The Compass Centre

A little history if Mr Calm for our retreaters.

Wednesday History --

The Preacher, the Outlaw, and the Town That Shaped Them
How Mount Calm, Texas Sits at the Heart of One of the Wild West's Most Remarkable Family Stories

Did you know that one of the most infamous outlaws in American history used to ride into Mount Calm to visit his family?

Most people know the name John Wesley Hardin — gunfighter, killer, and legend of the Old West, credited with more than twenty deaths before he was thirty years old. What most people don't know is that Mount Calm was his family's home base during some of the most dramatic years of his life. And the connections run deeper — and stranger — than you might expect.
This is the full story.

A Preacher Comes to Town

The man at the center of this story isn't John Wesley Hardin. It's his father.
Reverend James Gibson Hardin was born in Tennessee in 1823 and made his way to Texas as a young man, where he became a traveling Methodist preacher admitted to the Texas Annual Conference in 1848. He was a circuit-rider in the truest sense — spending days and weeks away from home, covering vast stretches of Central Texas on horseback to deliver services to scattered frontier communities. He also worked as a schoolteacher, lawyer, and county attorney.
James and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Dixon, were married in Navarro County in 1847 and raised ten children together. The family moved constantly, following James's ministry across the state — so many moves that nearly every child was born in a different town.

Around 1869, Reverend Hardin brought his family to the Mount Calm community and did something ambitious: he founded a school he called the Mount Calm Institution. It was one of the more serious educational efforts in that corner of Central Texas at the time, and it gave the family a genuine base for the first time in years.

Here's something worth knowing about the geography: the original Mount Calm settlement — where the Hardins actually lived — sat just south of the Hill County line, in Limestone County. The town you see today on Highway 31 is the railroad town that was built a mile to the north after the Texas and St. Louis Railway came through in 1881. The original settlement is long gone. Today, only the Mount Calm Cemetery survives at that original site — and the first burial there, Mrs. Jane Rice, was made in April 1870, right when the Hardins were neighbors.

The Son Who Went Wrong
John Wesley Hardin was born on May 26, 1853, and was already a wanted fugitive before his father ever founded the Mount Calm school. At fifteen, he killed his first man. By the time the family arrived in Mount Calm, he had killed several more — including Benjamin Bradley, shot dead in a card game in nearby Towash, Hill County, in January 1870. Towash was barely thirty miles from Mount Calm. John Wesley was killing people practically in his father's backyard.

James Hardin named his second son after the founder of Methodism. It didn't take.
John Wesley Hardin was born on May 26, 1853, and was already a wanted fugitive before his father ever founded the Mount Calm school. At fifteen he killed his first man. By the time the family arrived in Mount Calm, he had killed several more — including Benjamin Bradley, shot dead in a card game in nearby Towash, Hill County, in January 1870. Towash was barely thirty miles from Mount Calm. John Wesley was killing people practically in his father's backyard.
And yet he kept coming home.
Joseph Gibson Hardin, born in 1850, married Belle Adams in September 1871 and settled in Comanche, Texas, where the family relocated in 1872 when Reverend Hardin moved them west from Mount Calm. Jo G bought property on the courthouse square, built a home, practiced law, served as Comanche County's Postmaster, and was appointed County Treasurer. He was even credited with bringing Comanche its first newspaper, the Comanche Chief, in 1873. He was a Mason. He was a pillar of the community.
In August 1870, wanted for multiple murders, John Wesley rode into Mount Calm and peddled cowhides — equal parts business errand and family visit. He returned again for Christmas 1871, spending the holiday with his family while Texas lawmen hunted him across the state. In between those visits, he rode the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, Kansas, adding several more bodies to his count along the way.
There is something striking about those Christmas visits. Here was a man with a growing legend as the deadliest gun in Texas, sitting at his father the preacher's table for Christmas dinner. Whatever James Hardin felt about his son — and the record doesn't tell us directly — he never turned him away.

The Brother Who Had Everything — and Lost It All
📸 [PHOTO SUGGESTION: Old Comanche, Texas courthouse square, circa 1870s]
While John Wesley was building his reputation on the wrong side of the law, eldest brother Jo G Hardin was doing everything right.
Joseph Gibson Hardin, born in 1850, had married Belle Adams in September 1871 and settled in Comanche, Texas, where the family relocated in 1872 when Reverend Hardin moved them west from Mount Calm. Jo G bought property on the courthouse square, built a home, practiced law, served as Comanche County's Postmaster, and was appointed County Treasurer. He was even credited with bringing Comanche its first newspaper, the Comanche Chief, in 1873. He was a Mason. He was a pillar of the community.

