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John King Fisher

John King Fisher was the son of Jobe Fisher and Lucinda Warren. Jobe Fisher married Lucinda Warren and they had two sons, Jasper and King. He went to Jack County and then to Denton County where he lived during the Civil War. Lucinda died about 1856 and he married Minerva. After the War, the family moved to Williamson County where his brother James lived.

Minerva's health was frail so they moved to Goliad County to live closer to the coast. Jobe moved several hundred head of Durham cattle and his freight wagon business. However, Minerva soon died. Jasper drove one of the wagons with his father. Anna, Jobe's mother, moved to Goliad to help him rear his children.

Jobe became concerned about the unsavory company King was keeping. About 1869, he sent King to back to Williamson County to live with James. King attended school and was a fairly good student although, reportedly, rather quite and mild mannered. He was also good at fist-fighting. Good-looking and popular with girls, he attended numerous camp meetings of the time. He began buying wild or untamed horses at cheap prices, breaking them and selling them for a tidy profit.

King Fisher led a somewhat unsettled life during his youth. John King Fisher was born in Collin County, Texas. His mother died when he was five and his father, after fighting for the Confederacy was a cattleman who established several ranches throughout Texas, left the boy on his own. King lived in Collin County, Lampasas, Goliad, and Florence. At the age of fifteen, Fisher stole a horse in Florence and, following his arrest, he escaped from the local constable, hiding out on one of his father's ranches.

At sixteen, he broke into a house in Goliad, Texas, was caught and was sentenced to the state penitentiary for a year, though he served only four months. Upon his release, Fisher became an honest cowboy in the "Nueces Strip" country of South Texas and learned how to break wild horses, and drive cattle. Old hands taught him how to use a sixgun and he became a crack shot and a quick draw, a skill needed to chase Mexican bandits. He later bought a ranch which he called the Pendencia near Eagle Pass, Texas. After being pardoned four months later, he moved to Dimmit County and established a ranch on Pendencia Creek.

The region, known as the Nueces Strip, was a lawless area, where cattle rustling was the major industry. Fisher, relying on both patronage and intimidation, quickly established himself as one of the leaders of the Strip, and his ranch became a haven for drifters, criminals, and rustlers in the region. He became a dominant and colorful figure in the nearby border town of Eagle Pass. It was here that he placed a sign at a crossroad which read: "This is King Fisher's road. Take the other one!"

During the 1870s, Fisher took up rustling and he also became a shrewd gambler: He was quick to anger and quicker to draw his gun. He claimed in 1878 that he had killed seven men, mostly in gambling arguments, and he was not including "several Mexicans." King became widely feared as a rustler. During the 1870's he was arrested several times in San Antonio and Uvalde for gambling, and he reputedly killed several men in skirmishes with rivals. When queried in 1878, he stated that he was responsible for seven deaths, "not counting Mexicans."

The most persistent of these unauthenticated incidents concerned an argument which arose between King and four vaqueros at a cattle pen on the Pendencia. These men arrived at Fisher's place to buy cattle, but it appeared to him as though they were about to steal his herd. When they refused to leave his ranch, King whacked the nearest opponent on the skull with a branding iron, outdrew, shot and killed a second man who drew a gun with a single shot through the head, then whirled and drilled the other two men as they, too, were drawing their weapons, killing both vaqueros. the last two, who were still sitting on the fence. These four deaths were never verified, except in tall tales about King Fisher which abounded throughout Texas during his lifetime and after.

He was a colorful dresser who favored fringed shirts, red sashes, and bells on his spurs. Anyone ridiculing his apparel, inevitably faced his guns. He was an imposing figure, once described by Texas Ranger N. A. Jennings as wearing an ornamented Mexican sombrero, a black Mexican jacket embroidered with gold with two silver-plated, ivory-handled revolvers swinging from his belt.

In addition to operating his ranch, Fisher was evidently engaged in cattle rustling in Texas and Mexico, and his escapades led more than once to violence. In 1875 King was indicted for murder, and later warrants for his arrest on rustling charges were issued in numerous Texas counties but the charges were later dropped.

