The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters

by Leon Claire Metz

  On March 20, the Earps, Doc Holliday, Sherman McMaster, and the body of Morgan left for California. During a stopover at Tucson, the party caught sight of Frank Stillwell moving among the train cars and shot him to death. Upon returning to Tombstone, however, the Earps organized a posse consisting of at least seven men, including McMaster, and on March 22 they caught up with Florentino Cruz, whom they promptly executed. Two days later, that same posse killed Curly Bill Brocius, although during the shootout McMaster avoided death only by a hair's breadth when a bullet passed unimpeded through his clothing. Another cut the straps off his field glasses.

  What happened to McMaster after this isn't known. Some stories say he was killed in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. Other people claim he died in Colorado some time around 1892.

  .S66 BEHAN, JOHN HARRIS; EARP, WYATT BERRY STAPP; EARP, MORGAN; EARP, VIRGIL; EL PASO SALT WAR; KINNEY, JOHN

  McMURTRY, William (1802-1892)

  William McMurtry started life in Kentucky and became a doctor. The lure of gold proved strong, however, so in 1849 he took his wife and five children to Oroville, California. They opened a restaurant and hotel, but William and his brother, James, in partnership with Richard Kimball, had even greater dreams. They staked a gold claim called the Larimer.

  A man named Alexander Griffin opened a nearby claim, and in 1858 the two parties started arguing over who owned what. Gunfire commenced, and James McMurtry and Richard Kimball went down.

  Dr. William McMurtry, not a man of violence, proved it when he jerked a revolver out of his belt and it tangled up in his suspenders. Still, he was resourceful, and once he freed the weapon, the good doctor proved to be dangerous. His first two shots killed men called Carney and Holland. Then three more men went down almost as quickly. Another gunman, known only as Coyote Jack, died later. McMurtry, a country doctor, had now fired six times and killed or seriously wounded six opponents.

  He then bent down to retrieve his fallen brother's revolver, and at this point the opposition, or what was left of it, departed. When the newspapers got the story about what became known as "the Osborne Hill gunfight," they published accounts that conflicted in every way except one-the good doctor never missed. William McMurtry lived a quiet, uneventful life thereafter, practicing medicine almost until he died at 91 on March 6, 1892, in Oakland, California.

  McNELLY, Leander H. (1844-1811)

  This relentless, fighting Texas Ranger was born in Virginia but got to Texas as soon as he could and joined the Confederate army. He fought in the New Mexico campaign as well as the Battle of Galveston before fighting his way across southern Louisiana, in the process being seriously wounded, although he later captured several Union soldiers at Brashear City, Louisiana.

  After the war, he return to farming in Texas, married, and became one of the four captains in the Texas State Police until it was disbanded in 1873. In July 1874, he became captain of the Seventh Company of the Texas Rangers, being assigned to duty in DeWitt County to suppress the Sutton-Taylor feud. Governor Richard Coke described the process as "making friends." As for McNelly, he reported that "a perfect reign of terror existed as armed bands of men made predatory excursions through the country, overawing the law-abiding citizens." At the end of four months, McNelly was assigned to other troubles. He said the Sutton-Taylor feud would restart once he was gone. Of course, it did.

  In early 1875, McNelly raised a 40-man company to patrol the Nueces Strip between the Rio Grande and the Nueces Rivers. This time it wasn't necessary to make friends, so for two years (1875-76) along that remote area McNelly shot the bad guys and stacked their bodies in the town plazas. He made several illegal crossings south into Mexico, shot up various outlaw ranches, and wasn't gentle in coaxing information from captured Mexican xga.ierct . On one occasion the U.S. Army had to cover McNelly's retreat back into Texas. The Texas governor finally relieved him in 1876 with Jesse Lee Hall. McNelly subsequently retired to a farm in Burton, Texas, and died of tuberculosis on September 4, 1877.

  .366 Agrj: HALL, JESSE LEIGH; SUTTON-TAYLOR FEUD; TEXAS RANGERS

  MADSEN, Christian (a.k.a. Chris Madsen) (1841-1947)

  This soldier of fortune and Denmark-born lawman served in the Danish army at 14 and with the French

  Foreign Legion in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. He reached the United States in 1876 and joined the cavalry before becoming a U.S. deputy marshal in Oklahoma during 1891. He, Bill Tilghman, and Heck Thomas became the legendary "Three Guardsmen," pursuing outlaw gangs and doing everything from battling whiskey smugglers to extraditing fugitives. Madsen in particular became well known for his pursuit of the Dalton brothers and his breakup of the Doolin gang in Oklahoma. He joined Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in 1898, and in 1910 he received a temporary court appointment as a U.S. marshal. He died quietly at Guthrie, Oklahoma, in 1947.

