The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters

by Leon Claire Metz

  On the night of March 15, 1885, approximately 50 vigilantes, some masked and some not, came calling on the household, removing Elizabeth and her twin brother Thomas and perhaps others, to a bridge over the Blue River, where all were lynched. They are buried in the Spring Ranche Cemetery.

  TETTENBORN, William Rogers (a.k.a. Russian Bill) (1850-1881)

  Reportedly the progeny of Russian nobility, William Rogers "Russian Bill" Tettenborn ended up by whatever mysterious route, some believe through San Francisco, in the Southwest. According to Bill himself, he received a bullet wound in the leg in Fort Worth and was stabbed in the shoulder while in Denver. These reports may or may not have merit, in view of Bill's "vaporing braggadocio." Another account said "he had a fierce blond mustache and blond hair which hung to his shoulders; he carried a six-gun at each hip and a long knife in his boot, and was always telling how tough he was."

  By June 1880, 30-year-old "Russian Bill" had taken up residence at Shakespeare, a rowdy mining camp in southwestern New Mexico and home to a whole cadre of soon to be well-known misfits, robbers, renegades, and rustlers. Yet, despite commentary to the contrary, a passel of honest folks lived there too. Most of the time Bill fit in with the former, although his nefarious reputation was somewhat offset by the fact that for a time he was a legitimate miner, in fact a mining recorder for the Stonewall District.

  But there can be little doubt that "Russian Bill" willingly-and sometimes gloriously-strutted the town's single street, a member in reasonably good standing with Shakespeare's uncouth, unvarnished, wild, and woolly crowd.

  Russian Bill, however, miscalculated on one occasion. He stole a horse and headed east, straight into the arms of Dan Tucker, the Grant County deputy

  stationed at Deming, New Mexico. Tucker returned the horse and thief to Shakespeare. There the authorities locked Tettenborn in a room with his sometime buddy Sandy King. The citizens of Shakespeare decided to take matters into their own hands. King and Bill were led from prison by a party of 70 men and hanged.

  In the absence of a gallows or even a tree, the pair were hanged from a cross beam in the Grant Hotel dining room. A stranger passing through by stage who asked why the fellows had been lynched was reportedly told that "one was a horse thief and the other was a damned nuisance."

  Russian Bill's mother later inquired of the postmaster and sheriff why she no longer received letters from her admittedly wayward son. Someone wrote back, sadly advising that her boy had passed away from throat trouble.

  S66 4190: KING, SANDY; TUCKER, DAVID

  TEXAS Rangers

  "It is easy to see a graveyard in the muzzle of a ranger's gun," said an unknown Texas outlaw in 1874. He obviously knew whereof he spoke.

  For 150 years, the Texas Rangers have been praised as saviors and occasionally denounced as murderers. Many Hispanics despised them; state legislators were often suspicious of them; but the average citizen venerated them. Texas Rangers and the Alamo are the most cherished, enduring traditions of Texas, and yet few people know when, why, or how they originated, or how they achieved their heroic status. They remain the oldest statewide law enforcement body on the North American continent.

  During the mid-1820s, when it was still joined to Mexico, the soil of Texas ran red with the blood of Texan, Mexican, and Comanche warriors. Obviously, the settlers could not farm and fight too, and just as obviously, Mexico could not provide adequate protection. So in an effort to hold the line, a Texas leader named Stephen F. Austin coaxed the Mexican government into retaining 10 volunteers to "range" over wide areas so as to note the whereabouts of the Indians. From this description later arose the Texas Rangers as we think of them today. In 1835, 25 men formed one ranging company, a group of young and single civilians.

  During its republic years from 1836 to 1845, Texas could ill afford a standing army. Yet, the new nation desperately needed protection from its Comanche and Mexican predators. The solution was to enlist well-mounted fighting men. Sometimes they were called "gunmen," occasionally "spies," and frequently "mounted riflemen." But most settlers referred to them as "rangers."

  Texas Rangers in camp somewhere in the Big Bend country of Texas in the early 1880s (Division of Manuscripts, Library, University of Oklahoma)

  From 1836 into the mid-1840s, the rangers survived primarily because they worked more cheaply than military units, although in 1846 they became part of U.S. general Zachary Taylor's army as it rumbled south across the Rio Grande and into Mexico. The rangers at this time took on a distinct international reputation for hard, vicious, relentless fighting.

