Meanwhile, Billy Thompson had recovered his shotgun and rejoined his brother and the sheriff inside the Brennan Saloon. At this moment, a commotion started that lured Ben outside, followed by Whitney, followed by Billy. Unfortunately, the drunken Billy stumbled near the door, and in doing so fired a shotgun blast into Chauncey B. Whitney from behind, instantly killing him. Ben screamed, "For God's sake, Billy, you have shot our best friend!"
Billy escaped, perhaps to Nebraska. Three years later, on September 26, 1876, the Texas Rangers took him into custody near Austin and extradited him to Kansas. A jury acquitted him of murder. Billy next turned up in Buena Vista, Colorado, where he reportedly served a brief stint as town marshal before appearing in June 1880 at Ogallala, Nebraska. There he and saloon owner William Tucker argued over a prostitute; on June 21, Billy ambushed Tucker, shooting him in the left hand as Tucker served drinks from behind the bar. Tucker rushed outside with a shotgun and peppered Thompson from the rear. With the town now ready to lynch Billy, Bat Masterson
slipped him out of town on a train. He escaped to Dodge City and from there to El Paso, Texas, where he briefly became something of a confidence man. The Texas Rangers arrested him, and Deputy Sheriff Frank Manning, a long-time friend of Billy's, took him under guard to Austin, where he was turned loose on his own recognizance. Billy disappeared.
On May 7, 1883, Texas governor John Ireland offered a reward of $200 for Billy Thompson, as the state still wanted to try him on the 15-year-old charge of murdering Remus Smith. Well, Thompson did go to trial; he was found not guilty on December 11. He next put in a San Antonio appearance and was in the city when Ben Thompson and John King Fisher were shot to death in the Vaudeville Theater on March 11, 1884.
Billy Thompson now all but dropped out of sight, dying at the age of 52, reportedly of a stomach abscess, in Houston on September 6, 1897. His burial took place in Bastrop, Texas.
.366 MASTERSON, WILLIAM BARCLAY; MORCO, JOHN; TEXAS RANGERS; THOMPSON, BEN
THOMPSON, William J. (a.k.a. Big Bill Thompson) (1851-1906)
This little-known lawman, stockman, and cowboy took his nickname, "Big Bill," from the fact that he stood six feet four inches tall and weighed 280 pounds. He was born in Bethny, Missouri; his family owned huge ranches in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Apparently, Big Bill eventually had enough of being a cowboy, so he moved to Durango, Colorado, was appointed undersheriff of La Plata County, and in 1896 was elected Durango's first town marshal. In January 1896, he shot it out with two robbers and buried one. In 1904, he became sheriff of La Plata County, while his friend Jesse Stansel became town marshal.
The Colorado legislature in 1905 passed laws forbidding gambling, prostitution, and open bars on Sunday until midnight. Thompson announced he would enforce the law; Jesse Stansel said the businesses would remain open.
On Sunday, January 8, 1906, an hour or so before midnight, Sheriff Thompson ordered the El Moro Gambling Hall to close. Stansel said it would remain open. The two lawmen argued, then took their dispute to the street, where they began firing at each other. With blood all over the place, they gave up shooting and started clubbing each other with their six-shooters. Finally Thompson gasped and fell, muttering, "Stansel, you have killed me."
Thompson had taken five bullets, any one of which might have killed him. He had fired only twice, Stansel taking one bullet in the lungs, and an innocent bystander the other. The bystander died. So did Thompson. He is buried in the Animas City Cemetery.
Stansel was tried for murder and acquitted. He subsequently resigned as town marshal and moved to El Paso, Texas. As for Durango itself, the saloons, gambling halls, and brothels continued their wideopen operation.
THURMOND, Frank (1840-1908)
Born on November 21, 1840, in Jackson County, Georgia, gambler Frank Thurman, at the age of 21 years, signed on as a private in the Confederate army. He saw considerable action.
After the war, joined by his brothers who followed at various times, Frank migrated to Texas, settling at San Antonio. By the mid- to late 1860s, Frank had opened the University Club, one of the hottest gambling spots in the Alamo City. Although he was raised as a stereotypical southern gentleman, someone who knew Frank commented that "he wasn't the kind of a guy you could cry in front of," implying that Frank was all business, all the time. Frank Thurmond never gave ground to anyone.