  DOOLIN, WILLIAM M.; THOMAS, HENRY ANDREW; TILGHMAN, WILLIAM MATTHEW, JR.

  MALEDON, George (1834-1911)

  This hangman was born in Detroit, served in the Union army, then moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas, where he became a U.S. deputy marshal assigned in 1875 as "the" executioner for the "hanging judge," Isaac C. Parker. Although he did not execute all 79 of those sentenced to die by judge Parker, he handled most of them.

  His executions invariably went off without a hitch. The sad-faced Maledon oiled and tenderly prepared his ropes; he sent all condemned men to their graves in new suits and clean coffins. To Maledon, there was nothing personal in his executions. On one occasion, six men at once did what the newspapers called "the dance of death." Following that, the government ordered executions closed to casual visitors. It then became Maledon's additional job to arrange a barricade around the execution platform and to issue official passes.

  When his executioner days ended, Maledon briefly went on the road, displaying ropes and telling dry stories. However, the audience just wasn't there. George Maledon died on May 6, 1911.

  See ac; PARKER, JUDGE ISAAC

  MARTIN, Charles (?-?)

  Little is known about Charlie Martin, although he was likely born in Missouri. All that's recorded is that he arrived in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in mid-1867. He and a man named Andy Harris subsequently opened a dance hall, but the two partners had a falling out, and Martin killed Harris. A jury acquit ted Martin, but the finding outraged the local vigilantes. They hanged him.

  MARTIN, William A. (a.k.a. Hurricane Bill) (?-1881)

  Hurricane Bill was a character, and like most characters he acted and cherished the part. The army accused him of stealing horses; he had allegedly shot a policeman, somewhere; and had spent considerable time in the Black Hills, as well as in Dodge City. The Texas Rangers had arrested him once, charged him with an attempt to kill, then couldn't prove it and turned him loose. Everybody seemed to know Hurricane Bill, and most people seemed to like him. He spent a lot of time around Fort Griffin, Texas, even marrying an interesting prostitute known as Hurricane Minnie.

  Notwithstanding a reputation like this, the little community of Otero hired him as a deputy sheriff. It had no jail, so Bill tied everyone he arrested to a telegraph pole. After three months, the community dismissed him for "incompetency and drunkenness." Then, sometime around mid-1881, Hurricane Bill vanished.

  MASON County War (Hoodoo War)

  No other state had cattle feuds quite like Texas. Mason County in particular seemed to be settled primarily by Germans, Americans, livestock, and an insidious group of cattle rustlers. To keep order, Governor Richard Coke was asked to dispatch troops.

  In early 1875, Sheriff John Clark incarcerated nine alleged rustlers, of whom four promptly escaped. This was too much for local stock grazers, so on February 18, 1875, 40 very angry men removed the remaining prisoners from jail and led them to a site near Hick Springs, where all kinds of confusion took place. The Texas Rangers managed to intervene, but two men were still lynched. Another had been lynched but was still alive. A fourth had escaped, and the fifth had been shot and would soon die.
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  Three months later, on May 13, Mason County deputy sheriff John Worley rode to Castell, Texas, to take custody of an alleged cattle thief, Tim Williamson. While returning to Mason, however, they were stopped by 12 men with blackened faces, who killed Williamson. The Mason County War was now under way.

  Scott Cooley, a former ranger turned rancher and a friend of Williamson's, now rounded up a group of colleagues, one of them named John Ringgold, a man who would be in and out of Texas jails during the following few years. After learning the names of the Williamson assassins, Cooley and his band began methodically exterminating them, initially killing John Worley, who was not only shot but scalped. A week or so later they killed John Cheney, who was preparing breakfast when death overtook him.

  Governor Coke now called out the Texas Rangers to restore order, sending Maj. John B. Jones, with portions of Company A and Company D. The rangers rode into Cold Springs, Texas, where they encountered Sheriff Clark and perhaps 20 riders, who explained they had organized because Scott Cooley and his cohorts planned to "burn out the Dutch," meaning the Germans. So the days passed with numerous killings. Some men disappeared, some were wounded, and some obviously left the area.

