John Wesley Hardin

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John Wesley Hardin.
John Wesley Hardin.
For the Bob Dylan album, see John Wesley Harding (album).

John Wesley Hardin (May 26, 1853—August 19, 1895) was a sociopath, outlaw and gunfighter of the American Old West. He was born in Bonham, Fannin County, Texas. In the history of the West, John Wesley Hardin ranks as one of the most prolific killers of all. Not the least bit honorable, Hardin also ranks as one of the most cowardly, by his own admission having shot a sheriff in the back (Hardin would later die the same way), murdering more than one man after declaring a truce, and even randomly murdering a man who was asleep. By the time he went to prison in 1878, he claimed to have slain 44 men. This cannot be certain however as John Wesley Hardin was also a notorious liar who frequently altered his description of events in order to cast himself in a better light (which could have meant a bloodier light). Hardin's callous and ignoble acts resulted not only in the deaths of his victims but also in the deaths of several members of his own family who were killed by Texas Rangers seeking revenge.[citation needed].

Contents

[edit] Early life

His father, James G. Hardin was a Methodist preacher and circuit rider. His mother, Elizabeth, was described by him as being "a blonde, highly cultured, and charity predominated in her disposition." Hardin's father travelled over most of central Texas on his preaching circuit until 1869. He eventually settled in Sumpter, Texas, in Trinity County. Here he taught school and established an institution that John Wesley and his brother Joe G. Hardin would later attend.

Hardin was born in Bonham, Texas in 1853, and was named for the founder of the Methodist faith. Hardin was rather slight of build and may have felt an early need to compensate for his diminutive stature with violence. Even in early adolescence, he revealed a capacity for stark, murderous fury. He was about 14 when another child taunted him as the author of some graffiti on the schoolhouse wall, a paean to a girl in his class. John Wesley attacked the boy with a knife and before they could be separated, he stabbed the boy twice, obviously an intent to kill.

[edit] Life on the run

As a fugitive, Hardin traveled throughout Texas evading the law. He was arrested several times, but managed to escape. After the last of his escapes, he found refuge among relatives, the Clements family. They informed him that by getting into the growing cattle market he could make money in Kansas. This would allow him to get out of Texas long enough for things to cool down. So Hardin took up work with the Clementses, gathering cattle for Jake Johnson and Columbus Carol. He would then begin his trip to Kansas. On his way, Hardin is reputed to have fought Mexican vaqueros, Indians, and cattle rustlers among others. At the end of his trip in Kansas came one of the most famous confrontations between Hardin and the law.

[edit] Abilene

The "Bull's Head Tavern", in Abilene, Kansas, was established by gambler/gunman Ben Thompson with businessman and gambler Phil Coe. These two gamblers painted a rather vulgar picture of a bull with a large erect penis as an advertisement for their establishment. Then the citizens (described by Dee Brown as "prudish") of the town complained to Abilene's Marshal "Wild Bill" Hickok. When Thompson and Coe refused to take down the bull, Hickok altered it himself. Infuriated, Thompson exclaimed to Hardin, "He's a damn Yankee. Picks on Rebels, especially Texans, to kill." Hardin simply replied, "If Wild Bill needs killin', why don't you kill him yourself?".

By all accounts, despite Hardin's having been a dangerous man, he seemed to have, at the very least, respected Hickok. Later that night, Hardin was confronted by Hickok, who told Hardin to hand over his guns, which Hardin did. Hickok did not arrest Hardin, for reasons unknown, and it was later claimed that Hickok had no knowledge that Hardin was wanted. Hickok did advise Hardin to avoid problems while in Abilene. Phil Coe was later killed by Hickok during a street brawl, during which Hickok also accidentally killed his own deputy. Thompson did not confront Hickok over the Coe shooting, allegedly believing that Hickok had been justified in the event.

[edit] Back in Texas

Within a year, Hardin did kill. Like gunman Bill Longley, he was spurred by the hatred that seethed between newly freed blacks and defeated Southern whites. Visiting relatives near Moscow, Texas, in 1868, he was egged into a wrestling match with an ex-slave named Mage. In the rough-and-tumble bout, Mage's nose was bloodied. According to Hardin's questionable version of events, Mage then declared that "no white boy could draw his blood and live." The next day, Hardin claimed that Mage caught up with him as he was riding home and dared him to fight again. Hardin was armed. When Mage grasped the bridle of his horse, Hardin boasted, "I shot him loose. He kept coming back and every time we would start, I would shoot him again and again until I shot him down."

