Home : Gunfighters :

The Gunfighters

G. A. Frazer ("Bud")

The son of a county judge in West Texas, Bud Frazer began a law enforcement career by enlisting in the Texas Rangers at the age of sixteen. Later he was a deputy sheriff of Pecos County before being elected sheriff of Reeves County in 1890. One of his deputies was Killin' Jim Miller, who shot a Mexican prisoner to death. Miller said the Mexican had tried to resist arrest, but the prisoner had actually known that Jim had stolen a pair of mules.

Frazer fired Miller and charged him with theft, but Jim was soon released. He ran against Frazer for sheriff in 1892, and even though he was defeated, Miller was appointed city marshal of Pecos, the county seat. The feud grew, and two years later Miller and Frazer had a gunfight in the streets of Pecos.

In November, 1894, Frazer was beaten for a third term, and he left for New Mexico, where he operated a livery stable in Eddy (later Carlsbad). A visit to Pecos the next month resulted in another inconclusive duel with Miller, and Frazer was jailed for intent to murder. He won acquittal in May, 1896, and returned to New Mexico. Four months later, however, he visited his mother and sister in Toyah and was assassinated by Miller.

Jim French

French was noted primarily for his participation in the Lincoln County War, during which he aligned with the Tunstall faction alongside Billy the Kid, Henry Brown, and other vicious killers. French was a member of the posses which killed Frank Baker and Billy Morton in March. 1878, and Buckshot Roberts the next month. He was also one of the men who ambushed Sheriff William Brady, and he shot his way out of Alexander McSween's burning store. For a short time thereafter he joined Billy the Kid's gang of stock thieves, but he soon decided to leave turbulent New Mexico, and Jim French faded into obscurity.

James Buchanan Gillett

The son of a lawyer and modest landholder, Gillett was reared in Austin, where he learned to ride and shoot skillfully. At seventeen he left home and became a cowboy for two years until his enlistment into the Texas Rangers. For the next six and one-half years he was embroiled in Indian skirmishes and fugitive manhunts, and eventually he earned the rank of first sergeant. On December 26, 1881, he left the rangers to head a group of railroad guards, and soon he became the city marshal of El Paso.

On the side Gillett began building a cattle partnership with another former ranger near Marfa, Texas, and in 1885 he turned in his badge for good. Devoting his full-time activities to business, he eventually built up a thirtythousand-acre spread at Barrel Springs in the vicinity of Marfa. After his death in Temple, Texas, in 1937, Gillett was buried in Marfa.

John Good

John Good first became known as a big, bullying ruffian who ran a ranch, stocked with stolen beef, in the hill country west of Austin, Texas. After a cattle drive to Newton he was present when Cad Pierce was killed by Ed Crawford. Involved in a shooting in 1877, Good moved to Coleman and opened a hotel, but he soon became unpopular, and by 1880 he had moved again, this time to a ranch fifty miles northwest of Colorado City. A short time later he migrated to New Mexico, establishing a ranch near La Luz and a relationship with a notorious local woman known as Bronco Sue Yonker. (In 1884 Bronco Sue had killed a man in Socorro and was suspected of further violent deeds.)

The tryst soon ended when Mrs. Good and John's children arrived, but Bronco Sue merely took up residence nearby with a man named Charley Dawson, thus worsening the situation. In December, 1885, Good killed Dawson, then turned to more practical matters. He built a ten-room adobe house, imported his brother Isham and his large family, and ruthlessly began to accumulate wealth. In 1888 a young man named George McDonald clashed with Good, and when McDonald was assassinated, his friends blamed Walter Good, one of John's sons. A feud broke out, and Walter Good was killed. The senior Good soon gave up the fight, disposed of his property, and drifted into Arizona. He was last noted working for wages in Oklahoma.

Dayton Graham

Dayton Graham was a peace officer in Bisbee, Arizona, when in 1901 he was tapped by Burt Mossman for the newly created Arizona Rangers. Mossman was the captain of the rangers, and there were to be twelve privates and a sergeant. Graham accepted the position of sergeant at seventy-five dollars per month, and his service with the rangers was the high point of his career in law enforcement.

