ALLEN PARMER.
Allen Parmer is a Missourian. His boyhood days were passed
principally in Jackson county. When the late war broke over the
country, Allen Parmer was a youth, little fitted to enter the ranks
with fighting men. Yet he became a member of Quantrell's band. He
first came into prominence among his comrades in August, 1863,
at the capture and sack of Lawrence, Kansas. That day Parmer was
a member of the squad led by Bill Anderson, who murdered without
compunction and destroyed without feeling. He escaped with the rest
of the band. He was at Independence; at Lone Jack; at Camden; at
Weston; in their lairs among the Sni Hills, and along the waters
of the Blues. He was one of the six men who remained with Todd at
Judge Gray's house, near Bone Hill, Jackson county, when Captain
John Chestnut arrived in that neighborhood, in September, 1864,
bearing a communication from General Price to the Guerrillas,
which at once caused a rally of the old partisans. He was selected
by Lieut. Geo. W. Shepherd as one of the picked men ordered on
a dangerous expedition to the north side of the Missouri. The
Guerrilla campaign there was short but bloody. The terrible
massacre and rout at Centralia was the crowning event, and Parmer
performed a conspicuous part in that conflict. All through the
operations of the Guerrillas he was one of the most daring in the
band. He was one of the executioners of Bradley Bond, a militiaman
of Clay county. He and Frank James captured the man, and afterward
he was shot.
[Illustration: ALLEN PARMER.
(Williams & Thomson, Photographers, Kansas City, Mo.)]
When Missouri no longer offered a field for operations, and
Quantrell entered upon his last campaign in Kentucky, Allen
Parmer was one of the old Guerrillas who followed him. The Federal
garrison was compelled to surrender at Hustonville, Lincoln
county, Kentucky. Thenceforward Quantrell was known in his true
character. In a fight in Jessamine county, George Roberson and a
member of Quantrell's command, was captured, taken to Louisville,
and confined in prison, but subsequently escaped. Afterward he was
captured again, taken to Lexington, transferred to Louisville once
more, and there arraigned before a court-martial, tried, convicted
and sentenced to be hanged on a charge of murdering the Federal
major at Hustonville, who fell by the hand of Parmer. Roberson was
afterward publicly executed at Louisville.
Parmer took part in all the dreadful frays of Quantrell's little
band in Kentucky.
When peace once more brooded over the land, he returned to
Missouri, and commenced a commission business in St. Louis, with
J. W. Shawhan for a partner, under the style of Shawhan & Co. This
was in 1866. It does not appear that the firm was very successful.
Parmer is said to have lost several thousand dollars in this
venture. Later, the business was closed out. Payne Jones, and some
others, among them Jim White, a friend of Parmer, were implicated
in a bank robbery at Richmond, Mo. Mayor Shaw was killed at that
time. Suspicion attached to Parmer as being one of the robbers, and
he was arrested, but, on examination, discharged. Then he led a
sort of roving life for some years, sometimes in Missouri, then in
Texas, sometimes in Colorado, then in the Indian Territory. Finally
he came to regard Texas as his home. In 1870 he returned to Jackson
county, where his boyhood had been passed. For a long time his
relations with the James family had been friendly, and when he came
to woo Miss Susan James, the sister of Frank and Jesse, she did not
deny his suit, and they were married, and removed to Arkansas the
same year. He remained in that state during the autumn and winter,
and in the spring of 1871 he removed with his family to Texas. For
a time, his wife taught a school at Sherman. Subsequently, Parmer
established a ranche near Henriette, Clay county, Texas, about
120 miles west of Sherman. Clay county lies on the Red river,
directly south of the Kiowa Indian reservation. Here he had all the
freedom he desired, and for some years he tended his herds and was
prosperous. He frequently made trips to Kansas City, St. Louis and
Chicago with droves of cattle.
When the train robbery at Glendale took place, the authorities
sought for clues to the robbers in every direction. Mr. Grimes,
the express messenger who was knocked down by one of the robbers
who wore no mask, was able to give a vivid and minute description
of the features of his assailant, and that description suited the
personnel of Parmer. Deputy Marshal Whig Keshlear was dispatched to
Texas by Marshal Liggett to effect Parmer's arrest. He proceeded
to Sherman, where he met and conferred with Mr. Everhart, sheriff
of Grayson county. That officer readily consented to assist in
the arrest of Parmer, and proceeded at once to his ranche, near
Henriette. The officers effected the arrest without difficulty on
the 2d day of November, 1879, under a requisition from Governor
Phelps, of Missouri.
Parmer was taken by the officers to Sherman. He was followed by
a number of his friends from Clay county. There the prisoner
attempted to regain his liberty by a writ of _habeas corpus_. But
the judge before whom the writ was returned ruled out testimony,
and remanded the prisoner to the custody of the officers from
Missouri, in obedience to the requisition of the governor of that
state. Parmer took exceptions and appealed. Marshal Liggett,
however, had sworn out a warrant for his arrest before a United
States Commissioner, charging him with interrupting the United
States mail. But this was unnecessary, for, on hearing the case,
the state authorities of Texas discharged the writ, and remanded
the prisoner again to the custody of the Missouri officers, who
at once set out for Kansas City, where they arrived with their
prisoner Sunday morning, November 23d, and Parmer was promptly
incarcerated in the Jackson county jail. He emphatically denied all
complicity in the Glendale affair, or any knowledge of the parties
who accomplished the robbery, and after four weeks' imprisonment
he was discharged by the Grand Jury, the authorities failing to
connect him, in any way, with the Glendale affair.