The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters

by Leon Claire Metz

  Throughout his brief career as a leader of the Arizona Rangers, he feuded with county sheriffs and their deputies, considering them gun-toting, flashy individuals for the most part incapable of honest work. He believed sheriffs and their deputies were upset because rangers, with the power to arrest anywhere, deprived county officers of fees and mileage.

  However, Rynning's major problem stemmed from the Cananea Copper Mines, 30 miles south of the Arizona border in Mexico. Strikers demanded $5 an hour, Mexican money. Col. William C. Greene, the mining manager, had wired the U.S. government as well as officials in Arizona, insisting that troops be sent to protect American workers and families. From the south, Mexican Rurales rushed toward the scene. From the north, the Arizona government sponsored a special train carrying Captain Rynning, 24 armed Arizona Rangers, and a large number of armed civilians. At the border the train bluffed its way past Rurale Col. Emilio Kosterlitzky, steamed into Cananea, took command of a strategic hill, and later moved out with American civilians, transporting them north toward and across the international border.

  Captain Thomas Rynning, ex-captain of the Arizona Rangers, 1903 (Arizona Historical Society Library)

  Rynning's reward for all this was a promotion to superintendent of the Yuma Territorial Prison where by all accounts he served honestly, honorably, and well. Thomas Rynning died in 1941.

  .S'ee (9&0: ARIZONA RANGERS; WHEELER, HARRY; YUMA TERRITORIAL PRISON

  SALOONS

  A saloon was an entertainment establishment, a drinking, gambling, and social enterprise whose heyday lasted only 60 or 70 years. Yet it played an indispensable role in the history of the American West. The first saloons were eastern and southern colonial inns and taverns that moved west and changed with the times. They were places of comfort, of small talk, where cowboys could gripe about bosses and trail drives, soldiers could curse their sergeants, and business and professional men could find solace in the problems and failures of other establishments. In a sense saloons were the last refuge of the male, although hurdy-gurdy girls and dance-hall queens frequently enriched the smoke-drenched, fly-swarming atmosphere.

  Saloons served beer and whiskey ranging from the best ale to the worst rotgut. Some saloons were clean and neat, ornate and opulent, lively and well lit, with big mirrors marching around the interior. Others were dark and dank, with dirt floors, smoky lanterns, log or mud walls, and clients and staff who had not bathed in years.

  Most saloons made their money off gambling and drinks. A few also rented upstairs rooms either for sleeping or casual sex.

  Because saloons stayed open late and encouraged both drinking and gambling, violence, particularly as the night wore on, tended to result. Although most saloons had rules against the carrying of weapons, many men packed firearms in their hip or front pockets, holsters being too obvious. Since patrons tended to be young men away from home, many of them soldiers or cowboys, drink and losing money often led to violent arguments that sometimes ended in the street, or on the saloon floor. Practically every person mentioned in this encyclopedia at one time or another frequented saloons and occasionally either engaged in brawls or shootouts or observed them. Not many visitors ever left a saloon where a brawl was pending, all of which proves only that there wasn't much to do in a cow town except eat, sleep, and drink. You took your excitement where you found it, and saloons were the best game in town.

  SANDERS, Wilbur Fiske (1834-1905)

  This attorney turned vigilante was born in New York, studied law, fought in the Civil War, and moved to Montana, where he practiced law in 1863. With rampant lawlessness all around, he first prosecuted murderers, but when the cases got to be too many for the justice system to function well, he switched to working with the vigilantes. Lynch ropes were much more effective than courtroom arguments.

  He later became a U.S. senator, eventually dying in Helena, Montana.

  Saloon gambling (Arizona Historical Society)

  SAN FRANCISCO Vigilantes

  Although self-styled vigilantes existed practically all over the American West, nowhere do they seem to have been better organized or to have had a clearer sense of purpose than in San Francisco.

  The California Gold Rush started in 1849, and it drew to the West Coast the best and the worst that America had to offer. By 1851, San Francisco in particular had undergone a surge of lawlessness and a series of fires. A Committee of Vigilance, with 700 members, swiftly formed, its target being the common criminal. Historian John Boessenecker claims it hanged four criminals in 1851 and chased others out of town. But that was just the beginning.

