Was he a killer of men? The available facts, consisting of eyewitness accounts and some contemporary newspaper accounts, indicate that Coe shot at Hickok. It rests in a peaceful and quite beautiful cemetery known as Mt. But also he was a man of gentleness and tender caring for the weak and helpless. Also in 1995, he's depicted as a character in an episode of Legend (TV series) by William Russ, possibly most famous for his role in Wiseguy (TV series). The bullet emerged through his right cheek and struck another player, riverboat Captain William Massie, in the left wrist. Wild Bill had learned of the scheme and cornered Coe, had his two pistols drawn on Coe. Hickok ran as an Independent; but lost to his deputy, Peter Lanihan, who ran as a Democrat. He served for a time as a United States Marshal. Mr. Hickok was assassinated in Deadwood, South Dakota on August 2, 1876. Tutt ignored the warning and at the indicated time began to walk into the town square, towards Hickok who was on the opposite side of the square. [29][30], Two days later, Hickok was arrested for murder. In this autobiography he relates an interesting piece of fiction concerning Hickok and Abilene. In quick succession, Hickok was said to have then killed five members of McCanless gang and knocked out another before three more gang members threw him down on a bed, only to be bested in hand-to-hand combat by the knife-wielding Hickok. Hickok left Springfield and opened a new chapter in his life. The Life Summary of James Butler "Wild Bill". [41] In 1979 Hickok was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. Other settlers, opposing slavery, were also pouring into the area. Hickok lost his re-election bid to his deputy. According to their account, the shootout took place not inside the Wellmans cabin but inside the Rock Creek station itself, and Hickoks defense was far from single-handed. Hickok successfully roped the animal, however, the rope slipped back of the buffalo's hump. [24], In late 1863, Hickok worked for the provost marshal of southwest Missouri as a member of the Springfield detective police. Long before the Civil War began, talk of the abolition of slavery got William Hickok both interested and involved. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. McCanles may have been the first man Hickok killed. Utter.". McCall was tried and acquitted of murder as a result of his dubious claim that the killing was in revenge for Hickoks murder of his brother in Abilene. Hickok's brother, Lorenzo Butler Hickok, traveled from Illinois to attend the retrial. 10 in Deadwood (then part of the Dakota Territory but on Indian land), Hickok could not find an empty seat in the corner, where he always sat in order to protect himself against sneak attacks from behind, and instead sat with his back to the door. [d] The jury voted to clear Hickok, resulting in public backlash and criticism of the verdict. It also meant fear and alarm to the common citizen, who had to deal with the drunken dangerous cowboys. William Austin, the cemetery caretaker, estimated 500 lb (227 kg) which made it difficult for the men to carry them to the new site. Buffalo Bill also earned the respect of the great Sioux Chief Sitting Bull and was an early advocate of equal pay for women. As a result, calcium carbonate from the surrounding soil had replaced the flesh, leading to petrifaction. The citizens of Abilene soon learned that they had nothing to fear, from the rowdy trail herd cowboys, with Wild Bill on the job. Fairchilds & Wild Bill Hickok By Bruce Clark July 29, 2004 at 05:06:38. The old woman had tears in her eyes, recalling the incident, even after all the passing years. Together they joined a traveling circus show, and eventually Agnes had a child. In this maneuver, a person hands their gun/s to the unsuspecting party butt's first. According to the story, Hickok placed himself between the crowd and their intended victim. When asked about the incident by Buffalo Bill, Hickok said "I got lost among the hostiles", drawing a parallel between the pool room thugs and being caught by Indians on the plains. [43], "As I write the closing lines of this brief sketch, word reaches me that the slayer of Wild Bill has been re-arrested by the United State authorities, and after trial has been sentenced to death for willful murder. Upon Hickoks arrival, she told him that a Confederate gang led by McCanles was pursuing him, and almost immediately they were set upon by the Confederates. Words were exchanged between Hickok and McCanles, which led to gunplay. When the Civil War began in 1861, Hickok joined the fray as a Union soldier and spy, even fighting in the Battle of Wilson's Creek. Hickok was sent from Abilene to arrest Matt Dillon (William Conrad) for the murder of a man he had thrown out of Dodge earlier that month. After the story was published McCormick's story changed. Calamity Jane is reputed to have led a mob that threatened McCall with lynching, but at the time of Hickok's death, Jane was actually being held by military authorities. James Butler Hickok arrived in Deadwood, along with Colorado Charlie Utter and Calamity Jane, in July of 1876. [5] William Hickok died in 1852, when James was 15. A famous Harper's Magazine article credited Hickok with slaying 10 men that day; by the 1870s, his career-long kill count was up to 100. His reputation as a gunfighter