capturing Geronimo; in fact, he was little more than a witness.
After the Indian wars ended, and the army no longer needed scouts and packers, Horn became an occasional lawman as well as a rodeo rider. Although particularly apt at steer-roping, that skill did little more than put coffee on the table, so he reverted to his old trade of man hunting. The Pinkerton Detective Agency, out of Denver, hired him to help prevent stock theft, and the Swan Land and Cattle Company of Wyoming retained him in 1894 to be a stock detective, a phrase that was in this case a euphemism for hired assassin. He allegedly killed two Laramie ranchers for $600 each. Business was so good that Horn made a pretty fair living. Working primarily out of Wyoming, he shot and killed Bob and Bill Christian, then put his career on hold while he signed on as a mule packer with the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War. He left the army in 1900, changed his name briefly to James Hicks, then killed stock rustlers Isom Dart and Madison Rash, thieves operating out of Brown's Hole in Colorado. At about the same time, he quarreled with a Wyoming hard case named Neut Kelley and received a severe knife wound in the stomach.
Horn recovered, but not as the same person. On July 19, 1901, he ambushed and shot 13-year-old William Nickell as Willie opened a corral gate at his father's ranch near Iron Mountain, Wyoming. Horn had meant to kill the father but from a distance mistook one for the other. Almost two weeks later on August 4, Horn shot the father, Kels Nickell, but only wounded him.
These Nickell shootings had now attracted the attention of U.S. Deputy Marshal Joe LeFors. In January 1902, LeFors took Horn on a saloon crawl through Cheyenne, Wyoming. It ended with both men bragging about their accomplishments. Horn in particular wound up allegedly talking about the Nickell shootings. He was immediately arrested.
In October 1902, at Cheyenne, Wyoming, Tom Horn went on trial for murder, although he denied it. The jury turned a disbelieving ear and sentenced him to hang on January 9, 1903. The date was later moved to November 20, 1903. After a failed escape attempt, Horn met the hangman right after breakfast. An hour or so later he dropped four feet to his doom. He is buried in Columbia Cemetery at Boulder, Colorado.
See 4qO BROWN'S PARK; PINKERTON NATIONAL DETECTIVE AGENCY
HORNER, Joe (a.k.a. Frank M. Canton) (?-1927)
Frank Canton, actually born Joe Horner, could have come from either Indiana or Virginia, as he seems to have claimed both at one time or the other. At any rate, the family moved to Missouri and from there to Denton, Texas. He seems to have served briefly as a Texas Ranger as well as a cowboy, and worked as a guard during the Texas trial of Big Tree and Satanta for their parts in the 1871 Warren Wagon Train Massacre. Around Jacksboro, Texas, he became a cattleman as well as a rustler. In 1874, he killed his first man during a saloon shootout in Fort Richardson, Texas.
Three men on January 6, 1876, robbed the Comanche, Texas, bank. Although Horner denied involvement, a March 1877 jury gave him 10 years. Horner promptly broke out of jail and robbed a stagecoach. This earned him another 10 years at Huntsville. However, on August 4, he escaped again, this time heading for Wyoming, where Joe Horner the man killer became Frank Canton the man hunter.
By 1882, Canton had become sheriff of Johnson County. He also married Annie Wilkerson. He brought in the murderer Teton Jackson, although Canton's involvement in the capture seems to have been controversial. He was reelected sheriff in 1884, attended the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, was defeated in 1886, and subsequently became a U.S. deputy marshal, on November 3. Throughout his life Canton remained a supporter of big cattlemen and a strong enemy of small ranchers (read "rustlers"). The responsibility for several killings was laid at the Canton doorstep.
In March 1892, various cattlemen began meeting in Cheyenne, planning an invasion of Johnson County. Twenty-four professional gunmen were hired and brought in from Texas. A couple of dozen Wyoming cattlemen, including Canton, joined the force; in fact, Frank Canton seems to have been the expedition leader. Whoever was in charge, the expedition foundered. The force wasted too much time killing alleged rustler Nate Champion, and then bumbled and stumbled until the invasion ran out of steam. The invaders themselves wound up incarcerated at Fort D. A. Russell. At the trial in Cheyenne, Canton accidentally dropped his revolver and shot himself in the foot, which seems to sum up a sorry episode.
Canton later applied for a position as U.S. marshal in Alaska, and when that failed, he turned
south, trying to get a pardon for the man he had once been, a fugitive known as Joe Horner. Governor James Hogg granted a full pardon. Canton then moved to Oklahoma, became a deputy sheriff as well as a U.S. deputy marshal, and was involved in the killings of Lon McCool and Bill Dunn. Shortly after that, Canton resigned as deputy marshal because of expense voucher irregularities. Canton then moved to Alaska, becoming a deputy marshal, but once more financial irregularities caught up with him.
