By 1882, the thoroughly dangerous Jim Levy moved to Tombstone and then to Tucson, where he and faro dealer John Murphy quarreled in the Fashion Saloon. Intermediaries broke it up but not before both parties agreed to fight a duel south of the border, in Old Mexico, at dawn. However, that night, accompanied by Bill Moyer and Dave Gibson, Murphy noticed Levy standing in front of the Palace Hotel. He immediately opened fire. Levy ducked the wrong way, running into, rather than away from, the fusillade. He died as a result of the miscalculation.
LEYBA, Marino (1859-1887)
This horse thief and mankiller was born in New Mexico and was said to have been an associate at times of Billy the Kid. During 1880, he killed, or at least helped kill, Charles Porter in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, and on December 10, 1880, he attempted to kill Lincoln County sheriff Pat Garrett who, in turn shot, wounded, and arrested Leyba in Puerta del Luna. Leyba got seven years for trying to kill Garrett and one month for trying to steal livestock, but he was pardoned on July 21, 1886. A year later, on March 29, he and others killed three ranchers in San Miguel County. Leyba was himself slain shortly afterward near Golden, New Mexico, by Deputy Sheriffs Joaquin Montoya and Carlos Jacomo.
.Sr'r' a190: GARRETT, PATRICK FLOYD JARVIS
LINCOLN County War
The Lincoln County War is easy to understand and yet very complicated. It was primarily a mercantile war, but it was also a range war. In 1866, two army officers, Lawrence G. Murphy and Emil Fritz, stationed at Fort Stanton, New Mexico, took their discharges and set up a mercantile business (known as "the House") in Lincoln, New Mexico. They were supported by the Santa Fe Ring, which-politically and to a large extent economically-controlled the entire territory. Thomas B. Catron, a U.S. attorney and Ring organizer, had his political imprint all over New Mexico. The House became something of a Ring subsidiary.
Within a brief time, Lincoln attorney Alexander McSween and wealthy Englishman John Tunstall arose in opposition to the House. Tunstall opened a store and his own bank in Lincoln. To complicate matters further, cattleman John Chisum established a ranch near the village of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and essentially aligned himself with the McSween/Tunstall faction. Both the House and Tunstall/McSween envisioned profits in dealing with the post of Fort Stanton and the adjacent Mescalero Apache Indian reservation.
When Emil Fritz died in Germany, a young, feisty Irishman named James J. Dolan took his place in the firm. Until now, relations between the Lincoln parties had been fairly amiable, so much so that Dolan and Murphy retained McSween to collect the $10,000 Fritz life insurance money. McSween did so and settled up with everybody, except for $2,000 he held back in case other claimants also filed for the money.
John Tunstall (University oFTexas at El Paso Archives)
The House demanded the $2,000, and as charges and countercharges swept across the community, as court suits piled one on top of another, both sides began hiring guns. The House controlled Sheriff William Brady, who dispatched deputies to the Tunstall Ranch to "recover" horses. Along the way the group collided with another from the ranch. Tunstall's cowboys, Billy the Kid and others, outnumbered, knew enough to flee. Tunstall did not. He foolishly rode up to the "posse" and was shot dead.
Tunstall's body reached Lincoln on the following day, and justice of the Peace John B. Wilson issued murder warrants for posse members: Jesse Evans, James J. Dolan, Frank Baker, George Hindman,
William Morton, Thomas Hill, and others. The town constable, Atanacio Martinez, and deputies Fred Waite and Billy the Kid, attempted to serve those warrants but were rebuffed by Sheriff William Brady. Instead, the sheriff threw Martinez and his deputies briefly into the pit jail.
A few days later, Wilson deputized Dick Brewer as a special constable. His deputies were Henry Brown, Sam Smith, Jim French, John Middleton, Fred Waite, Doc Scurlock, Charlie Bowdre, and Billy the Kid. They called themselves "the Regulators." The Lincoln County War, although no one ever referred to it as that at the time, had begun. The Regulators almost immediately caught two Tunstall slayers, William Morton and Frank Baker. They shot the accused to death on March 9 under circumstances still obscure.
On April 1, 1878, Sheriff William Brady, with deputies George Hindman alongside and Jack Long, George Peppin, and Billy Mathews bringing up the rear, began walking along Lincoln's main street toward a reported disturbance at the opposite end. Off to the side, behind adobe walls, an assortment of gunmen-including Jim French, Fred Waite, Henry Brown, John Middleton, and Billy the Kid-rose up and commenced firing. They killed Brady and Hindman and wounded Mathews. The gunmen escaped.
