Journal Notes

Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Western Actors and Lawmen

It looks like the only way you can get any publicity on your death is to be killed in a plane. It’s no novelty to be killed in an auto anymore.” Will Rogers had the knack to turn anything into a joke and get away with it. Part Cherokee, Rogers took his lariat tricks from Indian territory in Oklahoma to Broadway, where his shy grin and classic drawl – “All I know is what I read in the paper” – made him the most popular folk hero of his time. He wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column starting in 1926 and would file it six times a week no matter where he happened to be – which was likely to be anywhere in the world.

In August 1935, Rogers happened to be in Alaska, casually flying around the territory with Wiley Post, a famous globetrotting aviator. “Was you ever driving around in a car and not knowing or caring where you went?” Rogers wrote in his column August 12. “Well, that’s what Wiley and I are doing. We sure are having a great time. If we hear of whales or polar bears in the Arctic, or a big heard of caribou or reindeer, we fly over and see it.” The two men had plans to fly over the Arctic to Siberia and on to Moscow to explore the possibility of making it a regular air route. But they kept their mission secret.

The two men took off from Fairbanks on August 15 for a 500-mile trip to Point Barrow, a barren outpost at the northern tip of Alaska. During the flight Post noticed the plane was heavy in front and had a tendency to pitch forward at low speeds.

There immediate concern on August 15 was the weather. They had been warned of dense fog along their route but Post just said, “I think we might as well go anyway.” Rogers agreed and pointed out, “There’s lots of lakes we can land on.” About 50 miles from Point Barrow the fog got bad enough that Post did indeed land but, unsure of their route, they landed on a shallow river 15 miles from Point Barrow to ask directions from some Eskimos.

At 5 p.m. they took off, again. About 50 feet in the air, before they had even reached the end of the water, the engine sputtered. Post turned sharply to the right, then the plane plunged nose-first into the edge of the stream into about two feet of water. The right wing was torn off and the plane came to a rest upside down. Both men were killed instantly. Post was crushed by the engine, which had been forced back into the cockpit. Rogers was also killed by the impact, thought he had been seated farther back in the plan, probably to try to counterbalance the front-end heaviness. It was unclear why the engine misfired, but some have speculated that the plane was out of gas.

After the crash an Eskimo who had given them directions ran 15 miles to Point Barrow to report what he had seen. It took him three hours. It was dark by the time a U.S. Army sergeant set out in a whale boat through the icy waters. He towed the bodies back to Barrow in a skin boat.

Will Rogers was buried in his hometown of Claremore, Oklahoma.

To learn more about the death of legendary characters read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Western Actors and Lawmen.

Take a chance.  Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Western Actors and Lawmen

Eric Hilliard Nelson was a well known teen idol, thanks to the family radio and television show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. His song “Poor Little Fool” ranked number eight-three of all-time most popular songs of the twentieth century. In 1985 at age forty-five Rick died in a plane crash while heading to a New Year’s Eve concert, attempting to stage a revival of his career. The last year of his life he earned nearly $700,000 from his music, but because of heavy alimony payments and, some say, an even heavier cocaine habit, he had only $40,000 left. He knew the forty-year-old charter plane the band owned needed service, though he felt that making it to the gig was more important. The plane burst into flames, with reports blaming it on the band’s free-basing as a reason for the massive fire that left Nelson and six of the band members identifiable only by dental records.

To learn more about the death of legendary characters read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Western Actors and Lawmen.

Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Western Actors and Lawmen

In an earlier time Sitting Bull might have been a great and prosperous Indian chief. But in the second half of the 19^th century he was the last ruler of a dying breed. His victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn in 1876 was but a glitch in the United States drive to corral the Sioux Indians onto reservations. A medicine man and never actually a chief, Sitting Bull led a dwindling number of Sioux away from federal troops for five more years, until finally, in 1881, he and fewer than 200 remaining followers surrendered. They were held in custody for almost two years before they were placed on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, near where Sitting Bull was born.

Sitting Bull, a tall, solid Indian with long, black, braided hair, was put on parade in several cities and in 1885 he toured with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show along the East Coast. But when he was on the reservation Sitting Bull stubbornly continued to stir up unrest. Even after federal authorities prohibited the ceremony, Sitting Bull encouraged Indians to perform the new Ghost Dance, which the Indians had come to believe would lead to a rebellion and would bring a savior to defeat the White Man.

At dawn on December 15, 1890, about forty members of an Indian police force commissioned by federal authorities descended on Sitting Bull’s cabin to arrest him. They pulled the 59-year-old naked man from his bed and ordered him to get dressed and go with them. Sitting Bull gathered his things, but he took a long time to do it, which allowed time for a restless crowd of Indians to gather outside. By the time Sitting Bull was roughly pushed out of his cabin into the freezing weather, the crowd was angry.