  Following the Mexican War, U.S. troops patrolled the border, and the rangers sank into relative obscurity. During the Civil War the rangers again achieved prominence, increasing their numbers and occupying former army posts. Terry's Texas Rangers, officially known as the Eighth Texas Cavalry of the Confederate States of America, fought in some of the most dramatic engagements of the conflict. Following the surrender of Texas to federal armies, the U.S. military abolished the ranger forces.

  Lawlessness became so rampant during the 1870s that Governor F. J. Davis created the state police, a

  universally hated organization, although probably more effective than most historians have acknowledged. It never numbered over 200 men, and 40% were black. However, in 1873, the state police was abolished because of political infighting, racial controversy and hatred, and statewide distrust.

  In its place, Governor Richard Coke in 1874 created two organizations of Texas Rangers: the Frontier Battalion and the Special Forces. These units numbered between 20 and 30 men each. The men furnished their own equipment, including horses and weapons, dressed as they pleased, enlisted for from three to six months, elected their own officers, and drew $1.25 a day "to range and guard the frontier."

  Maj. John B. Jones commanded the Frontier Battalion. It concentrated on Indians as well as outlaws. The battalion, among other things, broke up the Horrell-Higgins feud and discouraged a similar dispute in Kimble County. It killed the notorious train robber Sam Bass and organized a special group of rangers to stop the El Paso Salt War. When Major Jones died in 1881, a variety of individuals took his place: notably C. L. Nevill at Fort Davis, George W. Arrington in the Panhandle, and Capt. George W. Baylor at Ysleta in West Texas.

  Leander McNelly, a former divinity student, handled the Special Forces, and it focused on Texas desperadoes and Mexican bandits. Whether these fugitives came in dead or alive didn't seem to matter. The Texas legislature assigned the Special Forces Company to the restoration of law and order. Obviously, the rangers needed good leadership as well as efficient weapons. With the death of McNelly in 1877, Lee Hall and John Armstrong took command.

  Out of the Texas Rangers arose some of the most dogged individuals Texas has ever produced: Ben McCulloch, Sam Walker, Big Foot Wallace, and John Coffee Hays. Their characteristic weapon came from an obscure inventor named Samuel Colt. He put together the .34-caliber, five-shot, repeating revolver. The gun was awkward, even dangerous for the user (it had no trigger guard), and its caliber was small, but it could be fired several times without reloading. Two revolvers per person meant 10 rounds per man without reloading. Texas ordered several hundred revolvers. Upon approaching Indian enemies the rangers would fire a single round-then wait for the charge. The carnage could be terrible.

  By the 1880s, the Special Forces and the Frontier Battalion had started to fade away as separate, distinct units, becoming just "Texas Rangers." On January 29, 1881, Baylor's group fought the last Indian battle in Texas, killing 10 or 12 Apache in West Texas near Sierra Blanca. The Special Force existed until 1881, the Frontier Battalion, until 1901.

  Engraving of the Texas Rangers Fighting Indians (Institute oFTexian Cultures, San Antonio)

  By the turn of the century the frontier had vanished, and the rangers seemed destined to do likewise. They numbered 24 men in 1900, and it seemed that they might be vanishing along with the red man and the buffalo. However, in July 1901, Governor Joe S
ayers revived them, organizing four companies of 20 men each into "a ranger force sufficient for the purpose of protecting the frontier against marauding and thieving parties, and the suppression of lawlessness and crime throughout the state."

  Throughout the early 1900s the rangers protected court proceedings, cowed mobs, and trailed outlaws. Nevertheless, some of their luster faded when successive governors used them for political purposes, especially as strike breakers. When a new law in 1919 established ranger strengths, duties, and pay, several legislators accused the force of drunkenness, murder, and torture. To be rangers, one report stated, applicants had to have a reputation "of killers and insolvency, ... and they usually have both." By the 1930s, the rangers were thoroughly politicized. The badge could be purchased by just about anybody. Furthermore, they had been downgraded substantially to "state rangers," their task during World War I being to guard the Rio Grande border with Mexico. They were withdrawn in late March 1919.

  Yet better times were coming. During that same decade the rangers were placed under the Texas Department of Public Safety.

  A ranger's duties today are simply to assist state and local law enforcement when asked. The sheriff of any county always remains the chief law enforcement officer. A ranger must have at least eight years of law enforcement experience, two of which must have been served in the Department of Public Safety.