Time was also catching up with him. He encountered Will Foster, a former enemy, on the Buffalo, Wyoming, streets. Foster clubbed Canton to the ground. Canton's life throughout the next few years seems something of a mystery, although in 1907 he became adjutant general of Oklahoma. In 1911, he called out guardsmen to prohibit illegal prizefighting, and in 1914 he stopped a rodeo that had violated Oklahoma's blue laws.
Frank Canton retired in 1917 and died in Edmond, Oklahoma, on September 27, 1927.
See JOHNSON COUNTY WAR
HORONY, Mary Katherine (a.k.a. Big Nose Kate) (1850-1940)
Big Nose Kate, best known as the consort of Doc Holliday, was born in Pest, Hungary, in 1850. Family traditions say her father emigrated to Mexico, but she moved north and took the name of Kate Fisher. Certain evidence places her in St. Louis where she may have been widowed. She reportedly spoke several languages and acted aristocratically as if to the manor born. How she got the name "Big Nose Kate" is a mystery, as her photos do not reveal a nose out of the ordinary in size.
In Fort Griffin, she teamed up with the homicidal and tubercular Doc Holliday and accompanied him to Tombstone, Arizona, where they evidently had a serious falling out. On March 15, 1881, three men attempted to hold up the Wells Fargo stage, killing the driver and a passenger. The holdup men escaped, but Big Nose Kate broke the story with a statement to the Day Nugget that Doc had been the slayer of Bud Philpot, the driver. This of course led to speculation-or confirmation-that she acquired the nickname Big Nose not because of a large nose but because, as some people may have seen it, of sticking her big nose where it did not belong.
Sheriff Behan arrested Holliday and placed him in jail. Meanwhile, the Earps argued that Kate had been under the influence of the sheriff and that she had been intoxicated when she made her statement. On July 9, Virgil Earp arrested Kate, charging her with being drunk and disorderly. She paid a $12.50 fine and fled to Globe, Arizona. However, she obviously returned a short time later, because on October 26, 1881, from the window of Fly's Photography Studio, she witnessed the most famous shootout in western history, the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
When Holliday left Tombstone for the sanitarium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Kate visited him; she was there when he died. In March 1890, she married a prospector, George M. Cummings. They lived for a while in Bisbee, Arizona, where Kate operated a bakery. George worked in the mines and beat his wife on occasion. Fortunately, he died, and in 1899 she became a housekeeper for John J. Howard, a well-to-do eccentric, who treated her well. She stuck with him, living in obscurity, until he passed away.
Big Nose Kate Horony died at the Arizona Pioneers Home on November 2, 1940. She is buried in the Prescott Cemetery.
.S66 A50: BEHAN, JOHN; EARP, VIRGIL; GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL; HOLLIDAY, JOHN HENRY
HORRELL Brothers: William C. (1839-?); John W. (1841-1868); Samuel L. (1843-1936); James Martin (1846-1878); Thomas L. (1850-1878); Benjamin F. (1851-1873); Merritt (1854-1877)
The Samuel and Elizabeth Horrell family had eight children, all born in Alabama. By 1867, the family had moved to Lampasas, Texas. In 186
8, they drove a trail herd of 1,000 cattle west, selling the animals at Las Cruces, New Mexico. Some of the family now went to work. John Horrell was killed by Early Hubbard following a wage dispute. In January 1869, the father, Samuel Horrell, was slain by Apaches at San Agustin Pass in the nearby Organ Mountains. Later that year, the family moved back to Lampasas, where every one of the boys-except Merritt-married. Only Tom failed to have children.
Four years later on March 14, 1873, Capt. Tom Williams of the Texas State Police and several other officers rode into Lampasas, where they clashed with Merritt Horrell and other clan members. Captain Williams and four officers died in a saloon shootout.
James Martin Horrell, better known as Mart, was badly wounded but was jailed, as were three desperado companions. In September, the Horrells broke their brother and friends out of the Georgetown jail. The Horrells now rounded up cattle and headed for Ruidoso, New Mexico, where the so-called Horrell War broke out.
In Ruidoso Country, the troubles were racial as well as concerned with water rights. On December 1, 1873, Ben Horrell and friends shot up Lincoln, New Mexico, and killed the town constable, Juan Martin. The constable's friends retaliated, killing David Warner, a Horrell friend. They then pursued Ben Horrell and Jacob C. Gylam down to the river, where they shot Gylam 13 times and Ben Horrell nine. Neither survived.
