This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
Tom Horn in jail in Cheyenne, WY
Tom Horn – The Legends, The Truth Old West outlaw? No, not in the conventional sense. Old West lawman, yes, at times a deputy U.S. marshal and deputy sheriff. Old West stock detective. Superb athlete and cowboy. An instrument of Satan? Perhaps, depending upon one’s perspective. But people whose parents and grandparents employed him say he was “a fine fellow, honest and dependable and very, very good at what he did.”
Tom Horn
Today few stories are more alive, colorful and controversial than are those of Tom Horn of Wyoming. Hanged for a murder he probably did not commit (but could have), firestorms of controversy still surround debates of his guilt and the questionable nature of his trial.Operating unchecked as a stock detective for Wyoming’s cattle barons for ten years, he was a death sentence to rustlers and the devil incarnate to the homesteader.
Born in 1860 in northeast Missouri, he left home as a young teen, in search of adventure – and because of an abusive father.
Tom Horn’s Father
He headed for the Southwest, where he soon became a wrangler and scout for the army in the Apache wars. Becoming chief of scouts under Generals Crook and Miles, he was instrumental in capturing Geronimo for the final time.
Army scouts in Arizona — Tom Horn at left (?)
F. M. Ownbey, who worked with Tom Horn after Horn became a Pinkerton’s agent in Colorado. After Horn’s arrest for murdering Willie Nickell, Ownbey wrote to him in jail and said he felt he was innocent.
F. M. Ownbey
An epidemic of cattle rustling in southern Wyoming in the 1890s and the desperate straits of stockmen set the stage for Tom Horn’s arrival. Cattle thieves were duly warned, blood was shed, and Tom Horn was implicated but never charged.
Then on the morning of July 18, 1901, Willie Nickell, the fourteen-year-old son of a contentious, paranoid Wyoming sheepman, was shot.
The Nickell family at their homestead (Willie at right)The murder site (gate at center)
Horn had been in the area, where romance entered the legend, in the person of an attractive schoolmarm.
Glendolene M. Kimmell, Horn’s alleged girlfriend
Witnesses said “He made a very good impression on her; she was stuck on him.”
Tom and Glendolene (from a painting, “Iron Mountain Morning” by L. D. Edgar)
Joe LeForsHorn was duped into making a so-called confession after spending a night carousing in Cheyenne. The ruse was a job as a cattle detective in Montana – which did not exist. The master of dirty tricks was a deputy U.S. marshal in search of the reward money and glory, Joe LeFors.
Horn was arrested, tried in a controversial trial and hanged the day before his 43rd birthday in 1903.
Gallows used to hang Tom Horn in Cheyenne, Wyoming
A retrial was held in 1993 in which he was declared innocent. The New York Times described the trial, “Once Guilty, Now Innocent, But Still Dead.”
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
“Innocent!”
The word rang out like a gunshot in the crowded Cheyenne courtroom in September 1993, almost a hundred years after Tom Horn’s hanging for first-degree murder.
Although the 1901 murder of 14-year-old Willie Nickell was supposedly settled with the hanging of stock detective Tom Horn in 1903, new evidence and a recently discovered rifle open questions and add deepening mystery to the episode.
Was there more than one assassin?
A forensic firearms expert, Lucien Haag of Carefree, Arizona has used computer technology to develop graphics showing the wound paths in the body of young Nickell. Although the evidence is preliminary, it is possible that two shooters fired.
Haag used doctors’ testimony from the autopsy and trial testimony to chart the wound paths. However, without access to the boy’s clothing (which was lost to history) to corroborate whether there were two assassins, this remains only a theory.
Willie Nickell’s father stated that on the morning of the murder he and a surveyor were working northeast of Nickell’s Iron Mountain homestead when they heard three gunshots to the west – two in quick succession, followed by a third. The time lapse between the shots was never indicated.
Willie had ridden his father’s horse to the gate at the west perimeter of the property, dismounted to open the gate and lead the horse through, and turned to close the gate. Two shots hit him on the left back and side, traveled through his torso and exited. The boy ran or stumbled 20 yards toward home, and fell face-down. A younger brother found Willie the next morning. The body had gravel and dirt on the front with considerable blood, but had been turned over with the shirt torn open, perhaps by the killer(s) to verify who it was and view the wounds.
Haag visited the site of the murder with four local guides familiar with the history, Cheyenne’s Chip Carlson, Don Patterson, and Ken Rolfsness along with the Wyoming State Crime Lab’s firearms examiner, Steve Norris. Carlson is an author and authority on the crime, Patterson is the former Cheyenne chief of police who spearheaded a crime site survey in 1992, Rolfsness has played a major role in the history, portraying Tom Horn in his retrial in Cheyenne in 1993.
Haag has emphasized that no final conclusions can be drawn from his analysis, because the clothing Willie wore when murdered has been lost to history. It was, however, used as evidence in Tom Horn’s trial. A forensic examination and testing of this shirt, should it ever be located, would answer the question as to caliber, bullet type and possibly even range of fire. The clothing was Willie’s own, refuting rumors that he was wearing his father’s.
The Nickell family had been in feuds with a neighboring family, the Jim Millers, whose father had sworn to avenge the death of a son he attributed to the inflammatory actions of Willie’s father. Miller had two older sons, and the men of both families had been in violent confrontations.
Which rifle was used in the crime?
Tom Horn had a Winchester model 1894 .30-30 caliber in his possession when was arrested for the crime. However, there was a .45-60 cartridge in his pockets, along with a .30-40 Government cartridge and a .38-40 cartridge. These are now in the Wyoming State Museum’s collections. The cartridges may have been used in his trial although there is no written record of that.
Cartridges in Tom Horn’s pocket when he was arrested (Wyoming State Museum)
A Winchester 76 model in .45-60 caliber has recently surfaced that came from the Bosler ranch of John Coble, Tom Horn’s chief benefactor. Now in private hands, it was acquired by the owner’s father from a Laramie County museum. The rifle has a crude leather sling with “John C. Coble, Bosler, WY” carved on it.