William Graham ("Curly Bill Brocius")

Graham was a cowhand in Texas who drifted into New Mexico, where he derived a colorful nickname from a cantina singer. He helped drive a herd of New Mexico cattle into Arizona, and there he assumed an inflated reputation as a gunslinger. He was one of the leaders of the Clanton cattle rustling gang, and in Tombstone he frequently went with his men on sprees during which he would "buffalo" the town - take over a saloon as headquarters and ride up and down the streets firing revolvers. On one such occasion he accidentally killed the first marshal of Tombstone.

A few months later a similar attempt to take over Galeyville, Arizona, resulted in the serious wounding of Curly Bill. As soon as he recovered, he left Arizona for good, although Wyatt Earp continued to scour the countryside for him. Curly Bill had supposedly vowed revenge upon the Earps for killing his cattle rustling cohorts at the O.K. Corral (even though Bill left Arizona well before the famous Earp-Clanton gunfight). Wyatt Earp later claimed to have killed Curly Bill in a gun duel, but Bill actually lived a quiet existence for years after leaving the Tombstone vicinity. He learned about his "death" at Earp's hand a decade later when he was passing through Arizona on the way to Texas.

Francisco Griego ("Pancho")

Although his family resided in Santa Fe, by the 1870's Griego was living in Colfax County, New Mexico, where he acquired a local reputation as a dangerous pistolero. His most spectacular exploit came in May, 1875, when he felled three soldiers during a violent gunfight in Cimarron. A few months later Griego's friend and business associate, Cruz Vega, was lynched by a mob led by Clay Allison. Griego sought out Allison and was killed by the vicious Tennessean.

Bill Gristy ("Bill White")

Bill Gristy was a notorious criminal who became the chief lieutenant in the bandit gang of "Tom Bell" (whose real name was Thomas Hodges). A known thief and arsonist, Gristy met Hodges while awaiting trial on a murder charge. Gristy, Hodges, and several other men escaped jail, and Hodges and Gristy organized a band of thieves. The gang was active throughout 1856, but in September, Gristy was captured, and, extracting promises of leniency, he informed on Hodges and then was imprisoned.

Jesse Lee Hall ("Red")

Son of a surgeon who served the Confederacy during the Civil War, Lee Hall came to Texas in 1869 and taught school in Grayson County. The county seat was Sherman, and in 1871 Hall left teaching to become city marshal of that growing community. After two years Hall became a deputy sheriff and, operating out of nearby Denison, stalked and captured numerous horse thieves, murderers, and other unsavory characters. In 1876 he was appointed a lieutenant of the Texas Rangers in Captain L. H. McNelly's company.

During the bloody and widespread Taylor-Sutton feud, Hall once walked unarmed into the midst of a roomful of feudists and boldly arrested seven men wanted in the infamous Brazell murder. In 1877 Hall was promoted to captain, and by 1879 he and his men had captured more than four hundred individuals and, of course, were instrumental in quelling the feud.

During the 1870's Hall also was active in suppressing difficulties on the Texas-Mexico border. He was present at Round Rock when peace officers surprised and killed Sam Bass, and he tracked down other criminals with great efficiency. In 1880, however, Hall was married, and he resigned from the rangers to devote himself-quite successfully - to raising sheep and cattle.

For two years during the 1880's young Will Porter lived on Hall's large ranch to regain his health, and in the process he stored up material which he later used under the pen name O. Henry.

In 1885 Hall was appointed Indian agent at Anadarko, Indian Territory, where he had frequent dealings with Comanche chief Quanah Parker. Two years later he was removed from this position under charges of graft, but eventually he won complete exoneration. He moved his wife and four daughters to San Antonio and became a deputy marshal there, but in 1894 Mrs. Hall took their children and left him.

During the Spanish-American War, Hall organized two companies of "immunes" - men born or who had spent lengthy time in sections of the country subject to yellow fever. Unfortunately, he was unable to go overseas with his troops because of a hernia he had suffered twenty-five years earlier. In 1899, however, Hall obtained a commission as a first lieutenant and fought in the Philippines; he was breveted to the rank of captain, but was forced to leave the service because of malaria. Back from abroad, he was a guard for gold mines in Mexico and speculated in oil and mining leases, and he died in San Antonio at the age of sixty-one.

