This Day…

1887-Jim Roberts and Jim Tewsbury were ambushed at their cap on Cherry Creek in Pleasant Valley, Arizona.  Firing from their blankets they hit Joe Underwood in both legs and killed Harry Middleton.  The other Bushwhackers lost their nerve.

1811-The steamboat New Orleans, built in Pittsburgh by Nicholas Roosevelt, is launched on the Ohio River: this is the first steamboat to appear on western waters; its maiden voyage will be memorable.

2013-A viewer in Flower Mound, Texas struggles to find out the ISBN number for The Plea.

1633-Massachusetts Bay Colony settler John Oldham leads a group inland to the Connecticut Valley; they spend the winter at Wethersfield, Connecticut.  Meanwhile, William Holmes of Plymouth Colony has been commissioned to erect a trading post on the river, above the Dutch post at Hartford.  The movement west underway.

1877-Crazy Horse, chief of the Oglala Sioux, is bayoneted by a soldier at Fort Robinson in Nebraska after pulling a knife upon learning he was to be imprisoned.  Crazy Horse dies of his wounds a few hours later.  He is about 35 years old.

1873-Tiburcio Vasquez and 6 others were robbing a store in Tre Pinos, CA. when violence erupted.  Three townspeople were killed and a child beaten unconscious.

1879-John Beckwith was killed by the rustler John Jones, in a dispute over the ownership of a herd of cows.

1892 – An early attempt at rain-making is successful in bringing rain to Midland, Texas, dry since 1888.

1877-McNelly’s Bulldog, John Barclay Armstrong, arrested John Wesley Hardin on a train in Pensacola.  The outlaw, Jim Mann, was killed in the fray.

1863-Approximately 450 irregular Confederate raiders under William Clarke Quantrill stage a dawn terrorist raid on the town of Lawrence, Kansas, leaving 150 civilians dead, 30 wounded, and much of the town a smoking ruin.