Revision 840539601 of "Bill McDonald (Texas Ranger)" on enwiki

{{Infobox person
| name  = Captain William Jesse "Bill" McDonald
| image =Mcdonald2_Capt._Bill_McDonald.jpg
| image_size =200px
| caption=Captain Bill McDonald of the [[Texas Rangers Division|Texas Rangers]]
| birth_date  = {{birth date|1852|9|28}}
| birth_place = [[Kemper County, Mississippi|Kemper County]], [[Mississippi]]<br>[[United States|USA]]
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1918|1|15|1852|9|28}}
| death_place = [[Wichita Falls, Texas|Wichita Falls]]<br>[[Wichita County, Texas|Wichita County]], [[Texas]]
| occupation     =Law enforcement officer:<br>
[[Texas Ranger Division|Texas Ranger]]<br>
[[U.S. marshal]]
|party= [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]
|residence= [[Quanah, Texas|Quanah]], [[Hardeman County, Texas|Hardeman County]], Texas
|religion=
|spouse=Rhoda Isabel Carter McDonald (married 1876-1906, her death)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.texasranger.org/artifacts/Women_RangersPt3.htm|title=Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum: Rhoda and Bill McDonald|publisher=texasranger.org|accessdate=March 9, 2010}}</ref>
|children=
}}

'''William Jesse McDonald''', known as '''Captain Bill McDonald''' (September 28, 1852&ndash; January 15, 1918), was a [[Texas Ranger Division|Texas Ranger]] who served briefly as a bodyguard for both [[U.S. President]]s [[Theodore Roosevelt]] and [[Woodrow Wilson]], opponents, along with [[incumbent]] President [[William Howard Taft]], in the bitter [[United States presidential election, 1912|1912 United States presidential election]].<ref name=lawman>{{cite web|url=http://www.officer.com/web/online/Police-Life/Legendary-Lawman-Bill-McDonald/17$46626|title=Charles Bennett, "Legendary Lawman Bill McDonald"|publisher=officer.com|accessdate=March 9, 2010}}</ref> Captain McDonald was a friend of [[Edward M. House|Colonel House]], who convinced the biographer [[Albert Paine]] to record the captain's life.<ref>https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.173367 The Intimate Papers Of Colonel House; pg. 20</ref> In the process of working on said biography, Captain MacDonald made the acquaintance of [[Mark Twain]].

==Early years, family, education==

McDonald was born in [[Kemper County, Mississippi|Kemper County]] near [[Meridian, Mississippi|Meridian]], [[Mississippi]], but relocated with his mother, the former Eunice Durham, and other relatives, his sister Mary T. McDonald (McCauley), to east [[Texas]] after the [[American Civil War]]. His father, Enoch McDonald, had been killed in 1862 in the battle of [[Corinth, Mississippi|Corinth]], Mississippi.<ref>It is unclear whether Enoch McDonald was killed in the [[Siege of Corinth]] (first battle) or the [[Second Battle of Corinth]], both in 1862.</ref> The McDonalds settled on a farm near [[Henderson, Texas|Henderson]] in [[Rusk County, Texas|Rusk County]]. At the age of sixteen, McDonald quarreled with federal officials during [[Reconstruction era in the United States|Reconstruction]] and was tried for [[treason]] but acquitted through the intervention of future [[U.S. Representative]] [[David B. Culberson]].<ref name=handbook>{{cite web|url=http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmc43|title=Harold J. Weiss, Jr., and Rie Jarratt, "McDonald, William Jesse"|publisher=tshaonline.org|accessdate=March 9, 2010}}</ref> He graduated in 1872 from Soule Commercial College in [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]], [[Louisiana]]. As a young man, McDonald taught penmanship in Henderson until he opened a small store<ref name=trhof>{{cite web|url=http://www.texasranger.org/halloffame/McDonald_Jesse.htm|title=Texas Ranger Hall of Fame (State Designated Memorial): William Jesse McDonald|publisher=texasranger.org|accessdate=March 8, 2010}}</ref> at Brown's Bluff on the [[Sabine River (Texas-Louisiana)|Sabine River]] in [[Gregg County, Texas|Gregg County]], Texas.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hre10|title=''The Handbook of Texas'': Elderville, Texas|publisher=tshaonline.org|accessdate=March 8, 2010}}</ref> He later established a [[grocery store]] in [[Mineola, Texas|Mineola]] in [[Wood County, Texas|Wood County]], Texas.<ref name=trhof/>