Hardin's father, "distracted" by the killing, urged his son to go into hiding. According to the killer, the elder Hardin believed that to be tried "at the time for killing a Negro meant certain death at the hands of a court backed by Northern bayonets." John Wesley Hardin then fled, and for the next 10 years he stayed on the run, eluding pursuers who sought to bring him for justice for one crime or another.

He seldom wandered far from his native ground. Central Texas abounded with John Wesley's kin-folk. All of them — and many of their neighbors — were happy to shelter any fugitive from what they would would disparagingly refer to as "carpetbagger justice." At one point, while he was in hiding, John Wesley Hardin received word from his brother Joseph that American soldiers were looking for him. Knowing the byways through the back country, John Wesley claimed to have bushwhacked three of the pursuing soldiers, two white and one black, at a creek crossing. "Parties in the neighborhood took the soldiers' horses and as we burned all their effects everything was kept quiet," he noted in the autobiography that he composed in the last year of his life. "Thus by the fall of 1868 I had killed four men." Hardin was then only 15 years old.

[edit] Arrest and escape

Hardin was arrested in 1870 for a murder in Waco. Unable to persuade a judge of his innocence, he was held temporarily in a log jail in the town of Marshall, awaiting transfer to Waco. In the privacy of this crude lockup, he bought two useful items from a fellow prisoner: an overcoat against the winter cold, and a revolver. Thus he was ready when a Captain Stokes of the state police and a guard named Jim Smolly came to convey him to Waco for trial. Hardin was wearing the overcoat when they arrived. Under it, tied to his shoulder with twine, was the handgun.

One night while the three men were camping en route, Stokes went to rustle up some fodder for the horses, and Hardin was left alone with Smolly. Smolly began to revile his 17-year-old charge. Hardin then burst into tears and huddled against his pony's flank. Behind the pony, Hardin slipped his hand into his coat and untied the string that held his gun. He shot Smolly dead and ran. A few days later, several of Hardin's relatives were gathering at Gonzales, in southern Texas, for a drive up the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, Kansas. They persuaded a rancher to hire John Wesley as a trail boss for his herd. Toward the end of the drive, a Mexican herd crowded in behind Hardin's and there was some trouble keeping apart. Hardin got into a verbal battle with the man in charge of the other herd. Both men were on horseback. The Mexican fired, putting a hole through John Wesley's hat. Swift to retaliate, Hardin found that his own weapon, a worn-out cap-and-ball pistol with a loose cylinder, would not fire; he dismounted, managed to discharge the gun by steadying the cylinder with one hand and pulling the trigger with the other, and hit the Mexican in the thigh. A truce was declared, but the murderous John Wesley was not content with merely winging his opponent nor did he care a whit about upholding his side of a deal. He borrowed a pistol from a friend and went after the Mexican again, and this time shot him through the head. A general fire fight between the rival camps ensued. The Mexicans suffered all the casualties. Six vaqueros died in the exchanges--five of them felled by the six-shooter in John Wesley Hardin's hand.

[edit] Second encounter with "Wild Bill" Hickok

In Abilene, Hardin met Wild Bill Hickok, at the time the cattle town's reigning peace officer. Hickok took an indulgently paternal attitude toward the young killer. He drank with Hardin, whored with him and gave him advice, and at one point, when a gang of Hardin's Texas pals and relatives got into trouble, disarmed them but left Hardin his weapon, presumably to allow him to either protect his friends or to keep them in line.

For his part, Hardin was fascinated by Wild Bill and glowed at being seen on intimate terms with such a celebrated gunfighter. But all the while, down deep, he realized that Wild Bill would kill him without qualm if circumstance suggested the need--perhaps not out of ill will, but certainly for self-protection.

