Bad Men of the Indian Nations--_A Hotbed of Desperadoes_--_Reasons for
Bad Men in the Indian Nations_--_The Dalton Boys_--_The Most Desperate
Street Fight of the West_.
What is true for Texas, in the record of desperadoism, is equally
applicable to the country adjoining Texas upon the north, long known
under the general title of the Indian Nations; although it is now
rapidly being divided and allotted under the increasing demands of an
ever-advancing civilization.
The great breeding ground of outlaws has ever been along the line of
demarcation between the savage and the civilized. Here in the Indian
country, as though in a hotbed especially contrived, the desperado has
flourished for generations. The Indians themselves retained much their
old savage standards after they had been placed in this supposedly
perpetual haven of refuge by the government. They have been followed,
ever since the first movement of the tribes into these reservations, by
numbers of unscrupulous whites such as hang on the outskirts of the
settlements and rebel at the requirements of civilization. Many white
men of certain type married among the Indians, and the half-breed is
reputed as a product inheriting the bad traits of both races and the
good ones of neither--a sweeping statement not always wholly true. Among
these also was a large infusion of negro blood, emanating from the
slaves brought in by the Cherokees, and added to later by negroes moving
in and marrying among the tribes. These mixed bloods seem to have been
little disposed toward the ways of law and order. Moreover, the system
of law was here, of course, altogether different from that of the
States. The freedom from restraint, the exemption from law, which always
marked the border, here found their last abiding place. The Indians were
not adherents to the white man's creed, save as to the worst features,
and they kept their own creed of blood. No man will ever know how many
murders have been committed in these fair and pleasant savannahs, among
these rough hills or upon these rolling grassy plains from the time
William Clark, the "Red Head Chief," began the government work of
settling the tribes in these lands, then supposed to be far beyond the
possible demands of the white population of America.
Life could be lived here with small exertion. The easy gifts of the soil
and the chase, coupled with the easy gifts of the government, unsettled
the minds of all from those habits of steady industry and thrift which
go with the observance of the law. If one coveted his neighbor's
possessions, the ready arbitrament of firearms told whose were the
spoils. Human life has been cheap here for more than half a hundred
years; and this condition has endured directly up to and into the days
of white civilization. The writer remembers very well that in his
hunting expeditions of twenty years ago it was always held dangerous to
go into the Nations; and this was true whether parties went in across
the Neutral Strip, or farther east among the Osages or the Creeks. The
country below Coffeyville was wild and remote as we saw it then,
although now it is settling up, is traversed by railroads, and is slowly
passing into the hands of white men in severalty, as fast as the
negroes release their lands, or as fast as the government allows the
Indians to give individual titles. In those days it was a matter of
small concern if a traveler never returned from a journey among the
timber clad mountains, or the black jack thickets along the rivers; and
many was the murder committed thereabouts that never came to light.
In and around the Indian Nations there have also always been refugees
from the upper frontier or from Texas or Arkansas. The country was long
the natural haven of the lawless, as it has long been the designated
home of a wild population. In this region the creed has been much the
same even after the wild ethics of the cow men yielded to the scarcely
more lawful methods of the land boomer.
Each man in the older days had his own notion of personal conduct, as
each had his own opinions about the sacredness of property. It was
natural that train robbing and bank looting should become recognized
industries when the railroads and towns came into this fertile region,
so long left sacred to the chase. The gangs of such men as the Cook
boys, the Wickcliffe boys, or the Dalton boys, were natural and logical
products of an environment. That this should be the more likely may be
seen from the fact that for a decade or more preceding the great rushes
of the land grabbers, the exploits of the James and Younger boys in
train and bank robbing had filled all the country with the belief that
the law could be defied successfully through a long term of years. The
Cook boys acted upon this basis, until at length marshals shot them
both, killed one and sent the remnants of the other to the penitentiary.
Since it would be impossible to go into any detailed mention of the
scores and hundreds of desperadoes who have at different times been
produced by the Nations, it may be sufficient to give a few of the
salient features of the careers of the band which, as well as any, may
be called typical of the Indian Nations brand of desperadoism--the once
notorious Dalton boys.