  In the meantime, Major Jones discharged several of his rangers after learning they sympathized with the Cooley faction. Several arrests took place; the cases were usually dismissed, or the subjects were found not guilty. So as the war wound down, the county had over a dozen unsolved murders on its hands, for which no one was ever convicted, although several men went on trial for various crimes in different counties. Cooley himself took refuge in Blanco County, where he reportedly died of brain fever. John Ringgold fled Texas for Arizona, winning fame as John Ringo. As for a gun/rope-weary Mason County, it seemed to have forsaken killing by late 1876, although in January 1877 someone burned the courthouse, destroying the records.

  .31'6 49o; JONES, JOHN B.; RINGO, JOHN PETERS

  MASTERSON, Edward John (1852-1879)

  Ed Masterson was the first of seven children born to Thomas Masterson and Mary McGurk in Quebec, Canada. The family began moving in 1861 and by 1871 had reached Wichita, Kansas, where it farmed on 80 acres while Ed, Bat, and James became buffalo hunters. By 1873, Ed had arrived in Dodge City, working as a grading contractor as well as a hide man, trading in buffalo skins. In April 1877, Mayor Jim Kelley appointed Larry Deger as city marshal of Dodge City. Ed Masterson became Deger's assistant in May. On July 12, Deger arrested a friend and supporter of Kelley's and ignored the mayor's demand that the man be released. Kelley ordered Ed Masterson to arrest Deger, but the marshal pulled a gun. Masterson talked him down and placed him under arrest. He also arrested Mayor Kelley. A court later dropped charges against both Kelley and Deger.

  On the day before Bat Masterson became sheriff of Ford County, a resident named Bob Shaw accused a local citizen named Texas Dick of stealing $40. Ed Masterson arrived at the Lone Star Saloon and asked for Shaw's gun; Shaw refused to give it up. As a result, Masterson cracked Shaw across the head with a revolver, but Shaw hardly blinked. Instead he shot and grazed the marshal's chest. In falling, the marshal fired and wounded Shaw in the left leg and arm. During the melee, Texas Dick took a bullet in the groin, there being some uncertainty about who had fired it, Masterson or Shaw. A month later, the city council removed Deger as marshal and replaced him with Ed Masterson.

  Late in the evening of April 9, 1879, Marshal Ed Masterson entered Dodge City's Lady Gay Saloon and noticed several cowhands whooping it up at the bar. One of them, Jack Wagner, had a holstered gun, and Ed walked over to advise him that wearing weapons was illegal, that the six-shooter would have to be checked. Wagner offered no resistance, so Masterson handed the gun to Alf Walker, the trail boss.

  Masterson walked outside. A few minutes later the cowboys followed, the marshal noticing immediately that Wagner had his six-shooter back. The marshal stepped in close to take it away, and a scuffle started; Wagner drew the weapon, stuck it against Masterson's side, and pulled the trigger. Not only did the round go all the way through Masterson's body, but the flame set the marshal's clothing afire. Trail boss Walker now pulled his own weapon and aimed it at the marshal, but Masterson fired three times, one shot striking Walker in the chest. The cattleman staggered through the saloon and out the back door.

  The marshal now turned from the smoke and fury, stumbled across the plaza and into Hoover's Saloon, where he collapsed, dying in less than an hour. Wagner died during the following day. Walker finally recovered.

  Marshal Ed Masterson was initially buried in the Fort Dodge cemetery. The body was moved a year later to the Prairie Grove Cemetery, and later still to the Maple Grove Cemetery. The exact burial plot cannot now be determined.

  See MASTERSON, JAMES; MASTERSON, WILLIAM BARCLAY

  MASTERSON, James (1855-1895)

  James Masterson was born in Henryville, Iberville County, Quebec, Canada, on September 16, 1855, the third of the seven Masterson children. In 1861, the Masterson family arrived in New York; they then drifted to Illinois and perhaps to Missouri. In 1871, the Mastersons ended up near Wichita, Kansas. Later that year or shortly afterward, Jim joined his brothers Bat and Ed Masterson on the buffalo range.

  Jim hunted buffalo until 1878, and a year later opened a Dodge City saloon. Shortly afterward, his brother, Dodge City marshal Ed Masterson, was slain in a gunfight.

  On June 1, 1878, Jim became an assistant marshal. On November 4, 1879, he became the city marshal. During this period, someone sent his brother Bat a telegram: "Come at once. Updegraff and Peacock are going to kill Jim." Bat did come, but no attempted killings occurred. By 1882, he lost an election; Jim was without a job.

