Ike Clanton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Isaac (Ike) Clanton (1847-1887) was born in Callaway County, Missouri, and grew up to be one of the pivotal players in The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, one of the most famous events of the American West.
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[edit] Early life
Ike Clanton was one of five brothers (four surviving to adulthood) and two daughters born to Mariah Sexton Clanton nee Kelso and Newman Haynes Clanton (known as Old Man Clanton, 1816-1881). His father was a frontiersman who worked at times as a day laborer, gold miner, farmer, and by the late 1870s a cattleman in Arizona Territory.
Ike had stayed with the family well into their move to Tombstone, Arizona Territory, and by 1878 is documented to have been running a small meal counter ("lunch counter") in town. By 1880 to 1881, however, he is known to have been involved with his father's ranch, located 20 miles east of Tombstone.
The Clantons and their ranch hands and associates were known as "Cow-boys", and also had a reputation at best for reckless behavior. They were involved in Cattle rustling from across the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as other acts of banditry and murder.
[edit] Notoriety, clashes with the Earp faction
Ike Clanton's notoriety is based largely on his conflict with the Earp brothers, especially Wyatt Earp and Wyatt's friend Doc Holliday. The Earps and the Clantons had a number of political, economic, and philosophical reasons to hate each other, and the animosity grew throughout 1881. Helping to fuel this conflict was Ike Clanton's reputation as loudly boasting in public, drinking heavily, and having a quick temper. He was well known for talking too much.
In November 1879, shortly after arriving in Tombstone, Wyatt Earp had a horse stolen. More than a year later, probably sometime in December 1880, Wyatt was told the horse was being used near Charleson city, and Wyatt and Holliday were forced to ride to the Clanton's ranch near Charleston city, to await ownership papers in order to legally recover it. According to Wyatt's testimony later, 18 year-old Billy Clanton asked him insolently if he had any more horses to "lose," but gave the horse up without first being shown the ownership papers, demonstrating to Wyatt that Billy knew all along the horse was stolen. Sheriff Johnny Behan later testified that the incident had angered Ike Clanton. It also certainly angered Wyatt Earp.
In October of 1880, outlaw and gunman William Brocius, known as "Curly Bill" and a member of the Cow-boys, was arrested for the murder of Tombstone marshall Fred White. Wyatt Earp had arrested him, further fueling hostilities between the Clanton and Earp factions. Later, when Brocius was found not guilty, the tensions intensified.
In March, 1881 a bungled stagecoach robbery near Benson, Arizona that resulted in the killing of two men on the stage divided the two factions, with the Earps believing the Cow-boys were involved, but with Ike Clanton later publicly claiming Doc Holliday was one of the robbers, and had actually fired the shot that killed the scheduled stage driver.
Wyatt would testify that both Frank McLaury and Ike Clanton had agreed to provide information on the capture of the three supposed robbers, named Leonard, Head, and Crane. Later, after the last of these men had died in separate incidents, Wyatt would claim that word of this secret deal began leaking out. Ike Clanton, in contrast would claim that word of Doc Holliday's involvement, as well as the rest of the Earps' involvement in the robbery, was what was beginning to leak out.
In July, 1881 "Curly Bill" Brocius and gunfighter Johnny Ringo were said to have gone to Hauchita, New Mexico to kill two brothers, William and Isaac Haslett, in revenge for the deaths of Clanton Cow-boy members Bill Leonard and Harry Head, who had attempted to rob the Haslett brothers' general store weeks earlier. Later, also in July, Brocius led an ambush attacking a Mexican trail herd in the San Luis Pass, killing six vaqueros and torturing the remaining eight men. All of these combined events only fueled the reputation of the Cow-boy gang, and added to the tensions around the town of Tombstone.