In the buttstock, wrapped around the sectioned cleaning rod was an envelope of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association upon which, written in pencil, are the lyrics to “Life’s Railroad to Heaven” (the hymn sung at Horn’s hanging) and signed G.M. Kimmell.
Glendolene Myrtle Kimmell was a school teacher at Iron Mountain. She boarded at the Miller ranch and was romantically linked in legend to Tom Horn. After his death she worked in Denver, editing his autobiography. The book was published by John Coble in 1904.
Accompanying the .45-60 rifle is a portion of Montana Standard newspaper (Butte, MT) dated May 9, 1937 that shows a picture of the Coble Ranch and has a number of handwritten and typewritten entries on it purportedly relating to the sale and transfer of this rifle. These have attached a Bill of Sale dated July 6, 1936 for $26 “One of 2 Winchester rifles from the Coble ranch, Jack Linscott.”
Linscott was a rancher in northern Albany County. Tom Horn stated that he was at Linscott’s place when Willie Nickell’s father was shot and wounded a few days after Willie’s murder.
In the Steve McQueen movie “Tom Horn,” McQueen stated that he preferred a .45-60 because it was easy to buy ammunition for it in any country store. McQueen’s movie researchers had combed the State Museum and apparently decided to reference that caliber because of the cartridges there.
The doctors who conducted Willie Nickell’s autopsy stated that the wounds were too large to have been made by a .30-caliber weapon.
Could Tom Horn – or someone else – have used a .45-60 in the Nickell murder, stashing it away for later retrieval?
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
About the late Chip Carlson (died Jan 2022), author of Tom Horn: Blood on the Moon – Dark History of the Murderous Cattle Detective
Chip Carlson, author
Chip Carlson is the acknowledged world authority on Tom Horn, Wyoming’s infamous cattle detective. Twenty years of Carlson’s research has resulted in three books, the most recent of which won the prestigious Annual Award for history/biography from the Wyoming State Historical Society.
Dr. Gene M. Gressley, Director Emeritus of the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming states, “Chip Carlson knows more about Tom Horn than any person living.”
He is the author of dozens of articles on early Western events that have appeared in such national publications as Wild West, True West and American Cowboy.
For over ten years he has given entertaining and information slide presentations on and portrayals of Tom Horn to groups in Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and Missouri.
Carlson has conducted tours to historical sites in Wyoming.
He is a graduate of Colgate University, with liberal arts degrees in philosophy and Spanish. Born in Pennsylvania, near the area that was the birthplace of such early powers in the Wyoming cattle business such William C. Irvine, Frank Bosler and John Coble, he was raised in the East.
Following a career in international marketing in Latin America, Canada, and the Midwest, he moved to Wyoming in 1977. He presently is a writer and internet content specialist for an international firm in Cheyenne.
He is a member of the Wyoming State Historical Society and the Western Outlaw-Lawman History Society.
Carlson is bilingual English/Spanish and has done extensive translation work for the federal and state courts as well as for commercial firms.
Carlson’s wife, Susan, who is also a published author, and he live north of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
“Hanged By The Neck Until You Are Dead”
On November 14, 1903, six days before the hanging, the Rawlins Republican reported that “Bad Bob” Meldrum had written to Horn.
Bob Meldrum, one of Horn’s friends (WY State Archives)
Tom Boy Mine, Telluride, Colo. Nov. 3, 1903
Tom Horn, Esq., Cheyenne Wyo.
Dear Tom: I see by the daily press that things are coming your way at last, which pleases me very much. Lots of people here want to see you clear and in fact are positive that you will. By the way if the worst come to the worse YOU WILL NEVER HANG, as I know of a way that will get you out of that, so don’t lose any sleep on that part of the programme….
Now, remember what I tell you. It will be all OK. I got it STRAIGHT AND I MAY BE THERE TO SEE IT.
The letter was not delivered to Horn, the Republican said. There was an air of finality in Horn’s letter to Coble on November 17, 1903.
Dear Johnnie: Proctor told me that it was all over with me except the applause part of the game.
You know they can’t hurt a Christian, and as I am prepared, it is all right. I thoroughly appreciate all you have done for me. No one could have done more. Kindly accept my thanks, for if ever a man had a trued friend, you have proven yourself one to me.
Remember me kindly to all my friends, if I have any besides yourself. Burke and Lacey have not shown up.
I want you to always understand that the stenographic notes taken in the United States Marshal’s office were all changed to suit the occasion. The notes read at the trial were not the original notes at all. Everything of an incriminating nature read in those notes was manufactured and put in. It won’t do any good to kick at that now, so let ’er go.
If any one profits by my being hung, I would be sorry to see them disappointed.
It would, perhaps, be somewhat of a trying meeting for you to come to see me now. Do as you like. It might cause you a good deal of pain. I am just the same as ever, and will remain so.
The governor’s decision was no surprise to me, for I was tried, convicted and hung before I left the ranch. My famous confession was also made days before I came to town.
I told Burke to give you some writing I did; be sure and get it. You will not need anything to remember me by, but you will have that anyway. Anything else I may have around the ranch is yours.
I won’t need anything where I am going. I have an appointment with some Christian ladies tomorrow, and will write you of their visit tomorrow night.
I will drop you a line every day now, till the Reaper comes along. Kindest to all.
Yours truly, Tom Horn
According to two sources, on November 18 he learned that an effort to spring him free would be made the next day. Butch Cassidy, it was said, would be the leader. While the rumor grew and it is possible the two knew each other, they seem an unlikely alliance because Horn and Cassidy were on opposite sides of the lawman-outlaw melange. Nevertheless, the morning of the nineteenth a message appeared in the snow, “Keep Your Nerve.”
Sheriff Ed Smalley had no intent of allowing his most infamous prisoner escape. With assistance from the governor, he had arranged for armed troops to surround the block where the jail and courthouse were located. A Gatling gun from Fort D. A. Russell was mounted on the roof, with a Sergeant Mahon, “an expert gunner of the Thirteenth Artillery” stationed in the jail every night.