gave rise to legends and tales about his life. It ends with Hickok surviving the murder attempt due to wearing body armor and being shot in the back, then secretly leaving for a ranch in California. After Hickok was cleared of wrong doing the incident passed into history, but not out of controversy. Bathrooms in the Wild West didn't feature proper baths and most weren't formal rooms. [a][8], In 1855, at age 18, James Hickok fled Illinois following a fight with Charles Hudson, during which both fell into a canal; each thought, mistakenly, that he had killed the other. [27] The outlaw John Wesley Hardin was in Abilene in 1871, and was befriended by Hickok. Although the true version of how, or when, Hickok acquired the sobriquet may never be known, it is known that in this area of the country, during this time period, James Butler Hickok began being known as "Wild Bill Hickok"! [28] Tutt's shot missed, but Hickok's struck Tutt through the heart from about 75 yards (69m) away. When patrons became too drunk to gamble he stopped the game, to protect them from losing their money while inebriated. A request for any/all information on either the ship or the indicated captain, from the Cunard line, was submitted by Mr. Rosa in 1957. Bonhams auction company offered this pistol at auction on November 18, 2013, in San Francisco, California,[75] described as Hickok's Smith & Wesson No. ", Rosa, Joseph G. (1979). "[46] Hoping to intimidate Hickok, Coe allegedly stated that he could "kill a crow on the wing". Hickok invented the practice of "posting" men out of town. Richardson wrote of the encounter for the April 1877 issue of Scribner's Monthly, in which he mentions McCall's second trial. Hickok left his new bride a few months later, joining Charlie Utter's wagon train to seek his fortune in the gold fields of South Dakota. According to the Harpers account, Hickok, while guiding a detachment of Union cavalry through southern Nebraska, decided to stop and visit an old friend, Wellmans wife, at Rock Creek Station. In another portion of the "diary" McCormick claimed Calamity had wed Hickok aboard a steamship named the "Madagascar", by it's captain named "O'Neil". In the first season, the show explores this famous gunfighter's final days in the titular lawless town before he was murdered while playing poker. At the end of the incident three men were dead, McCanles and his two friends. Hickok never mentioned it in his statements. He later became a lawman before settling down in Deadwood, South Dakota where he would . "Aces and eights" thus is known as the "Dead Man's Hand". [72] As of 2020, the flag is no longer flown. He is chiefly portrayed as a protagonist, although historical accounts of his actions are often controversial, and much of his career is known to have been exaggerated both by himself and by contemporary mythmakers. Since he was actually shot in the back of the head, that plot element is a complete artifice of the episode writers. AllisonYsamo7744. Wild Bill Hickok is laid to rest at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood, South Dakota. James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 - August 2, 1876), also known as "Wild Bill" Hickok was a legendary figure in the old west. [50] The two entrepreneurs had painted a picture of a bull with a large erect penis on the side of their establishment as an advertisement. He twice asked another man at the table, Charles Rich, to change seats with him, but Rich refused. Hickok managed to fire another shot, wounding the bear's paw. They pull their guns and shoot. On March 5, 1876, Hickok married Agnes Thatcher Lake, a 50-year-old circus proprietor in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. Still, there . PHOTOS: (1) Wild Bill as a young man. Hickok was bedridden for months before he went to southern Nebraska in the summer of 1861 to work at the Pony Express station at Rock Creek. A branch of the family moved to America in 1635. James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok was born in Homer, Illinois in 1837. He then joined General James Henry Lane's Kansas Brigade, and while serving with the brigade, saw his friend Buffalo Bill Cody, who was serving as a scout. At the time of his death Hickok was holding black aces and eights with the fifth card the Jack of Diamonds. On this fateful day Wild Bill violated one of his own cardinal rules and was sitting with his back to a door. Alonzo Hickok was born in Vermont in 1801 and married Polly Butler in 1827. Strange, because never in the twenty-seven years she outlived Hickok did she ever voice such a desire. The plan was to see if a full grown buffalo could be roped and captured from horseback. Usually, Hickok always sat with his back to a wall. She was a world renowned horsewoman, tightrope walker, dancer, sometime actress, lion tamer, and could speak several languages! Includes citations for all sources. In the HBO show Deadwood (2004-2006), Wild Bill is played by Keith Carradine. Hickok refused to play cards with Tutt, who retaliated by financing other players in an attempt to bankrupt him. A second son, named Lorenzo Butler Hickok, was born in October of 1831 but died soon thereafter. She had come there with her traveling circus show. [4] Despite all Hickok photographs indicating he had dark hair, all contemporary descriptions confirm he was in fact golden blonde. A monument has been built there. According to Historynet, his father, William Alonzo Hickock, and mother, Polly Butler Hickock, had met and married in Vermont in 1827, and moved to Troy Grove in 1833.There, they opened a general store, called the Green Mountain House (presumably a nod to their home, the Green Mountain State), which did well at . McCanles was the first man Hickok was reputed to have killed in a fight. During the years 1859-60 Hickok drove freight wagons, and coaches along the Santa Fe Trail. 