Mention a group of Wild West outlaws-such as the James brothers, the Daltons, the Sam Bass Gang, Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, or Colonel Fountain's New Mexico disappearance, plus a dozen or so other figures and events-and the Pinkerton name is bound to surface. One operative, Tom Horn, worked all sides: as a Pinkerton man, a bounty hunter, and as a loner later legally hanged for killing the wrong person. Pinkerton also possessed the world's finest and most extensive rogues' gallery, as well as the world's best, and most resilient, group of operatives. He retained a female detective, Kate Warne, at a time when women did not do such work.
One of Pinkerton's better-known western detectives was Charles Siringo, who later wrote a book entitled The Cowbcy Detective, detailing his Pinkerton experiences. The Pinkertons suppressed it. Even Dashiell Hammett, who wrote best-selling yarns featuring dashing detectives, worked briefly as a Pinkerton operative.
Nevertheless, the Pinkerton expertise often fell short of exactitude. Training at best tended to be informal, and its investigative techniques could be sloppy and brutal. For instance, in 1875, the Pinkertons assaulted a Missouri cabin allegedly hiding Jesse James. Without being certain, the detectives tossed a fire bomb through the window. The device exploded, mutilating the arm of Jesse's mother and killing Archie Samuel, a half-brother to Jesse. As for Jesse James himself, he wasn't there, and the resultant bad publicity further stigmatized the Pinkertons. It also provided Jesse James with considerable sympathy among the American public.
Three years later, in 1888, the Pinkertons brought in strikebreakers for the Burlington Railroad. When the fighting ended, three guards and 10 strikers sprawled dead. Allan Pinkerton himself had died in 1884, after writing several autobiographical books: .ernarakfifereces and .Sket--ies,; hhe .Spy of and hhat r teat a
Today, the Pinkerton agency remains one of the world's best. It concentrates primarily on property protection.
.Seer"i BASS, SAM; DALTON BROTHERS; CASSIDY, BUTCH; FOUNTAIN, ALBERT JENNINGS; JAMES BROTHERS; HORN, TOM; SIRINGO, CHARLES ANGELO; WILD BUNCH
PLAINS Rifle
During the 1830s and '40s the most popular and most effective weapon was the Plains rifle, if for no other reason than there wasn't anything else to compare it to. The Plains rifle (oftentimes called the Hawken) was generic. Kit Carson used this weapon, as did Auguste Park Vasquez and David Meriwether. A good mountain man never left home without one.
The plains or Hawken rifle was simply an erudite name for a muzzleloader. It weighed 12 to 14 pounds, took black powder, had a flintlock powder charge or percussion cap, needed a ramrod, and could leave you in real trouble if you needed to get a second shot off in a hurry. Generally speaking these weapons were difficult to shoot-or reload-from a
horse. The good news was that they were fairly accurate at long range, capable of bringing down a buffalo, a man, or a squirrel.
PLEASANT Valley War
A 50-mile, oval-shaped valley in central Arizona, north of Globe, goes by the name of Pleasant Valley. The Tewksbury brothers-Edwin, John, and Jamesof mixed Indian and perhaps Negro heritage, stumbled onto it during the late 1870s and began raising purebred horses. In 1882, Ed Tewksbury met the brothers Tom and John Graham in Globe and suggested that they consider Pleasant Valley as a desirable site to raise cattle. The Grahams did so well in the valley that they brought in their brother Billy. They also hired Jim Tewksbury as a cowboy. In 1883, however, Jim noted that the Grahams had a habit of acquiring other people's livestock. He mentioned it to his own family, and the father insisted that Jim quit the brand and find honest work.
The Tewksburys did not see eye to eye with the Grahams on such matters as cattle theft. Neighboring ranchers began choosing sides. John Gilliland, a Texas-born Stinson Ranch foreman, and his nephew, rode over to the Tewksburys', where an argument started. Gilliland drew and fired, missing. Ed Tewksbury snatched a rifle and wounded both Gilliland and his nephew.
The Grahams filed charges of attempted murder against the Tewksburys in early 1884. In bitter weather the dispute went to trial in Globe, where a judge dismissed the charges, ruling that the Tewksburys had responded in self-defense. The youngest brother, Frank Tewksbury, who had ridden through bitter weather to observe the trial died shortly afterward of pneumonia. The Tewksburys blamed the Grahams for Frank's death-and the feud was on.