Sheriffs from other communities were stationed in the complex, armed with shotguns and repeating rifles….
Gallows used to hang Tom Horn on November 20, 1903, in Cheyenne (author’s photos)
Buy the book from Chip Carlson, and read “the rest of the story.” See more about the book using the link below.
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
“I have been in the case under the advisement of the prosecuting attorney. I have done things under his instructions.” -Joe Lefors
As the proceedings drew to a close, the defense introduced evidence that only Victor Miller could have committed the crime, by pointing out a footprint of a size six or seven shoe near the body. Of all the witnesses who testified at the inquest and who could have been near the site, only young Victor could have worn that size shoe. Tom Horn’s shoe was considerably larger, of course.
Left, the courthouse and jail complex, location of Tom Horn’s trial and hanging. Right, Horn’s jury. (WY State Archives)
By the time Joe LeFors testified, even in the face of intense cross-examination by Tom Horn’s lawyer, most of the jurymen had largely made up their minds.
LeFors acknowledged in direct examination from Walter Stoll that his conversation with Tom Horn had occurred in the morning, starting around eleven o’clock, and that it had “perhaps” continued in the early afternoon. He stated that Horn’s condition was “sober and rational.”
When John Lacey commenced cross-examination, he tried to have LeFors acknowledge that part of the stories he told were yarns. LeFors feigned ignorance of the term “tall yarns,” and tried to emphasize that most of the information he had given Tom in their banter was factual, such as accounts of the skirmishes he had had while working in Weston County. He finally did admit that he had woven of a tale when he had told Tom about having moved bands of sheep without the consent of the owner. He added that he heard the story about Horn having killed a Mexican lieutenant, and about having been imprisoned and escaped. Lacey did not pursue that vein, probably because it was not pertinent.
When the subject turned to the Nickell murder, LeFors generally became vague. As Lacey probed to verify what Horn had said about where the killer had been, LeFors acknowledged that Horn’s comment was that he had been in the “big draw to the right [south] of the gate.
LACEY. …Well, now in stating how he supposed that the way the killing of Willie Nickell happened, he said, “Suppose there was a man in the draw, in the big draw to the right of the gate, the draw that runs down to the main creek, near Nickell’s house.” Is that what he said? LEFORS. Yes, sir….
Tom Horn braiding a horsehair rope in the sheriff’s office (WY State Archives)
As soon as Lacey became specific, asking for example about whether Willie had run in “a southern direction,” LeFors said that was his impression Horn meant that the boy had run to the south. At the same time, he hedged, saying, “That was the way I understood it, form the way he was pointing off the paper he had.” It was not, however, from what Horn had said, LeFors saying, “Not from that, Judge. He had a piece of paper, and he was marking on it. From his marks I thought that was the way it occurred.”
Turning to the assertion that Horn had run barefoot across the country, LeFors was similarly hesitant, and acknowledged he was not very familiar with the area.
LACEY. When asked the question, “You had your boots on?” he said he was barefoot. Why did you say, “You had your boots on?” LEFORS. It would look kind of unnatural for a man to pull his boots off when in a hurry to do a job. LACEY. What was there about that particular country that it looks like a man must have had his boots on? LEFORS. There is nothing particular about it. I have never been over that country except for twice. LACEY. You don’t know it very thoroughly? LEFORS. Not very thoroughly. I have only been over it a couple of times.
Lacey then tried to gain a firm assertion that both Horn and LeFors were spinning tales, with LeFors leading him on. LeFors again was vague, and the effort was ineffectual.
LACEY. You were asked the question, “You don’t know which of you told the biggest yarns.” Is that correct? To that did you answer, “That would be problematical?” LEFORS. I think I did. LACEY. Were you not asked this further question, “And so what you said about killing people was not true?” And to that didn’t you answer, “I was just leading him on?” LEFORS. I might have done that. I don’t know as to that. I don’t remember.
Walter Stoll then began redirect. He asked LeFors if Horn and he had had any conversations about the killing before the one in January. LeFors acknowledged that they had met, but only twice during Frontier Days, and said that it was always Horn who brought up the subject of the murder. When it came to his attempts to induce the detective to throw in with him, finger the party in the country and split the reward, he retorted, “Never had any such conversation as that at no time.”
Lacey had another opportunity to question LeFors. He asked whether the deputy marshal had told Horn that he already had evidence that would convict Jim and Victor Miller. LeFors denied he had said anything of the sort. Lacey then turned to LeFors’ interest in the reward money, Frank Mulock, and LeFors’ relationship with Walter Stoll. LACEY. You have taken a good deal of interest in the case? LEFORS. I have taken an interest in this way ?? the defendant wanted to talk with me. LACEY. I did not say how. I say you have taken an interest in the case? LEFORS. Yes. LACEY. You have taken an interest in this case, considerable interest? LEFORS. Well, I have been in the case at different times. I have been asked by the prosecuting attorney in the case ?? LACEY. You went to Denver and interviewed those witnesses? LEFORS. Well, no ?? LACEY. Didn’t you go to Denver? LEFORS. Two of the witnesses I never saw. LACEY. You went to Denver to see one of them? LEFORS. I don’t believe I did. LACEY. Did you interview one in Denver? LEFORS. I never interviewed him in Denver. Two of them I never seen before. LACEY. Do you not remember seeing either of them? LEFORS. Only here in Cheyenne. LACEY. When? LEFORS. After this case started. I met Mr. Mulock and this other gentleman. I forget his name….
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
(1901-1902) “…I stopped cow stealing there in one summer.” — Tom Horn
Where was Tom Horn, and where did he go after Willie’s murder? How did he get into the worst trouble he had ever known?
Left, Willie Nickell. Right, Tom Horn (WY State Archives)
He had departed Miller’s ranch mid-morning July 17, the day before Willie Nickell was killed. He headed southeast along Spring Creek and a canyon, through which it feeds, and then north to the Two Bar’s Colcord pasture, roughly a half-mile east of Nickell’s homestead.