The Dalton family lived in lower Kansas, near Coffeyville, which was
situated almost directly upon the border of the Nations. They engaged in
farming, and indeed two of the family were respectable farmers near
Coffeyville within the last three or four years. The mother of the
family still lives near Oklahoma City, where she secured a good claim at
the time of the opening of the Oklahoma lands to white settlement. The
father, Lewis Dalton, was a Kentucky man and served in the Mexican war.
He later moved to Jackson county, Missouri, near the home of the
notorious James and Younger boys, and in 1851 married Adelaide Younger,
they removing some years later from Missouri to Kansas. Thirteen
children were born to them, nine sons and four daughters. Charles,
Henry, Littleton and Coleman Dalton were respected and quiet citizens.
All the boys had nerve, and many of them reached office as deputy
marshals. Franklin Dalton was killed while serving as deputy United
States marshal near Fort Smith, in 1887, his brother Bob being a member
of the same posse at the time his fight was made with a band of horse
thieves who resisted arrest. Grattan Dalton, after the death of his
brother Franklin, was made a deputy United States marshal, after the
curious but efficient Western fashion of setting dangerous men to work
at catching dangerous men. He and his posse in 1888 went after a bad
Indian, who, in the melée, shot Grattan in the arm and escaped. Grattan
later served as United States deputy marshal in Muskogee district, where
the courts certainly needed men of stern courage as executives, for they
had to deal with the most desperate and fearless class of criminals the
world ever knew. Robert R. Dalton, better known as Bob Dalton, served on
the posses of his brothers, and soon learned what it was to stand up and
shoot while being shot at. He turned out to be about the boldest of the
family, and was accepted as the clan leader later on in their exploits.
He also was a deputy United States marshal at the dangerous stations of
Fort Smith and Wichita, having much to do with the desperadoes of the
Nations. He was chief of the Osage police for some time, and saw
abundance of violent scenes. Emmett Dalton was also possessed of cool
nerve, and was soon known as a dangerous man to affront. All the boys
were good shots, but they seemed to have cared more for the Winchester
than the six-shooter in their exploits, in which they were perhaps wise,
for the rifle is of course far the surer when it is possible of use; and
men mostly rode in that country with rifle under leg.
Uncle Sam is obliged to take such material for his frontier peace
officers as proves itself efficient in serving processes. A coward may
be highly moral, but he will not do as a border deputy. The personal
character of some of the most famous Western deputies would scarcely
bear careful scrutiny, but the government at Washington is often
obliged to wink at that sort of thing. There came a time when it
remained difficult longer to wink at the methods of the Daltons as
deputies. In one case they ran off with a big bunch of horses and sold
them in a Kansas town. On account of this episode, Grattan, William, and
Emmett Dalton made a hurried trip to California. Here they became
restless, and went back at their old trade, thinking that no one even on
the Pacific Slope had any right to cause them fear. They held up a train
in Tulare county and killed a fireman, but were repulsed. Later arrested
and tried, William was cleared, but Grattan was sentenced to twenty
years in the penitentiary. He escaped from jail before he got to the
penitentiary, and rejoined Emmett at the old haunts in the Nations,
Emmett having evaded arrest in California. The Southern Pacific railway
had a standing offer of $6,000 for the robbers at the time they were
killed.
The Daltons were now more or less obliged to hide out, and to make a
living as best they could, which meant by robbery. On May 9, 1891, the
Santa Fé train was held up at Wharton, Oklahoma Territory, and the
express car was robbed, the bandits supposedly being the Daltons. In
June of the following year another Santa Fé train was robbed at Red
Rock, in the Cherokee strip. The 'Frisco train was robbed at Vinita,
Indian Territory. An epidemic of the old methods of the James and
Younger bands seemed to have broken out in the new railway region of the
Southwest. The next month the Missouri, Kansas and Texas train was held
up at Adair, Indian Territory, and a general fight ensued between the
robbers and the armed guard of the train, assisted by citizens of the
town. A local physician was killed and several officers and citizens
wounded, but none of the bandits was hurt, and they got away with a
heavy loot of the express and baggage cars. At Wharton they had been
less fortunate, for though they killed the station agent, they were
rounded up and one of their men, Dan Bryant, was captured, later killing
and being killed by United States deputy Ed. Short, as mentioned in an
earlier chapter. Dick Broadwell joined the Dalton gang about now, and
they nearly always had a few members besides those of their own family;
their gang being made up and conducted on much the same lines of the
James boys gang of Missouri, whose exploits they imitated and used as
text for their bolder deeds. In fact it was the boast of the leader, Bob
Dalton, in the Coffeyville raid, that he was going to beat anything the
James boys ever did: to rob two banks in one town at the same time.