In the meantime, Texan Mark Blevins, who had a long-time association with the Aztec Land and Cattle Company, also known as the Hash Knife outfit, brought his family to the valley and settled alongside the Grahams. Blevins had a son, Andy, who had changed his last name to Cooper because he was selling whiskey to Oklahoma Indians and stealing cattle in Texas. Cooper's friends began stealing cattle and horses, and the Pleasant Valley situation deteriorated.
Into this caldron stepped the Daggs brothers of Flagstaff, who sought better winter grazing for their sheep. Since they were friends of the Tewksburys, they moved into the valley. The Tewksburys, already taking snide remarks because of their racial heritage, now had to contend with being supporters of sheepherders. Before long, someone ambushed a herd of sheep, killed the Basque herdsman, cut off his head, and drove the sheep over a cliff. Shortly after that, Mark Blevins, in search of horses, vanished from the earth.
On August 9, 1887, Hamilton Blevins and four Hash Knife cowboys approached a cabin belonging to the Middleton Ranch and, not realizing that Jim and Ed Tewksbury were inside, shouted for something to eat. A gunfight started. Blevins died on the spot. His four cowboy friends fled, three of them wounded, one seriously.
A week later, 18-year-old Billy Graham was riding home from Phoenix when he encountered the Basque sheepherder's brother. Billy made it home with a bullet in him and died the next day.
On September 2, a large contingent of Grahams, plus friends, occupied the high ground overlooking the Tewksbury ranch house and ambushed John Tewksbury and William Jacobs, killing both men. Inside the cabin, Ed and Jim Tewksbury, their father, and another man held off the attackers. The Tewksburys watched in helpless horror as hogs started eating bodies in the yard. The attackers later withdrew, and burials took place.
Two days later, Andy (Blevins) Cooper celebrated at the Bucket of Blood Saloon in Holbrook, Arizona. While in his cups and before leaving for his mother's home, he boasted of the killings. Those boasts quickly grabbed the attention of Commodore Perry Owens-who ordinarily dressed like a refugee from a Wild West show but nevertheless was sheriff of Apache County and just happened to be in Holbrook. A family gathering was taking place in the Blevins house; Owens walked inside and said he had a warrant for Cooper, who resisted, and Owens shot him dead. Other family members now entered the battle, one of the bloodiest gunfights in western history. When it ended, Owens still stood, but three men were dead. Another would recover sufficiently to spend five years in the Arizona prison at Yuma.
Two weeks later the Grahams made another Tewksbury raid, killing a Tewksbury friend and seriously wounding a young cowboy. The territorial governor now ordered Yavapai County sheriff William Molvenon to end the feud. On September 21, Molvenon and a 25-man posse rode to the Graham
Ranch and in a gunfight killed John Graham and Charles Blevins. Tom Graham wasn't to be found. Molvenon now warned the others that once he had Tom Graham in custody he would come for the Tewksburys. That was sufficient. The two Tewksburys quickly surrendered and were released on bond. Tom Graham later surrendered. All of them went on trial, but when no witnesses appeared, charges were dropped.
One more episode remained. On August 2, 1892, Ed Tewksbury and a man named John Rhodes, shot Tom Graham off the back of a wagon. Both men went on trial for murder. Rhodes had a good alibi and went free. Ed Tewksbury also had a good alibi but no one believed it, and he went to prison. After languishing there for two years, he won a new trial-and a hung jury. The state dropped its charges, and he went free after two and one-half years in prison.
Ed Tewksbury became the last living feudist of the Pleasant Valley War. He died in bed on April 4, 1904. Zane Grey wou
ld later write a romanticized novel based on the struggle, entitled To thhe Lt Mara.
.3615- aLgO; OWENS, COMMODORE PERRY; ROBERTS, JAMES FRANKLIN
PLUMMER, William Henry (1832-1864)
Henry Plummer worked all sides of the law, and he did it as skillfully and as brutally as any outlaw/lawman who ever lived. He was born in Maine but by 1852 had arrived in Nevada City, California, where four years later he became the city marshal. In 1857, he campaigned for the state legislature but was defeated, primarily because of alleged criminal activities.