During a dispute over a gambling game, Frank Thurmond pulled his knife and killed a man. By now he had become a cunning professional gambler, wise enough to leave town, and by the mid-1870s he was a frequent presence in North Texas at such communities as Dennison, and further west at Fort Griffin, better known as "The Flat."
Somewhere along the route, probably at The Flat, Frank met Lottie Deno. The chronology is murky at best. The most interesting story concerning the pair is that Frank lost considerable money to "Doc" Holliday. At that point, Lottie stepped in and took control of the game, beating the little dentist out of everything but his southern accent.
At any rate, Frank and Lottie ended up in New Mexico during 1879, making their home in various communities before finally moving to Deming in 1882. It was in New Mexico that the "Gambling Queen of Hearts" openly adopted the name Charlotte Thurmond and later legally married Frank.
Meanwhile, Frank Thurmond was not unaccustomed to barroom violence. His presence at several Silver City shootouts is probable, for he gave testimony at one hearing regarding a shooting affray in which four lawmen were involved, one of them being the victim, the others the defendants. Then again, at Deming, during a heated dispute, Frank killed Dan Baxter with a Bowie knife. He came clear on a selfdefense plea. On another occasion, Frank received a gunshot wound but recovered.
Still later, at Deming, in a disagreement over the ability of a bank to manage his money, Frank forced a bank teller to fork over cash. The criminal case was ultimately dismissed.
In the end, however, Frank Thurmond and Lottie became respected New Mexico residents, cattle people, and mining speculators. Frank eventually became a vice president of the Deming National Bank, a firm he had allegedly once robbed. Throughout the community, and indeed the whole Southwest, Frank Thurmond became known for his word and for staunchly standing by his friends. He passed away as a result of throat cancer at Deming on June 4, 1908. Lottie died at Deming, 26 years later, on February 9, 1934.
-3615- Lco; DENO, CHARLOTTE; FORT GRIFFIN, TEXAS, VIGILANTES; HOLLIDAY, JOHN HENRY
TILGHMAN, William Matthew Jr. (1854-1924)
This famous southwestern lawman was one of the "Three Guardsmen," along with marshals Heck Thomas and Chris Madsen. Born at Fort Dodge, Iowa, he farmed and worked as a sutler; by 1872 he had become a buffalo hunter. Later in life he claimed to have killed several desperadoes in Oklahoma Territory with dynamite during 1874. A year later he became a Dodge City deputy, and in 1886 a city marshal. In Guthrie, Oklahoma, he became a U.S. deputy marshal, helping capture Annie McDougal (Cattle Annie) and Jennie Metcalf (Little Britches). In 1888, he shot and killed a childhood friend, Ed Prather.
Tilghman participated in the Oklahoma land rush, afterward becoming a city marshal of Perry, Oklahoma, sheriff of Lincoln County, and chief of police in Oklahoma City. In 1896, he captured the wanted outlaw William Doolin in a bathhouse at Eureka Springs.
Later in life and nearing retirement, he produced a silent film called The Pcxfisin.g of the Ohlakyor a Ou.ut something of a self-promotion. In 1924, the story goes, Oklahoma governor Martin E. Trapp asked Tilghman to police and bring order to the oilboom town of Cromwell. Another story has it that Tilghman went to Cromwell to collect graft for the governor. There Tilghman was shot and killed by a Prohibition agent named Wiley Lynn-whom, some stories indicate, Tilghman was trying to shake down. Anyway, a jury agreed with Lynn that the shooting had been self-defense. Lynn himself later resigned as a federal agent, started drinking even more than usual, and died in a 1932 shootout at Madill, Oklahoma. An innocent bystander, Rody Watkins, was slain in the crossfire.
> William H. (Bill) Tilghman (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)
In the late 1900s, the Three Guardsmen came under intense historical reevaluation, many researchers believing that the exploits of these three men had been more self-promotional than factual.
