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Seth Bullock of Deadwood

In 1867, at the age of twenty, Seth Bullock left Canada to come down to the Montana Territory and do some gold mining. Four years later he was elected to the territory’s state senate. Next Seth took a horseback ride around the Yellowstone area, and sent back reports that helped influence its becoming our first National Park.

Then he became a county sheriff and proceeded to face down a lynch mob, as well as legally hang the first man in the Montana Territory.

Deciding to move on to new territory, he went to Deadwood in 1876. With no law, and no official process of selecting a sheriff, by popular demand, he became the town’s first lawman.

Also being a good businessman, he served as the president of a mining company and a bank.

As a lawman, while trailing an outlaw named Crazy Steve, he ran into a posse led by a deputy U. S. Marshall from the Dakota Badlands who had just caught Crazy Steve. The U. S. Marshall and Seth became lifelong friends. Incidentally, the marshal’s name was Theodore Roosevelt.

Although Seth became a captain in Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, he was never sent to Spain.

After Roosevelt became the President, he sent for Seth, and told Seth that he was needed in Washington. Seth responded that, “There’s just one job that would get me to live in this town, and you’re filling it just fine.” Seth settled for the job of a U.S. Marshal.

Seth served with distinction until his death on September 23, 1919. Roosevelt had called Seth Bullock the ideal American. But he wanted only one word on his tombstone… Pioneer.

March 16, 2016 | Categories: Old West History | Leave A Comment »

Book Review: Killer of Witches

In Killer of Witches, the Spur Award winning author W. Michael Farmer delivers a carefully researched story of a Mescalero Apache’s adventures. Beginning in 1865, the boy, along with a small group consisting of his family and friends, “jump” the reservation at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico Territory where they have been unhappily confined.

Their well-planned escape in dead of night is rewarded when they join a larger group of Apache fugitives hiding in Mexico. The reader is swept along with the Apaches, particularly Yellow Boy, as he grows into a much-feared warrior. He rides, shoots, becomes expert with bow and arrow as well as guns and practices all the rituals and traditions of his People. Along the way he meets some famous Apaches such as Juh and Victorio.

The location of the story includes New Mexico Territory, Arizona Territory, and Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico. The reader really feels the descriptions of a harrowing life on the bronco trail. Heat, cold, storms, water shortages, dangers from wild animals and possible ambush by American troops, Mexican soldiers or renegade killers along the border is constant.

Yellow Boy dreams of a girl he likes, but wisely chooses another more suited to his dangerous lifestyle. Juanita fights beside him and is a woman to be counted on. She’s strong and smart, and totally devoted to her man.

A cantankerous old white man named Rufus Pike takes Yellow Boy under his wing and teaches him passable English as well as the expert handling of guns. Yellow Boy is tough and determined yet a thoughtful young man who tries to understand the rituals of the Apache god, Ussen. Both Apache and Spanish words and phrases are found throughout the story including their meanings.

As the story progresses, Yellow Boy has a frightening dream during which he thinks he has been spoken to by Ussen. He is warned that a mysterious apparition too horrible to think about has attacked Yellow Boy’s family campground in the mountains. When Yellow Boy rides to the rescue he discovers that sure enough, a sort-of Comanchero cross between a Mexican and a Comanche giant has murdered many of Yellow Boy’s relatives including his beloved father.

Known as “The Witch”, this hideous individual has taken over a hacienda and surrounds himself with captive women, fellow marauders, scalp hunters, murderers and thieves. The Witch, covered with tattoos, bird feathers and paint, dresses in an odd getup found only in poor Yellow Boy’s wildest nightmares. Armed with a pet owl trained to kill humans, this Witch becomes the villain of all villains. Quite likely the guy has smoked a little too much peyote.

Yellow Boy, armed only with his aged grandfather, his favorite gun, and two boyhood pals, must settle the score. The reader knows he’s being put-on by a clever and imaginative author who keeps readers glued to their book far into the night.

Well…, not too far into the night. I suggest you finish the story in the morning in the light of day when The Witch’s horrible face, his murderous rages, his gang of cutthroats, his mistreatment of women, and his diabolical urges to torture and kill anybody defying his authority won’t seem so scary. Besides, we have to find out what happens.

Does Yellow Boy beat The Witch? Read the book. You won’t be disappointed. But be careful, this book is the first of a trilogy featuring Yellow Boy and his nemesis, so we suspect even after turning the last page, there is still a lot more hard riding to do. Get your copy HERE.

