John Wesley Hardin, a notorious gunfighter as well as a drover, in his memoirs described Abilene as filled with sporting men and women, gamblers, cowboys, and desperadoes. "I have seen many fast towns," he wrote, "but I think Abilene beat them all."
A Kansas newspaper, the Junction City Union: of October 29, 1871, agreed:
For two or three things Abilene is noted. It is the principal rendezvous for the Texas cattle trade; drovers, buyers, sellers and shippers. It handles more money than any town its size in the West, and has a class of transient men decidedly rough and reckless. Cut loose from all the refining influences and enjoyment of life, these herdsmen toil for tedious months behind their slow herds, seeing scarcely a house, garden, woman, or child for nearly 2,000 miles, We a cargo of sea-worn sailors coming into port, they must have-when releasedsome kind of entertain»zent, In the absence of something better, they at once fall into the liquor and gambling saloons at hand.
The Alamo and Bull's Head saloons were what passed for elegance in the community, although the Drovers Cottage Hotel and Stables could house over 150 guests with accommodations, meaning horses or carriages.
Abilene established a city government in 1870, retaining officials who hired James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok as a captain of police. A monthly tax on the 11 saloons, plus gambling halls and numerous summer prostitutes financed the municipal venture. By 1871, with the railroads moving closer to (and even within) Texas, the career of Abilene, Kansas, as a wild cattle town had substantially run its course.
.See ako; HARDIN, JOHN WESLEY; HICKOK, JAMES BUTLER; LANE, JAMES HENRY; SALOONS; THOMPSON, BEN
ABRAHAM, David (a.k.a. Dobrzinsky) (1824-1894)
Originally from Poland, then London, and finally New Mexico, David Abraham applied for and was granted the first patented mining claim in New Mexico, the Peabody Mine. Abraham was a respected businessman in early Silver City, other merchants crediting him with erecting the first brick building in town. David was not of the outlaw or frontier lawman ilk, but he was also not to be trifled with.
A Mexican burglar attempted to rob Abraham's store during a crisp September night in 1872. He shouldn't have. Abraham, assisted by C. Bennett, shot the miscreant, wounding him in both legs.
A year later, on November 7, 1873, David Abraham emptied his shotgun, a Parker breech-loader, into Robert Everett, who, intoxicated, had trespassed into and refused to vacate Abraham's corral. Everett forfeited his life for the transgression. Not long afterward, Abraham not only killed a "crazy man" but fired his trusty shotgun at an unidentified Silver City citizen, who "stood him off" with an old "knuckle pistol."
David Abraham, 70 years old and a true southwestern "tough as nails" pioneer, died in bed under the care of a physician on March 7, 1894.
ALCALDE
In New Mexico and Arizona in particular, along with some parts of southern California and West Texas in general, the legal system for the Hispanic population usually operated through these individuals being defined as mayors or justices of the peace, lawyers, or leaders, to whom a mayor could delegate authority in various areas around a community. They were usually considered spokesmen or arbitrators. Since most Hispanics were desperately poor and yet had occasional need for legal guidance and remedies, the decision of the alcalde generally passed for law among Spanish-speaking citizens. Ordinarily the alcalde did not insist upon fines, since few residents had money, but he could and did make arrests, and he had the authority to call upon others for assistance.
Alcaldes made their own decisions, ignoring jury systems, but they seldom inflicted jail sentences. They dealt out punishment through the whip or banishment, or through subtle "threats of persuasion." Spanish-speaking people gave deference to the alcalde system, most alcaldes being held in great respect. After these Spanish territories passed into American hands, U.S. legal justice gradually supplanted these systems and customs, although the alcalde approach was the last to go.
ALLEN, James (1860-1880)
James Allen, while he lived, was three thingsyoung, an apparent member of the scandalous Dodge City Gang, and a murderer. Originally from Lawrence, Kansas, James Allen ended up by a circuitous route in East Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1879 where he freely associated with disreputable and sometimes desperate frontier scallywags. By the time Allen reached Las Vegas, an end-of-the-line railroad town, Hyman G. Neill, better known as "Hoodoo Brown," was a justice of the peace and maintained his own informal, private police force.
