Perhaps It Was A Matter of Family Honor: A Tale of the Old West

JERRELL: Once again, a collateral family takes the forefront. In 1866 the Reno Brothers Gang of Jackson Co., Indiana introduced a new concept to American outlawry - the train robbery. Among the local boys who joined the Renos was a young house painter named Henry Jerrell. Henry was the eldest of eight children born to Henry and Serepta Jerrell.

Henry and other gang members fled to Illinois after an aborted train robbery in 1868. Young Jerrell wrote his girlfriend in Louisville how to contact him under an assumed name. There was a problem, the girl was illiterate and had to have the letter read to her. A Pinkerton agent was within earshot and Henry and his confederates were arrested two days later.

A wagon carrying Henry and the other gang members to Brownstown, Indiana was stopped by 200 masked vigilantes. The outlaws were lynched. Henry Jerrell was 22 years old.

Now for the rest of the story......

Henry's younger brother William left Indiana about the time of Henry's death. William headed west and settled in Las Cruces, Dona Ana Co.,New Mexico Territory. There he settled, raised a family, ran a grocery and a saloon. In 1884, another Las Cruces merchant was held up. A deputy was sent after the thief, but wired that he had run out of funds. A townsman was enlisted to deliver more money to the deputy, but gambled it away. William Jerrell was then appointed a Deputy Sheriff for Dona Ana and sent after the robber.

William was on a stagecoach bound for San Angelo, Texas when the driver was warned by another stage that  hold-up men awaited them. Jerrell and a Texas Ranger onboard the coach shot it out with the outlaws. William Jerrell was wounded and died at the San Angelo Hotel that night. He had been killed in the line of duty as a Deputy Sheriff.