This Day…

1882 Bob Ford, that dirty little coward, killed Jesse James with a gunshot to the back of the head.  Right afterwards he scampered down the telegraph office to claim the reward offered by Governor Crittenden.

1857 – The Fancher Wagon train, led by Captain Fancher, leaves north-west Arkansas for California. The wealthy, well-equipped group comprises 50 men, 40 women, and 50 children. They will never arrive at their destination.

1887 – Mannen Clements was killed in a gunfight in the Senate Saloon in Ballinger, Texas by city marshal Joe Townsend.

1901 – Harvey Logan, constantly on the lam for his numerous mideeds, got into a heated argument with Oliver Thornton in Paint Rock, Texas.  Thornton was quickly dispatched with fatal gunshots.

1857- President Buchanan appoints Robert J. Walker, former Secretary of the Treasury, Territorial Governor of Kansas.  Walker’s inagural address will request cooperation from both pro-slavery and Free-State factions.  Walker promises that any constitution adopted will be submitted to a fair vote.

1882 – Wyatt Earp and friends gunned down Florentino Cruz at Pete Spence’s wood lot outside of Tombstone.  Cruz was innocent of any participation in the attacks on the Earp family.  Pete Spence and Indian Charlie were the men that the Earp posse were looking for, but they weren’t at the wood lot.  The Earp posse just killed Florentino because he was handy.

1882 – Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday gunned down Frank Stillwell at the train station in Tucson for his alleged part in the shoting of Virgil Earp.  Stillwell and Ike Clanton were both there to make yet another attempt on the Earp family.  Virgil was on the train escorting Morgan’s body to California for burial.  Clanton scamptered off into the night when he saw Wyatt.  It was the second time he fled from a fight with the Earps.

1882-Morgan Earp was shotgunned from an ambush and killed while playing pool in Campbell and Hatch’s Saloon in Tombstone.  Morgan liked to shoot pool about as much as like to shoot anyone.

1881-Budd Philpot, a luckless driver, and a passenger, Peter Roerig, were killed in a failed stage robbery outside of Contention City, Arizona, by Jim Crane and others of the “cowboy” stamp.  Robber Luther King was wounded and ratted out the others after he was caught.

1878 – Jesse Evans and Tom Hill were caught plundering a sheep camp at Alamo Springs, New Mexico.  After shooting the hereder, the herder killed Hill with one shot and wounded Evans in the wrist.  Evans then spurred off on a stolen horse.

1878 – Frank Baker and Billy Morton were in the custody of a regulator posse led by Dick Brewer for their participation in the murder of John Tunstall.  In an attempted escape at Steel Springs, New Mexico posseman William McCloskey was killed by Morton, but Morton and Baker  were both quickly shot to pieces by the remaining members of the posse.