He then killed John Vedder after the two men quarreled over the affections of Vedder's wife. That earned Plummer 10 years at San Quentin, although he obtained an early release through a pardon. After killing a man in Nevada City, Plummer fled to Montana, where he became sheriff of Bannack in 1863. One of his first tasks was to build a gallows, but while doing so he organized a group of cutthroats; estimates of their numbers range from a couple of dozen to 100. They called themselves the Innocents, and their occupations were murder and robbery. Plummer himself rode with them so frequently that he was recognized during several of the holdups.
Since the miners received no help from the law, they organized vigilance committees, which lynched George Ives, one of Plumber's key operatives. They strung him up from a ridgepole supporting an adobe wall. They also hanged George Brown and Erastus Yeager. Yeager confessed before he died, implicating Plummer.
Between December 1863 and late February 1864, the vigilantes lynched 22 men, including Plummer and two associates, on the town gallows. It was a fitting end for a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde.
.3615- VIGILANCE COMMITTEES
POE, John William (1850-1923)
This buffalo hunter turned lawman, turned businessman, was born on a farm in Mason County, Kentucky. At the age of 10 he left home, worked on farms and railroads, and around 1872 settled near Fort Griffin, Texas, where he sold wolf pelts and by his own estimate killed 20,000 buffalo. In 1878, he became the Fort Griffin city marshal, and in 1879, a deputy sheriff in Wheeler County. He also held down a U.S. deputy marshal commission. He became a detective for the Canadian River Cattle Association in 1881 and accompanied Sheriff Pat Garrett to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where on the night of July 14, 1881, Billy the Kid walked right by John Poe, neither man recognizing the other. Minutes later, Sheriff Pat Garrett shot the Kid dead.
Poe later secured indictments against Pat Coughlin, a Tularosa, New Mexico, cattle thief. Coughlin had allegedly hired assassins to murder people who might testify against him during his upcoming cattletheft trial in Mesilla, New Mexico.
In 1882, John Poe became the next sheriff of Lincoln County, married Sophie Alberding, and in 1884 moved to a ranch near Fort Stanton. He then resigned as sheriff and moved to Roswell, New Mexico. He became a member of the Roswell Masonic Lodge and founded two banks in the city. He served on the Board of Regents of the New Military Institute and as president of the New Mexico State Tax Commission. He died in Roswell on July 22, 1923, and was buried in the South Park Cemetery. In 1936, his widow wrote and published his biography, entitled
BILLY THE KID; COUGHLIN, PATRICK; GARRETT, PATRICK FLOYD JARVIS; LINCOLN COUNTY WAR
John Poe and his wife, Sophie (Library, University of New Mexico)
POINTER, John (?-1884)
John Pointer, born in Eureka, Arkansas, was one of those youngsters who remain perpetually in trouble. As a youth, he reportedly stabbed a neighbor friend and set another companion on fire. The behavior pattern never varied, but he finally went too far late Christmas Day, 1891, somewhere in the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma. Pointer had been traveling with two companions, but their journey forever ended that same evening. Pointer took their horses, money, and wagon and left the two bodies in the creek. The authorities arrested him shortly afterward when he attempted to sell the gear.
Pointer went before federal judge Isaac Parker and accepted his death sentence with a chuckle, even offering, and being allowed, to name his own hour of execution. However, at 3:30 P.M. on September 24, 1894, Pointer has a change of heart. He requested and received a quarter-hour delay the better to steel his nerves for the brief trip into eternity. That was granted, but it helped little. A subsequent request for additional time was turned down.
See PARKER, JUDGE ISAAC
PRATT, John (?-?)
This U.S. marshal came out of Massachusetts, where he was born, becoming a Republican and a Unionist who knew how to manipulate the federal system to his benefit. To this end he curried favors from the Santa Fe Ring, which was controlled primarily by political operatives Thomas Catron and Stephen B. Elkins. Thus in March 1866, Pratt became the U.S. marshal in New Mexico, even prosecuting for embezzlement the man he replaced, Abraham Cutler. (Cutler was acquitted).
Pratt and his U.S. deputy marshals, most of them New Mexico sheriffs, in September 1868 arrested 150 alleged violators of the New Mexico peonage laws, people who allegedly kept workers in what amounted to slavery. While these cases meandered through the courts, Pratt attempted to resolve New Mexico's Colfax County War, in particular the slaying of Parson F. J. Tolby, a preacher who had threatened to expose dishonest dealings between the Maxwell Land Grant Company and a bank owned by Stephen B. Elkins. Elkins, of course, was a political powerhouse, a man whom Pratt was much more interested in placating than investigating. All of this, of course, brought conflict-of-interest charges raining down on the head of Pratt, but he survived, as did everyone else.