On September 5, Sheriff Alexander H. Mills took a posse of 40 men down to Eagle Creek and demanded that the Horrells surrender. They did not; after each side had fired a few harmless volleys, the posse returned to Lincoln.
Events became bloodier on December 20, when the Horrells and friends rode into Lincoln around midnight. When they rode out, they left behind four dead Hispanic males and two wounded women.
On January 7, 1874, the governor offered a $100 reward for each of the three Horrells. A posse subsequently shot up the Horrell ranch and drove off livestock. On January 25, the posse returned and burned the house. On January 30, the Horrells and other Texans split into two groups and began reprisals. One group killed five Hispanic wagoneers doing nothing more than hauling corn. The other group stole livestock. Then they all went back to Texas, where they were tried for the murder of Thomas Williams and were acquitted. Otherwise, things stayed relatively quiet until 1877.
In January of that year, a nearby rancher, John Calhoun Pinckney Higgins, better known as "Pink Higgins," accused the brothers of stealing his stock. On January 22, he killed Merritt Horrell in the Gem Saloon in Lampasas. On March 26, the Higgins party ambushed Tom and Mart near Battle Creek, east of Lampasas. Both men were hit, Tom seriously. Mart single-handedly dispersed the attackers.
On June 7, both factions happened to be in Lampasas at the same time, and the street fighting began. Frank Mitchell, a cousin of Pink Higgins's wife, was slain. Jim Buck Miller, a newcomer to the Horrell gang, was shot dead. Meanwhile, a citizens' commit tee convinced both sides to withdraw, and shortly afterward the Texas Rangers swept in and temporarily stood between the combatants. Maj. John B. Jones talked both sides into signing documents saying the feud was a "bygone thing."
The Horrells had one final fling in western history. Mart and Tom Horrell were jailed in Meridian, Texas, charged with the murder of storekeeper J. T. Vaughn. On December 15, 1878, while they were behind bars awaiting trial, a mob forced its way inside and shot the prisoners to death.
Sam Horrell, the last surviving brother, the one who never seemed to bother anybody, moved his family to Oregon in 1882 and died peacefully in California on August 8, 1936. He is buried in Eureka, California.
.3615- aLgCc: HORRELL-HIGGINS FEUD
HORRELL-HIGGINS Feud
Six Texas-born Horrell brothers-Benjamin, John, Mart, Merritt, Sam, and Tom-walked away intact from the Civil War, only to become New Mexico and Texas feudists. Tom died early, slain in Las Cruces, New Mexico, but his brothers teamed up with Texas rancher John Calhoun Pinckney ("Pink") Higgins near Lampasas, Texas. In 1872, that friendship terminated during an 1872 joint cattle drive when Pink Higgins and Tom Horrell argued, Higgins accusing the Horrells of stealing his cattle.
A year later at Lampasas, Texas, state police captain Tom Williams and seven officers tried to arrest Bill Bowen, a Horrell brother-in-law in Jerry Scott's Saloon. Of course, the Horrell brothers joined in; when the fight ended, Mart Horrell lay badly wounded and four state policemen, including Williams, lay dead. Upon recovering, Mart went to the Georgetown jail, where his brothers broke him out. The family then rounded up a herd of cattle and headed for Lincoln County, New Mexico, where they settled until the so-called Horrell War, a "war" the Horrells likely instigated. At least 17 men died, one of them being Ben Horrell. While he lay dead, someone chopped off a finger to get his gold ring. Nearly three weeks later, on December 20, the Horrell boys retaliated by shooting their way into a Lincoln wedding, wounding two guests and killing four. They then returned to Lampasas but were shown to the state line by an angry army of Hispanics.
In February 1874, the state of Texas tried the Horrells for the murder of Capt. Thomas Williams but acquitted them. The Horrells now renewed their antagonisms with Pink Higgins, who on January 22, 1877, shot and killed Merritt Horrell in the Gem Saloon at Lampasas.
Meanwhile, on March 26, the Higgins gang ambushed Tom and Mart Horrell. Although wounded, both men escaped, Mart providing enough firepower to drive off his enemies.
Two months later, on June 7, both factions collided in a Lampasas street shootout that lasted three hours. The Horrells wounded Bill Wren, a friend of Higgins, and killed a Higgins brother-in-law, Frank Mitchell. However, the Horrells lost Jim Buck Miller, a hired gun. A furious Higgins retaliated on July 25. He and 14 cowboys shot up the Horrell ranch for two days until the Higgins faction ran short of ammunition and retreated.
Maj. John B. Jones and the Texas Rangers now stepped in, convincing both sides (they actually got the Horrells out of bed) to negotiate and sign a peace treaty. That ended this particular feud, although as an aside, in 1878 Tom and Mart Horrell were arrested for allegedly robbing and murdering a Bosque County merchant. A vigilante mob shot them to death in their jail cell as they awaited trial. This left Sam as the only Horrell left.