Dee Harkey

One of eight children born to a Texas farm couple, Harkey was orphaned at the age of three and was reared by an older brother. As a youth, Harkey witnessed more than one Indian raid, and three of his brothers were killed in gunfights before they reached twenty-one. Harkey had little schooling, but earned his way as a farmhand and cowboy. When he was sixteen he began wearing a badge as deputy to his brother Joe, who had been elected sheriff of San Saba County. It was there that Dee first clashed with Jim ("Killer") Miller and various other hard cases.

After four years of serving warrants and arresting stock thieves, Harkey married and established a farm in Bee County. He soon came into conflict with a contentious neighbor named George Young, whom he killed in a knife fight in a corn patch. In 1890 he moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico, and found employment as a butcher. A quarrel with a customer named George High resulted in two shooting incidents in which Harkey acquitted himself well, and a delegation of citizens secured an appointment for him as deputy U.S. marshal to clean up the area.

Harkey served as a New Mexico peace officer until 1911 and eventually held a variety of official positions, ranging from town marshal to inspector for the cattle raisers' association. When he retired as a lawman, he engaged in ranching in Eddy County, and he died peacefully in his eighties.

Bob Hays

Hays was one member of Black Jack Christian's outlaw gang which attempted to rob the International Bank of Nogales, Ariz., on Aug. 6, 1896. Hays and fellow bank robber Jess Williams were inside the bank when newspaperman Frank King accosted gang members stationed outside. When King began firing, Hays and Williams were forced to abandon their efforts and flee. Despite the failed attempt, the gang was pursued by an eight-man posse and was cornered at a hideout in San Simon Valley. In an exchange of gunfire, Hays was shot to death by lawman Fred Higgins.

Harry Head ("Harry the Kid")

Head was a cattle thief in southern Arizona and was associated with Ike Clanton's nefarious operations. In March, 1881, Head, Bill Leonard, and two other men were engaged in a bloody attempt to rob a stagecoach. Three months later Head and Leonard were killed while trying to hold up a store in New Mexico.

Jack Helm

Helm first appeared in history just before the Civil War as a cowboy for Texas' fabulous Shanghai Pierce. During the late 1860's he joined the Sutton side in their bloody feud with the Taylors in South Texas, and he became one of the leaders of the two-hundred-strong Sutton "Regulators." In August, 1869, Helm arranged an attack which resulted in one of the bloodiest battles of the SuttonTaylor feud.

On July 1, 1869, Reconstruction Governor E. J. Davis organized the Texas State Police, and Helm received an appointment as one of the four captains. But shortly thereafter he misused his authority to murder two members of the Taylor faction and to levy a tax of twenty-five cents per person to defray his hotel expenses. Therefore, in October, 1870, he was suspended from the state police, and he was permanently dismissed the following December.

Helm had managed to win election as sheriff of DeWitt County, however, and from that position he continued to be a leader in the area feuding. But in April, 1873, he moved to Albuquerque, Texas, where he worked to perfect an invention to combat cotton worms. A few months later he was killed in Albuquerque by Jim Taylor and John Wesley Hardin.

Fred R. Higgins

Fred Higgins was a deputy U.S. marshal in the Arizona Territory. In the San Simon Valley in 1896, Higgins and seven other lawmen formed a posse to pursue Black Jack Christian, Bob Hays, and two other bandits. The lawmen found the fugitives' lair and set up an ambush. When the outlaws appeared, a furious gunfight broke out. Hays fired three shots at Higgins, who was sprayed with splinters of rock, but not hit. Higgins returned the fire and killed Hays with two shots. The other criminals escaped. The following year, on Apr. 28, Higgins and three others, while still in pursuit of the remaining three bandits, tracked them to a cave near Clifton, Ariz. Again while attempting an ambush, they mortally wounded Black Jack Christian, but the other two bandits escaped. A few years later, Higgins moved to New Mexico and became the sheriff of Chaves County.

