This Day…

1896- Oklahoma- Bill Doolin was approaching his father-in-law’s farmhouse, where his wife and child were staying. Lawmen led by Heck Thomas, however, had learned of Doolin’s presence in the area and were waiting in ambush. Doolin appeared on foot, leading his horse, carrying a rifle, whistling as he walked in the bright moonlit night. Suddenly Thomas shouted from behind some bushes, calling to the outlaw to surrender. Doolin raised his rifle which was shot out of his hand by several shots fired by posse. Doolin then drew his six-gun and fired twice before a blast from a shotgun fired by Deputy Bill Dunn and rifle bullets fired by Thomas cut him to pieces. The outlaw’s body was later displayed, naked from the waist up, to show the many holes made by shotgun pellets.

1877- Pensacola, Florida- John Wesley Hardin was arrested on a train for the murder in 1874 of Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb by Texas Ranger John Barclay Armstrong. Armstrong killed Jim Mann and pistol-whipped Hardin until he was unconscious. Armstrong used the $4000 reward to purchase more than 50,000 acres of cattle land in Wallace County, Tex., calling his spread the XIT ranch, one of the largest at that time. He maintained a large crew of cowhands and rigidly bossed their work, much as he had when operating as a Texas Ranger. One cowboy, a truculent sort, refused to take Armstrong’s harsh order on Nov. 18, 1908, and shot his boss out of his saddle. (The cowboy was later sent to prison for attempted murder.) Armstrong survived this attack as he had so many others and died peacefully in his bed on his ranch, May 1, 1913.

1863- Lawrence Kansas- William Clark Quantrill lead a force of some 450 mounted confederate guerrillas in the famous raid the town of 2,000. Around 150-200 inhabitants were killed, 182 buildings burned and 2 banks looted and about $1.5 million worth of property was destroyed. Frank James and Cole Younger may have participated in the raid.

1873- Ellsworth, Kansas- the Thompson brothers operated a gambling operation in the back of Brennan’s Saloon. On this day Bill Thompson killed Sheriff C.B. Whitney and high-tailed it out of town as his brother, Ben Thompson, held off a mob of would be pursuers with a shotgun. Ben was later fined $25 for aiding and abetting his brother.

1878- New Mexico Territory- lawman John Beckwith was involved with a number of shoot-outs, one, on this date, in the home of his hard case father, Henry, who killed his son-in-law, William Johnson, during a wild argument in the ranch house, a fight where John tried to intervene and was almost shot to death by his own father. Earlier in the year John and Robert Beckwith were with a group of deputies who killed rancher John Tunstall and setting off the infamous Lincoln County war.

1880- Tombstone, Arizona Territory- the Tombstone Epitaph reports that’s Virgil and Morgan Earp helped a Fort Grant sheriff locate a rustler, and that the thief surrendered “when a six-shooter was run under his nose by Morgan Earp.”

1865- Nevada Territory- Paiute chief Black Rock Tom is captured and shot by soldiers. Colonel McDermit was killed a few days earlier during a skirmish with chief Black Rock Tom.

1896- Nogales, Arizona Territory- lawmen fought a gun battle with the Black Jack Ketchum gang when it attempted to rob a bank in Nogales, driving off the outlaws. One of the lawmen was Frank King, a dedicated lawman who served as a deputy sheriff in Phoenix, Arizona Territory, during the 1880s, and in Texas, New Mexico, and California in the following decade. While serving a brief term as a guard at the Yuma Prison in 1889, a massive prison break was attempted in which five prisoners were shot to death, most of them by sharpshooter King the only man in the main tower at the time. King lived into the 1920s and was considered one of the toughest lawmen of his era.

1876- Deadwood, Dakota Territory- Wild Bill (James Butler) Hickok was killed from behind while playing cards in Saloon # 10 by Jack McCall, a desperado from Texas. Legend has it that the poker hand Hickok was holding when he died consisted of a pair of black aces and a pair of black eights. This combination became known as the dead man’s hand. Hickok was a Union army spy, a scout for General Custer, and a marshal for Abilene, Kansas, as well as a flamboyant gambler.

1880- Tombstone, Arizona Territory- the Tombstone Epitaph congratulates Wyatt Earp on his appointment by Sheriff Shibell to civil deputy sheriff for the Tombstone area. Virgil was a special officer under Marshall White. The paper also added, “Morgan Earp succeeds his brother as shotgun messenger for Wells, Fargo & Co.”