Miller’s ranch, a mile south-southwest of Nickell’s, slopes toward the east and south. It straddles Spring Creek and Sawmill Creek, which flow southeast. Nickell’s homestead lay on North Chugwater Creek, a small tributary of Chugwater Creek. Spring Creek runs east and slightly north toward the town of Chugwater, and runs both above ground and below the surface. Most of the terrain on Nickell’s homestead slopes toward the east.
Horn’s work necessitated secrecy, so that rustling could be more easily detected. Consequently only two witnesses were able to confirm where they had seen him after he left Miller’s. They were John Braae and Otto Plaga.
After inspecting the Colcord pasture he moved through the hills toward Mule Creek to the north, and in the direction of the headwaters of the Sybille, i.e., toward the northwest. Mule Creek flows east and then north into the Sybille, north of William Clay’s home.
Mountain area north of Clay’s (author’s photo)
He worked as usual in a random pattern, not following any predetermined plan or map. Wednesday evening he was farther downstream (north) on Mule Creek, heading away from Clay’s, farther yet from Nickell’s and toward the ridge from which he saw John Braae — six or more miles from Nickell’s. Although he thought Braae had not seen him, John testified later that he’d seen Horn off his horse on top of a ridge to the northwest, studying something through his field glasses north of where he stood.
Under the cover of darkness — the moon was between the new and first quarter, and it may have been cloudy ?? he rode west, camping out between Allen’s and Waechter’s ranches. The next morning, Thursday, he patrolled Mike Fitzmorris’ pastures, and then worked his way north toward Blue Grass Springs. He gradually worked back toward Fitzmorris’ place on his way to Coble’s headquarters north of Bosler junction.
Horn stated that he might have been within eight or nine miles of Nickell’s the morning of the crime, but qualified that by saying that when he spoke of distances he was simply making an educated estimate.
Otto Plaga, a young local cowhand, stated that he had seen Horn at a spot that was distant from the gate where Willie. The siting took place only an hour after the killing. According to Plaga Horn was moving slowly, his horse showed no signs of being pushed, and the distance from the gate to where Plaga saw him was too far from the gate for Horn to have covered it at a leisurely pace.
After he finished at Mike Fitzmorris’ Thursday, he headed north four or five miles, and camped. The next morning he cut back and again worked the large Two Bar and Coble pastures adjacent to Fitzmorris’ until mid?afternoon, and then camped overnight. Early Saturday, July 20, he started down to Coble’s, west-northwest of the area he had been patrolling.
He arrived at Coble’s in mid?morning, a fact that was attested to by a cowboy, W. S. Carpenter, who working in the stable, and by Mr. and Mrs. John Ryan. The Ryans had been hired by Coble and Duncan Clark, Coble’s foreman, to keep house ?? general duties involving cooking, cleaning and laundering for the crew.
Coble’s ranch at Bosler (author’s photo)
Horn cleaned up, changed his clothes, read his mail, and made a phone call to the Bosler station to send a telegram to Laramie. He ate, paid Ryan twenty-five cents for the wire, and left his laundry for them to do. He told Ryan he would pay for the laundry when he returned.
At Carpenter’s suggestion, he drove John Coble’s best horse into the corral, and saddled him up. The horse, a bay named Pacer, was branded Lazy TY connected. Horn pushed him hard on the ride into Laramie.
Coble had left on July 11 for his mother’s funeral in Pennsylvania. Although Horn said he had an appointment with Bell in the evening, it could be that Bell, who may have been paymaster, could not meet Tom and had left the money with another party. Horn was dressed in a good quality, brown wool suit.
He deposited the horse and went on a ten?day drinking binge. Frank Stone drank with Tom on Sunday, July 21, and finally picked him up for a ride out of town in a wagon on July 30. It was time to sober up and go back to work. The next day, Stone accompanied him northward to within ten miles of the Iron Mountain Ranch. Mr. and Mrs. Ryan saw him headed back to the ranch from the Bosler depot when they departed for Cheyenne that day.
Tom Horn’s whereabouts from that point until August 7 or 8 are unknown. The prosecution attempted to link him with Kels Nickell’s shooting on August 4, but Horn stated he was “a hundred miles” away on that Sunday morning. He wrote to John Coble that he had been at Alex Sellers’ ranch that day.
Sellers was an Albany County rancher who owned a spread in the northern part of the county in Antelope Basin. There is, however, no part of northern Albany County more than one hundred miles from Nickell’s ranch, so Sellers’ ranch in fact could not have been that distance from the Nickell place. Horn, again, was speaking figuratively. (Sellers was never called to verify the statement during the trial, apparently because the defense team could not locate him.)
Horn had been at Coble’s ranch for a few days when he was summoned to testify at the inquest. Around this time the chairman of the Laramie County Commission, Sam Corson, had arranged for a deputy U.S. marshal, Joe LeFors, to investigate the Nickell murder. The county and state had each already offered a five hundred dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Willie’s murder.
LeFors was born in Paris, Texas, on February 20, 1865. He arrived in Wyoming as part of a cattle drive in 1885, and went to work as a cowpuncher outside Buffalo.
LeFors was a minor player in the successful effort in 1887 to recover a large herd of stolen stock from the Hole-in-the-Wall area, where rustlers generally felt themselves unassailable by the law. He was later hired as a contract livestock inspector for Montana in northeast Wyoming, working in and around Newcastle to apprehend stolen cattle and thieves, and return them to Montana. He became acquainted with W. D. “Billy” Smith, a Montana brand inspector who was based in Miles City, just north of Newcastle. Smith probably was LeFors’ immediate superior.
Joe LeFors in Miles City, MT (WY State Archives)
LeFors married his first wife, sixteen-year-old Bessie M. Hannum in Newcastle, Wyoming on August 5, 1896. He played a minor role in the posse that pursued the three robbers of the Union Pacific at Wilcox in 1899. The robbers eventually escaped into the Big Horn Mountains, and at least one reached southwest Wyoming, probably headed for Brown’s Hole.