The climax for association came with one of Hardin's most callous crimes, so ignoble that even he showed some sign of shame and lying in an attempt to pass off as the justifiable shooting of a man who was trying to steal his pants. Actually, he had less excuse than that. At the American House Hotel, where Hardin had put up for the night, he began firing bullets through a bedroom wall simply to stop the snoring of a stranger in the next room. The first bullet merely woke the man; the second killed him. In the silence Hardin realized that he was about to plunge into deep trouble with Wild Bill Hickok. Still in his undershirt, he exited through a window and ran onto the roof of the hotel portico--just in time to see Hickok arriving with four policemen, having been alerted by other guests. "I believe," the cowardly Hardin said later, "that if Wild Bill found me in a defenseless condition, he would take no explanation, but would kill me to add to his reputation."

Cat burglar style, the craven Hardin leaped from the roof into the street and hid in a haystack for the rest of the night. Towards dawn he stole a horse and made his way back to the cow camp outside town. The next day he left for Texas, never to return to Abilene. Years later Hardin made a casual reference to the episode. "They tell lots of lies about me," he complained. "They say I killed six or seven men for snoring. Well, it ain't true, I only killed one man for snoring."

{Notes for remarks on Hardin arrest in Marshall Texas-see reference below "Hardin and the Law"; in regard to his escape after killing Smolly-see reference below "Hardin and unconfirmed claims". For possible confirmation of Kansas American House killing see link on the following source [7] {reference only})

[edit] Sutton-Taylor feud

About this time Hardin turned up in southeastern Texas, in the area around Gonzales County, reuniting with his Clements cousins, who were allied with the local Taylor family, who had been feuding with the rival Sutton family for several years. Already notorious, Hardin was wounded by a shotgun blast in a Trinity City gambling dispute on August 7, 1872. After recovering, he resumed his depredations.

Hardin's main claim to fame in the Sutton-Taylor feud was the killing of Jack Helm, a former captain in the Texas State Police who was the sheriff of DeWitt County, Texas. For years, Helm had been allied with the Suttons. On the afternoon of May 17, 1873, in Albuquerque, Texas (Albukirk, Texas - in Wilson County), when Hardin and Jim Taylor were at the blacksmith having a horse shod, Helm advanced on Taylor with a knife, only to be cut down by a Hardin-administered shotgun blast from behind [1]. As Helm writhed on the ground, Taylor marched over with his pistol drawn and emptied it into Helm's head.

The next night, Hardin and other Taylor supporters surrounded the ranch house of Sutton ally Joe Tumlinson. A shouted truce was enacted and both sides signed a peace treaty in Clinton, Texas. Within the year, war once again broke out between the two sides, culminating when Jim and Bill Taylor gunned down Billy Sutton and Gabriel Slaugther as they waited on a steamboat platform in Indianola, Texas on March 11, 1874 (ironically, Sutton was set to leave the area forever at the time of his killing). {Allegedly Hardin was involved in these twin killings}.

On May 26, 1874, Hardin, Jim Taylor, and others were cornered in Comanche, Texas by Brown County Texas Deputy sheriff Charles Webb. In the ensuing gunfight, Webb was shot dead by Hardin. After a lynch mob was formed, Hardins parents, wife, brother and cousins were immediately taken into protective custody, however a large group of Texas Rangers broke into the jail and hanged Hardin's brother Joe and seven of his cousins. It is claimed that the ropes were deliberately too long as grass was later found between their toes. Shortly after this he and Jim Taylor parted ways for the final time. {Jim Taylor was killed on December 27, 1875}. William Taylor was found guilty of murder in the second degree in 1875 and sentenced to 10 years [2]; he escaped from Indianola during a September 17, 1875 cyclone and was tried in Indianola and Texana twice on a charge of killing Sutton and was acquitted[3]On Nov 17, 1875 William Taylor shot and killed Cuero ex-town marshal Reuben Brown, who had once arrested Taylor. [4]

[edit] Capture, later life, and death

Catching Hardin was no easy matter. The Texas Rangers caught up with Hardin by intercepting a letter that was sent to his father-in-law by his brother-in-law (outlaw Joshua Robert "Brown" Bowen). The letter mentioned Hardin's whereabouts as on the Alabama and Florida border under the assumed name of James W. Swain. Hardin was arrested on a train in Pensacola, Florida by Texas Rangers and a local authority. The lawmen went on board the train to effect Hardin's arrest. When Hardin realized what was going on, he attempted to draw his gun but got it tangled in his suspenders. Texas Ranger John B. Armstrong shot and killed one of Hardin's gang members, knocked out Hardin, and arrested two other gang members. Hardin's problems with his suspenders probably saved some lives that day including his own.

