Fans of the more colorful aspects of life in historic Waco will have several opportunities in coming weeks to meet the man responsible for sharing some of the shadier tales of Six Shooter Junction.

Brad Turner, author and lead editor of “Lust, Violence, Religion: Life in Historic Waco,” plans to sign copies of his book from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Hewitt Public Library, 100 Zuni Drive.

After the Baylor Homecoming Parade on Oct. 23, he also will be found at the campus bookstore for another session of autographing his work.

Author Brad Turner, a McLennan Community College instructor, is seen here in October 2009 at Oakwood Cemetery sharing lore about the life and times of controversial journalist William Cowper Brann.
Terri Jo Ryan/Special to the Tribune-Herald

Released earlier this month by the publishing arm of Texas State Technical College-Waco, the book presents accounts of prostitution, gun battles, racial violence and natural catastrophe in the heart of town.

Turner launches the book with a deceptively innocent piece of personal import — a look at the old Methodist church circuit riders who brought religion to the far-flung pioneer families of the West.

His great-great-great-great grandfather was the Rev. Thomas Stanford (1813-92), who founded the country church in Richey’s Switch (now Hewitt) called Stanford Chapel.

The pioneer Methodist minister moved to Texas from Arkansas in 1862 with his wife and kin. The Stanfords, with the Edward R. Barcus family, established a community school, church and cemetery about eight miles west of Waco.

The Sunday sanctuary was used as a schoolhouse on weekdays, operated by Mrs. E. R. Barcus.

The Stanfords’ daughter, Martha, and her husband, Thomas Richey, donated five acres for the graveyard in 1875. Hewitt Baptists and Methodists formed a union Sunday school in town sometime before 1895.

Stanford Chapel

Stanford Chapel became a regular appointment on the Waco preacher circuit, and for years it was an important camp meeting center, where, under its brush arbors each late August, many of the best-known orators of the conference conducted revivals.

The original church house stood for 28 years, giving way in 1903 to a new building.

But in 1912, the congregation disbanded with some folks going to the nearby towns of Hewitt and Lorena. The old Stanford Chapel tabernacle was moved to Hewitt in 1922 and used for summer revivals for several years.

The Methodist circuit rider, as depicted in this illustration from Harper’s Weekly magazine from the late 19th century, was a familiar and comforting presence in the early days of Texas, when frontier families got their churching in periodic visits by visiting clergy rather than regular weekly services. Thrown across the saddle was a pair of large leather pockets containing Bibles, hymn books and Christian periodicals, to be sold and for the minister’s use, along with his humble wardrobe.

After decades of neglect, the old church graveyard was reclaimed in 1962, and by 1965, a restored cemetery association formed to maintain the historic site.

But the remainder of “Lust, Violence and Religion” lives up the hype of the title. Turner enlisted the help of many colleagues in crafting the finished product.

For example, he prevailed upon a friend, Richard F. Fair — who grew up in the Hewitt area — to write the most controversial chapter. Chapter 4, “The Sins of Our Fathers: Lynching in McLennan County before 1920,” addresses the grim topic of violence against the Waco’s black citizens.

Turner added that although he has also studied extensively the writings and life of Waco’s colorful 19th-century journalist, he gave Fair the honors of writing Chapter 3, “The Apostle of Personal Protest: William C. Brann and the ‘Iconoclast’ in Waco.”

‘Seedy factory’

Brann’s infamous animosity toward Baylor University as a seedy factory that manufactured naught but “ministers and Magdalenes” led to his death in April 1898 on a downtown street, shot by a supporter of the Baptist institution.

The Wicked Wizard of Words is still despised to this day in some quarters, Turner noted. In fact, just before Christmas 2009, it was discovered that vandals had torn the “lamp of truth” from Brann’s headstone and hauled it away — yet another insult to the earthly remains of the so-called Prairie Voltaire.

Turner, who is active with the Heart of Texas Storytelling Guild as well as the Texas Oral History Association, said he’s sure Brann would be delighted to know that more than a century after his assassination in the streets of Waco, he’s still a burr in the saddle of this Western burgh.

“Are you kidding? I can almost hear him now,” Turner said.

Then, channeling the spirit of the man who once termed Baylor “the alma mater of mob violence . . . a chronic breeder of bigotry and bile,” he added in Brann’s voice, quoting him: “I love it. I hope it was a Baylor student that did it. I’m still getting a rise out of them — boo-yah!”

tjryan@wacotrib.com

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