By Dennis McCaslin
In 1898, eastern Oklahoma was still a wild and wooly, untamed territory full of ne'er-do-well's, scofflaws and outlaws (both the Indian and regular kind.) Adair County was a well known refuge for those that walked on the wrong side of the law, and somtimes even the lawmen of the area weren't always on the straight and narrow.
Adair County was such in that era that Westville was as large a town as Stillwell, and both communities had they share of lawbreakers. Just two years removed from when the US Marshal's ruled the land under the jurisidicion of Issac C. Parker and almost nine full years before statehood, local law enforcement was tenative at best.
In the mid-1890's, a man by the name of Joe Morris who lived in Westville was recruited by the citizens of Stillwell to become their city marshal. Little is known about Morris today, but there was a Joe Morris that lived in the region at that time that had been a contempory of some of the more notrious outlaws in the area.
Morris took over as marshal and held the badge for a couple of years before a band of "community-minded" citizens headed up local businessman William Allison (who may have owned a local saloon) decided a change needed to be made.
It was late November of 1896 when Allison finally pursuaded the townspeople they need a new lawman. Bad blood lingered between Morris and those that ousted him and he hated Allison in particular. There had been several altercations and rows between the two men in the ensuing months, and it all came to head on July 12, 1898 on the platform of the train station in Stillwell.
Morris was returning from an unknown location in the Territory and when he stepped off the train that faithful day onto the mud -covered boulevard that was Division Street the first person he encountered was his old nemesis William Allison.
Details of what ensued are sketchy. An argument broke out between the men and at one point Morris swung the valise he was carrying and struck Allison, who got back up to continue the fight. At some point Morris suffered a superficial wound to the neck after Allison drew a knife. Bystanders broke up the melee (or so they thought) and order was seemingly restored.
Allison and a group of citizens moved into the local saloon as Morris went to his home. There he secured a .45 caliber pistol that he promptly carried down Division Street where the men were loitering on the wooden sidewalk.
Former city marshal Joe Morris ended the tensions between he and Allison with one shot through the heart of his enemy. Witnesses said Allison was dead before he hit the ground.
But the shot by Morris proved to be deadlier still. An elderly local man by the name of Jonathan Seller, who was known to be afflicted with heart disease, had witnessed the murder. Within moments of the shooting he grabbed his chest, slumped over and died immediately.
Employees of the local mortuary had barely removed the bodies from the street when a friend of Allison's went to the family home of the dead man's parents to break the news of his sudden death. His mother, father, grandmother and two siblings were home at the time.
Upon hearing the story of the shooting, Delena Allison, William's grandmother, let out a cry and rose from her chair. She took two steps before she also died of a heart attack.
There is no record of Joe Morris being tried for the death of William Allison. The two Allison's were buried in the Chalk Bluff Cemetery on the outskirts of Stillwell. Sellers was buried in an unmarked grave on the Seller's farm.
One bullet resulted in the death of three people on that shocking day in Stillwell.
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