Hardin was tried and sentenced to prison but entered prison with a pre-law degree he had earned along with his brother. He finished his law degree while incarcerated. After serving 17 years in prison Hardin was released, and he began practicing law as an attorney in El Paso, Texas. Despite his law practice, Hardin was frequently drunk and violent, often demanding his money back at gunpoint if he lost at cards. Rumor had it that he was haunted by past atrocities. In 1895 he began work on his autobiography. He also married again. See [8].

On August 19, 1895, El Paso lawman John Selman arrested Hardin's prostitute girlfriend. Hardin confronted Selman, and the two men had a verbal dispute. Hardin then went to the Acme Saloon, where he began playing dice. Selman walked in shortly thereafter and shot Hardin in the back of the head, killing him. Selman was arrested for the murder and stood trial, but a hung jury resulted in his being released on bond. Selman was killed in a shootout several months later by US Marshal George Scarborough, who had been close friends with another man Selman had killed. Scarborough was mortally wounded in a gunfight with two robbers and died on April 5, 1900, exactly four years after he shot John Selman.

[edit] Hardin in popular culture

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • Johnny Cash wrote and recorded a song about Hardin entitled "Hardin Wouldn't Run". It relates some of the true events of Hardin's life, including his murder at the Acme Saloon. Most song and movie accounts, though, go beyond the truths into myths or outright untruths in order to glamorize him or the gunfighter who kills him. For example, his character, with many of the myths intact as well as having some new myths created for sensationalism, has appeared in popular works, including a prominent role in Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove sequel, Streets of Laredo. In the miniseries of the novel, Hardin was portrayed by actor Randy Quaid.
  • Western novelist J. T. Edson uses Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton family theory to insert John Wesley Hardin into his novels as the paternal nephew of Ole Devil Hardin and cousin of Dusty Fog, the protagonist of Edson's "Floating Outfit".
  • A 1959 episode of Maverick, "Duel at Sundown", has the character of Brett Maverick and his brother, Bart, posing as "John Wesley Hardin" vs. Maverick to stage a fake gunfight and shootout in order to avoid a real gunfight with a pre-fame Clint Eastwood. As Brett and Bart ride out of town, they meet a stranger who wants directions to meet the "fake" John Wesley Hardin. The stranger is none other than the "real" John Wesley Hardin.
  • In the Maverick Film, Johnny Hardin, played by Max Perlich, is one of the men that is playing poker at Maverick's first game.
  • Rock Hudson starred in a 1953 very fictionalized version of John Wesley Hardin's life called The Lawless Breed. At the end, he gets shot in a saloon in Texas, but unlike the real John Wesley Hardin, he survives.
  • Many people came to know of Hardin through the TV ad for Time-Life Books "Old West" series.[original research?] During the description of the book The Gunfighters the famous claim is made, "John Wesley Hardin...by the time the Texas Rangers caught up with him, he'd killed forty-three men, one just for snoring too loud."
  • James Carlos Blake wrote "The Pistoleer," a novel about Hardin from 1995.
  • "Four Sixes To Beat - The Tale of a Killer" by Bruce N. Croft is a historical fiction novel published in 2004. A fictional tour of Hardin's life in the wild west. Four Sixes To Beat
  • "Here's to John Wesley Hardin" is a song composed by Moondog, released on his album "H'art Songs" from 1979.

