Clay Allison
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- For the 1980s band, see Opal.
Clay Allison (September 2, 1840 - July 3, 1887), was a gunfighter and well known historic figure of the American Old West.
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[edit] Early life
Robert Clay Allison, known as "Clay", was born September 2, 1840, the fourth of nine children, to John and Nancy (Lemmond) Allison. His father, a Presbyterian minister, also worked in the cattle and sheep business and died when Clay was only five. Clay was said to have been restless from birth, and as he grew into manhood, he became feared for his wild mood swings and quick temperament.
[edit] Civil War
Allison worked on the family farm near Waynesboro, Tennessee, until he was 21. When the American Civil War broke out, he joined the Confederate States Army on October 15, 1861, as a member of the Tennessee Light Artillery division. On January 15, 1862, he received a medical discharge from the army, because of an old head injury that caused mood swings. That same year, his brother Monroe was reported as a deserter. [1]
However, on September 22, 1862, Clay reenlisted as a member of the 9th Tennessee Cavalry, where he remained until the end of the war, and where he served under General Nathan Bedford Forrest. On May 4, 1865, he surrendered with his company at Gainesville, Alabama. He was held as a prisoner of war for a few days, until the war's end on May 10, 1865.
[edit] After the war
After returning home from the war, Allison became a member of the Ku Klux Klan. During this period, he was involved in several confrontations before he left Tennessee for Texas. One report was that when a Union officer, a member of the 3rd Illinois Cavalry, arrived on the family farm with intentions of seizing it, Clay retrieved a gun from the house and killed the officer. Following this, Allison, his brothers Monroe and John, sister Mary and her husband Lewis Coleman, moved across the Brazos River in Texas to settle.
In the towns of Cimarron, New Mexico, and Elizabethtown, New Mexico, Allison began to develop a reputation as a dangerous man. He and his brothers began running with local cowboys and became known for their hard drinking and regularly drawing their handguns while riding down the main streets shooting out lights.
In the Fall of 1870, a man named Charles Kennedy was being held in the local jail in Elizabethtown, suspected of robbery. Allison and other men broke into the jail, pulled Kennedy from his cell, tied a rope around his neck and dragged him from a horse down the main street until he was dead. Allison then cut off the man's head and carried it in a sack 29 miles (47 km) to Cimarron, where he demanded it be placed on display in front of the Lambert Inn.
Allison was involved in numerous altercations during this period, often with him using a knife against the other during a fight. He reportedly believed himself to be fast with a gun but changed this attitude after being outdrawn in a friendly competition with a man named Mace Bowman. Bowman and Allison became friends, and Bowman is alleged to have worked with Allison to improve his "quick draw" skills.
[edit] Notoriety as a gunfighter
On January 7, 1874, Clay killed a gunman named Chunk Colbert, after Colbert had picked a fight with Allison. Colbert had allegedly already killed 6 men and had quarrelled with Allison several years earlier. Over the next few years, Allison's reputation as a gunman expanded, and he became fairly well known.
On October 30, 1875, Allison is alleged to have led a mob to capture Cruz Vega, who was suspected of murdering a Methodist circuit rider. The mob hanged the man from a telegraph pole near Cimmaron. On November 1, family members of Vega, led by Vega's uncle Francisco Griego, began making threats around town about the lynching. They wandered into the Lambert Inn (now the St. James Hotel), where they came across Allison and accused him of involvement in the lynching. An argument began, and Griego pulled his gun. Allison also drew his gun and shot Griego twice, killing him. On November 10, Allison was charged with murdering Griego, but the charges were later dropped and the shooting ruled justifiable.
With that shooting, Allison's reputation grew. In December 1876, Allison and his brother John rode into Las Animos, Colorado, where they stopped at a local saloon for drinks. The local sheriff, Charles Faber, instructed the Allisons to relinquish their guns, as evidently there was a town ordinance making it illegal to possess guns inside the town limits. When the Allisons did not, Faber left, deputized two men, and returned to the saloon. When they stepped back inside the saloon, someone yelled "Look out!", and shooting began. Who fired first is not certain, but it is believed that the sheriff and his men fired the first shots. John Allison was shot three times, once in the chest, once in the arm, and again in the leg. Clay Allison spun around and quickly fired four shots, killing Sheriff Faber. The two newly deputized men fled, with Allison in pursuit, but they escaped. Both Clay and John were later arrested on charges of manslaughter, but the charges were later dismissed. John survived his wounds and recovered. It was this gunfight more than any other that launched Clay Allison to legend as a gunfighter.
[edit] Alleged confrontation with Wyatt Earp
In March 1877, Clay sold his ranch he had acquired to his brother, John. He then ventured to Sedalia, Kansas, where he established himself as a cattle broker. By the time Allison arrived in Dodge City, Kansas, his reputation had reached such that he was a feared man. Evidently, men in his employ were reportedly mistreated by the local marshals office. Dodge City at that time was a bustling cattle town, and laws were enforced with force. The Dodge City marshal was famed law man Wyatt Earp.
Stories from the day state, both by accounts given through Earp's biographer and by Earp, that Wyatt Earp and his friend Bat Masterson confronted Allison and his men in a saloon, and that Allison backed down. However, Masterson was not known to be in town at the time. There is no evidence that an altercation took place between Allison and Earp.
As reports from the day reflect, a cattleman named Dick McNulty and the owner of the Long Branch Saloon, Chalk Beeson, intervened on behalf of the town and convinced the cowboys to surrender their guns. Earp did not make this claim until after Allison's death, much like Earp's false claim that he arrested gunman Ben Thompson, also made after his death. Also, Charlie Siringo, who was a cowboy at the time but who later became a well known Pinkerton Detective, also gave a written account of the incident, as he had witnessed it. He also claimed it was actually McNulty and Beeson who ended the incident, and that Earp did not come into contact with Allison. [2]
[edit] 1880s, death
Around 1880, Allison moved to Hemphill County, Texas, where he once again became a rancher. By 1883, he had sold his ranch and moved to Pecos, Texas, where he purchased another ranch. On July 3, 1887, Allison was hauling a load of supplies when the load shifted and a sack of grain fell from the wagon. Trying to catch it, Allison fell from the wagon, and the wheel rolled over him. His neck was broken, and he died. He was buried the next day at Pecos cemetery in Pecos Texas, and it is said that hundreds attended his funeral.
In a special ceremony held on August 28, 1975, his remains were reinterred at Pecos Park, just west of the Pecos Museum.