U.S. Marshal Frank A. Hadsell had appointed LeFors an office deputy on October 16, 1899. LeFors’ contention was that Hadsell had approached him to join his staff because of his work on the Wilcox posse.
Robbers again held up the Union Pacific on August 29, 1900 near Tipton, fifty miles west of Rawlins. LeFors participated in the posse that pursued the robbers to the Brown’s Hole area south of Tipton, with a similar lack of success.
After his testimony on August 9, Tom Horn appeared at the rodeo during the frontier celebration in Cheyenne. According to the Laramie Daily Boomerang he won the multi-day steer roping competition at least once. His associates, Duncan Clark, Frank Stone and Otto Plaga, also were rodeo event winners.
Horn stated that he talked with Joe LeFors twice about the Willie Nickell killing at one or more Cheyenne saloons during the fest.
Top Left, Tivoli Saloon, Cheyenne. Top Right, downtown Cheyenne ca 1902. Bottom, Capitol Avenue, Cheyenne. (Author’s Photos)
In September took a load of horses by train to the Mountains and Plains Festival, arriving early Sunday morning, September 29.
He went on yet another drinking spree, and tangled in a saloon with Denver’s popular boxer “Young” Corbett, who broke Horn’s left jaw. A Denver police surgeon treated Tom, binding up his head with plaster of Paris at five thirty Monday morning. He was in St. Luke’s Hospital for three weeks. In trial testimony, he said, “I got into trouble because a man called me a liar.”
Horn spent the next few months at Coble’s ranch in Bosler, and in Cheyenne and Laramie. Late in December he took a load of beef to Omaha on the Union Pacific. Glendolene Kimmell spoke of his getting drunk in Omaha and losing his “outfit” there, and then returning to Cheyenne. He met with LeFors while in Cheyenne, where they again discussed the Nickell murder.
LeFors had John Coble take Horn a letter about a stock detective’s job in Montana that he had received from W. D. “Billy” Smith, Joe’s old acquaintance.
Joe LeFors and Billy Smith (WY State Archives)
Miles City, Montana Dec. 28th 1901
Joe LeFors Esq. Cheyenne Friend Joe
I want a good man to do some secret work. And want a man that I can trust. And he will have to be a man not known in this country. The nature of this, there is a gang over on the Big Moon River that are stealing cattle and we purpose [propose] to fit the man out as a wolfer and let him go into that country (and wolf).
And if he is the right kind of man he can soon get in with the gang. He will have to be a man that can take care of himself in any kind of country.
The pay will be $125.00 per month and I believe a man can make good wages besides. Joe if you know of anyone who you think will fill the place let me know. There will be several months work.
Yours Truly W. D. Smith
P.S. Man will have to report in Helena.
Horn immediately responded.
Iron Mountain Ranch Company Bosler Wyoming Jan. 1st 1902
Joe LeFors Esq. Cheyenne, Wyoming Dear Joe,
Recd yours from W. D. Smith Miles City Mont. by Johnny Coble today. I would like to take up that work and I feel sure I can give Mr. Smith satisfaction. I don’t care how big or bad his men are or how many of them there are, I can handle them. They can scarcely be any worse than the Brown’s Hole Gang and I stopped cow stealing there in one summer. If Mr. Smith cares to give me the work I would like to meet them as soon as commencement so as to get into the country and get located before Summer.
The wages $125.00 per month will be all satisfactory to me. Put me in communication with Mr. Smith whom I know well by reputation and I can guarantee him the recommendation of every cow man in the State of Wyoming in this line of work.
You may write Mr. Smith for me that I can handle his work and do it with less expense in the shape of lawyer and witness fees than any man in the business.
Joe you yourself know what my reputation is although we have never been out together.
Yours truly Tom Horn
From that point Joe LeFors lead Tom Horn through a conversation that would lead to his controversial trial and conviction.
The locations of Tom Horn’s “confession” (author’s photos)
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
“My occupation is that of a detective…”
Tom Horn was called to the stand on Friday, August 9, 1901.
STOLL. State your name, occupation and residence. HORN. My name is Tom Horn; I suppose my occupation is that of a detective, as near as I can get at it. When I am at home I reside at Mr. Coble’s ranch in Albany County; that has been my home for a number of years. STOLL. Mr. Horn, we understand that you have been up around this section of the country a good deal and have laid around the hills a good deal of the time and have had an opportunity to observe people, things etc. We would like know if there is anything you can tell us about the killing of Willie Nickell. If you saw anything or recollect around there at that time? HORN: I was in the country just prior to the killing of that kid a day or two. STOLL. Do you know what day he was killed? HORN: No, I do not. STOLL. It was Thursday the eighteenth of July? HORN. Now, I will tell you I don’t know about the dates, but I know on Monday of the week on which he was killed, on Monday morning, whatever date that was, I left Billy Clay’s….
Billy Clay’s place, where Tom Horn frequently stopped (author’s photos)
I went over to Miller’s ranch…. I went to the head of a hay valley this Monday and went to Miller’s ranch Monday night. “…my business was ended…”
I was there all day Tuesday, and on Tuesday I went up [i.e., to the west] to the head of the creek that Miller lives on. Passed down to where Nickell [might have] had his sheep in Johnny Coble’s pasture. I went up there and found they hadn’t [the sheep had not gone into Coble’s pasture] and my business was ended. I went back to the Miller’s ranch and stayed there again that night. That was Tuesday night; I left there Wednesday morning.