. '6r' WiSO: DOOLIN, WILLIAM M.; MADSEN, CHRISTIAN; THOMAS, HENRY ANDREW; WEST, RICHARD
TOMBSTONE, Arizona (a.k.a. the Town Too Tough to Die)
Southern Arizona has always been well known for its mining. In 1877, Edward L. Schieffelin discovered substantial silver outcroppings in the San Pedro Valley 75 miles southeast of Tucson. The Tombstone Mining District originated because of this strike, and because folks had been telling Schieffelin for months that the only thing he would find in this godforsaken wasteland would be his tombstone. The territory of Arizona thus created the county of Cochise. By 1881 the mining town of Tombstone, with an approximate population of 10,000, had become the county seat. Tombstone drew economic strength from the mines, the military, the cattle industry, and the Mexican border. The itapb became its newspaper. Churches sprouted. So did the saloons and gambling halls. Desperadoes with names like John Ringo, Doc Holliday, William Brocius, Luke Short, Pete Spence, and Frank Leslie rode the dusty streets like lords. Lawmen with names like Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp fought Cowboys with last names like Clanton and McLaury, their famous feud ending abruptly during the even more famous shootout known as the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
By the early 1890s, water began creeping into underground mining shafts; the mines started closing, and folks began drifting away. By 1911, all production had stopped, and by 1929 the county seat had left Tombstone and shifted to Bisbee.
Following the Great Depression, Tombstone began reinventing itself as "the town too tough to die." Museums and dining establishments reopened. A few hotels moved in. The main street, the OK Corral, and the nearby Yuma Territorial Prison became tourist attractions. The local graveyard became Boot Hill, a site where the lucky and unlucky, the good, the bad, and the very bad, became the objects of thousands of tourist visits and questions each week. Thus the town too tough to die lives on.
.S6e alSO: EARP, MORGAN; EARP, WYATT BERRY STAPP, EARP, VIRGIL; HOLLIDAY, JOHN HENRY; GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL
TOM, Simpson Hugh (1839-1915)
Simpson Hugh Tom was born three years after the battle at the Alamo. The youngster from Washington County, Texas, signed on at the age of 16 (1855) with Capt. James H. Callahan's company of Texas Rangers. On one bold mission the rangers chased Lipan Apache into Mexico.
On October 2, 1855, the rangers, accompanied by a civilian force looking for a fight, crossed the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. The next day, in a pitched battle, the invading force lost four men and suffered seven wounded but drove a group of Indians and Mexicans south. After that battle, the rangers recrossed the Rio Grande by way of the Mexican town of Piedras Negras, setting fire to the village before finding safety on the Texas side. For the sacking of Piedras Negras, Captain Callahan was dismissed from the Texas Rangers. Just what role S. H. Tom played is speculative, but he was there, although admittedly at a young and inexperienced age.
During the Civil War, S. H. Tom served as a company captain in Col. J. C. McCord's Frontier Regiment. After the conflict, Tom ranched in Wilson and Atascosa Counties, eventually establishing a 20,000acre spread.
During the fall of 1878, at the Frank Mitchell ranch, Captain Tom caught up with Mexican drovers and requested a bill of sale for horses in their possession. The bandits opened fire, and Tom killed two.
On February 13, 1915, Capt. Simpson Hugh Tom, at age 75, died. He was remembered as one of south Texas's most honored citizens.
TOWN Marshal
City councils, usually at the persuasion of their mayors, hired town marshals to be what would eventually become known as the chief of police. In the so-called Wild West, the jobs primarily went to proven gunmen like Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp. These men were hired to keep the peace within the municipal limits; they retained assistant marshals to do much of the legwork. A marshal served at the pleasure of the mayor and city council, was usually reimbursed for his expenses, and drew a small stipend as well as a percentage of fines and fees. His duties could range from facing up to outlaw gangs, raising posses, collecting taxes and fines, corraling drunks, arrestingand sometimes protecting- crooked gamblers, getting bucket brigades started for fires, and chasing naked bathers out of small streams and rivers.
SE6 EARP, MORGAN; EARP, VIRGIL, EARP WYATT BERRY STAPP; HICKOK, JAMES BUTLER; STOUDENMIRE, DALLAS.
TUCKER, David (a.k.a. Dan Tucker) (1849?-1892?)
Little is known regarding the beginnings of Tucker's life, other than that he told an 1880 census enumerator that he was 31 years of age and had been born in Canada. Several reports indicate he grew up in Indiana and later moved over to Colorado. According to rumors, he killed a black man in Colorado and fled to New Mexico, where he operated Lea's Station on the Jornada del Muerto before finally alighting at Silver City and pinning on a Grant County deputy sheriff's badge in 1877.
Numerous press clippings document Tucker's wide-ranging law enforcement activities in Grant County. None, however, make derogatory comments, which is somewhat unusual for a time when partisan politics played such a significant role in any sheriff's or marshal's administration. An example referred to a disturbance in a Silver City barroom: Atanacio Bencomo created a ruckus, and when Tucker attempted to arrest him, he fought first and fled second. The local newspaper reported the suspect "died from being struck by a ball from a pistol held in the hands of Deputy Sheriff Daniel Tucker."