On March 2, 1880, Allen hired out as a waiter at the St. Nicholas Hotel, where he met James Morehead, a St. Louis-based salesman representing Derby & Day wholesale liquor dealers, who frequented the establishment nearly each morning. When Morehead called for eggs following a late arrival for breakfast, Allen grumbled that the cook was too busy to prepare them; it was too late in the morning. Morehead grabbed Allen, and a scuffle commenced. Finally breaking free, Allen dashed to the kitchen, snatched a six-shooter, and returned to the dining room, where he called Morehead a "son of a bitch" and shot him through the liver. Morehead died that night.
Following his arrest, Allen described what happened as "a rather rough transaction for one his age." Indeed the transaction was rough for East Las Vegas; a coroner's jury determined that his act had been "willful, malicious and felonious murder, without justification or provocation whatsoever."
On that very same day, at 4 A.M., another notorious figure, John Joshua Webb, acting as a police officer, shot and killed Michael Kelliher at Goodlet & Robert's Saloon. On March 5, a grand jury returned murder indictments against both J. J. Webb and James Allen.
Upon a change of venue, Allen was tried at Santa Fe, found guilty, and returned under a sentence of death to the San Miguel County jail at Las Vegas. On November 10, 1880, James Allen, along with J. J. Webb and four fellow prisoners, aided by associates on the outside, broke jail and departed. Sheriff Desiderio Romero tracked the escapees to Chaperito, on the Gallinas River, where a one-sided gun battle left James Allen and George Davidson dead. William Mullen and John Murray were returned to custody. J. J. Webb and George Davis escaped. Meanwhile, back at the St. Nicholas Hotel, the patrons started arriving on time for breakfast.
.366 r L90 WEBB, JOHN JOSHUA
ALLISON, Robert A. (a.k.a. Clay Allison) (1840-1887)
Clay Allison was born in Waynesboro, Wayne County, Tennessee. For the first half of his life, until the Civil War interrupted, he did little but farm. The six-foot-two-inch youth with wavy black hair and blue eyes joined the Confederacy on October 15, 1861; a "mental condition" led to his discharge at Bowling Green, Kentucky, in January 1862. He also had a physical condition, what many would call a clubfoot, but neither element prevented him from reenlisting in the Ninth Regiment of Tennessee cavalry and serving as a scout for Lt. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest. War's end found him drinking heavily and incarcerated by the Union near Gainsville, Alabama. Upon being released, Allison went home, gathered up some of his brothers, sisters, and their families and migrated to Texas.
In Brazos County, Texas, Allison hired out to cattlemen Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight, although that never slowed his drinking. During one of his binges, Clay rode into Mobeetie, Texas, wearing only his sombrero, boots, and gunbelt. Most folks looked the other way. In 1886, a photographer took his picture at Las Vegas, New Mexico, the locality suggesting that he probably participated in opening the Goodnight-Loving Trail from Texas to New Mexico and on to the South Platte north of Denver.
In 1870, Allison moved to Colfax County, New Mexico, and ranched near Cimarron. The story is told that in September, at the nearby community of Elizabethtown, a weeping Mrs. Kennedy stunned a saloon gathering with the story that her rancher husband had been murdering travelers pausing for the night at their cabin and had now killed their infant daughter. Allison and a group of cowboys therefore rode out to the home, seized Kennedy, and dug up the area. They found numerous bones, but no one could agree on which ones, if any, were human. On October 7, 1870, Allison and a group of men removed K
ennedy from jail, dragged him to a nearby slaughterhouse, and lynched him.
Nearly four years later, on January 7, 1874, Allison and Chuck Colbert (or Tolbert), a ne'er-do-well and sometimes desperado and gunman who by some accounts had slain up to seven men, met at a horse race and later retired to eat at the Clifton House, a hotel and saloon alongside the Canadian River in Colfax County, near the Barlow and Sanderson stage route. A disagreement occurred during the meal; Colbert drew his revolver, firing as the weapon cleared the table. He missed. Clay Allison did not miss. His bullet struck Colbert over the right eye. Three days later, Charles Cooper, a friend of Colbert's, disappeared while riding toward Cimarron with Clay Allison.
