Charles Hendrickson Null, had been born in Missouri, and his family moved to Fayette County in 1853. By the early 1890's, Null owned a fairly large herd of cattle grazing north of Muldoon. In December 1892, he was elected constable of Precinct #5, Fayette County. The twin towns of Muldoon made up the largest community in that sparsely settled Precinct. On August 8, 1896, Constable Null left his home and was riding toward the Precinct Court House in Muldoon, when he was murdered from ambush by a party of several men.
Charles Null was shot three times and while he was down on the ground, he was shot again in the back of the head to make sure he was dead. A few days before his murder he had said that he had found new evidence that could put somebody in the penitentiary, and told several people that, "my life is in danger and I expect to be killed."
Null was on his way to Court probably to obtain a warrant for the arrest of Bunk Stagner, who was immediately suspected by Sheriff Loessin of participating in the constable's murder. The tracks of Stagner's mule were found nearby, mixed in with the hoof prints of two horses and close to several .32-20 empty shell casings.
On September 10, just over a month after Null was murdered, his son Will, his brother, George, and feudist Tom Birge rode up on Bunk Stagner, who was outside the cotton gin near Primm Switch (Kirtley). Will Null slid out of the saddle and Stagner told him to give him five minutes and he would explain everything. Will, however, told Bunk, "You didn't give my pa five minutes," and then emptied both barrels of his shotgun into Stagner. Will and the other two boys went into hiding for a few days, but no search was made as the sheriff knew he would turn himself in. When he did, Will Null was tried, but was never convicted of the murder of Bunk Stagner. That was because most believed that Stagner had been in the party that murdered Null. But after his death, it was still a mystery as to the identity of the other men who had been with Stagner when the Constable was ambushed. A few years later, Fayette County Sheriff August Loessin delivered a prisoner to the State Penitentiary at Huntsville. While there he visited with a well-known outlaw he knew from Bastrop, James Brennan (Jim) Nite, who was serving a life sentence for the murder of a bank clerk in Longview, and concurrently a seven-year sentence for cattle theft in Kimble County. During their conversation, Jim admitted that he and his brother Jud Nite had been among those who shot Constable Charles Null and had been paid $500 for the murder, during a meeting with a man he would not identify in the back room of a salon in Smithville.
After the meeting, the Nite brothers rode into Fayette County from the west, passing through the small town of Cistern. They stopped there and bought some food, whiskey and a box of .32-20 cartridges. Somewhere near Muldoon, they met the man who would identify Constable Null for them and they shot Null as he rode along the road toward Muldoon. Despite his confession, Jim Nite was never indicted for the murder of Charles Null. Nite was already serving a life term and his brother was dead. There were also no witnesses except the killer, who was not expected to repeat his confession in court.
That is the story of Constable Charles Hendrickson Null, the only Fayette County lawman ever killed in the line of duty.