On another occasion, a black soldier, Tom Robinson, refused to obey Tucker's command. He too was shot, but only in the arm. Shortly thereafter another suspect lunged at the deputy with a knife before fleeing in a thunderstorm. Tucker dropped him in the dark with a two-handed pistol shot at a distance of 85 steps.
During late 1877, El Paso County sheriff Charles Kerber put out an urgent call for volunteers to augment his inadequate forces during what was becoming known as the "El Paso Salt War." Tucker responded with a mercenary New Mexico contingent that has often been described as "hard faced and battle scarred." While these forces were successful in getting the situation under Anglo control, they were particularly brutal, in some cases criminal. There is no evidence Dan Tucker personally participated in the rapes, murders, and general pillaging, but he did little to intercede. After the "war" petered out, Tucker returned to Silver City.
In addition to deputy sheriff duties, Dan Tucker became the first town marshal of Silver City, and it wasn't too long before the local editor declared, "Marshal Tucker has put a stop to the discharge of firearms upon our streets." Evidently, Juan Garcia didn't read the paper, or maybe he was just new in town. He resisted arrest, and this time the newspaper mentioned that Tucker had been "charged with killing a man who resisted arrest, had a hearing in front of Justice Givens.... It was a case of justifiable homicide."
When Deming, in southern Grant County, burst on the scene as a bustling but wild and woolly railroad boomtown, Dan Tucker arrived to keep the peace. He ran off such reprobates as "Six-Shooter" and "Three-Shooter" Smith; by one press account, he arrested 26 lawless individuals in just three days. Such notables as "Big Ed" Burns, a notorious con man who worked the railroad towns looking for suckers, would frequently ride straight through Deming, not getting off the train until it was well east or west of Tucker's jurisdiction.
On an undisclosed mission in Arizona, an unknown assailant seriously wounded Tucker. However, Tucker recovered and returned to his own bailiwick. In another instance, Tucker gunned down the riotous Charley Hugo. When "Russian Bill" Tettenborn fled Shakespeare, it was Dan Tucker who laid the steel bracelets around his wrists and returned him to the mining camp. As for Jack Bond, he rode his horse onto the verandah at the Deming Depot, and Dan Tucker shotgunned him out of the saddle. Later, after the infamous "Bisbee Massacre," it was Dan Tucker who arrested York Kelly, one of the suspects. Kelly
was returned to Arizona and hanged.
After a stagecoach firm began operations between Silver City and Deming, Dan Tucker supplemented his sheriff's salary by riding as a Wells Fargo shotgun rider, his mere presence on the coach a preventative measure in itself. One old-timer wrote, "He was just a nice man, quiet, didn't bother anybody, but don't bother him!"
It is generally believed that Wyatt Earp and his cohorts didn't want "to bother him" either. During their flight to avoid murder prosecutions in Arizona, the fugitives chose to bypass Deming and Dan Tucker.
One who did bother him, at least for a split second, was fellow deputy sheriff James Burns. At Silver City one August (1882) night, Burns became boisterously drunk and disruptive, occasionally pulling out his six-shooter and flourishing it wildly. The new city marshal, G. W. Moore, and a part-time deputy sheriff, Billy McClellan attempted to arrest Burns at the Centennial Saloon. Tucker, already in the barroom, added his expertise. When it was over, Burns lay
dead on the floor. The three lawmen were arrested, and Moore and McClellan were found not guilty. Tucker's case was dismissed.
During his only known press interview, Dan Tucker confessed to a local newspaperman that "he had been obliged to kill eight men in this county [Grant] besides several in Lincoln and Dona Ana counties." Dan Tucker was badly wounded at Deming, during an 1884 brothel shooting, but not seriously enough to keep him from accepting an appointment as a U.S. deputy marshal in October of 1885.
In the fall of 1888, Tucker left New Mexico for California. He returned in 1892 for a visit, the local press noting, "During the early days in Grant county, when it was in the transition state, when the rustlers and bad men were giving way to the peaceable citizens, Dan Tucker and his shot gun were two of the greatest civilizers in the county. Dan had a way of killing the bad man and then reading him the warrant."
The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters Page 51