Three days later, on April 4, the Regulators, with Dick Brewer as leader, showed up at Blazer's Mill in the Sacramento Mountains. While eating, they noticed Andrew Roberts (historically known as Buckshot Roberts) approaching. A confrontation started. Charlie Bowdre shot Roberts in the stomach, and Roberts commenced firing also. A bullet slightly wounded the Kid, and still another ricocheted off the cartridge belt of Charlie Bowdre and tore a finger off George Coe.
With the regulators scattering, Roberts stumbled inside the building, pulled a mattress to the doorway, and sprawled across it. Dick Brewer sought a clear line of fire from across the canyon, but as he was preparing to fire, Roberts killed him with a long shot to the forehead. The demoralized Regulators now rode away. Roberts died the next day. He and Brewer were buried side by side on a nearby hill.
During mid-April, the Lincoln County commissioners nominated John Copeland for sheriff, and 10-man grand jury handed down roughly 200 indictments. Frank McNab became captain of the Regulators. However, on April 29, a group of Seven Rivers men ambushed and killed McNab. Doc Scurlock now assumed command of the Regulators. Then on May 28, Governor Samuel B. Axtell removed the pro-McSween John Copeland from the office of sheriff and installed George Peppin, a pro-House man.
Peppin and his posse chased the Regulators through the mountains and finally drove them into Lincoln on July 15, 1878. McSween and several fighters occupied the 12-room McSween home, while the others took refuge in the nearby Tunstall, Ellis, and Montano stores. Since nobody surrendered, Sheriff Peppin and roughly 40 deputies put the McSween group under siege. He requested and received military assistance from Fort Stanton. Thirty-five soldiers (a company of infantry and one of cavalry), a Gatling gun and a 12-pound mountain howitzer took up positions in the street. The military thus patrolled back and forth, making it difficult for McSween supporters to shoot over their heads, but easy for the deputies to fire into the buildings.
The final day of battle, July 19, found the Regulators' numbers reduced, as McSween's forces had quietly deserted the other buildings and vanished. McSween now had perhaps 10 or 15 people left, each in his own house. Three were women, who were permitted to leave.
Sometime during that morning, a fire started in the kitchen. All day long the flames ate their way through the wood, forcing the men from one room to another. Shortly after dark, generally one at a time, the defenders dashed through the smoke and flames toward the safety of the Bonito River. Most of them, including Billy the Kid, made it.
From the house, Alexander McSween called out that he wished to surrender. Bob Beckwith, a respected member of the community, offered to accept. But as they came together, gunfire echoed from everywhere. McSween and Beckwith died on the spot. McSween was buried near where his house had once stood; the exact grave site has never been determined.
The Lincoln County War thus ended with dramatic suddenness. Within a brief time, buffalo hunter Pat Garrett would be elected sheriff of Lincoln County. His number-one job would be to hunt down Billy the Kid.
BILLY THE KID; BOWDRE, CHARLES; EVANS, JESSE J.; GARRETT, PATRICK FLOYD JARVIS
LOFTIS, Hillary U. (a.k.a. Hill Loftis; Tom Ross; Charles Gannon) (1871-1929)
At an early age, this future outlaw left his birthplace in northeastern Mississippi and went to Texas, working on the famed Dan Waggoner ranch in the Red River country, north of Vernon, in Wilbarger County. For whatever r
eason, Loftis joined several Dalton/Doolin Gang veterans, like George "Red Buck" Weightman, ex-Panhandle lawman and proven mankiller Joe Beckham, and a pitiless cowboy named Elmer "Kid" Lewis. On December 24, 1895, the quartet robbed the Waggoner company store, beat the clerk severely, and then proceeded to a nearby store and post office for more pillage.
Afterward, the outlaws, seeking shelter, holed up in a line-rider's dugout but were eventually surrounded by a posse led by a Texas Ranger sergeant. In an ensuing shootout and siege, Joe Beckham was killed, but the posse, because of extraordinarily cold weather, forfeited the battlefield. "Red Buck," Lewis, and Hillary Loftis escaped under cover of darkness. The following comments regarding Loftis went into TThe .arager§ Bible, a list of desperately wanted Texas fugitives:
Wanted for haghway robbery, Hill Age about 32, height 5 feet 9 inches, weight 260 pounds. Hasa very peculiarly shaped head, being very long behind with a high forehead. Occupation, cowboy. Probably in New Mexico, Indicted in 2896. Reward by sheriff of Wilbarger county.