John Calhoun Pinckney Higgins ("Pink")

Pink Higgins was born in Georgia, but his family moved by wagon train to Texas a few months later, settling first near Austin before establishing a ranch in Lampasas County in 1857. As a young man Pink was an officer in the Ku Klux Klan, owned a combination meat shop and saloon until it burned, and was twice wounded while fighting Indians. Pink's best shooting was done with a Winchester, which he fired by pulling the trigger with his thumb when pulling back the lever.

Later he turned to ranching as a livelihood, and by the 1870's he was driving large herds to the Kansas railheads. At times he combined his cattle with those of the Horrell brothers, who ranched nearby. But in 1873 the Horrells killed three law officers, including Pink's sonin-law, and a vicious feud erupted. Pink was involved in several shooting scrapes, but finally he was prevailed upon by Texas Rangers to sign a truce. About the turn of the century he moved his ranching operation and large family to a spread thirteen miles south of Spur, Texas, where he died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-six.

Tom Hill ("Tom Chelson")

Known in Texas as Tom Chelson, by the late 1870's Hill was in New Mexico as rustler Jesse Evans' right-hand man. In October, 1877, Evans, Hill, and two other desperadoes raided the Tunstall and Brewer ranches in Lincoln County, and subsequently the bandits were chased down, captured, and incarcerated in Lincoln. But within weeks thirty-two of their cohorts boldly galloped into town and freed them from the unlocked jail. A few months later Hill was instrumental in the death of John Tunstall, which ignited the the murderous Lincoln County War. But Hill was not around for the rest of the fighting; within two weeks he was shot and killed while trying to rob a sheep camp.

George W. Hindman

Hindman was a Texas cowboy who drifted into New Mexico in 1875 with a cattle herd and decided to stay. After a nonfatal gunfight with his bosses, Hindman broke away and hired on at the Lincoln County ranch of Robert Casey. Shortly thereafter Hindman encountered a huge grizzly bear, and although he shot the creature, he entered a somewhat uneven wrestling match with it, which resulted in a severe mauling and the permanent crippling of his hand and arm. A couple of years later Sheriff William Brady appointed him a deputy, and in February, 1878, he was a member of the "posse" which assassinated John Tunstall, thereby triggering the Lincoln County War. A few weeks afterward, Hindman and Brady were gunned down in the streets of Lincoln by Tunstall sympathizers.

Robert Woodson Hite ("Wood")

Wood Hite was a Kentuckian who fought with the Confederacy during the Civil War, eventually becoming one of Bloody Bill Anderson's raiders. When Jesse James rebuilt his gang after the Northfield disaster in 1876, Wood and his brother Clarence, who were first cousins of the James brothers, joined up willingly. But Wood, a gangling, stoop-shouldered man with prominent, decaying front teeth, was easily recognizable; and after a few train holdups he sought refuge at his father's home in Logan County, Kentucky. Soon he shot a Negro to death and was arrested, but he promptly escaped jail and headed west. He returned to Missouri late in 1881, but shortly thereafter he was killed in a gunfight by Bob Ford.

Thomas Hodges ("Tom Bell")

Reared in Rome, Tennessee, Hodges enlisted at the outbreak of the Mexican War as a medical orderly. Following the war he moved to nearby Nashville and began practicing medicine, but within a few years he was attracted to California by the gold rush. Prospecting proved unsuccessful, and he assumed the alias "Tom Bell" and became a thief. He was arrested in 1855 and sentenced to the state penitentiary on Angel Island at San Francisco, but he soon managed to escape.

Assisted by a notorious criminal named Bill Gristy, Hodges formed the Tom Bell gang and began to prey regularly upon gold rush area stagecoaches and teamsters. After killing a woman in an unsuccessful robbery attempt, however, the gang was tenaciously pursued. There were violent escapes from the clutches of justice, but Hodges was finally captured by a posse near the Merced River. He wrote letters to his mother and to Elizabeth Hood, his mistress and partner in crime, and then at 5:00 P.M. on October 4, 1856, the vigilantes strung him up to strangle to death.

more »

---

top of page

back a page