The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters

by Leon Claire Metz

  A discouraged Garrett now dropped the Fountain investigation but learned that Norman Newman, an Oklahoma fugitive with a price on his head, was working at the San Augustine Ranch owned by W. W. Cox in the foothills of the Organ Mountains in Dona Ana County, New Mexico. Garrett and deputy Jose Espalin rode out to make the arrest and found Newman inside the Cox house. The wanted man put up a struggle, and the family dog, which had been sleeping on the porch, jumped through the open window. The arrest then turned into a wild melee of yells, screams, barks, growls, profanity, and the clat ter of bodies crashing into walls and furniture. It ended with Espalin shooting the wanted man dead.

  Meanwhile, President Theodore Roosevelt, who had always had an affinity for rugged men of the West, in December 1901 appointed Pat Garrett as collector of customs at El Paso, Texas. For a variety of reasons the collectorship did not become a happy experience. The always cantankerous, sarcastic Garrett antagonized practically everyone who dealt with him. He engaged in a fist fight on an El Paso street corner with a discharged employee, Charles Gaither. A disturbed President Roosevelt subsequently ordered Garrett to meet and confer with him during a 1905 Rough Rider convention in San Antonio. Garrett agreed and took with him his best friend, Tom Powers, owner of the Coney Island Saloon in El Paso.

  Garrett introduced Powers as a West Texas cattleman. Pictures were taken and released to the press. Upon learning that he had been deceived, Roosevelt did not dismiss Garrett but simply refused to appoint him to another two-year term. So in December 1905, out of work and down on his luck, Garrett moved his family back to New Mexico, settling on a ranch on what is now the White Sands Missile Range.

  He subsequently cosigned a banknote for his property with two other men, and they defaulted. The county threatened to repossess his land and cattle. In desperation Garrett mortgaged his property to Las Cruces businessman Martin Lohman, but Pat then could not make the payments. W. W. Cox picked up the note, but Garrett couldn't and didn't pay Cox either. To make matters worse, one of Garrett's sons, Poe Garrett, back in 1905, had leased the Bear Canyon portion of the Garrett ranch to local cowboy Wayne Brazel, who placed goats on it.

  In 1908, Garrett tried to sell the ranch, but his only offer came from Jim Miller, better known as "Killin' Jim Miller," or sometimes "Deacon Jim Miller." Miller needed a remote area to graze Mexican cattle prior to shipping them to market, so he made a conditional offer for the ranch, stipulating that the goats must go. (Miller likely also wanted the land to hide Chinese illegally smuggled into the country from Mexico.)

  Garrett promised to meet and negotiate with Jim Miller in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Garrett and Carl Adamson, a brother-in-law of Miller's, left the Garrett ranch on February 29, 1908, and headed by buckboard for Las Cruces. On the way they over

  took Wayne Brazel on horseback. About halfway to town, Pat Garrett stopped the buckboard to urinate. While standing there in the desert sand, someone shot him in the back of the head. Wayne Brazel confessed to the shooting but claimed self-defense. A jury acquitted him. Pat Garrett's death still remains a point of controversy. He is buried in the Masonic Cemetery at Las Cruces, New Mexico.

  .SF'r' C2190: BILLY THE KID; BOWDRE, CHARLES; COX, WILLIAM WEBB; FOUNTAIN, ALBERT JENNINGS; MILLER, JAMES; LINCOLN COUNTY WAR

  GILLETT, James Buchanan (1856-1937)

  James B. Gillett was born on November 4, 1856, a fourth child of James S. Gillett (an adjutant general under Texas governor Sam Houston) and the former Bettie Harper. By 1870, he had never been more than 12 miles from Austin, Texas. By the early 1870s, he had become a West Texas cowboy in the vicinity of Lampasas, Texas. He saw his first man killed in 1873, when two cowboys, Jack Perkins and Levi Dunbar, began arguing-and Perkins shot Dunbar to death.

  On June 1, 1875, in Menard County, Texas, James B. Gillett enlisted in Company D of the Texas Rangers, his salary being $40 a month. He also received a .50-caliber Sharps carbine and a. 45-caliber Colt revolver, the cost to be deducted from his first month's pay. In August of that same year he had his first Indian fight. By 1877, the Indian wars were mostly over, so the rangers began concentrating primarily on Texas feuds, such as Horrell-Higgins. These were also years in which filibusters (private armies) used the Texas border with Mexico as a supply, recruitment, and jumping-off point for invading northern Mexico. The rangers had the task of locating and breaking up these expeditions when possible.

