Home : Gunslinger Sinners :

Cullen Montgomery Baker

Baker was born in Weakley County, Tenn., on June 22, 1835, the son of a poor farmer who took his family to Cass County (later Davis County), Texas, in 1839 when he was four. The boy grew up dirt poor and, because of his homespun trousers and bare feet, was the butt of jokes by other boys. Slender, sallow-faced Baker finally fought back, beating the biggest boy in the area. Baker was a lonely, withdrawn boy who read books of knights and ancient heroes and dreamed of becoming a valiant westerner who would command respect. As a youth Baker became a crack shot, a braggart, and a heavy drinker. He obtained an old pistol at age twelve and began practicing a quick draw from his waistband. He then acquired a rusty but workable rifle and practiced shooting each day with both weapons, becoming an expert marksman by the time he was fifteen-the age when he took his first long drink of whiskey.

When in his teenage cups, the drunken boy would challenge adults who annoyed him to "go for your guns." But Baker's reputation of being a crack shot caused all to back away from him. This encouraged a growing braggart personality that boasted of great deeds never accomplished. On one occasion, just for the sadistic joy it gave him, Baker pulled his pistol on an old man and terrorized him in a local town, driving the old man from the city limits and laughing hysterically.

At the age of nineteen, Baker ordered all the youths in the area to stage a mock cowboys-and-Indians battle - a wild fight in which he was struck in the head with a tomahawk and knocked unconscious. The blow seemed to bring Baker to his senses as he lay in bed for several weeks recovering. He told his parents that he had been a fool, that someone would eventually come along and best him at his own vicious games and he would wind up dead. He vowed to reform. Some weeks later, in January 1854, still wearing a head bandage, Baker married 17-year-old Jane Petty and he settled down to quiet farming. But he soon tired of this routine and took up his old ways of violence. He forced other teenagers to carry him on their shoulders through the towns while he drove them on by pecking at their heads with knives or slamming the butt of his pistol against the sides of their heads. One youngster named Stallcup, an orphan, received the brunt of Baker's bullying. Baker chased him about with a whip on an August day in 1854, lashing the terrified child. His guardian brought suit against Baker and a farmer named Bailey, who had witnessed the whipping, testified in court against Baker who was heavily fined, warned to mind his manners, and sent on his way.

Baker showed up at Bailey's house an hour after the trial, his pistol tucked into his waistband. He called Bailey outside and the farmer stepped onto his porch, a pistol in his hand, limp at his side. "So you'd talk against me, huh, Bailey," Baker said with a sneer. "Well, you got a gun. Use it while you got the chance!" The farmer hesitated for a moment, then yanked the pistol upward and fired a quick shot that whizzed past Baker's head. Baker drew his weapon and fired two shots, one hitting Bailey in the chest, the other in the head, propelling him backward through his front door so that he fell dead in front of his horrified family. Baker rode quickly away and was absent from Cass County, hiding out with relatives in Perry County, Ark., for almost two years. He took his ugly nature with him to Arkansas where he stabbed to death in 1856 a man named Wartham to death in an argument about horses. Baker returned to Cass County in 1856 but fled when he learned that he was still wanted to face murder charges in the killing of Bailey. After another two years in Arkansas, Baker once more returned to Texas, but only to retrieve his wife and daughter, resettling them in Arkansas. His wife died on July 2, 1860, and Baker took their child to Sulphur County, Texas, and the home of Hubbard Petty, his daughter's grandfather, leaving the child in the old man's care. He never saw his daughter again.

Authorities in Perry County, Ark., pressed charges against Baker for the Wartham killing and he fled back to Cass County, Texas, where officials dropped murder charges against him for the killing of Bailey. Baker told one and all he was through with killing, that he was a reformed man, but it was an old story. A local belle, Martha Foster, fell in love with Baker and they were married on July 1, 1862. A short time later, Baker was conscripted into the Confederate Army and sent to Little Rock, Ark., to serve with his company. He was a poor soldier, often absent without leave, returning to Texas to ostensibly visit his wife and family but in reality to escape the discipline of army life. Finally, Baker refused to return to his company, settling near Spanish Bluffs, Ark., on a small farm, stating that he was growing corn for the Confederacy, a much more important role than soldiering since the South needed food. The area was occupied by northern troops under the command of Captain F.S. Dodge in Spring 1864. These Union soldiers were all blacks, which incensed the southerners in the area, particularly Baker, who hated Negroes. Three black soldiers and a sergeant entered the local saloon at Spanish Bluffs where they saw a single customer at the bar. It was Baker, wearing a broad Confederate hat. The sergeant demanded identification papers from Baker and he turned with a gun in his hand, shooting the sergeant and then the other three soldiers.

