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.
This post is a part of our series on Tom Horn – full collection of links at the bottom of the page.
Lodore Canyon in Brown’s Hole, the locale of two murders attributed to Tom Horn (author’s photo)
An ominous killing in the northwestern Colorado Brown’s Hole region struck the area in mid-1900. Even more sinister was the plot that lay behind it.
Two small cattlemen, Matt Rash and Isam Dart, had been in Brown’s Hole in northwestern Colorado for a number of years. In July and October 1900 both were killed. Their previous actions, along with those of other small ranchers, had led to conflict and a conspiracy on the part of three prominent ranchers to eliminate them. Tom Horn was their agent.
The prologue of their murders was the developing cattle business as the new century began.
By the mid-1890s the cattle business in Wyoming and Colorado was changing in major ways, in large part because consumer tastes had started to gravitate toward more tender and flavorful beef from breeds other than longhorns. And while longhorns are hardy and calve easily, they do not add weight as rapidly as other breeds.
Another major reason for the changes in the range business was an influx of homesteaders. The homesteaders, “nesters” or “grangers” as they were referred to disdainfully by the big operators, had moved over a period of time into some of the best bottomlands. By doing so they decreased the availability of water for the herds of the dominant, larger ranchers, or “cattle barons,” as they became known.
One major operator was Laramie’s Ora Haley, who had enormous holdings both in northwest Colorado and southeast Wyoming and who acted to adjust to the changing conditions.
Ora Haley (American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming)
Haley, who was born in Maine in 1845, had come to Wyoming at a young age, and become a force in the Wyoming cattle business and in territorial politics. Through his foreman, Hiram “Hi” Bernard, he brought in white-faced Herefords to improve the grades of beef that markets now demanded.
Bernard, a Texan who had driven cows to northern reaches as a young man, observed that as cattle operations evolved, overheads increased. It became necessary to purchase or lease land from the railroads, to fence bull pastures in order to produce summer calves of uniform weight, and raise hay to feed stock. Bernard purchased several large hay ranches for Haley in Colorado’s Routt County area, which comprised Brown’s Hole. It was enormously profitable in spite of the depredations of locals. Bernard described the range and Haley’s success. He commented,
These ranches extended over a wide scope of the county, with both winter and summer ranges on all sides. It was open public domain, all choice range, and with few fences to hinder the movement of cattle for a distance of about 100 miles in all directions. That constituted a pretty layout, and easy to handle.
It proved to be good. Haley made over a million dollars profit on his Routt County investment in less than ten years. And in that time he never saw the range end of the business but three times. He did not know a thing about it for he was not a range man.
Haley was a smart and lucky financier. He came to Wyoming a bullwhacker, and started in the cow business at Laramie with three old dairy cows. He was smart enough to see opportunities and capitalize on them, lucky to find a sucker to handle a range cattle business better than he could, and he was wise enough to keep from meddling with the range end, where the payoff came from. That is a rare combination of human character.
Ora Haley’s Two Bar Ranch in Brown’s Hole, where Tom Horn stayed (author’s photo)
Conditions, however, were such that a range war was brewing in northwestern Colorado, just as one had raged in Wyoming.
But there was a difference in the situations between Wyoming and Colorado. In Wyoming, it was the cattlemen who had attempted to keep homesteaders and small ranchers from infringing on lands they felt were exclusively theirs. The Brown’s Hole locals, many of them homesteaders and small ranchers, instead resisted encroachment on their ranges by the cattle barons.
For a time, the Wyoming cattlemen were successful in holding off what they felt was wrongful encroachment of “their” lands. However, the winds of change were against them, and their strong-arm tactics had begun to go too far.
They had had gone as far as to resort to outright murder, lynching “Cattle Kate” Ellen Watson and Jim Averill in south-central Sweetwater County in 1889, and Tom Waggoner in northeast Weston County in 1891. The Johnson County Invasion followed in 1892 with the accompanying murders of Nick Rae and Nate Champion. Over time, however, the homesteaders and small ranchers were bound to prevail, simply because of their sheer numbers.
In northwest Colorado the small ranchers misjudged the changes that would occur in their own region, just as had the barons in Wyoming. In northwest Colorado, the big ranchers, whose holdings included both Wyoming and Colorado lands, were determined to move into the ranges not being put to use. Vacant, valuable land sat unused when they needed it.