==Law enforcement==
[[File:Bill McDonald ca. 1913.jpg|thumb|McDonald circa 1913]]
Still operating his store, McDonald grew interested in law enforcement. He became a deputy sheriff in Wood County. He was friendly with future [[Governor of Texas|Governor]] [[James Stephen Hogg]], then a [[justice of the peace]] in [[Quitman, Texas|Quitman]], the seat of Wood County. It was through Hogg that McDonald met his wife, the former Rhoda Isabel Carter, whom he married in January 1876.<ref name=handbook/> In 1883, the couple moved to [[Wichita County, Texas|Wichita County]], Texas, and thereafter to [[Hardeman County, Texas|Hardeman County]], where he was again a deputy sheriff and advanced to special Ranger and U.S. Deputy Marshal for the Northern District of Texas and the Southern District of [[Kansas]].<ref name=trhof/> His bold tactics drove the Brookins gang from Hardeman County. McDonald also apprehended [[cattle]] thieves and train robbers in "No Man's Land" and the [[Cherokee Strip]].<ref name=handbook/>

In 1891, Governor Hogg named McDonald to succeed Samuel A. McMurry as the captain of Texas Rangers Company B, Frontier Battalion, a position that he retained until 1907. McDonald and his company were involved in numerous matters throughout the state: the [[Bob Fitzsimmons]]-[[Peter Maher (boxer)|Peter Maher]] prizefight in [[El Paso, Texas|El Paso]], the  [[Wichita Falls, Texas|Wichita Falls]] bank robbery, the murders by the [[San Saba County|San Saba]] Mob (during which time Mrs. McDonald was in camp with her husband), the [[Reese-Townsend feud]] at [[Columbus, Texas|Columbus]] in [[Colorado County, Texas|Colorado County]], Texas, the lynching of the Humphries clan, the Conditt family murders near [[Edna, Texas|Edna]] in [[Jackson County, Texas|Jackson County]], and the shootout with [[Mexican American]]s near [[Rio Grande City]] in [[Starr County, Texas|Starr County]]. In all of these events, only one Ranger, T.L. Fuller, lost his life under McDonald’s command.<ref name=weiss>{{cite web|url=http://web3.unt.edu/untpress/catalog/detail.cfm?ID=311|title=Harold J. Weiss, Jr., ''Yours to Command: The Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald''|publisher=unt.edu|accessdate=March 8, 2010}}</ref>

In 1893, McDonald was nearly killed in a gunfight in [[Quanah, Texas|Quanah]], the seat of Hardeman County, with Sheriff John P. Matthews of [[Childress County, Texas|Childress County]], Texas. In 1906, McDonald came to [[Brownsville, Texas|Brownsville]], Texas, to restore order in what is now known as the [[Brownsville Affair]], in which 167 [[African American|African-American]] [[United States Army]] soldiers in the [[25th Infantry Regiment (United States)|25th U.S. Infantry]] were falsely accused of causing a race riot. President Theodore Roosevelt gave all of the soldiers dishonorable discharges, having rashly accused them of engaging in a "conspiracy of silence" by not identifying the particular soldiers who may have fired shots that killed a white merchant. Years later, President [[Richard M. Nixon]] reversed Roosevelt's directive and cleared the lone survivor among the soldiers as well as [[posthumous recognition]] of the other 166 who had already died.{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}} As a result of  McDonald's actions in Brownsville, he was referred to as "a man who would charge hell with a bucket of water."<ref name=trhof/>

