Part 8

Part 8, Note 45

Colorado Citizen, January 14, 1875, November 23, 1876, May 24, 1877, May 31, 1877, June 7, 1877, September 27, 1877, October 4, 1877; Colorado County Police [Commissioners] Court Minutes, Book 1876-1879, pp. 247, 250; William S. Speer and John Henry Brown, eds., The Encyclopedia of the New West (Marshall, Texas: The United States Biographical Publishing Co., 1881), pp. 122-127. Johnson's resignation was probably prompted by the demands of his business. In 1874, he had invented an insecticide designed to kill cotton worms, which he called Dead Shot. He also raised cattle. Twice during his short tenure as county judge he was granted lengthy leaves of absence to attend to business (see Colorado Citizen, June 25, 1874; Colorado County Police [Commissioners] Court Minutes, Book 1876-1879, pp. 54-55, 229). Earlier, the commissioner from Oakland, Christian Heydorn, had been replaced on the court by a known Democrat, Joseph C. Kindred. Heydorn had resigned, both from his commissioner's seat and from another office he held, justice of the peace, in March 1877. In each of the previous two months, he had, it seems, collected two fines amounting to $56 which he had not yet turned over to the county treasurer. When he rather suddenly left the county, he was pursued by a special deputy, who arrested him and placed him in jail in Columbus. The following September he was indicted for embezzlement, but was subsequently acquitted (see Colorado Citizen, March 15, 1877, March 22, 1877, March 29, 1877; Colorado County District Court Records, Criminal Cause File No. 1593: State of Texas v. Chris Heydorn, Criminal Cause File No. 1594: State of Texas v. Chris Heydorn; Colorado County Police [Commissioners] Court Minutes, Book 1876-1879, p. 202; for Kindred's status as a Democrat, see Colorado Citizen, August 3, 1876).