Harry “Red” Oland

On Friday, November 27, 1942, a man identified in newspaper accounts as Harry or Henry “Red” Oland went on a violent rampage in Morton, leaving one man dead and two others seriously wounded.

According to reports, Oland, age 40, believed that people in town had called him a “slacker.” He became increasingly infuriated over this and went into Morton, where he entered a laundry and stabbed Dan Roberts, the laundry operator, in the back, killing him almost immediately.

Oland then forced his way into the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Warren, where Mrs. Warren’s invalid mother, Mrs. Leonard Miller, and the Warrens’ young children were also present. When Mrs. Warren tried to keep him from entering, he struck her on the head with a hatchet. Reports stated that he also threatened Mrs. Miller and the children before the women’s pleas persuaded him to leave the home.

Still armed and in a rage, Oland ran into the street and attacked Roy Lee Culver, a 27 year-old visitor from Dallas. Culver was standing on the sidewalk and was slashed several times before he fully realized what was happening. He was taken to Lubbock General Hospital in critical condition, though newspaper reports later stated that he was improving. Mrs. Warren also survived her injuries.

As alarm spread through Morton, local men pursued Oland. Newspaper accounts stated that he attempted to cut his own throat with the hatchet before Carl Williams struck him with an automobile, breaking one of Oland’s legs and one arm.

Sheriff Tom C. Standefer then removed Oland from Morton and held him in an undisclosed jail while officers worked to prevent mob violence. The case drew wide attention, and even The Afro-American, a newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland, reported that the suspect was being guarded at an unannounced location after the attacks.

No charge was filed immediately while Roy Lee Culver’s condition remained uncertain. Early reports focused on the violence of the attack and on fears that public anger might erupt before the case could proceed through the courts.

By December 3, 1942, Oland was formally facing a murder charge in the death of Dan Roberts. In April 1943, a Cochran County grand jury returned indictments charging him with the murder of Roberts and with assault to murder Roy Lee Culver.

Contemporary newspaper accounts also stated that Oland apparently did not know any of the victims before the attacks.

On April 17, 1943, Oland was arraigned in a heavily guarded proceeding before Judge Daniel A. Blair. He pleaded guilty, waived a special venire, and Carl Ratliff of Levelland was appointed to represent him.

When the case was tried on April 26, 1943, a jury assessed his punishment for the murder of Dan Roberts. The principal trial report described the sentence as life imprisonment, though a brief follow-up item published the next day referred to it as a ninety-nine-year sentence. Both reports agree that after sentencing Oland was taken from the Lubbock County jail to the state penitentiary at Huntsville. According to state records, Oland was sentenced to life in prison, with expiration of sentence listed as “death.”

I had heard this story around town from a few different sources over the years, and while they all differed somewhat, they all told the story of an African American man who “went crazy and murdered several people with a hatchet.” Some say it happened in the late 1930s, others in the early 1940s. Those stories all have the same ending: the man was being kept in the county jail in Morton when a mob overran the jail and lynched him from a tree on the courthouse lawn. I believe these are variations of the Harry Oland case.

Harry Oland was born October 31, 1902, in Louisiana to Auguste and Mary (Lewis) Oland. His occupation was listed as longshoreman on his death certificate. He is listed as single, and one article mentions that he had a brother in Goree, Texas. The Texas Convict and Conduct Register lists him as a resident of New Roads, Louisiana.

After his sentencing on April 26, 1943, Oland was transferred to the penitentiary in Huntsville on April 28, 1943. In 1946 he was transferred to Rusk State Hospital, where he was diagnosed with “paranoid type schizophrenia.” Harry Oland died at the age of 48 in Rusk State Hospital of stomach cancer on March 5, 1952.

Not much is known about Harry Oland and the events of November 27, 1942, beyond what can be found in newspaper articles from 1942 and 1943 and what little information is available in the Texas Convict and Conduct Registers and on his death certificate.