  In September 1877, James B. Gillett helped escort a heavily shackled and handcuffed John Wesley Hardin out of the Austin jail and over to Comanche, Texas, where Hardin was tried for the murder of Brown County deputy sheriff Charles Webb. As Gillett described the experience, "The boy who had sold fish and game on the streets of Austin was now guarding the most desperate criminal in Texas."

  Following this the rangers went after Dick Dublin, who lived and operated along the South Llano River and had a $700 reward on his head. In January 1877, as Gillett and a squad of rangers closed in on his ranch, Dublin made a run for it, bent over and skimming along the ground. Gillett fired a Winchester rifle, the bullet striking Dublin in the hip, slicing through his body and exiting at the collar bone. Although he was dead practically upon striking the ground, another ranger rode up and put two additional bullets in the body. As for the reward, no one collected. The conditions had been specific: it would be paid for Dublin's arrest and incarceration, not his death.

  By September 1879, Gillett had arrived in Ysleta, Texas, with Lt. John R. Baylor, and although they had missed the recent El Paso Salt War, the last Indian fights in Texas were still in their future. The rangers repeatedly tangled with Victorio's Apaches, driving them back into Chihuahua, Mexico, where Mexican forces killed Victorio and most of his people.

  In the meantime, a Christmas Eve 1881 murder occurred in Socorro, New Mexico, when the two Baca brothers killed A. M. Conklin, editor of the .S0-'Otr S The men fled to Ysleta, Texas, where one was captured and returned. The other, Enofrio Baca, had found employment in Zaragoza, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Ysleta. With a reward of $500 on Baca's head, Gillett and another ranger crossed the river and found their prey working in a store. A female patron fainted when they stuck a revolver in Baca's ear and marched him to a horse. They raced two miles to the international border with a Mexican posse in pursuit. Gillett then hustled the man to Socorro, turned him over to the vigilantes, collected his reward, and saw Baca dangling from a rope as his train left the Socorro station, heading south.

  The kidnapping, however, created an international uproar. Mexico brought pressure on the United States, which brought pressure on Texas, which brought pressure on Capt. John R. Hughes, Gillett's commanding officer. Gillett therefore left the rangers, moved to El Paso, and married the attractive 16year-old Helen Baylor, daughter of Capt. John R. Baylor. Gillett became an assistant city marshal under Dallas Stoudenmire. When Stoudenmire was shot to death on September 18, 1882, Gillett became "the" marshal. Six months later in March 1883, Marshal Gillett accused El Paso mayor pro tempore Paul Keating of being too intoxicated to perform his duties. Keating responded by accusing Gillett of not properly accounting for fines and fees. Gillett coun

  tered by bouncing a six-shooter off Keating's headand the city council dismissed the marshal.

  By now, Gillett's personal troubles were mounting. He and Helen, in spite of two children-one of whom became Harper Lee, a noted Mexican bullfighter-did not have a happy marriage. She charged him with adultery and sued him for divorce. He left El Paso for the Big Bend in April 1885. There he remarried, entered the ranching business around Marfa, Texas, and founded the world famous Cowboy Camp Meetings. He died on June 11, 1937, in Temple, Texas, and is buried in Marfa.

  .366 HARDIN, JOHN WESLEY; JONES, FRANK; STOUDENMIRE, DALLAS

  GILMO, John W. (a.k.a. Gilmore) (1850-1895)

  The name John W. Gilmo attracts little historical attention, although for a time throughout New Mexico and Arizona he was known as one of those blueeyed men who are simply devoid of fear. Seldom did anyone question
his courage, although on occasion his judgment served him none too well. Some say he hailed from Maryland, but he didn't come to the law's attention until Grant County sheriff Harvey Whitehill gave the 29-year-old Gilmo a deputy's commission on February 28, 1880.

  On May 13, 1880, Gilmo was appointed the Silver City town marshal, a position he held until resigning on December 10. He also turned over his Grant County deputy's badge. Then for reasons not altogether understood, he was rehired as a deputy on February 7, 1881. In July, he was again removed from office, this time replaced by A. G. Ledbetter.