Editor’s Note: The reviewer Phyllis Morreale-de la Garza is the author of many books including Hell Horse Winter of the Apache Kid, published by Silk Label Books, P.O. Box 700, Unionville, New York 10988-0700. www.silklabelbooks.com

*Courtesy of Chronicle of the Old West newspaper, for more click HERE.

March 11, 2016 | Categories: Old West Book Reviews | Leave A Comment »

Johnson County War Build-Up

Frank M. Canton was known as a lawman, operating as a range detective for the Wyoming Cattle Grower’s Association, and then twice as the sheriff of Johnson County, Wyoming. At the time of his defeat, the Johnson County War was building up. This was a battle between the big cattle ranchers and the small ranchers and farmers.

Frank showed up on the side of the big cattle ranchers. During this time, Canton was suspected of shooting more than one man… in the back. Although nothing was proved, once the war was over, he found it necessary to go elsewhere.

That “elsewhere” was Oklahoma, where he did triple duty as under sheriff of Pawnee County and U.S. marshal for Marshal Evett Nix and “Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker. After he helped wipe out the Doolin gang and other major outlaws, things settled down in Oklahoma. So Frank headed up to the new frontier, Alaska, where he served for a while as a deputy U.S. marshal.

With failing health, Frank Canton went to Texas where he supposedly had an audience with Jim Hogg, who was a friend as well as the Governor of Texas. Frank confessed to the Governor that his real name was Joe Horner. And that while in his mid 20’s, while living in Texas, he had been wanted for bank robbery, rustling and the shooting of two soldiers.

Taking into consideration his age and the number of years he had served as a lawman, the outlaw, Joe Horner, was given an official pardon, and the lawman, Frank M. Canton returned to Oklahoma where, on September 27, 1927, at the age of 78, he died.

February 29, 2016 | Categories: Old West History | Leave A Comment »

SALTED UNDERSHIRT

A SALTED UNDERSHIRT FOR THE GRIP

March 1, 1892, Daily Herald, El Paso, Texas – Five years ago I was suffering with a very severe throat trouble, so much so that I did not expect to live. An acquaintance told me that he could give me a remedy that would cure it and , as I had tried all of the doctors in my town without receiving any benefit, I decided to try the remedy suggested. I tried it, was permanently cured of my cough, and besides I discovered that I was not subject to colds.

I was conductor, running in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama. I was of course subjected to very hot cars in winter, and of necessity had constantly to get out in the cold at all hours of the night. In all that time I have never had a cold or the grip.

You will be astonished at the remedy. It is simply to wear a salted undershirt. Take a summer undershirt and soak it in brine made with, a half pint of ordinary salt to about a quarter of water, and put out to dry. Wear this shirt next to the body. It is not unpleasant to wear and will, I am sure, keep off grip and bad colds, and, I firmly believe, consumption. If I were to live to be eighty years old, I have so much faith in the salted shirts that I would never cease to wear them. My reason for preferring the thin gauze shirt is because the salt makes a heavy shirt too stiff and hard. Wear the heavy shirt over the salted shirt.

NOTE: This article written in 1892. It was the latest in medical news back then, but not necessarily now.

February 29, 2016 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Teton Jackson – Killer

Harvey Gleason was over six feet tall. He had a shabby beard, ruddy face with flaming red hair and black eyes. By his mid 40s, he had supposedly killed several soldiers and deputy marshals.

But, people didn’t know him as Harvey Gleason, everyone knew him as Teton Jackson. He got his name from his favorite area, the Teton Mountains. For a living Teton Jackson stole horses… Not one or two at a time, but hundreds. For about eight years, Teton and his men stole horses during the summer and hid out among the Teton Mountains during the winter.

While in Eagle Rock, Idaho, Teton killed a man. When the sheriff came to investigate the shooting, he found the victim frozen stiff on the ground. Needing evidence of the killing, and unable to transport the whole body, the sheriff brought in just the head.

Finally, livestock associations in Idaho and Wyoming started putting up rewards for Teton. And, money talked. A sheriff found Teton, and brought him in. He was tried and on November 5, 1885, sentenced to 14 years in prison. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But, relief was short lived. For nine months later, Teton escaped from jail. Even though Teton was free for two years before he was recaptured, few horses were stolen because his gang’s numbers were drastically reduced by posse bullets and jail.

After four years in jail, Teton received a pardon for good behavior. He continued that good behavior for the next 35 years, marring a Shoshone woman, and doing some guiding, always riding a horse with his brand on it.

February 25, 2016 | Categories: Old West Myth & Fact | Leave A Comment »