STOLL. The kid was killed Thursday, did you say? HORN. Yes, sir. I left there Wednesday morning; it was along before the middle of the forenoon after I got breakfast. STOLL. Up to this time did you see any stranger in that locality, anybody riding along? HORN. No, sir. STOLL. Did you know Willie Nickell yourself? HORN. I don’t believe I ever saw him. I know Nick [Kels] very well himself but I don’t think I ever saw any member of his family, only at a distance. STOLL. Are you acquainted with the Miller family? HORN. The family I do not know at all, only as I met them that night. I met Jim Miller before over on the [Laramie] Plains. I met him one evening, he and Whitman. Coble and myself got there in the springtime ?? the river was up pretty well ?? and went over to the Bosler Station to get a barrel of beer. We got it and came back. That was the first time I ever see him. He invited me to visit if I ever come through that part of the country. I happened to have a little business in there and I called….
Left, interior of an old saloon in Bosler. Right, Bosler Station depot (author’s photos).
STOLL. When you went away Wednesday, which way did you go? HORN. I went down the river [toward the southeast] and up to what we call Colcord Place [a pasture owned by the Two Bar, one?half mile east of Nickell’s land]. I thought maybe the sheep might be in there. I pulled across through the hills over on the head of the Sybille. This is the time [of year] you shift the cows outside…. I have been doing that except six or seven days. I was [going] in[to] Laramie to see Colonel Bill [sic]….
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
“The two men, being of the same character and same plane of living, of course they had trouble.” -Glendolene Myrtle Kimmell
Glendolene Myrtle Kimmell had come to Wyoming to teach school early in 1901 from Hannibal, Missouri. Hannibal is near the location of Tom Horn’s birth in Scotland County in the northeastern part of the state.
She was born on June 21, 1879 in St. Louis. Her mother, Frances “Fannie” Ascenath Pierce Kimmell, was born in Hannibal in 1843. Frances was one of ten children in a socially prominent family. In July 1864 she married Elijah Lloyd Kimmell, whom she met in St. Louis where he was working for a railroad. Elijah was born in Williams Center, Ohio in 1842 and was a Civil War veteran.
One of Frances’ brothers, Glendolene’s Uncle Edward Pierce, was a playmate of Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. The Pierce family home at 321 North Fifth Street in Hannibal was only a block from Clemens’ boyhood home.
Glendolene had two siblings, John Pierce Kimmell, who was born in 1865 and died March 23, 1882. Daisy Natalie Kimmell, who was born in 1870, died June 27, 1872.
Elijah Kimmell died in 1881 in St. Louis. Glendolene, her brother and mother moved back to the family home in Hannibal upon his death. Both of Glendolene’s parents and siblings are buried in Hannibal.
Glendolene’s name first appears in the Hannibal city directory in 1895 and 1897-1898. (Directories were not printed every year.)
Physically small in size in adulthood, she was estimated to be only four and one-half feet tall. She was one of a group of young women recruited to teach in the West at the turn of the century. On her way to Wyoming it is believed she visited an uncle, Charles Pierce, who was working for a railroad and living in Jamestown, North Dakota. She arrived in Wyoming early in 1901.
Tom Horn’s comments in his so-called confession that Glendolene was of mixed blood, possibly having a Hawaiian or Polynesian ancestry, were stimulated by alcohol and his imagination. He added that she “spoke most every language on earth.” She denied the ancestry and language comments and said, in the affidavit she filed as part of the appeals to the acting governor to commute Horn’s death sentence, that if she spoke many languages that she would not have been teaching school in Iron Mountain, Wyoming.
She authored a lengthy document in Denver in April 1904 that was printed in the appendix to Tom Horn’s autobiography. In it she said that part of her reasoning for coming to the West and to teach at the Miller-Nickell school was that she had “been most strongly attracted by the frontier type. I was happy in the belief that I would meet with the embodiment of that type… [but] I was doomed to disappointment, for all the cattle men and cow boys I saw were like the hired hands ‘back East.’” In contrast, her description of Horn is different: “…there stopped at the Miller ranch a man who embodied the characteristics, the experiences of the old frontiersman.”
Tom Horn and the teacher, from a painting, “Iron Mountain Morning,” by L.D. Edgar, Western Heritage Studio.
Kimmell had been warned against going to the Miller-Nickell school because of the feud between the two families. However, she entered into an agreement to teach at the school and to board at Miller’s ranch with her eyes wide open. She stated in the inquest into Willie Nickell’s death that she felt the experience would give her a better understanding of human nature.
Her testimony in the coroner’s inquest further reflect feelings of disdain toward the homesteaders. Under questioning by the district attorney, Walter R. Stoll, she confirmed the events of July 15-August 4, and provided her own reasons why Kels Nickell and Jim Miller were inevitably bound to clash.
Walter R. Stoll, district attorney and later Tom Horn’s prosecutor (author’s photo)
The first part of her testimony in response to questions by the prosecutor covered the happenings at Miller’s ranch when they learned of Kels being shot on Sunday, August 4.
KIMMELL. Well, Sunday morning I didn’t leave my room until twenty minutes past nine. The occasion for my leaving then was that Gus Miller came into the front room just next to mine and announced to his father that Nickell had been shot…. STOLL. Up to that time, that is when you went into the room, upon hearing what Gus had said, you hadn’t seen any of the Miller family that morning? KIMMELL. Yes, I had seen Victor. STOLL. Where and when had you seen him? KIMMELL. I looked out of the window of my room about half past eight and saw him…. STOLL. Had you seen any other members of the family? KIMMELL. I saw some of the little children playing about but none of the older members. STOLL. Do you know anything about any of the older members being about the house previous to this time? KIMMELL. I woke up the first time at five o’clock; everything in the house was still…. At seven o’clock I heard Mr. Miller in the front room just off of mine…. STOLL. How do you know it was Mr. Miller? KIMMELL. He was passing back and forth, and singing…. STOLL. How do you know whether Mr. Miller and Mrs. Miller occupied the same room the night before? KIMMELL. I don’t know about that night. STOLL. Is it their general habit to occupy separate rooms? KIMMELL. Mr. Miller has a room by himself and Mrs. Miller has a room with some of the children….
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
“I Think the Intention Was To Get Me In Place Of The Boy” -Kels Nickell, Willie’s father.