Bank robbing was a side line of activity with the Daltons, but they did
fairly well at it. They held up the bank at El Reno, at a time when no
one was in the bank except the president's wife, and took $10,000,
obliging the bank to suspend business. By this time the whole country
was aroused against them, as it had been against the James and Younger
boys. Pinkerton detectives had blanket commissions offered, and railway
and express companies offered rewards running into the thousands. Each
train across the Indian Nations was accompanied for months by a heavily
armed guard concealed in the baggage and express cars. Passengers
dreaded the journey across that country, and the slightest halt of the
train for any cause was sure to bring to the lips of all the word of
fear, "the Daltons!" It seems almost incredible of belief that, in these
modern days of fast railway service, of the telegraph and of rapidly
increasing settlements, the work of these men could so long have been
continued; but such, none the less, was the case. The law was powerless,
and demonstrated its own unfitness to safeguard life and property, as so
often it has in this country. And, as so often has been the case,
outraged society at length took the law into its own hands and settled
the matter.
The full tale of the Dalton robberies and murders will never be known,
for the region in which they operated was reticent, having its own
secrets to protect; but at last there came the climax in which the band
was brought into the limelight of civilized publicity. They lived on the
border of savagery and civilization. Now the press, the telegraph, the
whole fabric of modern life, lay near at hand. Their last bold raid,
therefore, in which they crossed from the country of reticence into that
of garrulous news gathering, made them more famous than they had ever
been before. The raid on Coffeyville, October 5, 1892, both established
and ended their reputation as desperadoes of the border.
The rumor got out that the Daltons were down in the Nations, waiting for
a chance to raid the town of Coffeyville, but the dreaded attack did not
come off when it was expected. When it was delivered, therefore, it
found the town quite unprepared. Bob Dalton was the leader in this
enterprise. Emmett did not want to go. He declared that too many people
knew them in Coffeyville, and that the job would prove too big for them
to handle. He consented to join the party, however, when he found Bob
determined to make the attempt in any case. There were in the band at
that time Bob, Emmett, and Grattan Dalton, Bill Powers and Dick
Broadwell. These lay in rendezvous near Tulsa, in the Osage country, two
days before the raid, and spent the night before in the timber on Onion
creek, not far below town. They rode into Coffeyville at half-past nine
the following morning. The street being somewhat torn up, they turned
aside into an alley about a hundred yards from the main street, and,
dismounting, tied their horses, which were thus left some distance from
the banks, the First National and the bank of C. M. Condon & Co., which
were the objects of their design.
Grattan Dalton, Dick Broadwell and Bill Powers stepped over to the
Condon bank, which was occupied at the time by C. T. Carpenter, C. M.
Ball, the cashier, and T. C. Babb, a bookkeeper. Grattan Dalton threw
down his rifle on Carpenter, with the customary command to put up his
hands; the others being attended to by Powers and Broadwell. Producing a
two-bushel sack, the leader ordered Carpenter to put all the cash into
it, and the latter obeyed, placing three thousand dollars in silver and
one thousand in currency in the sack. Grattan wanted the gold, and
demanded that an inner safe inside the vault should be opened. The
cashier, Ball, with a shifty falsehood, told him that they could not
open that safe, for it was set on a time lock, and no one could open it
before half-past nine o'clock. He told the outlaw that it was now twenty
minutes after nine (although it was really twenty minutes of ten); and
the latter said they could wait ten minutes. He was, however, uneasy,
and was much of the mind to kill Ball on the spot, for he suspected
treachery, and knew how dangerous any delay must be.
