The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters

by Leon Claire Metz

  It wasn't long before Slaughter killed cattle rustlers Guadalupe Robles and Nieves Derom. Several others fell before his flaming guns, or those of his deputies. When John stepped down as sheriff the slayings didn't stop. Slaughter killed a man named Childers and his unknown friend. He also tracked a gambler and horse thief named Arthur "Pegleg" Finney and killed him, on September 20, 1898.

  On February 16, 1922, John Slaughter himself died in bed, with his boots off.

  SMALL, Charles (1862?-1893)

  Speculation would lead to inference that Charles Small was a Texas product, since for several years Charley lived as a notorious character in West Texas, New Mexico, and below the border. Small reportedly found employment as a cowboy for the San Vincente Company on the Pipe Line Ranch, but by September 1887 Charley was being sought for questioning regarding a train robbery near Pantano, Arizona. At Deming, New Mexico, private detective John Gilmo tried to arrest Small, but Charley jerked his sixshooter and might have killed him had not deputy Dan Tucker intervened. Small readily (and wisely) submitted to arrest. An investigation, however, turned up no evidence against Small, so Tucker freed him.

  Back on the train, Southern Pacific Railroad detective Fred Burke tried to rearrest Small. Charley snapped that "he was tired of being arrested, and did not propose to surrender, but that if the detective wanted him very bad he could telegraph the sheriff to make the arrest when the train arrived at Silver City." So Burke and Small made the trip to Silver City, where Burke dropped the matter, the local newspaper noting, "These detectives are fast becoming the laughing stock of the entire country. They have made seven or eight arrests, and have in every instance turned their men loose. Such action is unbecoming of Pinkerton's men, and is calculated to make a strong feeling against them. They should have some evidence before making an arrest, or give the job up and go home."

  Small could not stay out of trouble, however, and within a brief time was reportedly involved in the robbery of the Mexican Central at Mapula, Chihuahua. One of Small's confederates, "Doc" Hines, later confessed to the crime, although the Mexican and Texas governments haggled for so long that Charley Small vanished and no one noticed.

  Small continued his borderland career, on one occasion becoming a hired gun for trans-Pecos ranchers, seemingly in constant battle with Mexican outlaws. On July 11, 1893, near Del Rio, Charley Small was arrested for smuggling, but he was soon out on bond and back at Langtry, where customs inspector F. A. Cunningham suspected him of leading a gang of rustlers. A short time later on July 22, Small, with a seemingly diminished capacity for common sense, picked a fight with Texas Rangers Sgt D. L. Musgrave and Tom Lewis. The rest of the story is summed up in Musgrave's report to headquarters: "This morning we were fired on by Chas Small a noted desperate character and he was killed by me."

  .S+'+' akO: GILMO, JOHN W.; TUCKER, DAVID

  SMITH, James L. (1838-1914)

  This Smith was born in Maryland, served in the Union army, and after the war became chief of detectives for the metropolitan police in New Orleans. Following the Battle of Liberty Square in 1875, however, Smith went to work for the Union Pacific and wound up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, helping to organize an Indian police force on the Pine Ridge Reservation. From there he trailed rustlers and other outlaws back and forth, in the process-as one rancher-reported it, killing enough people "to have a small but respectable-sized graveyard." He trailed the Doc Middleton gang to Sidney, Nebraska, killing Joe Smith and Charley Reed.

  Smith captured Cornelius "Lame Johnny" Donohue, who had been raiding Sioux herds, and bundled him on a stage bound for Rapid City. Unfortunately, somewhere along the route, someone lynched "Lame Johnny."

  On March 10, 1880, a large amount of gold on a Union Pacific train at Sidney, Nebraska, disappeared. Someone had cut a hole in the floor and carried off the bars. Smith suspected Sheriff Cornelius M. McCarty, who controlled not only the local political establishment but the criminal underworld as well. Smith decided to investigate. McCarty owned the Capital Saloon, so Smith wasn't all that welcome when he stepped inside. Bartender Patrick Walters and Smith immediately argued about the honesty of railroad police, and as one word led to another, both pulled guns. Walters went down with a bullet in the stomach. Smith was tried for attempted murder but was acquitted.