The first mistake the Brown’s Hole locals made was failing to acquire ranches that were readily available along their eastern perimeter. Had they done so, they could have resisted further inroads by the large operators. The ranches were owned by Ben Majors and one Sainsbury, and were acquired in 1894 by Ora Haley.
The second mistake was allowing the area to become known as a “safe haven” for outlaws. Bernard remarked that “the reported presence of such characters helped to scare outside stockmen away from the gravy bowl. It was a ‘no trespassing’ sign, and it worked for a long time.” However, their sympathy for and assistance to outlaws inevitably created animosity toward them. Bernard added that the nesters’ third mistake was “they were range hogs, for they were controlling a greater amount of range than they used or could use. ‘It must be kept that way’ – one of Brown’s Park’s ‘musts.’ Well, time changes things, and it ‘must’ be a hell of a shock to some of them to see things now,” he said. Long-term, the range would not remain open and the big outfits would move in.
Bernard’s further observations brought proof of Tom Horn’s complicity in the murders that were to come.
Late in 1899 or early in 1900, Ora Haley ordered Bernard to meet him at Haley’s Denver office. At the time Haley was fifty-five and married with grown four children living in Laramie. Three other cattlemen were present: Charles E. “Charley” Ayer, Wilfred W. “Wiff” Wilson, and John C. Coble. Ayer, forty-three, was born in New York, married with five children and lived in the Four Mile area of Routt County, Colorado.
Wilson was born in Utah in 1857 and was living with his wife, three children and mother-in-law near Baggs in southern Carbon County, Wyoming. Both Ayer and Wilson had significant livestock holdings in southern Wyoming and Brown’s Hole.
John C. Coble was born in 1857 in Pennsylvania and was a partner of Frank Bosler in the prominent Iron Mountain Ranch Company of Bosler, Wyoming, north of Laramie. Tom Horn was on Coble’s payroll at the time.
John C. Coble (WY State Archives)
By January 1900 Tom Horn had wrapped up his investigation of the Wilcox, Wyoming train robbery of the previous June. At the Denver meeting in Haley’s office Ayer and Wilson bewailed the lawlessness that infested Brown’s Hole, condemning “the place as an outlaw hangout and a threat to the Haley interests,” Bernard said. Both recounted their cattle losses and named Matt Rash and Jim McKnight as rustlers.
Matt Rash (courtesy Museum of Northwest Colorado, Craig, CO)
Coble had like grievances in his part of the country, and he offered a solution to the problem that would wipe out the range menace permanently. He would contact a man whom he knew with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, a man that could be relied on to do the job, with no questions asked.
Tom Horn was the man chosen by Coble.
Coble continued that Horn was to be paid five hundred dollars for every known cattle thief he killed….
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.
Tom Horn was discharged from civilian service in the army (he had served with distinction in the Spanish-American War) in the early fall of 1898. A period of recuperation from the “Cuban fever” no doubt followed.
Tom Horn at left, sleeping under a rail car in Cuba (courtesy Larry D. Ball)
As he healed, in the meantime he developed an interest in a major event to the extent that he was used as an investigator. It was the Wilcox train robbery of June 2, 1899.
At the time of the robbery, the Union Pacific Rail Road’s tracks ran north and east of present-day Rock River, Wyoming. (In 1900 the railroad embarked on a track-shortening project that moved the line to its present location. The location of the robbery today is on privately owned land.)
It was known that the railroad moved large shipments of currency, gold and silver, and other valuables on specific trains, the identity of which were supposedly well guarded secrets. However, information leaked out that high-value cargo, including unsigned bank notes and silver would leave the UP’s headquarters at Omaha to points west. One theory was that “Elzy” Lay, one of Butch Cassidy’s associates, arrived in Medicine Bow the day before the 2:00 a.m. robbery with word for his confederates that the evening train would be carrying loot in the express car.
Three robbers (some accounts, not well verified, pointed to six men) stopped the train just east of a bridge on the rainy morning of June 2. After uncoupling the passenger cars behind the locomotive, tender, mail car and express car, they ordered Engineer Jones to pull past the bridge for a moment. They then dynamited the bridge with charges they had already put in place in order to block the second section of the train from following them.