It was a daring thing to do--to sit down in the heart of a civilized
city, in broad daylight and on the most public street, and wait for a
time lock to open a burglar-proof safe. Daring as it was, it was foolish
and futile. As the robbers stood uneasily guarding their prisoners, the
alarm was spread. A moment later firing began, and the windows of the
bank were splintered with bullets. The robbers were trapped, Broadwell
being now shot through the arm, probably by P. L. Williams from across
the street. Yet they coolly went on with their work as they best could,
Grattan Dalton ordering Ball to cut the string of the bag and pour out
the heavy silver, which would have encumbered them too much in their
flight. He asked if there was not a back way out, by which they could
escape. He was shown a rear door, and the robbers stepped out, to find
themselves in the middle of the hottest street fight any of them had
ever known. The city marshal, Charles T. Connolly, had given the alarm,
and citizens were hurrying to the street with such weapons as they could
find at the hardware stores and in their own homes.
Meantime Bob and Emmett Dalton had held up the First National Bank,
ordering cashier Ayres to hand out the money, and terrorizing two or
three customers of the bank who happened to be present at the time. Bob
knew Thos. G. Ayres, and called him by his first name, "Tom," said he,
"go into the safe and get out that money--get the gold, too." He
followed Ayres into the vault, and discovered two packages of $5,000
each in currency, which he tossed into his meal sack. The robbers here
also poured out the silver, and having cleaned up the bank as they
supposed, drove the occupants out of the door in front of them. As they
got into the street they were fired upon by George Cubine and C. S. Cox;
but neither shot took effect. Emmett Dalton stood with his rifle under
his arm, coolly tying up the neck of the sack which held the money. They
then both stepped back into the bank, and went out through the back
door, which was opened for them by W. H. Shepherd, the bank teller, who,
with Tom Ayres and B. S. Ayres, the bookkeeper, made the bank force on
hand. J. H. Brewster, C. H. Hollingsworth and A. W. Knotts were in the
bank on business, and were joined by E. S. Boothby; all these being left
unhurt.
The firing became general as soon as the robbers emerged from the two
bank buildings. The first man to be shot by the robbers was Charles T.
Gump, who stood not far from the First National Bank armed with a
shotgun. Before he could fire Bob Dalton shot him through the hand, the
same bullet disabling his shotgun. A moment later, a young man named
Lucius Baldwin started down the alley, armed with a revolver. He met
Bob and Emmett, who ordered him to halt, but for some reason he kept on
toward them. Bob Dalton said, "I'll have to kill you," and so shot him
through the chest. He died three hours later.
Bob and Emmett Dalton now passed out of the alley back of the First
National Bank, and came into Union street. Here they saw George B.
Cubine standing with his Winchester in his hands, and an instant later
Cubine fell dead, with three balls through his body. Near him was
Charles Brown, an old man, who was also armed. He was the next victim,
his body falling near that of Cubine, though he lived for a few hours
after being shot. All four of these victims of the Daltons were shot at
distances of about forty or fifty yards, and with rifles, the revolver
being more or less uncertain at such ranges even in practiced hands. All
the gang had revolvers, but none used them.
Thos. G. Ayres, late prisoner in the First National Bank, ran into a
store near by as soon as he was released, caught up a Winchester and
took a station near the street door, waiting for the bandits to come out
at that entrance of the bank. Here he was seen by Bob Dalton, who had
gone through the alley. Bob took aim and at seventy-five yards shot
Ayres through the head. Friends tried to draw his body back into the
store, but these now met the fire of Grattan Dalton and Powers, who,
with the crippled Broadwell, were now coming out of their alleyway.
T. A. Reynolds, a clerk in the same store, who went to the door armed,
received a shot through the foot, and thus made the third wounded man
then in that building. H. H. Isham, one of the owners of the store,
aided by M. A. Anderson and Charles K. Smith, joined in the firing.
Grattan Dalton and Bill Powers were shot mortally before they had gone
more than a few steps from the door of the Condon bank. Powers tried to
get into a door when he was shot, and kept his feet when he found the
door locked, managing to get to his horse in the alley before he was
killed by a second shot. Grattan Dalton also kept his feet, and reached
cover back of a barn about seventy yards from Walnut Street, the main
thorough-fare. He stood at bay here, and kept on firing. City marshal
Connolly, carrying a rifle, ran across to a spot near the corner of this
barn. He had his eye on the horses of the bandits, which were still
hitched in the alley. His back was turned toward Grattan Dalton. The
latter must have been crippled somewhere in his right arm or shoulder,
for he did not raise his rifle to his face, but fired from his hip,
shooting Connolly down at a distance of about twenty feet or so.