Now Baker was wanted by both sides, by the Confederate Army as a deserter and by the Union forces as a killer. He fled to Little Rock, which had also been occupied by northern troops, and there took the oath of allegiance and joined the Union Army using a false name and claiming that he had been a Confederate officer. Ironically, he was placed in charge of a company of black troops. He deserted the Union Army and returned to Texas, staying with his uncle, Tom Young. By late 1864, Texas was overrun with deserters from both armies, and these freebooters roamed the countryside as bandits. Baker fell in with one group and soon became their leader, robbing farmers trying to flee the area as they crossed the Saline River. He looted farms and ranches throughout the territory.

One story, perhaps apocryphal, has Baker and his band of thieves rustling a great herd of cattle, including livestock taken from a widow named Drew, near Jefferson. Baker stopped at Mrs. Drew's farm where she told him that robbers had just taken her herd. She offered Baker a substantial reward if he could find the rustlers and deal with them, returning her cattle. He promised to do what he could, pretending to be shocked at the wholesale robbery. A short time later, Baker caught up with his band, ordering them to separate the Drew cattle from the rest, and these were driven back to the Drew ranch where Baker received a cash reward which was more than what he and his men would have realized had they sold off the stolen cattle elsewhere.

When the war ended, Baker, to avoid arrest for his many robberies, moved to the Sulphur River area in southwestern Arkansas where he became the manager of the Line Ferry, settling down for a while with his wife Martha, who took ill and died on Mar. 1, 1866. Baker seemed to have truly loved his second wife; he was grief-stricken for weeks, even making a lifelike effigy of her which he adorned with her clothes and placed upon his front porch for all the neighbors to see. He was finally persuaded to remove this mannequin in the interest of good taste. Baker later proposed to Bell Foster, his dead wife's 16-year-old sister, but she rejected him in favor of local schoolteacher, Thomas Orr. Baker later picked a fight with Orr and cracked the teacher's head with a tree limb. He later went to Orr's small school and ridiculed Orr before his students, cursing him and threatening to shoot his head "off from your shoulders!" So bitter was Baker at being rejected by Bell Foster that he continued to plague the teacher, who had a crippled arm, with threats, writing Orr letters in which he promised to beat or shoot the teacher if he ever found out that Orr missed any classes.

By early 1867, Baker had returned to Cass County, Texas, where he continued to make a nuisance of himself, exercising his bullyboy tactics at every opportunity. On June 1, 1867, Baker arrived at the Rowden store and, finding it locked, broke inside and took whatever goods he wanted. Before he rode away, Mrs. Rowden arrived and asked him what he was doing. Baker told her he would pay for the goods later. When Rowden returned and heard from his wife how Baker had helped himself to his provisions, the shopkeeper rode to Baker's small ranch and demanded payment. He carried a shotgun at his side. "Sure, I'll pay you in a few days," Baker told him.

On June 5, 1867, Baker appeared at Rowden's store and called the storekeeper outside. Mrs. Rowden and her children begged Rowden not to go outside, knowing the fierce reputation of Cullen Baker. Rowden nevertheless grabbed his shotgun and stepped onto the porch of his store. "What do you mean by speaking so disrespectfully to me?" Baker shouted to Rowden. "I'm sure I never meant to do such a thing," Rowden replied.

Before another word could be uttered, Baker whipped out his six-gun and fired four shots into the store owner. He was hit in the chest by all four bullets and fell forward, dead. Baker returned home to hear some days later that citizens in the area were organizing a huge posse to arrest him for the Rowden killing. He sent a message to town stating that he would kill anyone who attempted to bring him to trial over a "fair fight," pointing out that Rowden had been armed with a shotgun. Texas was still occupied by Union troops at the time and the Union commander at Jefferson, Texas, sent a patrol to Pett's Ferry, where Baker was staying, to arrest the gunman.

A sergeant and a private found Baker at the ferry and asked him his name. "It's Johnson," Baker lied, "but what in hell makes you so particular?" "We thought you might be Cullen Baker," the sergeant told him, fingering his pistol, "the man we are searching for. From your weapons and the way you're dressed, I am inclined to believe you are Baker:" The sergeant, a fearless type, pulled his pistol but before he could level it at Baker, the gunman whipped out his own six-gun and blazed off four shots, all of which struck the sergeant, blowing him off the saddle, dead. The private lashed his horse about and raced back to the detachment to report the killing.