McDonald and three other officers—John H. Rogers, John R. Hughes, and John A. Brooks—were known as the "Four Great Captains" of the Texas Rangers. McDonald was an outstanding marksman who used his weapons to intimidate and disarm his opponents. Though he had bullets in his body from shootouts, he never killed anyone in a clash.<ref name=wtha>Harold J. Weiss, Jr., of [[Leander, Texas|Leander]], [[Texas]], "Bill McDonald and the Media Show", [[West Texas Historical Association]], annual meeting in [[Fort Worth, Texas|Fort Worth]], February 26, 2010</ref>

In 1905, McDonald acted as bodyguard to President Theodore Roosevelt, who later entertained him at the [[White House]]. His wife died in 1906. There is no indication in ''Who Was Who in America'' of any children. McDonald remarried Pearl Wilkirson in December 1914.<ref>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McDonaldBringsPrisonerOnHoneymoon.pdf</ref> In 1907, McDonald relocated to [[Austin, Texas|Austin]] to serve as state revenue agent<ref>''Who Was Who in America'', Vol. 1 (1897-1942), New York: A.N. Marquis Co., 1943, p. 809</ref> in the administration of [[Governor of Texas|Governor]] [[Thomas Mitchell Campbell]]. In that capacity, he increased the state tax valuation by almost a billion dollars in two years.<ref name=handbook/> He  was later a bodyguard for Roosevelt nemesis, Woodrow Wilson, who named his fellow [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] as the [[U.S. Marshal]] for the Northern District of Texas.<ref name=lawman/> McDonald had the skill to track down outlaws, to evaluate physical evidence found at the scene of a crime, and to disarm or defeat mobs.<ref name=handbook/>

McDonald died of [[pneumonia]] in [[Wichita Falls, Texas]].<ref>{{cite news |author= |coauthors= |title=Capt. 'Bill' MacDonald Dies. Bodyguard of President Wilson Was Noted Texas Ranger |url= http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E03E5D8133FE433A25755C1A9679C946996D6CF |quote= |work=[[New York Times]] |date=January 16, 1918 |accessdate=2010-07-04 }}</ref> He was buried at Quanah, west of Wichita Falls. His tombstone carries the motto: "No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that's in the right and keeps on a-comin'."<ref name=trhof/>

==Legacy==
McDonald is an inductee of the [[Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum|Texas Ranger Hall of Fame]] in [[Waco, Texas|Waco]].<ref name=trhof/> Other works mentioning McDonald are [[Walter Prescott Webb]]'s ''The Texas Rangers'' (1935) and W.W. Sterling's, ''Trails and Trials of a Texas Ranger'' (1968).

<!--this paragraph seems out of place-->Harold J. Weiss, Jr., a [[Pennsylvania]] native<!--is this at all  relevant?--> and a [[professor emeritus]] at [[Jamestown Community College]] in [[Jamestown, New York|Jamestown]], [[New York (state)|New York]], has done extensive research on McDonald. He describes the old Ranger as having "intrigued people with his charisma, bravery, and dynamic qualities."  Weiss said that McDonald's exploits often provided fodder for the plots of western [[novel]]s.<ref name=wtha/> Weiss wrote ''Yours to Command: The Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald'' (2009). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=f6kZAAAAYAAJ&dq=captain%20bill%20mcdonald&pg=PP9#v=onepage&q&f=false Captain Bill McDonald, Texas Ranger: A Story of Frontier Reform]'' (1909) by [[Albert Paine|Albert Bigelow Paine]] had been the principal work on the Ranger.<ref name=weiss/>  Paine's biography has an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amazon.com/Captain-McDonald-Ranger-Frontier-Reform/dp/0766195791|title=''Captain Bill McDonald, Texas Ranger: A Story of Frontier Reform''|publisher=amazon.com|accessdate=March 9, 2010}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:McDonald, Bill}}
[[Category:1852 births]]
[[Category:1918 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Kemper County, Mississippi]]
[[Category:People from Quanah, Texas]]
[[Category:People from Mineola, Texas]]
[[Category:People from Austin, Texas]]
[[Category:American deputy sheriffs]]
[[Category:United States Marshals]]
[[Category:American businesspeople in retailing]]
[[Category:Deaths from pneumonia]]
[[Category:Texas Democrats]]
[[Category:Members of the Texas Ranger Division]]