The train pulled ahead about two miles. They first ordered the mail car opened, after which they learned that any valuables on board were in the locked express car. When the expressman, Charles T. Woodcock, refused to open the express car, they blasted the door open. Woodcock was dazed from the explosion, and either could not remember the combination to the safe or pretended he could not. At that the robbers blew the safe, using such an excessive amount of the “giant powder” that the entire car was destroyed. They escaped on horses they had hidden nearby with over $50,000 in loot.
Union Pacific Depot in Cheyenne, WY.UPRR express car after the dynamiting. (WY State Archives, American Heritage Center)
They headed north toward Casper, secretly crossed the North Platte River and continued north toward the Big Horn Mountains. Stopping to rest overnight, they killed Douglas Sheriff Josiah Hazen when his posse discovered their horses and where they were. In the shootout that followed, they escaped on foot and reached the Big Horns. There they acquired fresh horses from “Black Billy” Hill, a local rancher known to be sympathetic to rustlers and others of their ilk.
Billy Hill (Jim Gatchell Museum, Buffalo WY)
Another posse, that included railroad officials, U.S. Marshal Frank A. Hadsell and others followed the robbers but lost them west of the Big Horns and south of Thermopolis. Investigations by subsequent groups failed to learn who the robbers were and where they headed.
It has been learned that Tom Horn quietly investigated the robbery. He may have been working in some capacity for the Pinkertons as well as the UPRR simply because of the agency’s relationship with the railroad.
Joe LeFors, who later plotted Tom Horn’s downfall, was a member of the Wilcox posse, and was himself a Pinkerton operative with the cipher (code name) of “Pulet.” Other prominent figures in turn-of-the-century annals who were Pinkerton operatives were assigned various ciphers. A few were Frank A. Hadsell, U.S. Marshal, who was assigned “Log;” Peter Swanson, Rock Springs sheriff, was “Stone;” Creede McDaniels, sheriff in Rawlins, was “Hamper;” Thomas Horton, also a sheriff in Rawlins, was “Muff;” R. D. Meldrum, deputy sheriff in Dixon, was “Cigar;” and Charles Ayres, stock association inspector, Dixon, was “Stamp.” There is no record of Horn’s cipher.
At some time after the robbery Horn embarked on his investigation. He generated a report to the division superintendent of the Union Pacific in Cheyenne on the identity of the three robbers who had headed north from Wilcox into the Big Horn Mountains:
“I told him that he had some information that I wanted and he must give it to me, or I would kill him and be done with him.” Iron Mountain, Wyo. January 15th, 1900
E. C. Harris, Esq. Cheyenne, Wyo.
I have this to report in regard to my investigation in Johnson County: On January second I went to the house of old Bill Speck, and stayed all night with him. In the morning it was snowing and I stayed all day.
Bill Speck (Courtesy Hoofprints of the Past Museum, Kaycee WY)
Occasionally I would bring up the train robbery, and he never wanted to talk about it, so on the morning of the fourth when I was going to leave I told him that he had some information that I wanted and he must give it to me, or I would kill him and be done with him. Well, that was just Speck was looking for, and he commenced to cry and said the rest of the rustlers would kill him if he told. I told him I was worse than they, because I would surely kill then and there if he did not tell me, as no man was within eight miles of us.
“he could blow Christ off the Cross with dynamite”
Speck asked my protection from the rest of the rustlers, which of course I offered him, and then he told me as follows:
The morning of the killing of Joe Hazen, George Currie came to Billy Hill’s ranch on Red Fork of Powder River about one o’clock in the morning, and wanted to get some of his own horses that were at Hill’s ranch in charge of Alec Ghent. Currie had four horses there, but there were only two of them in the pasture, the rest being out on the range. Ghent had been looking for these other two horses for three weeks, but could not find them. Currie got his own two horses, and Hill gave him two. Currie told Hill, Speck and Ghent of the robbery, and said it was himself, Harve Ray and a stranger in Powder River country [who had committed it], but Currie would not give his name, saying only that the stranger came from the British possessions and that he could blow Christ off the Cross with dynamite….
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.