Clay Allison (EI Paso Public Library)
The Raton (New Mexico) newspaper of July 22, 1887, gave an almost unbelievable account of how rancher Mason T. Bowman and Clay Allison drunkenly tried to prove who was the better man with a six-shooter. First, they had tried to outdraw one another, with Mace Bowman consistently proving the faster. Then they had stripped down to their underwear and danced with each other. Finally they fired a few rounds near each other's feet just to see who would flinch, or at least jump, but both showed nerve. The incident ended without a killing.
On September 20, 1875, the Rev. E J. Tolby, a Methodist minister, was murdered while riding from Elizabethtown to Cimarron. Suspicion fell on Cruz Vega, a mail carrier, who was arrested but later released. An incensed Clay Allison and others caught Vega and threatened to hang him from a telegraph pole unless he confessed. Vega named Manuel Cardenas as the murderer, but the mob lynched him anyway, and Allison dragged his corpse through the streets.
Francisco (Pancho) Griego became incensed at Vega's murder. Griego had quite a reputation, having killed three soldiers on May 30, 1875, during a gun battle at Lambert's Saloon, in the St. James Hotel at Cimarron. On November 1, Clay Allison and Pancho Griego met at that same Cimarron hotel bar, drank together, then stepped over to a corner and talked briefly in low tones. Allison then drew his revolver and fired three shots. Suddenly the lights went out, and when someone finally reentered the room, Griego lay dead with three of Allison's bullets in him.
Allison's maniacal rages now became the terror of Cimarron. He raided a ranch to steal military mules; when nearby soldiers chased him off, he drunkenly shot himself in the foot. He later threatened to shoot not only the doctor who treated him but various employees at the courthouse as well.
Allison and friends rampaged through the News and offices on January 19, 1876, dumping expensive printing equipment into the Cimarron River. Since one side of one page had already been printed, Allison wrote on the blank side "Clay Allison's edition" and distributed copies throughout the community. Upon sobering, he returned to the newspaper office and made restitution of $200.
Less than a month later, on February 21, 1876, New Mexico governor Samuel B. Axtell posted a $500 reward for Allison's head with regard to the disappearance of Charles Cooper. Nobody collected.
On March 25, three Negro soldiers were slain by unknown cowboys in Lambert's Saloon. Suspicion fell on Allison as one of the killers, so the sheriff and a detachment of black cavalry arrested Allison and took him to Taos for trial. An indictment as an accessory did not hold up; the territory failed to prove even Allison's presence in the saloon.
The territory then charged Allison with the murders of Chuck Colbert, Charles Cooper, and Fran
cisco Griego. However, a grand jury again refused to indict, suggesting that the territory had made its case primarily on emotion rather than facts.
On December 21, 1876, Clay and his brother John were celebrating an early Christmas at the Olympic Dance Hall in Las Animas, Colorado. When a disturbance started, Bent County deputy sheriff and constable Charles Faber grabbed shotguns and deputized two bystanders. They entered the dance hall, where Faber wounded John Allison; Clay then shot Faber four times, killing him. The deputies fled. Sheriff John Spiers now hurried over and arrested both Allisons. A grand jury charged John with murder and Clay with manslaughter. John got off because of a lack of evidence. Clay was released when no witnesses showed up to testify.
Allison thereafter lived briefly in Dodge City and Hays City, Kansas, then moved to Hemphill County, Texas, where he became known as the Wolf of the Washita (River). Here in 1881 he married Dora McCullough. They had two children, both girls, Patsy and Clay.
Allison also owned a ranch near Pecos, Texas. On July 1, 1887, he was in the process of hauling in supplies when a sack of grain tumbled off the wagon. Attempting to recover it, Allison stumbled and fell between the wheels. The startled horses shifted forward a step or two, and a rear wheel rolled across Allison's neck; he died in less than an hour. He is buried in the Pecos Cemetery.
ALLISON, William Davis (a.k.a. Dave Allison) (1861-1923)
Originally from Ohio, William Davis Allison, usually called Dave, was a sheriff in West Texas who joined the Texas Rangers, serving under the renowned Capt. John R. Hughes. Meanwhile, the Arizona legislature in 1903 increased the strength of the Arizona Rangers to 26 men. Allison subsequently left Texas and on April 27 pinned on his Arizona badge. Before long he became a first sergeant at a pay of $110 per month. Each man provided his own horse, saddle, and pack outfit, a Colt .45, and a .30-40 carbine.