Hillary Loftis assumed a new name, Tom Ross, and then rode hard for parts unknown to the locals. After spending time in Canada, he returned to the Texas/New Mexico border and immersed himself in the cow business, working as a foreman during area roundups, even establishing a ranch of his own that straddled the state line. Learning of his whereabouts and his new identity, Sheriff Charles Tom and Capt. John H. Rogers of the Texas Rangers went to arrest the fugitive. Captain Rogers reports what happened next:
In June 2904, while scouting in the plains country new, the line of New Mexico, I made an unsuccessful attempt to arrest Hill is Tom Ross; he ran out of shooting distance from me, thereby avoiding arrest. Later in the day he waylaid me, shooting my horse in the jaw, getting the drop on me with a big Winchester, while I had only a pistol. I was completely in his power; and it looked as of he would kill me in spite of all I cold do or say. This party is an old time robber of a hard gang.
Meanwhile, two Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association inspectors, Horace Roberson and Dave Allison, filed indictments against Loftis in eastern New Mexico and were in the process of preparing a cattle-thieving case against "Ross" on the Texas side of the line. Gathering up one of his partners in crime, Milt Good, plus shotguns, rifles, and revolvers, "Ross" proceeded to Seminole, Texas, where on the night of April 1, 1923, he murdered Roberson and Allison. Later, after a lengthy trial in Lubbock, Texas, he was sent to the Texas penitentiary.
Two years later in the company of Milt Good, and others, Loftis/Ross escaped and fled to the Northwest. After several trips back to the Southwest, he and Good parted company, and Loftis/Ross, this time under the name of Charles Gannon, became a Canadian cowboy. There, according to newspaper reports, he killed a Chinese cook and fled back into the United States, where he took a job on the Frye Cattle Company's Blackfoot Reservation operation near Browning, Montana. Loftis, a.k.a. Ross, a.k.a. Gannon, got into a dispute with ranch foreman Ralph Haywood and settled the dispute by shooting him dead. Knowing he would have to answer to new murder charges, and knowing full well he was still a much-wanted fugitive from the Lone Star State, Hillary U. Loftis entered the bunkhouse and committed suicide.
.See co ALLISON, WILLIAM DAVIS; GOOD, MILTON PAUL
LOGAN, Harvey (a.k.a. Kid Curry) (1865-1904)
Of all the Wild Bunch figures, one of the least known but most dangerous was Harvey Logan, often known as Kid Curry, a part-Cherokee Indian born in Kentucky. He was primarily raised by an aunt in Missouri, drifted to Wyoming, became involved in the Johnson County War, and joined the so-called Red Sash Gang. He appeared next in Landusky, Montana, driving a herd of stolen cattle. There he quarreled with Pike Landusky, the town's founder, humiliated him inside a saloon, knocked him down, and while he was trying to get up, shot him to death.
A year later, in January 1896, Harvey and his two brothers, John and Lonie, assaulted the Jim Winters ranch house, but Winters was waiting and killed Johnny Logan with rifle fire. Harvey was the one who fled this time, moving over to the Hole-inthe-Wall country, where he and his brother Lonie teamed up with Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch. Logan actually became the wildest of them all, in particular becoming a cohort of George "Flatnose" Curry-which was probably where the Logan alias "Kid Curry" came from. On September 24, 1897, Curry had his horse shot out from under him, was captured, and was jailed in Deadwood, South Dakota.
On September 31, he broke jail and disappeared, participating next in a Wilcox, Wyoming, train robbery on June 2, 1899. Three days later, Sheriff Joe Hazen of Converse County and a posse surprised the outlaws while they were eating. Logan put a bullet in the sheriff's stomach. Hazen died a few hours later. Meanwhile, the fugitives escaped by swimming the rain-swollen Powder River. Logan probably also took part in the July 11 train robbery near Folsom, New Mexico. On April 5, 1900, lawmen George Scarborough and Walter Birchfield trapped Logan in Triangle Canyon south of San Simon, Arizona, but Kid Curry shot Scarborough through the leg. That ended the battle. Scarborough died a few days later. On May 27, 1900, Logan killed Sheriff Jesse M. Tyler and Deputy Sam Jenkins of Moab, Utah, in retaliation for Tyler's killing of George Curry.
Near Thompson, Utah, a posse seeking Logan split into two groups. On May 26, one of them encountered Logan but did not immediately recognize him. Meanwhile, Logan shot two deputies in the back, killing both as they ran toward their horses. Kid Curry then headed toward Paint Rock, Texas, where he killed a local citizen following an argument, and then raced north to Montana, where on July 26, 1901, he killed Jim Winters, who had five years earlier slain his brother, Johnny. Figuring now that he had no place to hide west of the Mississippi, Logan meandered into Knoxville, Tennessee, where within an hour he had shot it out with several saloon customers. He himself took a wound in the shoulder, and a posse caught him 10 miles from town. On June 27, 1903, Harvey Logan broke out of the Knoxville jail.
A year later, on June 7, 1904, near Parachute, Colorado, he held up a small train but got only a few bills for his trouble. On the following day, June 8, a posse caught up with him, shot him in the shoulder, and closed in to find Harvey Logan dead with a bullet in his head. Whether a posse bullet had killed him or he committed suicide is an open question.