Sitting Bull stood waiting for his horse to be brought up. But then suddenly he yelled in the Sioux language – which the Indian officers, too, understood – “I am not going. Do with me what you like. I am not going. Come on! Come on! Take action! Let’s go!” Another leader of unrest on the reservation, Catch the Bear, pulled out a gun and fired at the top Indian officer. Lieutenant Bullhead was hit in the leg and as he fell he fired at Sitting Bull, shooting him in his left side. Another officer also shot the Indian leader, killing him instantly. The gun battle escalated, and when it was over fourteen men were dead, all Sioux, including six Indian police officers. Hundreds of other fled the reservation. Most were soon caught and sent to Wounded Knee, where on December 29, an anonymous gunshot touched off the massacre of 300 Sioux.

To learn more about the death of legendary characters read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Western Actors and Lawmen.

Feeling lucky? Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Western Actors and Lawmen

After acting as either a cowboy or a soldier in nearly on hundred films, John Wayne finally won a best actor Oscar for True Grit (1969). The quintessential macho-man was himself exempt from service during World War II owing to an inner ear problem and a shoulder injury. Winning the Oscar, some say, added another ten years to his life. Although he was a longtime smoker, averaging four packs a day, Wayne nevertheless died of gastric cancer at age seventy-two in 1979.

In 1955 John Wayne was among two hundred twenty cast and crew members who worked on the film The Conqueror. It was shot on a location in Utah, which was contaminated by radioactive fallout atomic bomb tests. Much of the soil was transported back to Hollywood for studio scenes. By 1980 more than ninety of those who had worked on the movie contracted cancer; forty-six died. Even though Wayne knew of the danger, often carrying a Geiger counter onto the set, he believed the risk insignificant.

To learn more about the death of legendary characters read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Western Actors and Lawmen.

Take a chance! Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

When the Death Row All Stars were playing ball at the Crossbar Hotel in Rawlins, Wyoming in 1911-1912, Babe Ruth was sitting in class at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore, Maryland.

George Herman Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, remains baseball’s greatest legend and its home run king, hitting 60 in one year, 714 in total, without carrying the stigma of suspected steroid and amphetamine use or asterisks after his name. He was born in Baltimore to saloon keepers, raised on the streets, and was in enough trouble by the age of seven that his father signed away custody to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, a reform school. There, an athletic priest used baseball as a way to teach rules to the incorrigibles and to channel learning or behavioral disabilities into the love of a sport. According to tests conducted by psychologists at Columbia University in 1921, Ruth had been born with an above-average eye, ear, and muscle coordination due to hyperactive brain function, primarily in the posterior parietal cortex, the middle to rear section of the brain most often associated with spatial interpretations. Biologically, he might have been an equally good safe-cracker if never introduced to the game. Ruth’s ultimate death from throat cancer at the age of fifty-three in 1948 was due most probably to his penchant for smoking cigars, chewing tobacco, and dipping snuff. However, studies have now shown that his facial carcinoma, located in the nasopharynx, or the upper part of the throat behind the nose, are more often linked to other risk factors. The enhanced gamma-band activity (electrical signals) of his posterior parietal cortex, something he was born with, enabled him to pack the sensory stimuli of three lifetimes into one and might explain his well known womanizing, love of food, drink, and his excellence at baseball. The high-functioning spatial portion of his brain triggered his odd case of malignant cancer. What made him great – the anatomy of his brain – is what killed the Babe at a young age.

To learn more about the death of legendary characters read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

General Joshua Chamberlain was in twenty-four battles and was wounded six times. He was chosen by Grant to receive the formal surrender of weapons and colors (April 12, 1865) from Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. During the ceremony he saluted the Confederate soldiers, an action that caused uproar in the North but which he defended as an act of honor among warriors. After the war, he was elected governor of Maine by the largest majority in the state’s history. He died at the age of eighty-five from complications of battle wounds, apparently having taken quite some time for those previous six battle scars to do their damage.

To learn more about the death of legendary characters read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

Giveaway! Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

In 1839 Samuel Colt patented the revolving-chamber pistol. As a teen he had worked as a sailor and had spent long hours staring at the ship’s wheel. He used this principle to invent a gun that could shoot multiple bullets without reloading. He excelled at both invention and marketing and today would be considered a compulsive workaholic. He struggled with a way to produce his guns cheaply but was forced to find a method of mass production after he received an order from the U.S. government in 1847 for 1,000 revolvers. By the time he died of exhaustion at age forty-seven, Samuel Colt had produced more than 400,000 Colt .45 revolvers. At his funeral in 1862 it was said of the Colt .45 he invented: “God created man, but Sam Colt [the Colt .45] made them all equal.”

