Joseph A. Slade--_A Man with a Newspaper Reputation_--_Bad, but Not as
Bad as Painted_--_Hero of the Overland Express Route_--_A Product of
Courage Plus Whiskey, and the End of the Product_.
One of the best-known desperadoes the West ever produced was Joseph A.
Slade, agent of the Overland stage line on the central or mountain
division, about 1860, and hence in charge of large responsibilities in a
strip of country more than six hundred miles in extent, which possessed
all the ingredients for trouble in plenty. Slade lived, in the heyday of
his career, just about the time when men from the East were beginning to
write about the newly discovered life of the West. Bret Harte had left
his indelible stamp upon the literature of the land, and Mark Twain was
soon to spread widely his impressions of life as seen in "Roughing It";
while countless newspaper men and book writers were edging out and
getting hearsay stories of things known at first hand by a very few
careful and conscientious writers.
The hearsay man engaged in discovering the West always clung to the
regular lines of travel; and almost every one who passed across the
mountains on the Overland stage line would hear stories about the
desperate character of Slade. These stories grew by newspaper
multiplication, until at length the man was owner of the reputation of a
fiend, a ghoul, and a murderer. There was a wide difference between this
and the truth. As a matter of fact, there were many worse desperadoes on
the border.
Slade was born at Carlisle, Illinois, and served in the Mexican War in
1848. He appears to have gone into the Overland service in 1859. At once
he plunged into the business of the stage line, and soon became a terror
to the thieves and outlaws, several of whom he was the means of having
shot or hung, although he himself was nothing of a man-hunter at the
time; and indeed, in all his life he killed but one man--a case of a
reputation beyond desert, and an instance of a reputation fostered by
admiring but ignorant writers.
Slade was reported to have tied one of his enemies, Jules Reni, more
commonly called Jules, to the stake, and to have tortured him for a day,
shooting him to pieces bit by bit, and cutting off his ears, one of
which he always afterward wore in his pocket as a souvenir. There was
little foundation for this reputation beyond the fact that he did kill
Jules, and did it after Jules had been captured and disarmed by other
men. But he had been threatened time and again by Jules, and was once
shot and left for dead by the latter, who emptied a pistol and a shotgun
at Slade, and left him lying with thirteen bullets and buckshot in his
body. Jules thought he did not need to shoot Slade any more after that,
and gave directions for his burial as soon as he should have died. At
that Slade rose on his elbow and promised Jules he would live and would
wear one of his, Jules', ears on his watch chain; a threat which no
doubt gave rise to a certain part of his ghastly reputation. Jules was
hung for a while by the stage people, but was let down and released on
promise of leaving the country never to return. He did not keep his
promise, and it had been better for him if he had.
Jules Reni was a big Frenchman, one of that sort of early ranchers who
were owners of small ranches and a limited number of cattle and
horses--just enough to act as a shield for thefts of live stock, and to
offer encouragement to such thefts. Before long Jules was back at his
old stamping-grounds, where he was looked on as something of a bully;
and at once he renewed his threats against Slade.
Slade went to the officers of the military post at Laramie, the only
kind of authority then in the land, which had no sort of courts or
officers, and asked them what he should do. They told him to have Jules
captured and then to kill him, else Jules would do the same for him.
Slade sent four men out to the ranch where Jules was stopping, about
twelve miles from Laramie, while he followed in the stage-coach. These
men captured Jules at a ranch a little farther down the line, and left
him prisoner at the stage station. Here Slade found him in the corral, a
prisoner, unarmed and at his mercy, and without hesitation he shot him,
the ball striking him in the mouth. His victim fell and feigned death,
but Slade--who was always described as a good pistol shot--saw that he
was not killed, and told him he should have time to make his will if he
desired. There is color in the charge of deliberate cruelty, but
perhaps rude warrant for the cruelty, under the circumstances of
treachery in which Jules had pursued Slade. At least, some time elapsed
while a man was running back and forward from the house to the corral
with pen and ink and paper. Jules never signed his will. When the last
penful of ink came out to the corral, Jules was dead, shot through the
head by Slade. This looks like cruelty of an unnecessary sort, and like
taunting a helpless victim; but here the warrant for all the Slade sort
of stories seems to end, and there is no evidence of his mutilating his
victim, as was often described.