Kels Powers Nickell, Willie’s father, had come to Wyoming in the mid-1870s, as part of General George C. Crook’s command. Crook’s force was part of the pincers movement ordered to entrap Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in the ill?fated strategy that led to George Armstrong Custer’s defeat at the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876.
Kels P. NickellMary Mahoney Nickell
Kels P. Nickell and Mary Mahoney Nickell, Willie’s parents (WY State Archives)
Nickell fought under Crook at the Battle of the Rosebud in southern Montana, north of Sheridan, Wyoming. Crook lost the battle, which forced his retreat to the south just days before Custer’s annihilation.
Confederate Army deserters, guerrillas, had murdered Kels’ father, John DeSha Nickell, on February 7, 1863, eight years after Kels was born in 1855. He was killed within earshot of the family on their farm in Licking River, Morgan County, Kentucky. The killer was John Jackson Nickell, a second cousin, who also murdered Logan Wilson. Wilson was shot in his bed while recuperating from wounds. John Jackson Nickell was hanged for the two murders on September 2, 1864, following court martial.
Kels’ mother, Priscilla, and his five siblings remained on the farm in Kentucky for a period until the county circuit court sold it to satisfy a surety bond the elder Nickell had signed for a county elected official, whose name is unknown.
Kels remained in the area and went to work cutting timber that was assembled into rafts to be floated downstream to sawmills. He married Ann Brown of Greenup County, Kentucky, in 1873, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1877. One son was born of the marriage, John DeSha Nickell II, in 1874.
In 1875 he enlisted in the U.S. Cavalry and was assigned to the West. After the Battle of the Rosebud he was one of two men ordered by Crook to the Little Big Horn battle site before the dead were buried.
Nickell was counted as part of the force at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, in the census of 1880. After his discharge that year, he moved to Camp Carlin on the northwest outskirts of Cheyenne, and opened a blacksmith and farm machinery repair shop. He married Mary Mahoney, an Irish immigrant then 16, in Cheyenne on December 27, 1881. The daughter of a railway construction worker from Cork, Ireland, she had immigrated to the United States in 1868. Kels was ten years her senior.
The Laramie County Census of 1900, in which the Nickell family was enumerated at Iron Mountain on June 3 by Hiram G. Davidson, reflected the two parents and other members of the household:
Julia, born in 1883 Kels P., junior, born in 1884, whose occupation was a farm laborer Willie, born in 1887, also a farm laborer Katie, born in 1889 Alfred (Freddie), born in 1891 Beatrice (Trixie), born in 1892 Maggie, born in 1894 Ida McKinley, a daughter born in 1896 Hiram Harlan, born in 1899.
Nickell had filed a homestead claim, of which he took possession, in 1885, in the Iron Mountain region. At the same time he filed for an additional 480 acres of government land, which could be acquired for $1.25 per acre. Over the course of years, he bought, sold and filed desert claims (a common way to acquire arid government tracts by going through the motions of irrigating them) on land in the area.
Nickell was a hothead with an explosive temper, according to two of his granddaughters who are friends of the author. Testimony in the coroner’s inquest that followed Willie’s murder indicated that he was always in some kind of a “jangle.” The homes he built both in Iron Mountain and later in Encampment, Wyoming were located close enough to streams to provide his family with running water, a rare convenience in rural country. The Iron Mountain home had water piped into it from North Chugwater Creek, which was a few feet to the south of the structure.
The Nickell home locale sat in a canyon.Rock formation northwest of where the homestead sat (author’s photos).The Nickell family at the homestead. Willie’s father is not in the photo. (WY State Archives)
It is incorrect to believe that all homesteaders were barely literate and not interested in their children’s education. The Nickell and Miller families worked together to build the school located about halfway between their homes. Nickell was concerned for his children’s education, as was manifested itself in the fact that Kels Jr. was away at a private school at the time Willie was killed. The father intended to send all the children to private schools, in order to provide them with a better education than they could obtain in rural Wyoming.
The prologue that resulted first in the killing of Willie Nickell on July 18, 1901, and Kels’ wounding on August 4, was the result of feuds in which Kels had become embroiled as far back as 1890. On July 23 of that year, he tangled with John Coble and Coble’s foreman, George Cross, at the western edge of Nickell’s homestead, over some cattle. He knifed Coble, seriously wounding him in the abdomen.
Nickell continued to display symptoms of paranoia, manifesting itself in a conviction that the Iron Mountain people were out to do him in.
The feud was acutely bitter between the Nickell clan and Jim Miller’s, who lived about a mile south of Nickell. Both fathers and Willie Nickell plus Gus and Victor Miller, the two older boys, were involved to one degree or another.
Miller had established a homestead in the spring of 1883.
The Miller home as it looked ca 1900 (author’s photo)
Miller was born in Galena, Illinois in 1855. He was married to Dora Cora Lemon, who was born in 1864 in Greeley, Colorado. They had moved from Greeley, where the oldest son, Charles Augustus “Gus”, was born, in a covered wagon.
Left, Jim and Dora Miller (WY State Archives) Gus, Eva, Victor and Maude Miller (author’s photos, courtesy Ruth Miller Ayers)
After building a log cabin where they lived the first winter, they established themselves by setting up a sawmill and raising a few head of stock. Miller sold logs and posts to neighbors below their homestead, which was at 6,800 feet elevation, such as the Jordans and Underwoods.
The 1900 census showed that the household consisted of, in addition to the parents:
Charles Augustus (Gus), born in 1882, described as a farm laborer Victor Henry, born in 1883, also a farm laborer Eva Jane, born in 188 Frank, born in 1887 Maude S., born in 1891 Raymond, born in 1893 Ina S., born in 1895 Robert L., born in 1897 Ronald Andrew, born in 1899 Benjamin F., Jim’s brother, who was born in 1858 and was a railroad laborer. One daughter, Bertha May, was born in May 1889 and died of diphtheria when she was eight or nine years old, in 1898.
