Legendary Lawmen of the West

 

The western territories were still moving onward at the end of the Civil War. Fur traders, scouts, legendary army units, miners, and fortune seekers all hurried away from the destruction left in the east.

As with the discovery of the Americas, men filtered in first, then women to take care of the needs of the men, and finally families to settle down their long roots to sand away the rough edges of this all-male society. With families, came the need for civilization. With civilization came the need for laws and for those laws to be enforced.

In the next few months, we are going to be looking at legendary lawmen. Many of these lawmen have been immortalized on both the small and large screens. Men like Bat Masterson, Matthew Dillon, Pat Garrett, and Wyatt Earp.  We will examine ten of the most renown lawmen of their time.

Bat Masterson was born in Henryville, Quebec on November 26^th, 1853. He was the second child of seven to his Irish born parents who farmed in Canada and later moved to New York, Illinois, Missouri, finally settling near Wichita, Kansas. He did not begin in law enforcement. Instead, he and his brothers struck off to hunt buffalo in the Great Plains. Their first paying job was to grade the land for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. After working for three months, their boss, Raymond Ritter skipped town without paying the boys for their work. It did not sit well with Mr. Masterson.

For an entire year, Bat and his brothers tracked down Mr. Ritter. On April 15^th, 1873, they received word that Mr. Ritter was on a train headed for Dodge City. The brothers arrived in town before the train and when it pulled to a stop, Bat (short for Bartholomew) hurried to the car in which Mr. Ritter was riding and confronted him.

A crowd of town folks gathered hearing about the incident and watched as Bat, gun drawn marched him to the rear of the train car where his brothers and others who had been stiffed by the gentleman were waiting. There under scrutiny, he forced the man to pay the back wages while the crowd cheered. Thus, a legend was being shaped.

He continued to hunt buffalo only to be hired by the army when the Kiowa, Comanche, and Cheyenne led by the famed warrior, Quanah Parker. He participated in the battle of Adobe Walls and later, as an Army scout, helped follow and locate four young girls who had been abducted by the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. ( sounds a bit like the plot for the movie, The Searchers, doesn’t it)

Eventually, he and his brother, Ed, settled in Dodge City and by July of 1877 began working under various lawmen. The two worked well together until Bat’s brother, was shot and killed by Jack Wagner. Bat caught them and in a short gun battle, Wagner was mortally wounded, and his boss slipped away to Texas.

His fame growing, he found jobs working as a gun for hire as railroads battled for ground in which to lay their tracks. 1882 found Masterson as the city marshal of Trinidad, Colorado. There he was contacted by Wyatt Earp to help keep Doc Holliday from being extradited from Colorado to Arizona. Masterson took the case to the Governor who granted Holliday to stay. As we all know this would not be the only time these men would meet.

When his moonlighting as a faro dealer got him in hot water, Masterson moved along to other cities sometimes as an officer of the law, sometimes as a newspaper man. He promoted prize fighters, and even spent time in New York as a bodyguard for the millionaire George Gould. Befriending President Theodore Roosevelt, he received an appointment as U.S. Deputy Marshall for the Southern District of New York. Like with all presidential appointments, what the president giveth, the next one in office can taketh away.

Taft was not a worshiper of Masterson. Under investigation, Bat was terminated in 1909 and moved back to journalism where for the New York Morning Telegraph he covered boxing matches. It was in his office on October 25, 1921 he suffered a massive heart attack and died at age 67. He is buried in the Bronx.

Numerous movies and TV series romanticized his life. At least ten movies were made, stars like Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, and George Montgomery played the legendary lawman. Television stars like Hugh O’Brian, and Gene Kelly portrayed him on the small screen. Even Doctor Who had his character in an episode.

Next month, we’ll take a gander at Pat Garrett.

Gene Barry as Bat Masterson

Image from NBC Television via Wikipedia

The real Bat Masterson in 1911

Image from Library of Congress via Wikipedia