This Day…

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.

1880-Feared ex-marshal George Flatt was on a Saturday night toot in Caldwell, Kansas and got into a bit of trouble with new Marshal Frank Hunt.  Flatt was later ambushed and killed on his way to eat supper and witnesses identified hunt fleeing the scene.

1902-Another large gold discover is made in Alaska, this one at Fairbanks.  Alaska is soon over-run by ‘sourdoughs’ (miners and prospectors) in rough mining camps.

1918-Terrell County Sheriff D.L. Anderson was shot and killed at the train depot in Sanderson, Texas by a drunken cowboy name of Ed Valentine.  Within an hour of that shooting Valentine was lynched by citizens.  In his youth Sheriff Anderson was known as Billy Wilson and was a participant in the Lincoln County War.  He was arrested by Pat Garrett along with Billy the Kid at Stinking Springs.  Garrett later helped get him pardoned.

1878-The Sam Bass Gang was surprised in their camp on Salt Creek in Wise County, Texas by a possee led by Sheriff W.F. Eagan and some Texas Rangers.  The posse killed Arkansas Johnson and captured the gang’s horses, but the rest of the gang got away on foot.  They soon stole other horses and made good their escape.

1881-Bill Leonard and Harry Head were killed by Ike and Jim Haslett in Eureka, New Mexico.  Leonard and Head were in the gang that tried to rob the Kinnear stage near Contention, Arizona on March 15, 1881.

1858-Commissioners from President Buchanan arrive at Camp Scott in Utah and proceed south to Provo.  They bring a full pardon from the president ‘to all who will submit themselves to the just authority of the federal government.’  The pardon has been signed by the President two months earlier, and the commissioners admonished ‘to bring those misguided people to their senses.’  Only after the pardon is signed is the US Army allowed to march through Salt Lake City-still deserted-into an area soutwest of the city, where they will construct Camp Floyd.

1775-In a meeting in Boonesborough between Henderson and the Cherokees, the Indians formally yield their claim to the land the settlers are occuping through land grants from the Transylvania Company.