  On New Year's Eve 1880, Smith decided to test his luck again. He and Dennis Flannigan, alias Douglas Black, had a long history of mutual threats, but after a few drinks they made amends, at least until they visited Smith's room at a local hotel, where Smith shot Flannigan three times. He died quickly, but Smith was again acquitted. A year later, in 1881, Smith became head of the Indian police at the Apache Mescalero Reservation, near today's Ruidoso in southern New Mexico. Three years later, Smith was hired away from the Mescalero by Tom Sturgis of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. One of his detectives had been murdered in Nebraska, and Sturgis wanted Smith to investigate the crime.

  As crimes go, this one was solved relatively easily. The slayer was Johnny Smith, a brother-in-law of the murdered man; James Smith trailed John Smith to near Nogales, Mexico, where he learned that another man had already shot and killed him. Smith thereafter turned his attention to the pursuit of Harry Longabaugh for theft, trailing him to Billings, Montana, where Smith and Eph Davis made the arrest. Longabaugh spent a year and a half in Sundance, Wyoming, and left there with a name eventually to become famous-the Sundance Kid.

  While there is some suggestion that Smith thereafter pursued members of the Wild Bunch, he himself was soon arrested on bootlegging and gambling charges in Boulder, Colorado. He went to jail, and in 1914, while cleaning his cell, he drank a mixture of water and lye-and died moments later. He is buried in the Riverside Cemetery at Denver, Colorado.

  MIDDLETON, DOC; SUNDANCE KID

  SMITH, James W. (a.k.a. Six Shooter Bill; John Henry Hankins) (1856-1882)

  This desperado was likely born in Texas, where in 1878 he was suspected of murder in Cook County. Bat Masterson later arrested him in Dodge City, Kansas, and charged him with horse theft. He next showed up in Las Vegas and Deming, New Mexico, before drifting over to Tombstone, Arizona. In 1881, some San Simon ranchers caught him stealing cattle, but he escaped to Mimbres, New Mexico, where after becoming something of a vice king, he was hustled off to Benson, Arizona. In Laredo, Texas, he killed the chief of police, then fled to Cibolo, Texas. There, this traveling man quarreled with two cowboys, and one of them shot him dead.

  See MASTERSON, WILLIAM BARCLAY

  SMITH, Tom (a.k.a. Bear River Tom Smith) (1830?-1810)

  No one can prove where and when Smith was born, but most historians suspect the city of New York, a few insisting that he worked there as a city policeman. By the end of the Civil War, he had found employment in Wyoming and Colorado as a construction supervisor for the Union Pacific Railroad. In Bear River, Wyoming, where Smith would get his nickname, hard feelings broke out between the townspeople and the railroad workers, the upshot being that Smith shot a man and then during a riot managed to lock townspeople-whom he referred to as "vigilantes"-in a store. From this moment on, Tom Smith became Bear River Tom Smith. He also became city marshal of several railroad towns before becoming chief of the Abilene, Kansas, police force in June 1870. He made it a point practically never to wear a gun when enforcing the law.

  Bear River Tom Smith (Author's Collection)

  However, it wasn't but five months later whenrelaxing that rule-he shoved a revolver in his pocket as he went out to arrest Andrew McConnell, who had shot and killed his neighbor. Smith and Deputy J. H. McDonald rode the 10 miles out to McConnell's dugout, where the accused and a friend, Moses Miles, waited. McConnell immediately shot Smith in the chest, and Smith returned the fire, wounding his adversary. Meanwhile, Miles, although wounded, had driven off McDonald. Miles and McConnell then wrestled Smith to the ground. While he lay there, Miles picked up an ax and practically severed Smith's head from his body.

  SMITH & Wesson

  Smith & Wesson in 1
869 manufactured the Model No. 3 .44-caliber single-action American, the first "real" cartridge revolver. This led to the Schofield .45 and the .44-caliber Russian model. The Schofield had a seven-inch instead of the usual eight-inch barrel, its top latch making it easy to break the gun open for loading and unloading. The gun was well balanced, and it shot and functioned as well as the Peacemaker at 25 to 50 yards.