"Old Man" Clanton was the undisputed leader of the group due to their base of operation being on his ranch, but was killed in the Guadalupe Canyon Massacre in August, 1881, probably by Mexicans in retaliation for an earlier ambush committed by rustlers associated with the Clanton's. Following Old Man Clanton's death, "Curly Bill" William Brocius (sometimes spelled Brocious) took over as the new leader of the Cow-boys. However, the "Cow-boys" faction was not a close knit group, and even when Old Man Clanton was alive, acts of violence, rustling or robbery were not usually committed as an organized plan, but rather random. Old Man Clanton, as later discovered, was never the leader in the sense that he organized crimes. On the contrary, he undoubtedly knew of rustling and robberies members had committed, but more than anything else he simply operated his ranch, and allowed "Cow-boys" to live and work there. After his death, "Curly Bill" Brocius assumed a role similar, and was not a real leader in the traditional sense. Although history has often portrayed the "Cow-boys" as being ruthless and the town of Tombstone living in fear of them, this was not the case. In fact, with the exception of Ike Clanton who was widely disliked due to his boasting, most of the "Cow-boys" were seen as happy-go-lucky, fun, and considered by many business owners to be job security, as they brought in a lot of business to saloons and stores. They also, generally, got along quite well with the town Marshal, Fred White, who was respected and well liked by most of the "Cow-boys", despite later film portrayals, and much to this credit, they rarely committed crimes inside the town limits, and usually when White was forced to arrest "Cow-boys" he had the support of other members of the gang in doing so, to include Brocius, who liked White.
[edit] Gunfight in Tombstone
By October 25, 1881, Ike Clanton was reported in Tombstone, drunken and very loud, after Holliday accused him of lying about the whole stagecoach robbery matter. A fight between Ike and Holliday was averted at first only by the fact that Clanton was either not armed (Wyatt said he had a concealed pistol), or not armed to Clanton's taste with a rifle. After Morgan and Virgil threatened to arrest both Doc and Ike if they didn't stop arguing, Clanton left and Wyatt and Holliday left to sleep.
Ike, however, did not go home, but instead stayed up all night in a card game with Tom McLaury and Virgil Earp. After the game broke up at dawn and Virgil went to bed, Ike kept drinking, and by many reports of witnesses at trial, by noon of the next day was seen about town with a Winchester rifle and sidearm, allegedly looking for Holliday or one of the Earps.
By this time, all of the Earps had gotten out of bed and started looking for Ike. Virgil Earp and Morgan Earp, as city police officers, caught Ike unaware and "buffaloed" him (knocking him unconscious with the butt or barrel of a pistol). Ike was held at the recorder's office until a judge appeared to fine him for disorderly conduct and carrying of a concealed weapon in the city.
At the courtroom on Fifth Street, Ike Clanton and the Earps traded deadly threats as Ike was leaving. Tom McLaury had arrived to get Ike, after which Wyatt and Tom had a heated exchange outside the courtroom that led to Wyatt hitting Tom over the head with his pistol as Tom stepped forward towards him. A short while later, Tom was found to have left a pistol in a nearby saloon, showing he was indeed carrying it in violation of city law at the time of his altercation with Wyatt.
At nearly the same time Tom was getting rid of his firearms, Tom's older brother Frank and Ike's younger brother Billy arrived in town fully-armed, on horseback. They soon learned of their brothers' beatings at the hands of the Earps. That afternoon Wyatt saw the Cow-boys were loading up on ammunition, and later, witnesses reported to the Earps that the Cow-boys were gathering at a vacant lot on Fremont street, through the block and in back of the O.K. Corral. This location was next to Doc Holliday's boarding house.
Hearing that, the three Earp brothers, now joined by Doc Holliday, marched down the streets of Tombstone to the vacant lot for the purpose of disarming their armed opponents. A few minutes later, the most famous gunfight in American history took place at the O.K. Corral.
Based on testimony from the pro-Earp eyewitnesses, Ike Clanton had spent all day, even after his arrest and disarming, threatening to gun down the Earps. Ironically, however, when the gunfight began, Ike was unarmed and managed to flee the shooting unscathed, and was not present during the actual shootout, fleeing as soon as the first shots were fired. In another twist of fate, in the days prior to the gunfight, Ike had enlisted the help of fellow cow-boy Billy Claiborne, due to his alleged talent with a gun, to help even the odds when the inevitable fight came. Claiborne, when the gunfight finally came, also fled the scene, stating later that he too was unarmed. Ike's boasting and threats had unfortunately left his younger brother Billy Clanton, and his two friends the McLaurys, dead, victims of gunfire from the Earps and Holliday.
[edit] Spicer Hearing
Afterwards, Ike testified in a preliminary hearing (the Spicer Hearing) to his behavior before and during the gunfight, trying to paint the Earps and Holliday as calculating murderers. Murder charges were brought against Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp at Ike's instigation.