There was a slight lull at this point of the street fight, and during
this Dick Broadwell, who had been wounded again in the back, crawled
into concealment in a lumber yard near by the alley where the horses
were tied. He crept out to his horse and mounted, but just as he started
away met the livery man, John J. Kloehr, who did some of the best
shooting recorded by the citizens. Kloehr was hurrying thither with
Carey Seaman, the latter armed with a shotgun. Kloehr fired his rifle
and Seaman his shotgun, and both struck Broadwell, who rode away, but
fell dead from his horse a short distance outside the town.
Bob and Emmett Dalton, after killing Cubine and Brown and shooting
Ayres, hurried on to join their companions and to get to their horses.
At an alleyway junction they spied F. D. Benson climbing out of a
window, and fired at him, but missed. An instant later, as Bob stepped
into full view of those who were firing from the Isham store, he was
struck by a ball and badly wounded. He walked slowly across the alley
and sat down on a pile of stones, but like his brother Grattan, he kept
his rifle going, though mortally shot. He fired once at Kloehr, but was
unsteady and missed him. Rising to his feet he walked a few paces and
leaned against the corner of a barn, firing two more shots. He was then
killed by Kloehr, who shot him through the chest.
By this time Grattan Dalton was feebly trying to get to his horse. He
passed the body of Connolly, whom he had killed, faced toward his
pursuers and tried to fire. He, too, fell before Kloehr's Winchester,
shot through the throat, dropping close to the body of Connolly.
Emmett Dalton was now the only one of the band left alive. He was as yet
unwounded, and he got to his horse. As he attempted to mount a number of
shots were fired at him, and these killed the two horses belonging to
Bob Dalton and Bill Powers, who by this time had no further use for
horses. Two horses hitched to an oil wagon in the street were also
killed by wild shots. Emmett got into his saddle, but was shot through
the right arm and through the left hip and groin. He still clung to the
sack of money they had taken at the First National Bank, and he still
kept his nerve and his wits even under such pressure of peril. He might
have escaped, but instead he rode back to where Bob was lying, and
reached down his hand to help him up behind himself on the horse. Bob
was dying and told him it was no use to try to help him. As Emmett
stooped down to reach Bob's arm, Carey Seaman fired both barrels of his
shotgun into his back, Emmett dropping near Bob and falling upon the
sack, containing over $20,000 in cash. Men hurried up and called to him
to throw up his hands. He raised his one unhurt arm and begged for
mercy. It was supposed he would die, and he was not lynched, but hurried
away to a doctor's office near by.
In the little alley where the last scene of this bloody fight took place
there were found three dead men, one dying man and one badly wounded.
Three dead horses lay near the same spot. In the whole fight, which was
of course all over in a few moments, there were killed four citizens and
four outlaws, three citizens and one outlaw being wounded. Less than a
dozen citizens did most of the shooting, of which there was
considerable, eighty bullet marks being found on the front of the
Condon bank alone.
The news of this bloody encounter was instantly flashed over the
country, and within a few hours the town was crowded with sightseers who
came in by train loads. The dead bandits were photographed, and the
story of the fight was told over and over again, not always with
uniformity of detail. Emmett Dalton, before he was sent to the
penitentiary, confessed to different crimes, not all of them hitherto
known, which the gang had at different times committed.
So ended in blood the career of as bloody a band as might well be
discovered in the robber history of any land or time of the world.
Indeed, it is doubtful if any country ever saw leagues of robbers so
desperate as those which have existed in America, any with hands so red
in blood. This fact is largely due to the peculiar history of this
country, with its rapid development under swift modern methods of
transportation. In America the advance to the westward of the fighting
edge of civilization, where it meets and mingles with savagery, has been
more rapid than has ever been known in the settlement of any country of
the world. Moreover, this has taken place at precisely that time when
weapons of the most deadly nature have been invented and made at a price
permitting all to own them and many to become extremely skilled with
them. The temptation and the means of murder have gone hand in hand. And
in time the people, not the organized law courts, have applied the
remedy when the time has come for it. To-day the Indian Nations are no
more than a name. Civilization has taken them over. Statehood has
followed territorial organization. Presently rich farms will make a
continuous sea of grain across what was once a flood of crime, and the
wheat will grow yellow, and the cotton white, where so long the grass
was red.