  The removal stemmed from Gilmo's shooting and killing of Walter M. Harvey, a cook at the Southern Hotel. The details are sketchy, but for whatever reason, Harvey failed to lay down a kitchen knife quick enough to suit the marshal. Gilmo shot him in the head, left breast, and side. All of this lead seemed a little extreme to many residents, who believed Gilmo had fired too soon, that the shooting was unjustified. With public pressure building for prosecution, Gilmo stole some Silver City money and vanished. On July, 19, 1881, judge Warren Bristol issued an arrest warrant, and Sheriff Whitehill ordered deputy J. W. Fleming to find Gilmo. Fleming pursued Gilmo past Duck Creek to the west, and on to Clifton, Arizona Territory, before he gave up and returned to Silver City. Three weeks later, on August 6, 1881, however, Gilmo returned to Silver City on his own, surrendered to authorities, and was released on a $5,000 bond. Although indicted on a charge of murder, Gilmo was freed.

  By the end of the next month, however, Gilmo had returned to the public spotlight. At Silver City's Centennial Saloon, an uproariously drunk James Burns, himself a deputy sheriff, created a disturbance. Gilmo subsequently talked Burns out of his sixshooter, which was a wise move, although later during an unwise lapse of good judgment he gave it back. On the night of July 25, 1882, Burns picked up where he had left off, and in an argumentative mood he gambled with the poisonously dangerous Frank Thurmond. The two argued, and when Deputy Sheriffs Dan Tucker and Billy McClellan and Town Marshal G. W. Moore approached, Burns drew his revolver and was shot and killed. The shooting was indeed sensational-three officers killing another officer. At the preliminary hearing, John W. Gilmo testified that Burns's gun hand had been near his waist. Eventually, charges against Tucker were dismissed, and Moore and McClellan were found not guilty by a court in Mesilla.

  Meanwhile, south of Silver City, near Gage, on November 24, 1883, a Southern Pacific train was robbed and the engineer slain. The suspects were Frank Taggart, George Washington Cleveland, Mitch Lee, and Christopher "Kit" Joy. An intense manhunt started.

  With hopes of monetary rewards, John Gilmo accompanied ex-sheriff Harvey Whitehill to the vicinity of St. Johns, Apache County, Arizona, a former home of suspect Frank Taggart. Regrettably, Taggart had just departed for Socorro, New Mexico. Taking a Mexican guide with him, Gilmo set off in pursuit, overhauling Taggart and returning him to Silver City. Near Horse Springs, the other suspects, Mitch Lee and Kit joy, were also captured. Whitehill arrested Cleveland at Socorro. With several bounty hunters involved in the four arrests, questions now arose as to how the $8,000 was to be divided. Len Harris, the well-known Southern Pacific Railroad detective, credited Gilmo with Taggart's arrest, a fact that Whitehill did not dispute. Gilmo subsequently got two-thirds of Taggart's reward money, $2,666.66.

  In partnership with George Chapman, Gilmo entered the saloon business in Clifton, Arizona, but by November 1882 the brief undertaking had failed.

  Gilmo returned to Grant County, New Mexico, settling in at the Burro Mountain copper camp of Paschal, a bustling community with a 50-ton smelter, stores, saloons, and nearly 1,000 residents. Gilmo was soon doing assessment work on mining claims.

  Never far removed from trouble, however, in a row with a drunken companion, Gilmo was wounded, although not seriously, when a gun fired prematurely. After his recovery Gilmo briefly served as town marshal for Kingston, a mining camp on the eastern slope of the Black Range Mountains. Meanwhile, Gilmo was promised a reward if he arrested Charley Small, suspected of an Arizona train robbery. In September 1887, Gilmo encountered Small at the Deming, New Mexico, depot, but Small pulled his six-shooter. Only the prompt arrival of Deputy Dan Tucker stopped a shooting. Wisely, Small submitted to Tucker, and while the deputy was sorting out the mess, Gilmo skipped out for Mexico, a few miles south. Dan Tucker determined that there was no evidence against Small, turned him loose, and swore out a warrant for Gilmo's arrest. Nothing came of it.

  By 1892, Gilmo was in Graham County, Arizona Territory, most probably in Clifton, where he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. On April 25, 1892, John W. Gilmo (under the name Gilmore) entered the territorial prison at Yuma to begin a fouryear sentence. Three years later, on February 2, 1895, Gilmo received a pardon from Governor Hughes. Where he went from there remains a mystery.