2 Army revolver, a five-shot, single-action, .32-caliber weapon, innovative as one of the first metallic cartridge firearms and favored by many Union officers during the Civil War. Moriah. Advertisement. Well, sort of. Many people knew that Jane had a crush on Hickok but few, if any, knew that they were married. The election results of Monticello Kansas show Hickok being elected as "Constable", in 1858. Charlie Utter, Hickok's friend and companion, claimed Hickok's body and placed a notice in the local newspaper, the Black Hills Pioneer, which read: Present day gravesite"Died in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876, from the effects of a pistol shot, J. The motive for the killing is still debated. [7] Photographs of Hickok appear to depict dark hair, but all contemporaneous descriptions affirm that it was red. In 1861, he became a town constable in Nebraska. But Coe "reckoned without his host." Not having the courage to do it himself, he one day filled about 200 cowboys with whiskey intending to get them into trouble with Wild Bill, hoping that they would get to shooting and in the melee shoot the marshal. Immigrants from Missouri, supporting slavery, were settling in the hundreds. [7], In 1873, Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro invited Hickok to join their troupe after their earlier success. While he was growing up, his father's farm was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad and Bill learned his hunting and shooting skills protecting the farm with his father from anti-abolitionists (hence his joining the Union Army). Last night I found the common ancestor William Hickox (1609 - 1645). At the time, shooting stray dogs within city limits was legal, and a 50-cent bounty was paid by the city for each one shot. After the Rock Creek incident Hickok went to Leavenworth Kansas and enlisted in the Union Army. In accordance with her dying wish, Calamity Jane was buried next to him. Wild Bill was born James Butler Hickok on May 27, 1837 in Troy Grove, Illinois. Bill Lake was shot to death in 1869, but Agnes continued with the traveling show. In 1859 he joined the Russell, Waddell, and Majors freight company called the Pony Express. When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, Hickok signed on as a teamster for the Union Army in Sedalia, Missouri, and by the end of the year he was a wagonmaster. They quibble over meaningless points, and judge him with the values of another time and another place. McCanles reportedly threatened Wellman, and either Wellman or Hickok, who was hiding behind a curtain, killed McCanles. After fighting in the Union army during the American Civil War, he became a legendary army scout, and later, lawman and gunfighter. Fiction later typified this kind of gunfight, but Hickok's is, in fact, the first one on record that fits the portrayal. Hickok quickly drew his pistols and fired back at Coe. He usually sat with his back to a wall so he could see the entrance, but the only seat available when he joined the game was a chair facing away from the door. The men, women, and children of his own time echoed the words of that old woman of Abilene, "He was a grand man, Marshal Hickok, a grand man". As the rider approached, she recognized the lone rider. Hickok often borrowed money from Tutt. This ended the insulting, but not the incident. M Child 5: James Butler HICKOK also known as: Wild Bill Hickok died at age: 39 Born: 27-May-1837 in Homer (Troy Grove), La SalleCo, IL Died: 2-Aug-1876 in Deadwood, Dakota Territory Buried: 4 Aug 1876 in Mt. Again, unfortunately, Cunard Steamship Company quickly identified the photo as that of a Captain A.C. Greig, who served with them from 1906 to 1945. Hickok warned the armed and dangerous man to cease causing trouble. In August of 1903 Calamity died from complications of alcoholism. In December of 1871 Abilene discharged Hickok as city marshal, after he had made one of the most lawless towns on the frontier safe for decent people. On 28 March 1868, he was again in Hays as a deputy U.S. Marshall, picking up 11 Union deserters charged with stealing government property to be transferred to Topeka for trial. He met Hickok's mother, Polly Butler, in New York State. On this fateful day Wild Bill violated one of his own cardinal rules and was sitting with his back to a door. was advancing on him with a drawn pistol and that Tutt had previously made threats of personal injury to Deft. Prairie Schooners is a 1940 American Western film directed by Sam Nelson, which stars Wild Bill Elliott as Hickok. This, in turn, was destroyed by souvenir hunters and replaced in 1902 by a life-sized sandstone sculpture of Hickok. On September 4, Hickok was wounded in the foot while rescuing several cattlemen in the Bijou Creek basin who had been surrounded by Indians. 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