  Texas Rangers in El Paso, 1896 (Author's Collection)

  While there are no uniforms, there are certain specifics-a ranger must wear boots and a conservative western-cut suit. A western hat is "practically mandatory." A ranger badge is always pinned to the shirt and in plain sight. Incidentally, the ranger badge is still stamped from the Mexican cinco (5) peso coin, of 1947-48 vintage.

  See krj: ARMSTRONG, JOHN BARCLAY; ARRINGTON, GEORGE WASHINGTON; ATEN, IRA; BASS, SAM; EL PASO SALT WAR; GILLETT, JAMES BUCHANAN; HALL, JESSE LEIGH; HAYS, JOHN COFFEE; HORRELL-HIGGINS FEUD; JONES, JOHN B.; MCNELLY, LEANDER H.; NEVILLE, CHARLES

  THOMAS, Henry Andrew (a.k.a. Heck Thomas) (1816-1870)

  This famous southwestern lawman was born in Georgia, and by his 18th birthday had become an Atlanta policeman. He moved to Texas, worked as an expressman, operated a Fort Worth private detective agency, then made the jump to Arkansas, where he worked as a lawman for federal judge Isaac Parker. During this period he, Chris Madsen, and Bill Tilghman became known as the "Three Guardsmen," remaining friends until their deaths. Thomas was something of a dandy in terms of his everyday dress, but he chose dangerous individuals to pursue. He helped chase down the Jennings crowd, as well as the noted outlaw Bill Doolin, although his exact role in Doolin's death is debatable.

  Later in life he served as a U.S. deputy marshal for Oklahoma and was a chief of police at Lawton, Oklahoma. He died of Bright's disease in Lawton on August 15, 1912.

  .366 -215'o DOOLIN, WILLIAM M.; MADSEN, CHRISTIAN; PARKER, JUDGE ISAAC; TILGHMAN, WILLIAM MATTHEW JR.; WEST, RICHARD

  Heck Thomas (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)

  THOMPSON, Ben (1842-1884)

  The gunman Ben Thompson was born on November 11, 1842, at Knottingly in West Riding, Yorkshire, England. His father reportedly served as an officer in the Royal Navy. In 1851, his parents migrated to the United States and settled in Austin, where Ben worked as a printer. In 1858, he wounded a Negro youth and was arrested, fined $100, and sentenced to 60 days in jail. Governor Hardin Runnels ordered him released after a brief period. Two years later he allegedly killed a man in a knife fight in a darkened room in New Orleans. However, the evidence documenting this event is not overwhelming.

  Back in Austin, Ben joined the Confederate army on June 12, 1861, serving primarily in Col. John R. Ford's Second Regiment of Texas Mounted Rifles at Camp Carrizitas. He reenlisted as a sergeant on June 20, 1862, but was soon reduced to private, his escapades having become legendary, including stories that he had killed men in private quarrels. Only one instance-the slaying of John Coombs-can be verified, although military and civilian records are incomplete. Like most other Texas soldiers, Thompson became a prisoner of war for three months in 1865. After the war, Thompson married Catherine Moore of Travis County. She gave birth to a daughter as well as a son, Benjamin Jr.

  Following the Civil War Thompson became a foreign mercenary in the army of Maximilian in Mexico. When the Juarez rifles executed Maximilian, however, Ben hustled back to Texas. He lived in Austin until September 2, 1868, when a family dispute caused him to shoot and wound his wife's brother, James Moore. That drew a sentence of four years in the state penitentiary at Huntsville. U.S. President Grant pardoned him in 1870.

  The hustling Thompson, now a full-fledged gambler and gunman, formed a verbal partnership with gambler Phil Coe to open the Bull's Head Saloon in Abilene, Kansas. A year later in 1871, City Marshal Wild Bill Hickok shot Coe dead. Ben was in Kansas City at the time, and he quickly learned that because no partnership agreement existed on paper, he owned nothing. Meanwhile, he and his wife suffered a carriage accident that cost her an arm. By 1872, the family was back in Austin.

  On August 15, 1873, Ben, his brother Billy, and a few friends were in Ellsworth, Kansas, where the brothers gambled in Joe Brennan's Saloon. Tempers flared, and Billy Thompson fired a shotgun into the unarmed Sheriff Chauncey Whitney. Ben then held everybody off until Billy made his escape. Whitney died three days later.

