Reynolds was a distinguished man with many interests. He helped J. A. Keigwin publish the town's first weekly newspaper, operated a store, and he was a civic leader. A second newspaper was established in 1884, under the editorship of Charley Gordon, who had been a publisher in Calvert. An article written by Reynolds in Gordon's "Central Texan" in 1885 read as follows:

When Franklin became a town the population of Robertson County was 23,000, almost equally divided between white and black people. The town had three hotels, two livery stables, two schools, a railway depot, a newspaper, two banks, three churches, a theater, several lawyers, three doctors, a funeral home and of course, the courthouse and jail, not to mention two drug stores and at least three saloons.

In the spring of 1882, the people of the county were shocked by the murder of Addison Wyser, the brother of the county sheriff. Years later the sheriff's daughter, Genevieve Broderick wrote the following account.

Addison Wyser, Sheriff W. Q. Wyser's brother, was the jailer in Franklin and often took meals to the prisoners. . . . On one occasion he delivered food to Fred E. Waite, and when he was leaving, Waite struck him on the head and killed him. Mrs. Wyser was so angry over the murder she insisted on attending the execution of the murderer. She went to the hanging and remained in her buggy until the blindfold was placed on the prisoner's face, but she left before the trap was sprung, leaving the scene in panic.

The death sentence pronounced on Wyser's murderer read as follows:

Sentence of the law which is death by hanging is hereby pronounced on the defendant that he may be by the Sheriff of Robertson County conveyed to the jail of said county and there be securely kept until Friday, the 23rd day of March 1893, at which time, between sunup and sundown of said day, said Sheriff or proper officer shall hang the defendant, Fred E. Waite, by the neck until dead, this to take place on the courthouse yard.

Executions were carried out on the courthouse lawn. The sheriff used an open scaffold and the public was invited and urged to attend. Mrs. Lena Nettles, whose parents resided at Englewood about the time Franklin was made the county seat, and who attended school in Franklin described the execution of George Freeny:

He had murdered his stepson and was hung on a scaffold built on the courthouse yard. School was dismissed for the children to see the hanging.

I shall never forget it. The Sheriff and several officers took him up the thirteen steps and he proclaimed his innocence at first. His hands and feet were tied and a black cap was on his head and neck and the rope with a hang man's knot was adjusted. The Sheriff pulled the trap door the prisoner was standing on, and he fell dead, other Negroes put his body in a wooden coffin and took him off for burial.

The sheriff presiding at the hanging was J. W. White. He was a veteran of the Civil War and was always addressed as Captain White. He was one of the more colorful peace officers of that time and had a reputation of catching cattle thieves.