For service in failing to rock numerous political boats, President Ulysses Grant in May 1876 named Pratt secretary of the Territory of New Mexico.
.See also: ALLISON, ROBERT A.
PRICE, Anthony (a.k.a. One Arm Price) (?-1883)
Although little is known of the origin or ending of Anthony "One Arm Price," he is vividly remembered for his ingenious defense at his murder trial. It seems that Price and Mike McCrea had engaged in a wild spree at Warder's Cafe on a hot July 1881 afternoon in Deming, New Mexico. Price had jerked a borrowed six-shooter and pointed it at McCrea. Through bloodshot eyes McCrea looked down the muzzle and foolishly slurred, "Does she pop?" It popped! Price was charged with murder.
On a change of venue, Price was taken to Mesilla, New Mexico, for trial. Grant County sheriff Harvey Whitehill and Deputy Dan Tucker handcuffed the sheriff's young son Wayne to Price's good arm for the night as an effective alarm and an efficient anchor. The two lawmen got a good night's rest, as they planned.
The well-known political powerhouse Albert J. Fountain defended Price, insisting that the revolver had been borrowed and that it furthermore had been altered to fire by merely slipping the hammer, a factor not realized by Price. Furthermore, Fountain argued, Price had been drinking whiskey in anticipation of a trip to the dentist, and the dentist had also given Price a dose of morphine. Price therefore had suffered "chemical induced amnesia" concerning the entire episode; if he had indeed shot his friend, "it was in a playful mood." Fountain's arguments were so persuasive that the jury spent but 15 minutes finding Price guilty of murder only in the fifth degree. The jurors assessed a punishment of a small fine and a few days in jail.
Not long afterward, a newspaper reported, "Andy Price-a man twice tried for murder in this county-is constable at Eureka. He is a very good officer and the rustlers give that section of the county the go-bye."
QUANTRILL, William Clarke (a.k.a. Charlie Hart) (1837-1865)
In terms of outlaw and military guerrilla tactics, William Clark Quantrill practically wrote the book. He was born in Canal Dover, Ohio, on July 31, 1837. In 1857 having briefly farmed in Kansas, he wandered west for a couple of years, prospecting and gambling along the way. Sometimes he went by the alias of "Charlie Hart." He even taught school until the advent of the Civil War. Quantrill then hung around Lawrence, Kansas, by various accounts committing a few murders and stealing a few horses. He spent a brief time in the Confederate army, then seems to have deserted-or perhaps been discharged. He began at once to recruit men in opposition to the J
ayhawkers; he called his men "Quantrill's Raiders," ruffians who looted and murdered, often in support of slavery but mostly in support of anarchy.
Throughout the Civil War, Quantrill's raiders burned towns and ranches as well as Union strongholds along the Missouri-Kansas border. With him rode such soon-to-be-well-known outlaws as Frank and Jesse James, William C. "Bloody Bill" Anderson, and Cole Younger. On August 21, 1863, he led 200 men into Lawrence, killing 180 Kansas men and boys (women were spared). Quantrill lost one man during the four-hour murder and burning spree, which in addition to the deaths caused over $1 million in damages. A year later, Quantrill dressed his men in new Union uniforms, walked them into the
Federal camp at Baxter Springs, Kansas, and slaughtered 101 soldiers.
Quantrill's raids made him as feared and as despised in the South as the North. His guerrillas rode into Sherman, Texas, killing Confederates as well as Unionists, an act that on March 31, 1864, got him arrested by Gen. Henry McCulloch. Quantrill broke out of confinement; his command had split into small, disintegrating groups, but Quantrill led the remnants into Kentucky. On May 10, 1865, Quantrill, down to 11 men, was at the James Wakefield farm, near Bloomfield. During a pouring rain, Federal cavalry swept in and caught Quantrill napping in a hayloft. Quantrill never quite got seated on his horse before a bullet shattered his backbone. The troops moved him to a military hospital in Louisville, where he died on June 6, 1865.
Quantrill was buried in the Catholic Cemetery at Louisville. In 1887, his mother, Caroline Clarke Quantrill, ordered his bones dug up and sold. William Clarke Quantrill was obviously his mother's son.
The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters Page 41