Slade went back to the officers of Fort Laramie, and they said he had
done right and did not detain him. Nor did any of Jules' friends ever
molest him. He returned to his work on the Overland. After this he grew
more turbulent, and was guilty of high-handed outrages and of a general
disposition to run things wherever he went. The officers at Fort Halleck
arrested him and refused to turn him over to the stage line unless the
latter agreed to discharge him. This was done, and now Slade, out of
work, began to be bad at heart. He took to drink and drifting, and so at
last turned up at the Beaverhead diggings in 1863, not much different
from many others of the bad folk to be found there.
Quiet enough when sober, Slade was a maniac in drink, and this latter
became his habitual condition. Now and again he sobered up, and he
always was a business man and animated by an ambition to get on in the
world. He worked here and there in different capacities, and at last
settled on a ranch a dozen miles or so from Virginia City, where he
lived with his wife, a robust, fine-looking woman of great courage and
very considerable beauty, of whom he was passionately fond; although she
lived almost alone in the remote cabin in the mountains, while Slade
pursued his avocations, such as they were, in the settlements along
Alder Gulch.
Slade now began to grow ugly and hard, and to exult in terrorizing the
hard men of those hard towns. He would strike a man in the face while
drinking with him, would rob his friends while playing cards, would ride
into the saloons and break up the furniture, and destroy property with
seeming exultation at his own maliciousness. He was often arrested,
warned, and fined; and sometimes he defied such officers as went after
him and refused to be arrested. His whole conduct made him a menace to
the peace of this little community, which was now endeavoring to become
more decent, and he fell under the fatal scrutiny of the Vigilantes, who
concluded that the best thing to do was to hang Slade. He had never
killed anyone as yet, although he had abused many; but it was sure that
he would kill some one if allowed to run on; and, moreover, it was
humiliating to have one man trying to run the town and doing as he
pleased. Slade was to learn what society means, and what the social
compact means, as did many of these wild men who had been running as
savages outside of and independent of the law. Slade got wind of the
deliberations of the Committee, as well he might when six hundred men
came down from Nevada Camp to Virginia City to help in the court of the
miners, before which Slade was now to come. It was the Nevada Vigilantes
who were most strongly of the belief that death and not banishment was
the proper punishment for Slade. The leader of the marching men calmly
told Slade that the Committee had decided to hang him; and, once the
news was sure, Slade broke out into lamentations.
This was often the case with men who had been bullies and terrors. They
weakened when in the hands of a stronger power. Slade crept about on his
hands and knees, begging like a baby. "My God! My God!" he cried. "Must
I die? Oh, my poor wife, my poor wife! My God, men, you can't mean that
I'm to die!"
They did mean it, and neither his importunities nor those of his friends
had avail. His life had been too rough and violent and was too full of
menace to others. He had had his fair frontier chance and had misused
it. Some wept at his prayers, but none relented. In broad daylight, the
procession moved down the street, and soon Slade was swinging from the
beam of a corral gate, one more example of the truth that when man
belongs to society he owes duty to society and else must suffer at its
hands. This was the law.
Slade's wife was sent for and reached town soon after Slade's body was
cut down and laid out. She loaded the Vigilantes with imprecations, and
showed the most heartbroken grief. The two had been very deeply
attached. She was especially regretful that Slade had been hanged and
not shot. He was worth a better death than that, she protested.
Slade's body was preserved in alcohol and kept out at the lone ranch
cabin all that winter. In the spring it was sent down to Salt Lake City
and buried there. As that was a prominent point on the overland trail,
the tourists did the rest. The saga of Slade as a bad man was widely
disseminated.