Sam Bass Gang.
Albert Herndon was an outlaw member of the Sam Bass Gang who participated in the train robbery in Mesquite Springs, Texas.
After Sam Bass had little success robbing smaller railroad lines, he decided to beef up his gang and target larger railroads. To do this, he recruited several young farm boys from respectable families looking for adventure. Two of these lads were Dallas youths — Albert Herndon and Sam Pipes.
Albert G. Herndon was one of five sons of John W. and Mary E. McCommas Herndon. He had never been in trouble before, aside from some rowdiness that led some area folks to consider him a little “wild.”
Train Robbery.
Though friends tried to dissuade him from joining in the train robbery, Herndon ignored them. On April 10, 1878, the gang held up a Texas & Pacific Railroad in Mesquite Springs, Texas, taking only $152. They missed a hidden shipment of $30,000 that was on board. Local lawmen and Texas Rangers began to pursue the gang aggressively, and both Albert Herndon and Sam Pipes were arrested by Texas Ranger June Peak on April 22 and taken to the Dallas County Jail.
Both young boys were then convicted on July 17, 1878, of robbing the United States Mail, sentenced to life in prison, and first taken to prison in Austin, Texas. There, they were briefly cellmates with the infamous John Wesley Hardin. Later, both boys were transferred to Sing Sing Federal Prison in New York.
In 1886, a plague broke out in the prison population, and Herndon and Pipes volunteered to serve as nursing help when the prison became overrun with victims. As a result of their efforts, President Grover Cleveland granted them full pardons that same year. Both men returned to Dallas on January 5, 1887.
Sam Pipes, on the left, and Albert Henderson, on the right, shortly after their release from prison.
Afterward, Albert Herndon disappeared into history. However, Sam Pipes married Sallie Caton Collins, the widow of Billy Collins, another member of the Bass Gang. Later, when Pipes worked as a bartender, he dropped a pistol that discharged, hitting him in the upper leg. He died a short time later, on February 16, 1889, from complications of the wound.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated September 2026.
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