Sam moved to Oregon in 1882 but died in California in 1936. As for Pink Higgins, he went to work for the Spur Ranch in Texas as a range detective. He died of a heart attack in 1913.
.366 aL90 HORRELL BROTHERS
HORSE Theft
Horses have added romance, color, drama, and speed to the history of the American West. In short, the West as we know it could not have existed without the horse.
A horse was indispensable, but since not everybody had a horse or could afford to purchase one, horse theft became a major activity. Indians, especially Comanche, were renowned for their horsethieving abilities. During the Spanish period, Santa Fe became a major market for the trading, buying, selling, and stealing of horses. Mountain men like Peg-Leg Smith and Dutch Henry Born became notorious for the vast numbers they drove off and sold. If they could not grab them before the brands went on, they would steal them from one army post and sell them to another.
The Wild Bunch always found themselves in need of horses; fortunately, they had a ready-made pen behind the Hole-in-the-Wall. Harry Longabaugh served seven months in jail at Sundance, Wyoming, for horse theft. He lost the horses, of course, but he picked up a nickname that would serve him well for generations to come-the Sundance Kid.
Billy the Kid, when not shooting or running from lawmen, made a lifestyle out of stealing and selling horseflesh. Furthermore, the Rio Grande area north of El Paso, Texas, became a haven for horse thieves. As for the horse-theft penalty, depending on where you were, it could range from being lynched, or shot on the spot, to up to 10 years in prison.
HUGHES, John Reynolds (a.k.a. Border Boss) (1855-1947)
This well-known Texas Ranger was born near Cambridge, Illinois, on February 11. His family moved around the state before settling in Mound City, Kansas, where John worked on a ranch, and then m
oved to Oklahoma, where for several years he lived in the Indian Nations among the Comanche, the Choctaw, and especially the Osage. He knew Quanah Parker. He went to work for Art Rivers, an Indian trader who provoked a fight with the Choctaw. Hughes was struck on the right arm, an injury that never properly healed. The arm remained so weak that Hughes learned to draw and shoot a revolver with his left hand.
With his brothers, Will and Henry, John Hughes established the Long Hollow Ranch-their brand being the Running H-in Travis County, Texas, 33 miles northeast of Austin. There they ranched peacefully until May 4, 1886 when rustlers took 16 head of livestock, plus a stallion named Moscow. John tracked the horses to near Silver City, New Mexico, where, after enlisting Sheriff Frank Swafford and a deputy, they killed four of the rustlers during a gunfight. Upon returning to Texas, however, Ranger sergeant Ira Aten warned Hughes of a threat upon his life from a man named Roberts. Within a few days Roberts and Hughes shot it out, and Roberts went to the graveyard. Following that, the 32-year-old Hughes signed on as a Texas Ranger, and was assigned as a private to Company D near Uvalde.
Hughes and several other rangers went under cover during the fence-cutting wars. Hughes was assigned to Navarro and McLennan Counties, arriving on May 14, 1888. Nevertheless, it became a frustrating assignment, and Hughes asked to be reassigned: "It will be no use for me to work after them any more as they are the best organized band that I ever worked after. They keep spies out all the time. The big pasture men [big ranchers] live in town, and the people in the county are almost all in sympathy with the wire cutters."
The rangers promoted Hughes to corporal and reassigned him to Presidio County, Texas, specifically to the silver-mining community of Shafter, where he broke up a silver-smuggling group and was promoted to sergeant, replacing Sgt. Bass Outlaw, who had been dismissed for heavy drinking. Shortly afterward, the rangers transferred Hughes to Marfa, but events were already cooking near El Paso. Events there would involve Hughes. Texas Ranger sergeant Charles Fusselman had been slain in the El Paso Franklin Mountains by Geronimo Parra on April 17, 1890. Hughes left Marfa on temporary duty to investigate the killing but lost the trail in New Mexico, where he had no jurisdiction. Hughes then returned to Marfa, only to learn that Texas Ranger captain Frank Jones, headquartered at Ysleta, near El Paso, had been slain while in pursuit of the Bosque Gang along the Rio Grande downstream from El Paso. Jones had lost his life during a shootout at Tres Jacales, a controversial island in the Rio Grande claimed by both the United States and Mexico. Hughes was then reassigned to El Paso as Jones's replacement, although Sergeant Outlaw argued for that position also. It went to Hughes on July 4, 1893. Hughes then took command of the Ysleta camp, only to learn that Fusselman's slayer, Geronimo Parra, was in the New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary. Hughes failed to get Parra extradited.
The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters Page 27