.366- 41SO: CARVER, WILLIAM; CASSIDY, BUTCH; CURRY, GEORGE RICHARD; DEADWOOD, SOUTH DAKOTA; HOLE-IN-THE-WALL; KILPATRICK, BENJAMIN ARNOLD; LAY, WILLIAM ELLSWORTH; LOGAN, LONIE; SUNDANCE KID; WILD BUNCH
LOGAN, Lonie (1871-1900)
Louie Logan and his brothers came from a starcrossed family. Their aunt reared them in Dodson, Missouri. As the Logan boys grew older, they sought less than honest employment. The brothers Louie and Johnny followed their brother Harvey to Wyoming, where they hired out their guns to Nate Champion's Red Sash Gang in Johnson County during the war there. After Nate Champion was slain, the brothers turned to rustling cattle, acts that upset local authorities, to say nothing of the ranchers. This brought the Pinkertons into the area, so Louie moved to Harlem, Montana, and purchased a saloon. When the law closed in, he sold out and fled back to Dodson, Missouri, where he took refuge in his aunt's home.
On February 28, 1900, with several inches of snow on the ground, a posse surrounded the house. Logan dashed out the back door, taking cover behind a mound of snow. He and the deputies then briefly exchanged shots before he jumped up and charged the lawmen. Lonie Logan died in a hail of gunfire.
.SPE .o. LOGAN, HARVEY
LONGABAUGH, Harry (a.k.a. Sundance Kid; Harry Place) (1861-?)
Harry Longabaugh was born in Pennsylvania; the exact month and day are not known. By 1884, the family had moved to Cortez, Colorado, where Harry worked as a horse wrangler. He then drifted to the Black Hills, passing through Sundance, Wyoming. He used the aliases Kid Chicago and Harry Alonzo. The authorities arrested the youth in Miles City, Montana, during 1887, jailing him in Sundance for
18 months and charging him with several counts of grand larceny. On February 4, 1889, Governor Thomas Moonlight granted him a full pardon. Lo
ngabaugh rode away from Sundance as the Sundance Kid.
Within a month the Kid had somehow aligned himself with Butch Cassidy, Matt Warner, and Tom McCarty, a group calling themselves the Wild Bunch. On June 24, 1889, they struck the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado, and got away with roughly $20,000. By now the Pinkertons had a description of Sundance-slim, six feet tall, a man who walked with downcast eyes, combed his hair in a Pompadour style, was bowlegged, and walked with feet wide apart. He carried his arms straight at his side, fingers closed, thumbs sticking straight out.
Sundance made his next appearance on November 29, 1892, at Malta, Montana, where he and two confederates robbed the Great Northern Railroad. A couple of days later, all three were rounded up by lawmen. Two went to prison, but Sundance escaped. Meanwhile, over in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, Flatnose George Curry, Tom O'Day, Walt Punteney, and Harvey and Lonie Logan hit the local bank on June 28, 1897. Following a helter-skelter, inept robbery that netted only $97, the outlaws fled, except for O'Day, who had come into town to scout out the bank but had gotten drunk and wasn't even present at the holdup. O'Day took cover in a nearby outhouse and was captured. Harvey Logan and Punteney galloped for the Colorado/Wyoming border, teamed up again with the Sundance Kid, and from there all four drifted to Lavina, Montana, where they were captured, returned to South Dakota, and locked in the Deadwood jail. On October 31, 1897, all four prisoners (including O'Day) broke out of the Deadwood jail, although only Sundance (posing in jail as Frank Jones) and Lonie Logan actually made a getaway. The other two were recaptured within hours. Oddly, O'Day was tried for the robbery and acquitted. The state released Punteney.
A year later, on July 14, 1898, Sundance, Kid Curry, and Flatnose George Curry held up the Southern Pacific coming into Humbolt, Nevada. They blew apart the express car door and escaped with $450 in cash, plus jewelry. On April 3, 1899, the same men and others of the Wild Bunch walked into the Club Saloon in Elko, Nevada, and robbed it of between $1,000 and $3,000. Then a Wilcox, Wyoming, Union Pacific holdup netted between $30,000 and $60,000 on June 2, 1899. Although large posses, including such stalwarts as cowboy detective Charles Siringo, tracked them for days, little came of it except tired men and horses. The gang escaped, only to appear at Tipton, Missouri, where on August 29, 1900, they robbed the Union Pacific, this time blowing the roof, sides, and end out of the express car as well as wrecking the car behind it. Three weeks later, on September 19, the gang hit the National Bank at Winnemucca, Nevada, and escaped with $32,000. This time, after days of hard riding, the gang split up.
The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters Page 33