To learn more about the death of legendary characters read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

Giveaway! Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

Pocahontas, a nickname meaning “little spoiled one,” was born Amonute, daughter of Chief Powhatan in 1595, She was an extrovert from a young age, inquisitive and naturally good-natured. At eleven years old she played a miner role in securing John Smith’s survival. Later she was the go-between for trade among the settlers and Indians bartering at Jamestown. The fictionalized version of her love affair with Smith may, in fact, bear some truth, but in a much more disturbing way for our modern sensibilities. Today, a thirty-year-old having sex with a preteen is pedophilia and a crime. But, in that era, relations with non-Christian pagans of any age was not considered wrong. Pocahontas was known to have “long, private conversations” with Smith during her frequent visits to the Jamestown complex, yet the true dimensions of the encounters are a matter of conjecture. A few years later she was betrothed to the older Englishman John Rolfe, only after she agreed to be baptized in 1614. Two years later Rolfe took her to London, where she was received as a celebrity, billed as a real live Indian princess by high society, and held an audience with King James. In 1617 she believed the smoky air of London was the cause of her coughs and bouts of weakness and wished to return to the forests she had known. Along with Rolfe she boarded a ship to return to Virginia, but the vessel only made it to the end of the Thames River before it turned back. Pocahontas died in London at age twenty-two of a disease called the king’s evil, a form of tuberculosis characterized by swelling of the lymph glands.

To learn more about the death of legendary characters read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

The most decorated American war hero in World War II, Audie Murphy returned home with no place to go but down. What could top his spectacular battle feat? After lying about his age to join the army at 17, he had been wounded three times and credited with killing 240 Germans. Of 235 men in his company, Murphy was one of two who survived. Not yet 21, he won twenty-seven medals, including three from the French and one from Belgium.

After the war, Murphy was recruited to Hollywood by James Cagney, and in 1955 he starred in a movie version of hit autobiography, To Hell and Back. He said it was “the first time, I suppose, a man has fought an honest war, then come back and played himself doing it.” Murphy joked about his lack of talent, but in twenty years his boyish face and freckles appeared in forty movies, mostly war films and Westerns in which he played eager fighters. It was a far cry from his youth as one of eleven children of a Texas cotton sharecropper – and from the battle fields of Europe – and the transition was not smooth. Murphy said the war left him with nightmares for years. He slept with a loaded automatic pistol under his pillow, and when he was asked how people survive a war, he said, “I don’t think they ever do.”

One of Murphy’s friends, cartoonist Bill Maudlin, said, “Murphy wanted the world to stay simple so he could concentrate on tidying up its moral fiber wherever he found himself.” Murphy became a quasi law-enforcement officer in the 1960s. He was made a special officer of a small California police department and rode around with police during drug busts. In 1970, he and a bartender friend beat up a dog trainer in a dispute over treatment of the friend’s dog. Murphy was acquitted of attempted murder.

Though he had earned more than $2.5 million in his film career, Murphy was forced by too many bad business ventures to declare bankruptcy in 1968. Three years later, hounded by creditors and still trying to rebuild financial security for his wife and two teenage sons, he became interested in a company in Martinsville, Virginia, that manufactured prefabricated homes. He was on a small charter flight from Atlanta to see about making an investment when the plan crashed in a wooded mountain area during a light drizzle. The region, northwest of Roanoke, was so isolated that the wreckage, including the bodies of Murphy and five company officials, was not found for three days. The war hero was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

To learn more about the death of legendary characters read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

Enter to win a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

Daniel Boone, America’s most famous pioneer hero, had set off into a hostile world without roads, toting only a flintlock musket and a knife; the region was so wild he reportedly killed over ten thousand bears while he surveyed and settled vast virgin wildernesses of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Missouri. In 1820, at the age of eighty-five, Boone went on his final hunting trip near his home in St. Charles, Missouri, caught pneumonia, and died. Although he spent his life in the woods and claimed a lot of property for himself and his family, he lost it all to the slick dealings of investors using issues of unclear titles and creditors liens to strip him of all but his name. His funeral was held in his son’s barn instead of the house; hundreds showed up unexpectedly to pay their respects. Many remember a TV show that portrayed Daniel Boone wearing a coonskin cap. He actually wore a felt-brim hat in the Quaker style now seen on boxes of oatmeal. The TV theme song: “Daniel Boone was a man. Yes a big man. With an eye like an eagle as tall as a mountain was he,” was also a stretch. Boone was 5 feet 8 and weighed about 175 pounds. He did have a keen and active mind and stayed physically fit, a fact that kept him alive long after what is currently considered retirement age.

To learn more about how legends such as Daniel Boone died read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.