This Day…

1901-Willie Nickell, 13 years old, is shot to death in an ambush between Larmaie and Wheatland, Wyoming.  Nickell’s father had introduced sheep into cattle country.  The infamous Tom Horn confessed to the killing and was later hanged.

1870-Wild Bill Hickok got into a drunken brawl with five troppers of the 7th Cavalry in Drums Saloon in Hays City, Kansas.  When the five of them threw him to the ground and started kicking him Hickok pulled his gun and shot two of them.  One died the next day and the other recovered.  Hickok wisely skipped town.

1820-Edwin James leads two other members of the Long expedition on the first climb up Pike’s Peak, which Zebulon Pike had first sighted on 15 November 1806.

1865-Ill feelings between Dave McCanles and Wild Bill Hickok culminated in the shooting death of McCanles at Rock Creek Station, NE.  When they ran to help McCanles Hickok also shot and wounded James Wood and James Gordon.  The station manager, Horace Wellman chased Woods down and hacked him to death with a hoe.  Station hand Doc Brink finished Gordon off with a shotgun.

1889-Buckskin Frank Leslie came home to his ranch bad drunk from a week long toot in Tombstone.  He got into an argument with his girlfriend, Blonde Mollie Williams, and in a jealous rage shot her dead.  He also shot Jim Neal, a hired hand, who witnessed the shooting.  Neal recovered and testified against Leslie, who was found guilt of murder and sent off to Yuma Prison.  Many years later Jim Neal hired Leslie as a swamper in a bay area saloon.

1900-After his supper the well known cow thief, Matt Rash, stepped out on the porch of his ranch house in Cold Springs Mountain, Colorado.  Stock detective Tom Horn was hiding nearby and shot Rash three times with a rifle.  Rash went back inside and died on his bed while trying to write a note in his own blood.

1854-The federal government opens a land office in the Kansas Territory to distribute propoerty.  Pro-slavery forces are already taking claims and fighting each other without regard for law.  Manwhile in Michigan, anti-slavery men are meeting to join the Republican Party.  Whigs, Free-soliers, and anti-slavery Democrats hold meetings demanding repeal of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Fugitive Slave Law.

1827-Jedediah Strong Smith returns to the Great Salt Lake with three of his original party.

1902-Harry Tracy and his brother-in-law, Dave Merrill were escaped convicts and bank robbers.  While they were hiding out in Lewis County, Washington they got into a fuss and decided to have a duel.  They agreed to step off ten paces then turn and fire, but Tracy turned and fired early and shot his brother-in-law in the back.

1886-Fractious Joe Stinson was a mean drunk.  After a long night of hard drinking he got into an argument with his pal, Reddy McCann and shot him in the face, blowing off the base of his nose.  Reddy recovered.  Stinson operated a saloon in Santa Fe, NM.  He died of alcohol debilitation in 1902.