  SMITH & Wesson Schofield

  The Schofield began its life as an 1875 single-action .45 caliber revolver. While its rounds did not carry quite the punch of the .45 Army Colt, it saw more use. The cartridges were easily ejected or dumped, rather than poked out. However, the Schofield, while more accurate than the Peacemaker, was also a more expensive weapon, perhaps because it was so finely crafted.

  SMUGGLERS Trail

  Old timers often referred to this path as the Sonora Trail, or sometimes just as "the Trail," but it essentially wound south from Tombstone, Arizona, through McNeal and the Coronado National Forrest, the Peloncillos Mountains, the Animas Valley, past Cloverdale and into Sonora, Mexico. Across this trail flowed all kinds of contraband between the United States and Mexico, in both directions. Stolen cattle and horses, of course, were the primary products, but gold and ore shipments attracted consider

  able attention too. This rather secluded path had no real terminal, and it was intersected by numerous side trails. It opened in the late 1860s or 1870s, reached its greatest activity during the late 1870s and 1880s, and most likely did not go completely out of business as a smuggling route until sometime during the early 1900s.

  SOILED Doves

  The term "soiled doves" is more of a Victorian term than a Westernism, but newspaper editors in the old West loved it. Furthermore, it is impossible to understand prostitution in the Wild West if one does not understand Western society in general, which, for the purpose of this statement, was divided into two kinds-married and unmarried. Most professional and business people were married. The vast majority of men, however, were loose, free, and single: cowboys, miners, mule skinners, soldiers, laborers, gamblers, roughnecks, drifters, outlaws, lawmen, and so forth. It also followed that they were generally young, had little education, lived from payday to payday or job to job, and being far from home, were little subject to the civilizing restraints of church, family, or friends.

  Prostitutes originated from all over the country, and around the world. They had sometimes been kicked out by family or husbands. Their names changed as often as their underclothes, and by the time they had been around for a few years, they had generally lost their looks as well as their manners and soft language.

  Most towns licensed the girls as well as the districts or houses in which they worked. The fees ran $5 a month and up. A police officer usually collected. The money paid by these unfortunate women generally supported the police force as well as other city departments.

  Prostitutes rarely left the districts where they lived and worked unless they were leaving town. Doctors visited the districts in order to treat the girls; the girls did not go to the offices to see the doctors. On one occasion in El Paso, Texas, during a hot July day, three girls thought they were just as good as anyone else and invaded the municipal pool. The "decent" citizens immediately bailed out in horror and called the police. The police tried to coax the girls out, but they refused, forcing the officers to wade in after them. A judge fined the girls $10 each and gave each one three days in jail. A local newspaper applauded this judicial decisiveness.

  Brothel areas were frequently referred to as "red light districts," because trainmen, getting ready to leave town, hung their red, glowing lanterns on brothel doors or placed them on window insets so supervisors could find them. The upper-class brothel areas-frequently having two-story houses with nice furniture and better-dressed girlsbecame "reservations," meaning districts set aside by known street boundaries. The structures were usually called "parlor houses," because when the men entered, the madams hustled out to look them over; if they passed inspection, meaning "looked like they had money in their pockets," she would shout, "Company in the parlor, girls!" The girls would then trot out, parade the wares, and the deals would be made.

  Stepping down a notch were less ornate brothels. These usually attracted middle-class clients. The businesses were not quite as expensive, and the girls were not quite as well dressed, but the situation worked.

  Last, or at the bottom of the list, were the "cribs," strings of single rooms along a street, usually referred to as "the line." It consisted of a Dutch door with a prostitute leaning over and soliciting passersby. A single bed, a chair, a wash basin, and a bottle of carbolic acid usually constituted the furniture. An oil cloth draped on the foot of the bed ensured that muddy boots did not destroy the luster of the top cover. The cribs catered to assembly-line sex, the fees usually being in coins rather than paper.

  Prostitutes in the American West numbered in the thousands, ranging in age from what looked like 10 years to what looked like 1,000. They seldom used their correct names, and some had forgotten what they were. Pregnancies happened all the time, and abortions were common, although risky. Children grew up in brothels, the madams and girls usually going out of their way to protect and guide the youngsters. Romanticized books and movies to the contrary, prostitute beatings-sometimes by the client but more often by pimps and madams-happened with regularity. By middle age, a prostitute had frequently lost the use of one eye, had gone through miscarriages and abortions, had survived at least one venereal disease, had failed at suicide (usually by drug overdose), had blacked out due to too much whiskey or the wrong medication, and bore

  an assortment of knife wounds, burns, bruises, missing teeth, and broken bones. Very few ever changed their ways or occupations, and almost none married well or retired in financial security. To view photos of soiled doves is to view the West as Tragedy.