  He drifted over to Trinidad, Colorado, and became an assistant city marshal, losing the position when his brother Bat became city marshal. By late 1884, he had moved south to Raton, New Mexico, where he became undersheriff. A month later, Masterson became a captain in the New Mexico Territorial Militia, a quasi-military group whose purposes were to keep the peace in Colfax County. A Texas gunman named Dick Rogers and a band of men invaded a saloon one evening on January 30, 1885. They backed Masterson against the wall and made him dance while they peppered the floor around his feet with gunshots.

  Jim apparently swallowed hard and then jumped into another silly-and dangerous-confrontation, the war between the Kansas communities of Ingalls and Cimarron over which would be the Gray County seat. Only six miles separated the two towns. On January 12, 1889, a half-dozen gunmen, including Jim Masterson, Ben Daniels, Neal Brown, and Bill Tilghman, slipped into town. Masterson and three others went to the second floor, grabbed boxes of records, and were hauling them out to a wagon when several Cimarron residents started shooting. The people in the wagon, although shot up, escaped. The four men inside the building commenced firing. During a sixhour siege, they wounded four Cimarron residents and killed J. W. English. Then they surrendered under a white flag and were permitted to leave town. Masterson was acquitted in the English slaying.

  Jim Masterson immediately left the state, soon afterward participating in the Oklahoma land rush before becoming deputy sheriff of Logan County (Guthrie, Oklahoma). In May 1890, as the Oklahoma Territory was being carved out of Indian Territory, Jim Masterson became a U.S. deputy marshal. In the meantime, Bill Doolin and his gang had robbed a train and holed up in Ingalls, Indian Territory, 30 miles north of Guthrie. A federal posse with Masterson second in command converged on the community during September 1, 1893, arriving in covered wagons so as to obscure the fact that they were lawmen.

  However, outlaw Bitter Creek Newcomb happened to be on the street when he heard someone speak his name. He immediately started firing. Lawmen Dick Speed, Tom Hueston, and Lafe Shadley died. Bill Doolin, Bill Dalton, and several other gang members escaped.

  Only Arkansas Tom was now left behind, but he threw up his hands when Jim Masterson produced two sticks of dynamite and threatened to blow up the building sheltering him. He was the only outlaw captured.

&nb
sp; On March 31, 1895, James Masterson died of consumption. He was 39 years old. There is no evidence that he ever killed anybody.

  S66 (9&0: DALTON BROTHERS; DOOLIN, WILLIAM M.; MASTERSON, WILLIAM BARCLAY; TILGHMAN, WILLIAM MATHEW, JR.

  MASTERSON, William Barclay (a.k.a. Bat) (1853-1921)

  Bat Masterson started life on November 26, 1853, at County Rouville, Quebec, Canada, but the family moved to Sedgwick County, Kansas, in June 1871. Bat and his brother, Ed, hired on as buffalo skinners for an outfit operating near the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River. Here Bat met many men who would influence him throughout his life. In the meantime, the Masterson brothers rode into Adobe Walls, Texas, just in time to repulse an assault by Comanche chief Quanah Parker. Masterson thereafter became a civilian scout for Gen. Nelson Miles. By October 1874, he decided he had had enough.

  Masterson drifted over to Sweetwater, near Dodge City, where he ran awry of Cpl. Melvin King of the Fourth Cavalry, stationed at nearby Fort Elliott. King had been born Anthony Cook in Quebec, Canada, in 1845. Because of rowdy behavior (drunkenness and fighting), he had left the U.S. Army and reenlisted on several occasions until being dishonorably discharged in 1869. He had reenlisted a couple months later as Melvin King and had risen to corporal. On the night of January 24, 1876, he, Bat Masterson, and a soiled dove named Molly Brennan came together in confrontation.

  William B. ("Bat") Masterson (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)

  Apparently, Corporal King resented the intrusion of Masterson regarding the affections of Molly. She and Bat caroused in several saloons during the evening. Sometime around midnight, the two wandered into Charlie Norton's place and closed the doors. King glanced through the window, witnessed what was going on, and began hammering on the front door. Bat opened it, and King came charging in. Corporal King fired two shots, one hitting Molly, who apparently-and probably unintentionallyhad gotten between the two men. The other bullet hit Masterson. Masterson fired one shot at King.