  -366 TUCKER, DAVID; WHITEHILL, HARVEY HOWARD

  GLEASON, Harvey (a.k.a. Teton Jackson) (1855-1927)

  Teton Jackson was believed born in Rhode Island. He had a tussle with the law in Joplin, Missouri, and later claimed to have scouted for Gen. George Crook during the Sioux campaign of 1876. He may or may not have been born a Mormon, but if not, he converted to one. Frank Canton, a Wyoming sheriff who later put irons on Jackson, noted, "I have never seen a man of his description before or since. He was about 45, over six feet in height, weighed 190, stubby beard, rawboned, coarse features, flaming red hair, red face, and eyes as black as a snake." Canton said he stole government mules, killed several soldiers plus some U.S. deputy marshals, and was a member of the Mormon "Destroying Angels." Biographer Robert DeArment wrote that Jackson "escaped capture for years by using his Mormon religion to gain the help and protection of Mormon families in the region."

  Teton Jackson took this nickname from the Wyoming mountains where he lived and circulated. The "Jackson" came from the Jackson Hole country, especially what is now the National Elk Refuge, an area he seldom strayed from. Otherwise, killing people wasn't so much a priority as it was a necessity: Teton Jackson was a horse thief. He never robbed trains, stages, or banks. He and a dozen or so followers just liked good horseflesh, the kind one didn't have to pay for. The stolen animals were usually sold or traded in Wyoming or South Dakota, and stories during the height of his career had them numbering in the hundreds. The trade flourished for roughly eight years. Lawmen could never find the thieves during the summer, and in the winter a heavy snow closed all the passes into and out of the Tetons.

  In February 1884, Jackson and a confederate went to Eagle Rock, Idaho, and reported that in defense of their lives they had killed a man named Robert Cooper at Badger Creek. Sheriff Ed Winn rode out to take a look, found a body frozen stiff, and since he had no way to transport it, he simply chopped off the head and brought it in as evidence. Jackson was indicted and tried for murder but was acquitted.

  Within months, livestock associations all over Idaho and Wyoming were posting rewards for the capture and conviction of horse thieves, one Idaho notice offering $800. By October of that same year, Sheriff Canton had tracked down Jackson and had him in handcuffs and on his way to the Buffalo, Wyoming, jail. On November 5, 1885, the Idaho authorities sentenced him to 14 years in prison at the Boise Federal Penitentiary. Meanwhile, various posses had gradually reduced the gang's numbers and effectiveness through death and capture.

  On August 17, 1886, Teton Jackson escaped from the Boise prison, returned to his old haunts and trade, and managed for two years to avoid the authorities. However, in April 1888, he was recaptured near Billings, Montana, and returned to prison at Boise, where he spent four more years, being pardoned on April 6, 1892.

  By now, times had changed. The outlaw chieftain had outlived most of his friends, as well as his enemies. He married a Shoshone woman, lived in Fre

  mont County, Wyoming, and found occasional work as a guide. He died in 1927 at the county home in Lander, Wyoming.

  .S66 ako. CANTON, FRANK

  GOLDEN, Johnny (1846?-1877?)

&n
bsp; By most accounts, Johnny Golden was originally from Illinois (or Boston, or Georgia) but later drifted to Kentucky, where he became a jockey for a wellknown racehorse owner. Aside from his role in the sport of kings, Johnny's employer (if the rumors are true) was also the father of a daughter he christened Carlotta (Charlotte) J. Thompkins. Westerners would come to know her as Lottie Deno, the most prominent female gambler in the Southwest.

  Reportedly, Golden and Charlotte Thompkins tied the matrimonial knot, although the assertion has not been substantiated by official documentation. Nor do all historians believe it. But one thing is sure-the pair tried their luck at one of the roughest towns in Texas: Fort Griffin. A nearby civilian settlement was The Flat, and the couple arrived either at separate times, or as complete strangers. At least one writer, concentrating on the feminine side of the relationship, declares that Golden, by the time he reached Fort Griffin, was a wanted criminal, and indeed a list of 1870s Texas fugitives does mention a John Golden as being indicted for assault to kill and for theft at Travis County (Austin) in February 1876. Another author simply reports, Golden "knifed a man to death and skipped out, leaving his wife penniless." But in the end, all accounts concur: Johnny Golden, by now a professional gambler, ended up in the "Clear Fork Country," specifically at The Flat. Johnny Golden's arrival at Fort Griffin's Bee Hive Saloon was wanted not by Lottie Deno or by any of her current or potential suitors.

  So it wasn't long before Constable William C. "Bill" Gilson and Deputy Sheriff Jim Draper arrested Johnny Golden as a fugitive from justice. Rather than throw him in the local jail, the pair set off with their prisoner into the darkness, later saying they were delivering Golden to the nearby military installation's guardhouse. At any rate, Johnny Golden never arrived. The powder burns on his body more or less told the story, and although murder was never proved at the inquest, Lottie skipped off to New Mexico Territory.