  S66 r4o CALAMITY JANE; CYPRIAN; HELL'S HALFACRE

  SONTAG, John (1860-1893)

  John Sontag was born in Minnesota, his father died four years later, and he adopted the name Sontag from his stepfather. He left home in 1878 and became a brakeman with the Southern Pacific in California. An accident in 1887 either caused his discharge or left him unable to work; he thereafter never said a kind word about railroads.

  While Sontag convalesced and brooded, he met a fellow brooder named Christopher Evans. They agreed that railroads needed to repay a lot of grief. Their train robberies started almost at once, with minor hits at Cape Horn Mills and later at Pixley, two men being slain during the latter caper. In 1890, Sontag's brother George joined the duo, and a couple more trains went down.

  On August 3, 1892, the Sontag boys and Chris Evans hit a train just west of Fresno, a robbery leading to the capture of George Sontag, who went to Folsom Prison after apparently confessing and naming names. His information led investigators to the doorstep of John Sontag and Chris Evans, where a shootout left Deputy Sheriff Oscar Beaver dead. A month later the Southern Pacific and Wells Fargo firms posted a $10,000 reward for John Sontag and Chris Evans. The two outlaws fled to the nearby mountains, where Sontag and Evans ambushed a posse, killing Vic Wilson and Andy McGinnes. For his part, Sontag took a bullet in his arm, painful but not serious.

  Due to telegraph communications, Sontag and Evans now became two of the most famous fugitives in the country, though neither abandoned their mountain hideout. However, with trackers all over the area it was just a matter of time, and on June 11, 1893, time ran out. A posse ambushed the two fugitives near a site called Stone Corral, where lawmen shot them to pieces. A posse took them into custody the next morning, a photographer photographing Sontag lying despondent and near death in a pile of hay, straw, and manure.

  After being taken to the Fresno County jail, Evans recovered quickly, though he lost an arm and an eye. As for John Sontag, an arm and shoulder had practically been shot away, causing tetanus and peritonitis to set in. His jaws locked, and soup had to be "piped" in by way of a broken tooth. Even so, he bit his tongue
in half before dying on July 3, 1893. He was buried in Fresno's Catholic Cavalry Cemetery.

  SPENCE, Pete (1852-1914)

  The desperado Lark Ferguson, who was born in Louisiana, by 1874 was serving in the Texas Ranger Frontier Battalion of Capt. Warren Wallace Ferguson. He was a second lieutenant in what became known as "the Nueces and Rio Grande Company." It operated around Corpus Christi during the early 1870s. He killed a Mexican cowboy sometime around July 4, 1874, then killed another the following month. These two killings were likely the reasons why he left the rangers. On August 1, 1875, he was in trouble again, a grand jury handing down an indictment for horse theft. Then, on August 24, 1876, he participated in the Seeligson Bank robbery in Goliad. By the mid and beyond 1870s, Live Oak and Maverick Counties of Texas wanted him for murder. Lark Ferguson therefore changed his name to Peter Spence and moved his operations to Arizona. By 1878, he had been arrested for murder in Pima County. A jury voted to acquit, and Pete moved to Tombstone, where he and gunman/feudist Frank Stilwell spent their time carousing in saloons and allegedly robbing stagecoaches. Both were arrested in Bisbee but were later released, in the process becoming part of the Cowboy gang, whose leaders were the Clanton boys. This made them bitter enemies of the Earp brothers, although both Spence and Stillwell were in jail and missed the famous street fight of October 26, 1881.

  When Virgil Earp was assassinated on December 28, Pete Spence and Frank Stillwell were identified as two of several possible culprits. The same happened on March 18, 1882, when Morgan Earp went down. This time the remaining Earps and friends went after the two men, although Spence turned himself in to Tombstone authorities and was placed in protective custody. As for Stillwell, the