The Horse Thief

Dutch Henry aka Henry Bourne, was an outlaw who died in 1930.  Henry Borne, a German immigrant called Dutch Henry, became known for horse thievery.  After arriving in the U.S. he joined the Seventh Cavalry, but quit in the late 1860s.  Shortly afterward, Borne was arrested at Fort Smith, Arkansas, for absconding with twenty government mules.  He was sentenced to prison, but escaped just three months later and became a full-time horse thief, an avocation he pursued until the automobile replaced the horse.  Dutch Henry sometimes had over 300 men on his payroll who were prepared to steal any herd, no matter how large.  It was said that the crafty Dutchman once sold a sheriff his own recently stolen horse, and “Dutch Henry” came to mean a stolen horse.  In 1878, Bat Masterson arrested Henry, but he escaped punishment.  The state of Arkansas finally succeeded in putting Dutch Henry away after they connected him with the Fort Smith robbery years earlier.  He spent the next twenty years behind bars, and emerged from prison to discover that there was no longer a market for horse thieves.  Hollywood borrowed his legendary name for many scripts featuring western badmen.