  By 1855, the crises shifted to governmental corruption, an issue creating so much outrage that 8,000 men reorganized as vigilantes, specifically 50 companies or units. They frequently wore militia uni

  forms and carried rifles. They had access to cannons and were headquartered in a two-story building called Fort Gunnybags, a massive structure surrounded by sandbags.

  These vigilantes were largely the elite of the city, business and professional people with political power, leaders who gave their victims trials with lawyers and prosecutors. The hangings-and the vigilantes hanged only four in 1856-drew large and appreciative crowds. (Two were hanged from second-story windows of the "fort.") Most criminals, however, either went on a blacklist with instructions to leave town or were outright forced on board a ship and deported to whatever port of call happened to be next.

  When the vigilantes finally cleaned up their city, they disbanded.

  cr_; DUANE, CHARLES P.; VIGILANCE COMMITTEES

  San Francisco as it looked during the time of the vigilante movement (Institute oFTexian Cultures, San Antonio)

  SCABBARD

  A scabbard can be a sheath or container for a knife or a holster for a six-shooter. These early scabbards, or holsters, came complete with a flap. It kept the gun inside and kept the dust and rain out. By the early 1870s, the flap had disappeared, but the holster wasn't cut away for a faster draw until shortly afterward. The double-action six-shooters in particular needed cutaways. By the 1880s and '90s, holsters started being designed to fit particular guns, and if there was such a thing as the classic quick draw, it was the holster as much as the weapon that made it possible.

  The term is also frequently associated with rifles, especially when carried on horseback. The scabbard is designed not only to keep out the dust and rain but to make the weapon readily available when needed.

  SCARBOROUGH, George Adolphus (1859-1900)

  This well-known frontier peace officer was born in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, moved to Texas in 1874, and worked as a cowboy in McCulloch County. He married Mary McMahan, and they had seven children. George Scarborough Jr. became a noted lawman in his own right. In November 1884, the voters elected the elder Scarborough sheriff of Jones County, reelecting him in 1886. On October 15, 1887, in controversial circumstances, he killed an outlaw named A. J. Williams in Haskell; he was tried for murder and acquitted. Nevertheless, he lost his 1888 reelection bid. He found employment as a stock detective before being appointed as a U.S. deputy marshal in 1893.

  Two years later, Martin Mrose, an accused southern New Mexico cattle rustler, fled to the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, and sent his wife Helen Beulah to retain attorney John Wesley Hardin across the Rio Grande in El Paso. Hardin subsequently retained George Scarborough to lure Mrose across the river on an old railroad bridge on the night of June 29, 1895. Once on the El Paso side, Scarborough, plus former El Paso police chief Jeff Milton, Texas Ranger Frank McMahan, and (probably) El Paso constable John Selman, shot Mrose to death. Scarborough and the others were tried for murder, and Scarborough was acquitted. Late at night on April 5, 1896, Scarborough and Selman quarreled in an El Paso alley; Scarborough put four bullets in Selman, who died later on the operating table. Scarborough was tried for murder; he was acquitted but was forced to resign as U.S. deputy marshal.

  For a while, Scarborough bought and sold livestock around Fort Davis, Texas, befo
re moving to Deming, New Mexico, where he resumed his old activities as a stock detective and deputy sheriff. In early April 1900, in pursuit with two companions of cattle rustlers near San Simon, Arizona, he took a bullet in the leg and could no longer ride. His associates rode to San Simon for a wagon and transported him to Lordsburg, New Mexico. It had no doctor. They waited for a train, then took him to Deming, New Mexico, where he died on the operating table, primarily from loss of blood. His death came four years to the day after John Selman died on the operating table in El Paso. George Scarborough is buried in Deming.

  SEE HARDIN, JOHN WESLEY; MILTON, JEFFERSON DAVIS; MROSE, HELEN BEULAH; MROSE, MARTIN; SCARBOROUGH, GEORGE EDGAR JR.; SELMAN, JOHN HENRY

  SCARBOROUGH, George Edgar, Jr. (1819-1945)

  Few men could rightfully be allowed bragging rights as the son of an indisputably renowned southwestern lawman, but George Edgar Scarborough Jr. was an exception. By the time he was 18, Ed was riding with posses made up of his father, Jeff Milton, and Frank McMahan. As a detective for the Grant County Cattleman's Association, based out of Deming, New

  Mexico Territory, the elder Scarborough seemed pleased that his son Ed was following in the law enforcement tradition.

