This Day…

1874-Frank Canton got into a saloon brawl with Buffalo soldiers in Jacksboro, Texas killing one and wounding another.  Yet more resentment for carpetbaggers.

1870-Clay Allison led a lynch mob that strung up accused murderer, Charles Kennedy.  He then decapitated the corpse and placed the head on a pole in Lambert’s saloon in Cimarron, New Mexico.

1892-The infamous Dalton Gang raids Coffeyville, Kansas, and tries to rob two banks; four gang members and four local men are killed in the shootout.  Emmett Dalton might have gotten away but turns back to aide his brother and is shot repeatedly.  He survives and is sentenced to life in prison in 1893, but will be pardoned in 1907 and live to become a prosperous citizen of California who helps make movies about his gang’s exploits.

1876-A patrol led by Texas Ranger Sergeant John Armstrong closed in on an outlaw camp at Espinoza Lake near Carrizo, Texas.  When the smoke cleared the rangers had killed three of the four outlaws in that camp and the fourth was hit four times.  In separate shoot outs that night Armstrong’s detachment killed two other outlaws.

1883-During an attempted train robbery the engineer and fireman were killed by masked gunmen in Coolidge, Kansas.  Lon Chambers and three others were arrested for it by Mysterious Dave Mather.  But were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

1897-Big Nose George Currie, the Sundance Kid, and Harvey Logan were wanted in the robbery of a bank in Belle Fourche, South Dakota.  After a brief gunfight with six-shooter Bill Smith and a bounty hunter they were taken into custody near Lavina, MT.  All three outlaws escaped from the jail in Deadwood on Halloween.

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.