Then came May 26, 1874 — John Wesley's twenty-first birthday.
John Wesley came to Comanche to race his horse, Rondo, and celebrate. Rondo won. His brother Jo G's horse came second, his cousin Bud Dixon's horse third. They won $3,000 in cash, fifty head of cattle, fifteen horses, and a wagon. Then they went to celebrate at Jack Wright's Saloon on the courthouse square.
Brown County Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb walked in. Words were exchanged. Guns came out. Deputy Webb was shot dead.

Jo G Hardin — lawyer, postmaster, county treasurer, newspaper founder — was killed because of his brother's gun. He left behind his wife, Belle, and two small children: daughter Dora Dean, not yet two years old, and son Jo G Jr., born just two days before his uncle pulled the trigger on Deputy Webb. Jo G Jr. never knew his father.
On May 27, Jo G, their brother Tom, and cousin Bud Dixon were jailed supposedly for their own protection. On May 31, a mob from Brownwood came and took them from the jail. They were hanged two miles south of town.
Jo G Hardin — lawyer, postmaster, county treasurer, newspaper founder — was killed because of his brother's gun. He left behind his wife Belle and two small children: daughter Dora Dean, not yet two years old, and son Jo G Jr., born just two days before his uncle pulled the trigger on Deputy Webb. Jo G Jr. never knew his father.
On June 24, 1874, Reverend James Hardin sold everything and the entire family fled Comanche.

Belle Comes Home to Mount Calm

This is the part of the story that keeps pulling us back to this community.
After the lynching, Belle Hardin was left in Comanche with almost nothing. She managed to contact family in Mount Calm, and a relative made the 130-mile journey west to bring her home. All she saved from Jo G's life were a few papers — his desk nameplate, his bank book, his permit to practice law, his certificate of appointment as County Treasurer, his postmaster commission. That was everything left of a man who had built a career and a community standing from scratch.

Belle and her two children came back to Mount Calm. By 1880 she had remarried — to a man named Joseph Peirce — and settled in Limestone County.
The town where Preacher Hardin had founded his school became the refuge for the wreckage his most famous son left behind. Mount Calm wasn't just the starting point of the family's Central Texas years. It was also where the story came to rest.

The Baby Born Here — and His Unhappy End
📸 [PHOTO SUGGESTION: Hog Island, Philadelphia, WWI-era shipyard photo — publicly available]
One more Mount Calm connection, and it's bittersweet.
In 1874 — the same year Jo G was lynched in Comanche — Mary Hardin gave birth to her last child in Mount Calm. They named him James Barnett Gibson Hardin, but everyone called him Gip.

Gip grew up in the shadow of the family name and tried to outrun it. He became a schoolteacher, settling in Junction, Texas. He fell in love, eloped with a girl named Pearl Turner in January 1898, and seemed to be building a quiet life. Two months later, following an argument at a dinner table, he shot and killed Deputy Sheriff John Turman — who had been his best friend. He was convicted and sentenced to thirty-five years. A retrial gave him two years instead, and he served his time in Huntsville
After prison, Gip drifted. He and Pearl separated. She took their two daughters west to El Paso and Marfa. Gip worked the stockyards in Fort Worth. When World War I began, he took a government job transporting horses to Europe — work that brought him to Hog Island near Philadelphia, one of the largest wartime supply operations in the country.
On March 5, 1918, he was crushed between two boxcars and killed. He was forty-four years old. He is buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia — as far from Mount Calm, Texas as a man could get.

The Patriarch Who Never Saw It End
Reverend James Gibson Hardin died in Red River County, Texas on August 2, 1876.
He never saw John Wesley captured. He never saw his son's trial or his sentence. He died two years after Comanche, with his family scattered and his eldest son in the ground. He had spent his adult life building schools, riding circuits, practicing law, and raising ten children in the name of God and education — and the world remembered him, when it remembered him at all, as the outlaw's father.
He deserved better than that. So does the town where he did some of his best work.

The Reckoning
Of the ten Hardin children, the pattern is impossible to ignore:

Jo G — lynched, 1874, age 24
John Wesley — shot dead in an El Paso saloon, 1895, age 42
Jefferson Davis (Jeff) — shot dead at his own saloon, 1900
Gip — killed by boxcars in Philadelphia, 1918, age 44

Three daughters — Elizabeth, Martha Ann, and Nancy — lived to their seventies, eighties, and beyond. Not one carried a gun. The violence was almost entirely a story of sons.

Why? Reconstruction Texas told young men that honor was defended with bullets. James Hardin was a righteous man, but he was away for weeks at a time, riding his circuit. Once John Wesley was sheltered and enabled as a fugitive — and James himself made that choice, telling his son to run rather than face a Reconstruction court — the pattern was set. The Hardin name attracted trouble like a lightning rod. By the time Gip was old enough to be in a dispute, the family reputation preceded him into every room.

They were all, in their different ways, casualties of the same collision: a good man's ambitions, a bad era's violence, and a name that couldn't be outrun.