  His father was slain in 1900. Twenty-year-old Ed remained in the law enforcement harness, holding a dual commission as a deputy sheriff in addition to being an assistant to Frank McMahan, his father's successor as cattle-range detective. Meanwhile, George Stevenson and James Brooks had escaped from the Grant County jail at Silver City, New Mexico; over in Arizona, robbers Burt Alvord, Billy Stiles, and Bravo Juan Yoes had broken out of the Cochise County jail. The country was now awash in fugitives, rustlers, and other ne'er-do-wells.

  Ed had already trailed and captured one suspected outlaw (Jerome Adams) and lodged him in the Grant County jail. Shortly thereafter, someone murdered Deputy Sheriff W. D. "Keechi" Johnson. A coroner's jury determined that Ralph and Roy Jenks (brothers) and Henry Reinhart were responsible for Johnson's death, although one of the suspects, Ralph Jenks, who had been Johnson's prisoner, swore the deputy had been ambushed by unknown assailants. From Silver City a posse composed of Sheriff James K. Blair, Don McMahan, J. Marvin Hunter, and Ed Scarborough left for the upper Gila River to investigate. At the mining town of Mogollon the lawmen arrested Roy Jenks and Rinehart, but in the vicinity of Duck Creek Jenks tried to grab Ed Scarborough's shotgun. Ed jerked his six-shooter and shot him three times-twice in the chest, once in the head. Later at Silver City, as a common legal maneuver by friends of the lawman, Scarborough was arrested. The case was presented to the grand jury, which absolved the lawman of any fault in the shooting.

  Despite the legalities, some citizens questioned the operational abilities of Scarborough. A Grant County sheriff even removed Scarborough's deputy commission when some cattle association members became disgruntled at what they considered to be Ed Scarborough's high-handed arrest techniques. Nevertheless, the evidence was not of sufficient standard to assure conviction in court. Also, not everyone was a detractor, and eventually Ed was elected constable and reappointed deputy sheriff.

  Ed arrested Tod Carver (T. C. Hillard), wanted in Arizona Territory for killing Frank LeSueur and Augustus Gibbons. Scarborough delivered Carver to Arizona authorities, who in return released Carver to Utah lawmen for murders committed there. As many suspected, Carver was one of those responsible for Ed's father's death, although he was never charged with the crime.

  With his good name somewhat restored, Ed Scarborough entered the Arizona Rangers when that unit formed in 1901. Of the appointment one newsman wrote, "Scarborough was brought up in the saddle and is an excellent marksman. He doesn't know what fear is." Well, he may not have known fear, but an overbearing attitude and general disorderliness caused Ed's dismissal from the Arizona Rangers after just nine months.

  At Deming, New Mexico, Ed was arrested for the unauthorized carrying of a revolver, but the charges were dropped. In August 1904 he was arrested for a Deming robbery, but after numerous delaying tactics the charges were dismissed. Five years later he fled to California after being charged with horse theft in New Mexico.

  Ed returned to Arizona in 1915 and worked for the Wagon Rod Ranch in Cochise County. However, Scarborough had serious difficulty with rancher John Clinton over where to graze the cattle, so on June 18, 1915, Ed shot Clinton four times in the chest. Scarborough fled but was later captured, tried, and convicted of murder in the second degree. Ed Scarborough entered the Arizona State Prison in May of 1916. A year later, accompanied by two other inmates, Ed escaped and this time successfully hid in Mexico. He was never recaptured.

  c ARIZONA RANGERS; SCARBOROUGH, GEORGE ADOLPHUS

  SCOTT, William (a.k.a. Bill Scott) (1854-1913)

  William "Bill" Scott was born at the edge of the East Texas piney woods in Walker County. His family moved to Dallas sometime prior to 1870. Although there are conflicting reports as to just how he was employed for his first few years of adulthood, clearly by the time he was 24, Bill Scott had opted for the life of a career lawman.

  After a bit of law enforcement experience as a deputy sheriff at Dallas, Scott and an associate, E. W. "Jack" Smith, volunteered to trap the infamous Sam Bass, all for a healthy slice of a reward offered by the Union Pacific Railroad. Assuming an undercover role and developing a relationship with a gang member's brother, Scott infiltrated the outlaw organization and furnished crucial intelligence to the Texas Rangers.