  Ben Thompson (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)

  Ben returned to Austin where, on Christmas night 1886, the Capital Variety Theater ejected James Burdett, a friend of Thompson's. Burdett stormed back in, and Thompson took his part. In the fighting that followed, Ben Thompson shot the owner, Mark Wilson, four times, killing him. Bartender Charles Matthews fired a rifle at Thompson, the bullet nicking Thompson's hip. Ben retaliated by shooting the bartender through the mouth (he survived). The state tried Ben Thompson for murder, but he was acquitted.

  In March 1879, the Santa Fe Railroad retained Bat Masterson to hire an army of gunfighters and prevent the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad from gaining first access to the Royal Gorge, a huge gap sometimes dubbed the Grand Canyon of the Colorado Mountains, where the Arkansas River cut through. However, Ben Thompson sold out to the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad for figures estimated between $3,000 and $5,000.

  Back in Austin in 1879, Thompson campaigned for city marshal but was defeated. However, the winner did not serve his full term, and in December 1880 Thompson ran again and won. In spite of the fact that Thompson seldom spent a sober day on the job, he was reelected a year later.

  In July 1882, Thompson took his son and daughter to San Antonio, but instead of enjoying himself with family he resurrected an old feud with Jack Harris, owner of a variety theater. Although Thompson had been posted (barred) from entering, he insisted on forcing his way in-and that led to a confrontation. A shootout began, and Ben killed Harris with a revolver shot that pierced his lung. A jury acquitted Thompson on January 20, 1883.

  Ben was back in San Antonio on March 11, 1884, arriving with John King Fisher, a gunman and deputy sheriff of Uvalde County. Among other adventures, the two men entered a variety theater and took seats in the balcony. At about 11 P.M., Fisher and Thompson began arguing with the management and staff, a confrontation that ended with a fusillade of bullets. Thompson was shot dead, hit by nine bullets. Fisher received 13. A jury ruled the deaths justifiable. Ben Thompson is buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Austin.

  .S66 (JISO COE, PHILIP HOUSTON; FISHER, JOHN KING; HICKOK, JAMES BUTLER; THOMPSON, WILLIAM.

  THOMPSON, William (a.k.a. Billy Thompson) (1845?-1891)

  This younger brother of Ben Thompson was born in Knottingly, England, and in 1851 came to the United States, where the family settled in Austin, Texas. Along with his brother Ben, Billy joined the Second Regiment of Texas Mounted Rifles and saw some action in Louisiana, but primarily guarded the Mexican border. In March 1868, during an Austin bordello rendezvous, he shot and killed Lance Sgt. William Burke, chief clerk in the U.S. Adjutant General's Office. Bil
ly fled to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) for a brief period, then rode into Rockport, Texas, a month or two later and killed 18-year-old Remus Smith.

  Billy and brother Ben Thompson then moved to the Grand Central Hotel in Ellsworth, Kansas, in 1872-73. For a while, Billy-who was about six feet, dark complexioned, and had brown hair and gray eyes-lived with Emma Williams until she switched her affections to Wild Bill Hickok. Molly Brennan also shared Billy's pillow on occasion. Since her husband Joe owned a saloon, the Thompson brothers made it their gambling hangout. On June 10, 1873, City Marshal Edward O. Hogue arrested Billy Thompson for firing a weapon while intoxicated. Billy paid a $15 fine. Two weeks later on June 30, city policeman John ("Happy Jack") Morco arrested Billy for carrying a six-shooter, being intoxicated, and assaulting Happy Jack.

  July passed without incident, but on August 15, 1873, Ben Thompson and several Texas gamblers, John Sterling among them, were gambling in Brennan's Saloon. Apparently, Thompson and Sterling gambled in cahoots with each other and settled up after the games. In this instance, Sterling not only refused to share but slapped the unarmed Thompson's face. Happy Jack Morco drew his pistol and forced Thompson away from Sterling.

  Thompson found his brother, Billy, almost too drunk to hold the shotgun, so he took it away, told him to go to his room and sober up, handed the gun to someone else, and walked into the main street, screaming for the Texans to come out and fight. By now, Sheriff Chauncey B. Whitney and former policeman Jack deLong had reached the scene and had talked Ben Thompson into going back inside the saloon and sobering up.