Baker fled, going down river and hiding in Bowie County, but troops scouring the area for him, encircled his hiding place the next day. Baker, realizing that he had no chance against a company of soldiers, began to shout: "Charge them, boys! Charge them!" The soldiers, believing that they were facing a large band of outlaws led by Baker, fled in panic. Some days later, a small group of soldiers encountered Baker riding a mule and a gunfight erupted. Baker shot one of the soldiers dead before the rest of the troopers took flight. On Oct. 10, 1867, Baker stopped a Union supply wagon escorted by a four-man patrol. The driver reached for his pistol but Baker shot him dead and drove off the other soldiers with withering gunfire. He then stole the supply wagon. Baker was now a much-wanted man with a $1,000 reward posted for his capture, dead or alive.

More than 600 soldiers were assigned to track the outlaw down and these troopers fanned out in small contingents throughout the territory. One, led by Captain Kirkham, found Baker in Boston, Texas. Baker, seeing he was surrounded by at least two dozen heavily-armed troopers, boldly marched up to Captain Kirkham and said: "I'm Cullen Baker. You looking for me?"

Kirkham went for his pistol but Baker's lightning draw produced his pistol first which barked and sent a single bullet into Kirkham's head, killing him instantly. Before Kirkham's men could react, Baker jumped on his horse and raced out of town. In November 1868, Baker organized another outlaw band which raided farms and ranches along the Red River and ranged as far as Sevier and Little River counties in Arkansas. Baker and his men, in one raid, shot and killed two government agents named Andrews and Willis. When Baker received news that more than a thousand troopers were searching for him, he stole an officer's uniform and impersonated a Union captain, requesting and receiving supplies from local farmers, saying that his troops needed fresh supplies in their search for the notorious outlaw, Cullen Baker.

With the troopers and lawmen of two states looking for him, Baker took to writing letters to local newspapers in which he attempted to justify his actions, portraying himself a victim of the Civil War, a defender of the white man's rights against black carpetbaggers, and that he would willingly submit himself to the justice of "unbiased men" if any could be found who were not influenced by the lies spread throughout Texas and Arkansas about him. Baker then rode back to the Foster home, still seething about Bell Foster, who had since married Thomas Orr. He and his men surrounded the Foster home and Baker demanded that his ex-father-in-law turn Orr over to him. Foster did so, on the promise that the crippled school teacher would not be harmed. It was Baker's sadistic intention to show Bell that he could do what he pleased with her ineffectual husband. He forced the teacher to ride behind one of his men with a rope affixed about his neck, the end of which Baker held in his hand as he rode ahead. He stopped a few miles away and tied the rope around the limb of, dogwood tree, then ordered the man behind whom Orr was riding to spur his horse onward, leaving the teacher dangling.

Baker and his men rode on, but the bandit chief had second thoughts about losing his best rope. He turned to one of his men and shouted: "Cut down that wretch and drag him away! And bring me that rope!" Orr was cut down and left for dead as the band rode away. But Orr miraculously survived his own hanging and vowed to track down his tormentor. On Jan. 6, 1869, Orr, with three others, followed Baker and an accomplice to a hideout in southeastern Arkansas, coming upon the two men just as they were squatting next to a fire, having lunch. Orr and the others did not call out to the outlaws to surrender, knowing what their answer would be. The teacher and his companions rode down on Baker and his henchman with their six-guns blazing, shooting both men dead on the spot. Orr found that his old adversary was a walking arsenal. Strapped to his side was a double-barrelled shotgun. Baker was also wearing four six-guns, three derringers, and six knives. Also found on Baker's corpse was a carefully kept packet of newspaper clippings which described him as "the Arkansas brigand," and the most feared gunman in the Lone Star State who had spread "a reign of terror in Texas." Many historians have portrayed Baker as a soft-spoken southern gentlemen who was compelled to take up the gun, although he kept his scruples intact and was a gentleman when treating with women and children. He was anything but this, a vicious gunman, an immoral, ruthless killer, a man who despised culture and education. His death at the hands of a meek-mannered schoolteacher was poetic justice indeed.

Jay Robert Nash. . Da Capo Press. 1989.

top of page

back a page