  On May 1, 1878, he was put on the payroll as a private in June Peak's Company B. Later, after testifying before the grand jury, he was transferred to George W. Arrington's Company C. While he was not present at Round Rock when the furious shootout occurred that ended the Sam Bass saga, for his invaluable role in the overall investigation Bill Scott received a share of the reward.

  After varying assignments with the Texas Rangers, always advancing through the ranks, Bill Scott became a captain on May 1, 1886, eight years to the day after becoming a ranger. Just a few months later, on November 9, Scott led a six-man detail in Brown County after fence-cutting horse thieves. Refusing to surrender, the outlaws opened fire. They injured none of the rangers, but two of the lawbreakers were later found dead, and two others were found dying by the fence line. One of the deceased outlaws was none other than Constable Buck Harlow, shot in the chest just below the badge he had tarnished.

  While leading Company F rangers on a patrol in Sabine County on March 31, 1887, outlaws ambushed the party, killing Pvt. J. H. Moore. Capt. Bill Scott was shot through the lungs, Sgt. J. A. Brooks had three fingers shot off, and Pvt. J. H. Rogers suffered a wound to his arm and side. As for the outlaws, desperado Bill Connor lay dead, his brother seriously wounded.

  On April 30, 1888, Captain Scott relinquished his Texas Ranger commission and turned his attention to railroad contracting in Mexico. During one incident, Bill Scott was attacked by a dozen Mexicans, who gave the ex-ranger several stab wounds. With sheer grit and determination, he drove off his attackers. After that he settled in San Antonio, where on November 12, 1913, he died from a fall.

  See CgLso; BASS, SAM; TEXAS RANGERS

  SCULL, Sally (a.k.a. Sarah Jane Newman) (1817-?)

  Sarah Jane Newman, alias Sally Scull, is legendary in Texas. She apparently arrived in what became the state of Texas with the Stephen E Austin colony and married Jessie Robinson on October 13, 1833. The couple had two children and were divorced on March 6, 1843. Less than two weeks later, Sally married George H. Scull, and the pair eventually had two children, Nancy and Alfred. Although she outlived George, Sally forever kept his surname.

  On October 17, 1852, Sally married John Doyle, who soon afterwards dropped out of sight. Some stories had it that she shot him and dumped his body in Kinney's Tank near Corpus Christi. Sally then married Isiah Watkins in 1855 but divorced him less than three years later. After Watkins, she married a much younger man, Christopher Horsdorff.

  From her husbands, she inherited two ranches. She gave up skirts, spoke e
xcellent Spanish, and could curse in both Spanish and English. She could be a tough boss. Sally often carried a coiled whip as well as a revolver, in the process retaining a crew of rugged Mexican cowboys who drove horses back and forth across the border. A European visitor described her as "a North American amazon, a perfect female desperado. She can handle a revolver and a Bowie Knife, appears at dances well armed, and has shot several men at merry-makings." During the Civil War she ran cotton from East Texas to the port of Bagdad, Mexico, where English ships took it on board for later processing for the Confederacy.

  Rumor had it that her last husband, Christopher Dorsdorff, had her murdered either in 1866 or 1876, her body being buried in a shallow grave near Agua Dulce (Sweet Water) Creek. There are stories of one of her hands grasping up through the dirt. A Texas state historical marker a few miles south of Goliad on alternate Highway 77 to Refugio explains the legend and history of Sally Scull.

  SCURLOCK, Josiah Gordon (a.k.a. Doc Scurlock) (1849-1929)

  Doc Scurlock, who likely studied medicine in New Orleans, was born in Talapoosa, Alabama, and was the most educated desperado involved in the Lincoln County War. He went to Mexico at the age of 20, spent maybe a year there, and then returned to ride for New Mexico's John Chisum in 1871.

  As a good cattleman, he did not believe in rustling, so for a year or so after 1875 he helped decorate trees with the bodies of men who had attempted to steal cattle and had been caught. Scurlock and several others removed Jesus Largo from Sheriff Saturnino Baca's custody and lynched him near Lincoln on July 18, 1876. On September 2, Scurlock also (unintentionally) shot and killed Mike Harkins during a confrontation in a Lincoln carpenter shop. Scurlock was a member of the party that killed Morris Bernstein, the Mescalero Indian agency clerk.