Married in 1876 and eventually the father of four daughters, King's following years were marred by frequent arrests for murder and theft, his new domestic life did not temper his outlaw impulses, even though he usually was found not guilty or was released after the charges were invariably dropped for lack of evidence. In most of these instances, Fisher simply threatened witnesses with death if they dared to testify against him.

Fisher was not the best of drinking companions. While in a bar in Zavala County, Texas, on Dec. 25, 1876, a cowboy named William Donovan refused to buy Fisher a drink, and the gunman fired three bullets into Donovan, killing him. In 1877, Fisher was arrested by Texas Ranger Lee Hall, who charged him with murder. Fisher however, was expertly defended in court by Major T.T. Teel and was found Not Guilty.

By the late 1870's, however, he had begun to smooth over his troubles and expand his business interests. Fisher began to reform, so much so, that instead of shooting another gunman in an argument he thought better of it and tried to reholster his six-gun. He was drunk at the time and his gun went off accidentally and Fisher shot himself in the leg. In 1879 his biggest problem was shooting himself in the leg by accident. He was tried for another murder but was cleared of this charge. By 1881, Fisher became a champion of law and order and he was sworn in as a deputy sheriff in Uvalde County. For a short time he served as acting sheriff. In 1883, while acting sheriff of Uvalde County, Fisher rode out to the ranch owned by Tom and Jim Hannehan. The brothers were suspected of having robbed a stagecoach. When Fisher confronted them, both brothers went for their guns. The lightning-fast Fisher shot Tom Hannehan dead and wounded his brother who surrendered and turned over the money stolen from the stage.

After serving as acting sheriff for a time, early in 1884, Fisher announced that he was a candidate for sheriff in the upcoming election. He went to Austin, Texas, on official business and there met an old friend, the fierce gunfighter Ben Thompson who gave Fisher an autographed photo of himself. After visiting several Austin bars together, Thompson decided to accompany Fisher to San Antonio which was along the route Fisher was taking when returning to Uvalde. Once in San Antonio, both men caroused through the saloons and talked boisterously of their gunslinging pasts. Thompson began to abuse a black porter in one saloon and Fisher warned him to stop this. Both men were theater-goers and they attended a play at the Turner Hall Opera House on the night of Mar. 11, 1884.

When the pair left the Opera House at 10:30 p.m., they decided to attend the Vaudeville Variety Theater, an inappropriate selection in that Thompson had been in this gambling hall two weeks earlier and had killed its proprietor, Jack Harris. Thompson and Fisher had several drinks at the bar there, then went upstairs to the theater to watch the show. They sat in a large box, drinking heavily, and were shortly joined by Joe Foster and Billy Simms, former partners of the deceased Jack Harris. Bouncer Jacob Coy then joined the group in the box. Thompson made several critical remarks about Harris and when Foster objected, Thompson jerked his six-gun from its holster, jammed the barrel into Foster's mouth, and playfully cocked the weapon.

Coy leaped forward and grabbed Thompson's weapon. Fisher stood and took several steps backward in the box, saying he was leaving "before trouble started." Thompson then joined him but before the two men could leave the box, Coy, Foster, and Simms pulled their weapons and blasted the two men. They were aided by three armed men lurking in the shadows of the next box, gambler Canada Bill (no relation to famous Canada Bill Jones), Harry Tremaine, a performer at the theater and close friend of the slain Jack Harris, and a bartender named McLaughlin. These men had aimed shotguns and rifles into the box and had stationed themselves as part of the planned ambush of Ben Thompson. Fisher and Thompson were riddled with bullets, Fisher struck thirteen times in the head and chest and killed on the spot. Thompson was struck with nine bullets and also collapsed dead in the box. As he fell, the still deadly Ben Thompson managed to get off several shots. Coy received a minor wound and Foster was struck in the leg, the bullet striking an artery. Foster's leg had to be amputated and he died a few days later from shock and loss of blood. Despite his attempt to reform and work on the side of the law, John King Fisher's past embraced him at the end and brought about his bloody, premature death at the age of thirty.

News of the shooting spread fast, reported Galveston’s The Daily News. "Before the theatre was fairly cleared of its occupants, 1,500 people clamored at the closed doors of the building for admittance.” The next day, the San Antonio Express reported that 3,000 more gathered that morning "to get a sight at the bodies.”

Jay Robert Nash. . Da Capo Press. 1989.

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