Texas Talk

In August 1876, three masked men murdered a Methodist minister, his wife, and two of her children in their home six miles south of the North Texas community of Montague. Who were these masked men and why did they kill a defenseless family? In this and the blog posts that follow, we’ll take you on a firsthand tour of locales linked to the murders in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas that feature in this enigmatic true crime story spanning two decades.

For an in-depth look at this compelling murder mystery, read Murder in Montague: Frontier Justice and Retribution in Texas, published by University of Oklahoma Press, and available on our secure online webstore. The book is also available at University of Oklahoma Press and Amazon.

It was a sweltering August night in North Texas. A half moon hung in the evening sky. Reverend William England, his wife Selena, and her children had just finished their evening prayers and were getting ready for bed when three men wearing bandanas around their heads walked up to the front porch of the England home. The trio walked into the house and immediately started attacking its occupants. First, they killed the reverend, then his step daughter, next her brother, and finally, England’s wife Selena.

The Englands lived on the road from Decatur, Texas to Montague. Selena England had purchased their 160-acre homestead, six miles south of the county seat of Montague, Texas, in 1875. By the following year, the family had built a fine new home, situated on the north side of Denton Creek. Today nothing remains today of the England homestead except for an old rock-lined well and numerous period artifacts.

The day after the England murders, Montague County Attorney Avery L. Matlock arrested a neighbor, his friend, and a sixteen-year-old boy. Ben Krebs, James Preston, and Aaron K. Taylor had all spent the previous night at Krebs’s home, located a half mile distant. In a deathbed declaration, Selena England positively identified Krebs as one of her attackers. Despite numerous protestations of his innocence, Krebs was taken into custody and transported to the county jail in Montague with Preston and Taylor. Since three men had committed the murders, County Attorney Matlock reasoned that Preston and Taylor must have been Krebs’s accomplices in the heinous deed. The Krebs cabin on the south side of Denton Creek no longer stands, but it was located by this oak tree.

Ben Krebs, originally from Switzerland, had come to the United States in 1850. By 1857, he had moved to North Texas, where he took a job working for the Overland Mail Company. The Overland Mail Company operated the Butterfield Overland Mail Line which ran from Tipton and St. Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California. Krebs worked as a stage driver and helped run the mail station in Young County, Texas, that bears his name, Krebs’s Station. During the Civil War, the mail company ceased operations in Texas and Krebs moved to Montague County, where he married Eliza “Rhoda” Taylor Savage, the widow of Wiley Savage who had died in 1864.

For an in-depth look at this compelling murder mystery, read Murder in Montague: Frontier Justice and Retribution in Texas, published by University of Oklahoma Press, and available on our secure online webstore. The book is also available at University of Oklahoma Press and Amazon.

Regarding the two men who had spent the night of the murders at the Krebs home, Aaron K. Taylor was the brother of Ben Krebs’s wife, Rhoda. James Preston was a close friend and neighbor of the Krebs family. Preston owned acreage adjoining the Krebs property that he farmed. Preston had moved to Texas after the Civil War with his wife Martha and their children. Three of the Preston’s ten children are buried in Brushy Cemetery, near Bowie, Texas.

What motive did Ben Krebs have for killing the England family? A month before the murders, Krebs had gotten into an altercation with Selena and Reverend England over the fence that divided their two properties. Hogs belonging to the Englands had been getting into Krebs’s cornfield and damaging his crop. After this had occurred several times, Krebs had a heated exchanged with the Englands and threatened to hit the eighty-two-year-old reverend with a slat from the fence. He told the Englands, “God damn you, if you come down here anymore, I will kill you.” The Englands subsequently filed assault charges against Krebs. The date for the trial was set for early September. Here is a picture of the fence separating the two properties, at or near the spot where the altercation occurred.

After the argument, Ben Krebs walked down to Denton Creek with Harvey Taylor, one of Selena’s sons from her first marriage to Billington Taylor (The Billington Taylors were no relation to Aaron Taylor and his sister Rhoda Taylor Krebs). During their talk at Denton Creek, Ben told Harvey that he meant him no ill will personally, but that he was frustrated at Selena and Reverend England for not keeping an eye on their hogs. Ben said, “If William England is a Christian and does [his neighbors] this way, I have no use for Christianity. Hell is broiling for such men as he is.”

Following the August 26^th murders, surviving family members buried Reverend England, Selena, and her two children Susie and Isaiah, at Ben Dye Cemetery near Whitesboro, Texas. Local historian Ruth Varley made a detailed inventory of the cemetery before it fell into disuse. Varley noted that the four England graves were each marked by red sandstone slabs. Here is a picture of one of the England graves. Today the cemetery is no longer in use and has become overgrown with vines and saplings.

Ben Krebs, James Preston, and Aaron Taylor were tried for the England murders during 1876 and 1877 at Montague and Gainesville. Krebs and Preston were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Because Aaron Taylor was a teen when the killings occurred, he was sentenced to life at hard labor at the state prison in Huntsville. All three appealed their sentences. Krebs and Preston were granted new trials, but the appeals court upheld Taylor’s conviction. Taylor was sent to Huntsville in June 1878. Krebs and Preston were found guilty a second time and sentenced to be hung in Gainesville in April 1880. The presiding judge for all five of the England murder trials was Sixteenth Judicial District Judge Joseph Alexander Carroll.

For an in-depth look at this compelling murder mystery, read Murder in Montague: Frontier Justice and Retribution in Texas, published by University of Oklahoma Press, and available on our secure online webstore. The book is also available at University of Oklahoma Press and Amazon.