His boss, Capt. Thomas Rynning, remarked of Dave Allison's nerve, "Cool as ice he was, and he'd left school before he learned to spell the word `fear.' He was a grand party when it come to any kind of a scrimmage." The captain and Dave once arrested a man who had slain a schoolteacher near Galeyville, Arizona, and was "holed" up in an old rock house. When the two Arizona Rangers crashed through the door, the suspect dived for his six-gun. The lawmen responded, wounding the man and dragging him to jail. Dave and his boss walked away unscathed.
Unfortunately, Dave Allison had a weakness for gambling, and his love for the turn of a card eventually cost him his job with the Arizona Rangers, driving him to take work as a hired gun south of the border. Since 1899, the Cananea Consolidated Copper Company had been operating in Sonora, Mexico, employing Mexican laborers working for mine owner Col. William Cornell Greene. With currents of revolution flowing beneath the surface, a movement to improve working conditions at the mine gained momentum. Sensing trouble, Greene put gunman Dave Allison on the payroll as a security measure. On June 1, 1906, the emotional lid blew off when a management employee turned a high-pressure water hose on protesting laborers. What began as a noisy demonstration exploded into a riot with several people killed. Telephone calls and telegrams flooded high levels of the U.S. and Mexican governments, and soon a hurriedly organized management rescue force arrived from north of the border. It found Allison and his cohorts desperately short of ammunition, and the 300 arriving volunteers dispersed the rioters.
On another occasion, in Culberson County, Texas, Dave Allison, now a range detective, led a posse across West Texas in pursuit of Mexican revolutionary leader Pascual Orozco. Catching up with Orozco and his four compadres, Allison and the hard-riding lawmen and ranchers struck like a thunderbolt, killing all five of the revolutionaries. Amid charges of political assassination, a grand jury indicted 11 members of the posse, including Dave Allison, for murder. In October 1915 a jury found them not guilty.
Meanwhile, Allison and fellow field inspector Horace L. Roberson had been gathering cattlerustling evidence against Hill Loftis and Milt Good. Loftis was better known in West Texas and New Mexico as Tom Ross. He had been a rustler near the New Mexico/West Texas line, specifically around Lovington, Seminole, and Carlsbad. Good, in addition to being a suspected rustler, was a well-known rodeo performer and championship steer roper. The case came to trial on April 1, 1923, at Seminole, Texas, with trial participants jamming the hotel lobby. Allison and Roberson were seated in chairs
and quietly chatting when Tom Ross and Milt Good walked in with revolvers and shotguns and killed both men.
From upstairs, Allison's wife, Martha, heard the shooting, realized immediately what it meant, ra
ced down to the lobby, found her dead husband on the floor, removed his .25-caliber revolver, dashed to the screen door, and commenced firing at Ross and Good as they entered a getaway car. One bullet bounced off the belt buckle of Ross, and tore into his stomach. Another bullet hit Good in the arm. The two men were now hurt and bleeding; when their car ran out of gas just a few miles out of town, they surrendered. Both were sentenced to the Texas Penitentiary, but they escaped on November 29, 1925.
Milt Good was arrested in Antlers, Oklahoma, and returned to the penitentiary. After being pardoned later, he wrote a book entitled a Texas PMT{era, Around 1960, while he was opening a fence gate, his car slipped out of gear, rolled forward, and crushed him to death. As for Tom Ross, he assumed the name of Charles Gannon and went to work for the Frye Cattle Company on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation near Browning, Montana. On February 2, 1929, he argued with ranch foreman Ralph Haywood, shot and killed him, proceeded to the bunkhouse, wrote a suicide note, and then shot himself in the head.
ALVORD, Albert Wright (a.k.a. Burt Alvord; Tom Wright) (1867-1909)
Burt Alvord, the son of Gold Rush parents, a lawman turned renegade outlaw, was born in Susanville, California. By 1882 he had moved to Tombstone, Arizona; in 1877 he became a deputy sheriff to John Slaughter, and for several years he was a deputy sheriff in Cochise County. In 1896, he married the 19year-old Lola Ochoa and adopted the Catholic faith. They moved to Wilcox, Arizona, where Burt won election as a constable in July 1897. Four months later he shot and killed William King under conditions and circumstances far from clear; a coroner's jury no-billed him.
The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters Page 2