You Can Visit the Original Site
The original Mount Calm settlement where the Hardins lived no longer exists as a town. When the railroad came through in 1881, the whole community moved a mile north into Hill County to meet it — and that's the Mount Calm you can visit today on Highway 31.

But the Mount Calm Cemetery in Limestone County is still there, on LCR 102 just south of the county line. The first grave is dated April 26, 1870 — right in the middle of the Hardin years. It is the only surviving piece of the original community, and it holds the neighbors, the congregation members, and the community that knew Reverend Hardin's family when they were still all together.

It's worth a visit. Stand there and think about what was happening in that little cluster of farms and buildings in the years 1869 to 1872 — the school being built, the Christmas dinners, the cowhide peddler who was actually a wanted killer, the baby who would grow up to die in Philadelphia. All of it started here.

If your family has any connection to the original Mount Calm community from the 1860s–1880s, we'd love to hear from you in the comments. And if you're researching the Hardin family, the Mount Calm Cemetery records, the Texas General Land Office archives at historictexasmaps.com, and the Hill County Historical Commission's 1980 history of Hill County are your best starting points.

Sources: Texas State Historical Association Handbook of Texas; Wikipedia — John Wesley Hardin; Find A Grave; WikiTree family records; Texas General Land Office; Limestone

Home The oldest state agency in Texas, the GLO was formed to determine who owned what and where after the Texians and Tejanos won independence. Today the General Land Office manages state lands, operates the Alamo, helps Texans recovering from natural disasters, helps fund Texas public education through....

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TH April 30 - Sun May 3, 2026
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Contact Melissa: [email protected]

Last Chance to join
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2020 “July 4th” Retreat
Wednesday, July 1 – Sunday, July 5th
Eileen Urbanek, Certified Instructor
“Pick a Pattern COVID Retreat”
Due to ever changing rules due to COVID 19, this retreat IS a go with a limited number of spots per our governor.
We have taken a lot of precautions and sanitation measures for your safety, as well as that of our employees. Attached are some of the changes we have instituted.
Arrive on Wednesday, July 1 anytime after 1pm – Depart Sunday, July 5 no later than 2pm!
Total Cost: $460.00 including instructor fee. Meals begin with the evening meal.
$100 Non Refundable Deposit Required to hold your spot. Balance due at Retreat by CHECK or CASH (No Credit Cards for Retreat)

EMAIL me asap if you plan to attend as we have limited spots available. [email protected]

Please mail a CHECK to: The Compass Centre – P O Box 10 – Mt. Calm, TX 76673. Credit Cards are not longer accepted for retreat fees, but will still be taken for purchases. IF you want to Paypal the deposit – you MUST send as a friend, or you will be charged the extra fee.
If you do not have a project, we have several of our beautiful kits on our website: www.compasscentreshoppe.com for you to view, plus we are known for our custom kits. You tell us your ideas on colors including those you love and those you hate and we will pull a kit for you.
Come celebrate with us as we can laugh and have a great time with other quilters!

2020 “July 4th” Retreat
Wednesday, July 1 – Sunday, July 5th
Eileen Urbanek, Certified Instructor
“Pick a Pattern COVID Retreat”
Due to ever changing rules due to COVID 19, this retreat IS a go with a limited number of spots per our governor.
We have taken a lot of precautions and sanitation measures for your safety, as well as that of our employees. Attached are some of the changes we have instituted.
Arrive on Wednesday, July 1 anytime after 1pm – Depart Sunday, July 5 no later than 2pm!
Total Cost: $460.00 including instructor fee. Meals begin with the evening meal.
$100 Non Refundable Deposit Required to hold your spot. Balance due at Retreat by CHECK or CASH (No Credit Cards for Retreat)

EMAIL me asap if you plan to attend as we have limited spots available. [email protected]

Please mail a CHECK to: The Compass Centre – P O Box 10 – Mt. Calm, TX 76673. Credit Cards are not longer accepted for retreat fees, but will still be taken for purchases. IF you want to Paypal the deposit – you MUST send as a friend, or you will be charged the extra fee.
If you do not have a project, we have several of our beautiful kits on our website: www.compasscentreshoppe.com for you to view, plus we are known for our custom kits. You tell us your ideas on colors including those you love and those you hate and we will pull a kit for you.
Come celebrate with us as we can laugh and have a great time with other quilters!

I'm posting for one of our guests and past neighbor's Bernina 440QE with a BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator) for SALE. The price is $1400 and has been used very little. Purchased around 2005. This machine sews like a dream. Owner is downsizing and moving to Florida. If interested, contact Judy Abernathy at [email protected].

Judy also has a Bernina 930 Record for sale at $650.

[email protected]

Sale! Friday and Saturday 9-5.
Regular width Batiks $7.20... everything else 10% off.

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Door Prizes (70+ per day!!)
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Please pass the word to your quilt friends and guild members!
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