Unfortunately, Ike Clanton would prove a better witness for the defence than the prosecution. Ike would claim in this testimony at the Spicer Hearing that Holliday had "piped off" money from the stagecoach which was supposed to have been robbed, and had told Ike about it. Ike claimed Holliday had also directly told him of shooting the stage driver. Unfortunately for Ike's credibility, no money was reported missing from the stage, as the stage had not stopped and the robbery had not succeeded. Thus, Ike's story regarding the money could not be made to square with facts. Moreover, Ike testified that not only Doc Holliday, but also Virgil Earp, Wyatt Earp, and Morgan Earp had all separately confessed to him their roles in the stealing of money from Wells, Fargo to be covered-up by the stage robbery, and responsibility for the robbery, subsequent murders, and escape of the robbers. Since the robbery-murders were hanging offenses, Clanton further hurt his credibility in claiming that the three Earps and Holliday-- none of them friends of Ike-- had all put their lives in his hands by telling him about their roles in the crime.
Later in the hearing, the Earps were able to provide a strong defense, pointing out that Ike had not been harmed in his initial confrontation with Holliday when Ike was unwilling to fight, and had not even been shot by Virgil and Morgan when he was fully-armed, the next day, and they had had a perfect opportunity and excuse to shoot him down. Finally, there was the obvious fact that, even in the middle of the final gunfight, Ike had again escaped without harm, because he was thought to be unarmed. This did not square with Ike's story of four men out to kill him at any cost, for his knowledge of their capital crimes. With these facts, along with at least two unbiased eyewitnesses to the beginning of the fight (H.F. Sills and A. Bauer) who backed up the Earp claims that the cowboys had not been shot while trying to surrender, the murder charges were dismissed.
Afterward, Ike Clanton was accused of being involved in an attempted assassination of Virgil Earp in December, 1881, which crippled the lawman for life. Though Ike's hat was found at the scene where the ambushers waited, Ike's friends provided an alibi, and the case was dismissed. This incident taught Wyatt Earp that no help would likely be coming from the law on matters where gangs could always provide alibis for any act at which they were not caught red-handed.
A second assassination attempt in March, 1882 against Wyatt and Morgan Earp left Morgan dead, and soon afterwards the Earp faction left Tombstone in order to get Virgil Earp to safety. Wyatt later said that Ike Clanton, along with Frank Stilwell and other Cow-boys, attempted another ambush, this time in Tucson, Arizona where Virgil would be passing though on the train to California. However, the Earps were prepared, and Wyatt killed Stilwell. Clanton and the others fled, and soon found themselves targeted by the Earp Vendetta Ride, led by Wyatt against those he blamed for Morgan's death. Although most likely a prime target for Wyatt's vengeance, Ike survived the vendetta, with Wyatt, Holliday and their associates leaving Arizona Territory for good by April of 1882.
[edit] Death
Ike Clanton's run-ins with the law were not over with the Earps out of the picture, however. Charged with cattle-rustling, Ike and his brother Phineas (Fin/Phin) were cornered by detective Jonas V. Brighton on 1 June 1887 in Springerville, Arizona. Fin Clanton surrendered (and was sent to prison), but Ike resisted and was shot dead.[1].
The Westerns based on the Earps and the gunfight usually depict Ike in an unfavorable light: as a braggart, drunk, prone to violence, and, when cornered, a coward. However, Ike did choose to fight at the very end--- he simply lost.
[edit] Portrayals in film
Ike is portrayed by Lyle Bettger as a brutal thug in John Sturges' 1957 film Gunfight at the OK Corral. In Sturges' 1967 sequel, "Hour of the Gun" he is portrayed very differently by Robert Ryan. Although the film is a generally accurate depiction of the events surrounding the gunfight at OK Corral and the subsequent 'Earp Vendetta', it errs in showing Ike as having been tracked down in Mexico and shot by Wyatt. Also, Ryan appears to give a more dignified and intellectual portrayal of Ike than historical records would warrant.
Ike is played by Stephen Lang in the 1993 movie Tombstone (1993) starring Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp. This movie draws heavily on the Breakenridge book Helldorado. He is played by Jeff Fahey in the 1994 movie Wyatt Earp (1994) starring Kevin Costner as Wyatt Earp.
[edit] External links
- Ike Clanton's biographical timeline – from a family descendant's website