Left, center and right: The Miller home sat beyond the remains of this barn, at left-center. Right, scene where a corral and outbuildings sat at the Miller ranch. Right, a small grave at the Miller ranch. (Author’s photos)
Nickell’s disputes, however, were not limited to the Millers alone. In Tom Horn’s words, the Reed brothers (Joseph and William, who lived about three miles northeast of Nickell) were “about the only friends he had.”
The feud with Jim Miller and his boys reached a boiling point a year before Willie was shot. As the men in the family began carrying guns, a tragedy resulted in May 1900 from the accidental discharge of a shotgun in Miller’s spring wagon. It hit 14?year?old Frank Miller in the head, killing him instantly, and severely injuring Maude. Maude carried buckshot and scars from the incident for the rest of her life….
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
Yet another man was to be executed in Brown’s Hole in 1900.
Isam Dart was born in Texas 1855 and had arrived in Colorado in the 1870s or early 1880s. By one account, he first bore the name Ned Huddleston, who may have been the slave owner who owned Huddleston/Dart’s parents. He supposedly had lost an ear in a knife fight with an Indian with whose wife Dart had become involved.
Dart rode with the Tip Gault gang, according to the same source, while it was attempting to escape with stolen horses belonging to Margaret Anderson’s outfit south of Saratoga, Wyoming in 1875. In that episode, a previous Carbon County sheriff owned a ranch through which the horse thieves were pushing the herd. An evening shootout occurred, leaving all the thieves except Dart dead around a campfire. Dart spent an uneasy night next to the unburied body of one of the luckless thieves, and then stole money belts and whatever other loot he could gather up before he escaped on foot. He was wounded by a rancher when he attempted to steal a horse, and was found by an accomplice on the prairie.
Isam Dart (Museum of Northwest Colorado, Craig, CO)
It is known that he was an accomplished horse breaker and all-around top cowhand, and superb at cutting out and roping cattle.
Dart ran for election as constable in Sweetwater County, Wyoming in 1884. The position was to be in Coyote Creek Precinct, forty-five miles southwest of Rock Springs and a few miles north of Irish Canyon, an eastern access to Brown’s Hole. Dart won the election, with eight votes.
Dart was not without sin. Three indictments for branding neat cattle in Sweetwater County were brought against him by the Territory of Wyoming in 1889, but were discharged.
Dart was acquainted with one of the robbers of the Union Pacific train at Wilcox that took place north of Rock River, Wyoming on June 2, 1899.
Dart’s involvement was described in a letter from Rock Springs to U. S. Marshal Frank Hadsell dated August 12, 1899. Little did Dart know that Tom Horn would investigate the robbery, and that Horn’s scrutiny of Brown’s Hole a year later would lead to his own death.
After the Wilcox heist, D. G. Thomas, the county and prosecuting attorney for Wyoming’s Sweetwater County, wrote Hadsell that Angust McDougal had arrived in town from roundups south of Rock Springs and Powder Springs. He said that McDougal met a man “faged [sic] and worn out by hard riding, having six horses well shod, and one of the [sic them] packed.” Thomas continued that Isam Dart was accompanying McDougal and had known the man for many years. McDougal, too, knew the man.
The man, however, apparently Dart knew better than he did McDougal and therefore felt he could confide in him. He asked Dart what he knew about “the condition” of the country. Dart replied that everyone knew the area was in an uproar over the recent robbery of the Union Pacific. The man told Dart that at the time of the robbery he was in British Columbia.
Dart persisted in talking about the robbery. The man, inquiring about McDougal, and on being told who he was, said, “don’t tell, for God’s sake don’t tell any one you saw me.” As Dart pursued the matter of the holdup the man “virtually admitted that he was one of the parties, as he remarked, ‘I had a hell of a time keeping away from the hounds… Dart, you must not give me away.’
“This man’s name was Joe Curry, Joe Southerner, alias Tom McCarty, who used to work with Joe Hazen on the range.”
D. G. Thomas continued in his letter that McDougal would be interested in apprehending the man as long as he was in the company of a deputy sheriff and was paid for his work. He added that Hadsell could actually meet the man in Thomas’ office or should send a “discreet” man to do so, and that Hadsell should keep the matter a “professional secret.”
He concluded by saying that Tom O’Day (of the botched 1897 Belle Fourche, South Dakota bank robbery) along with Charles Stevens (a.k.a. White River Charley) and John Jinks (alias John Ray) “are in this neck of the woods.”
It is not known but apparently Hadsell did not follow up on this golden opportunity, or the man may have disappeared. He may well have been George Curry, whom a number of authorities believe was one of the robbers and whom the Union Pacific wanted to apprehend. Curry ended up being killed in a shootout with a posse in Utah.
A fateful development for Isam Dart occurred two months after Matt Rash’s murder. Boldly dropping his alias, on September 26, 1900, Tom Horn signed his own name to a complaint naming Dart as a horse thief.
Dart suspected that trouble was ahead for him after Matt Rash’s murder. He holed up in a cabin with six other individuals, including Sam and George Bassett, Louis Brown, Billy Rash, Larry Curtin and Elijah B. “Longhorn” Thompson, on his ranch on remote Cold Spring Mountain in Brown’s Hole. The whole bunch had been friendly with Matt Rash, and figured their names were on the list of those to be exterminated. Some may have been right.
On the morning of October 4, 1900, Dart died of a single gunshot wound as he and the others filed out from the cabin toward a corral. In the cold and windy dawn, none sighted the killer. They bolted for the cabin where they barricaded themselves until nightfall. The next day they found two thirty-thirty caliber shells at the base of the tree that had hidden the assassin. Tom Horn was known to pack a thirty-thirty Winchester.
Tom Horn (WY State Archives)
This essay was originally published on Chip Carlson’s personal website, which has since expired, and is re-published here as a way to preserve some of the content of this historical figure. If you would like to continue learning about Tom Horn, please explore the links below. If you’d like to read the complete story, and help to support the author, his book can be purchased here.