[edit] Hardin and the law

Prior to his killing of Deputy Sheriff (and ex-Texas Ranger) Charles Webb in May 26, 1874 and his arrest in July 23, 1877, Hardin had at least three confirmed clashes with the law:

  • On January 9, 1871 he was arrested by Constable E.T. Stokes and twelve citizens in Harrison County, Texas on a charge of four murders and one horse theft (Texas State Police Arrest report for 1870–1871-he is listed as "Hardin, J.R."). None of the victims are identified.
  • In September 1872 he surrendered to the Sheriff of Cherokee County, Texas; he escaped in October 1872. See below
  • In May 1873 he was involved in the killing of Sheriff Jack Helms and a J.B. Morgan of Cuero, Texas. (Letter from DeWitt County, Texas Museum citing Metz's work). (These killings happened during the Sutton-Taylor Feud).
    • At least 1 accomplice and 2 relations of Hardin also had clashes with the law:
  • On June 9, 1874 an accomplice killed a Texas Deputy Sherriff. See [5]
  • ON March 28, 1898 Hardin's brother killed Texas Deputy Sherriff. See [6]
  • On August 1, 1906 Hardin's cousin by marriage killed a Police Officer. See [7]

[edit] Hardin and unconfirmed claims

Like his contemporary fellow outlaw Bill Longley, in several cases where Hardin claimed to have been involved in killings, the reports either cannot be confirmed or prove to be nonexistent. For example:

  • His claims to have shot three Union soldiers in 1868 and one of two soldiers killed in 1869 in "Richland Bottom"-the other killed by his cousin "Simp Dixon" [9]; see summary of Reports for the Fifth Military District August 1867-September 1868 in which four soldiers are killed and four are wounded from the U.S. 6th Cavalry Regiment from "Executive Documents Printed by order of the House of Representatives" 1868–1869, plus a reference to one soldier injured and a Deputy Sheriff killed in 1869 in the Lee-Peacock feud (see supplement in March 1868 report against Lee's band) +plus a report of 2 soldiers of the US 4th Cavalry killed 1867; in none of these records is Hardin named as a suspect nor do they agree with his claims. Likewise his cousin "Simp Dixon" was not killed by soldiers but was a victim of the "Lee-Peacock" feud. See [10]
  • His claim that after his 1871 arrest he escaped after killing a guard named Jim Smolly and in Bell County Texas killed three men named Smith, Jones, and Davis after being arrested by them for an alleged killing; he also made another claim that in September 1871 in Gonzales County Texas he killed one man named Green Paramour and wounded another man named John Lackey who tried to arrest him (these last six shootings allegedly were with African-American members of the Texas State Police) and then forced an African-American posse to flee back to Austin after he killed three of them when they came after him for the Paramour killing. There are no contemporary newspaper accounts from either Bell County (Letter from Bell County Texas Museum) or from Gonzales County to confirm these triple killings. He also claimed that after recovering in Trinity City Texas in July{?}/August 1872 after being wounded by Phil Sublette, he either, according to different versions he gave at different times, killed two members of the Texas State Police or drove them off. The only mention of Hardin in Texas State Police records is the arrest report. {Reportably the names of Paramour and Lackey were in a letter book-although not listed in Texas State Police records}.
  • He claimed that May 1, 1874 he knocked down a black man and shot another black man and then was part of a mob that burned a Texas jail where a black prisoner named "Eli" was killed.
  • He claimed that after his brother had been Lynched after Sherriff Webb's killing that he drove off 17 Texas Rangers after having killed one of them on July 1, 1874. The Roll of Honor for the Texas Rangers for 1874 -has 3 died-2 killed in a skirmish July 12, 1874 with Native Americans and the other as having died 1874-no remarks on how or where he died.
  • His alleged killing of two Pinkerton National Detective Agency Agents on the Florida-Georgia border sometime between April and November 1876 after a gunfight with a "Pinkerton Gang" who had been tracking him from Jacksonville, Florida. Hardin claimed that he had been tipped off to this "Pinkerton Gang" by Jacksonville local law officers. This never happened - the Pinkerton Detective Agency never tracked or pursued John Wesley Hardin. (Letter from Pinkerton National Detective Agency Archives)
  • His claim that on election night, November, 1876 he and a Jacksonville, Florida policeman named Gus Kennedy were involved in a gunfight with Mobile, Alabama policemen in a saloon in which one was wounded and two killed; that Hardin and Kennedy were arrested but later released - this also never happened. (Letter from Mobile, Alabama library).

[edit] John Wesley Hardin in Movies

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Life Of John Wesley Hardin by John Wesley Hardin
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ [3]
  5. ^ [4]
  6. ^ [5]
  7. ^ [6]

[edit] Sources

  • "The Old West- The Gunfighters." by TIME-LIFE BOOKS with text by Paul Trachtman