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 Early years as a
lawman, "posting" men out of town
In
1857, he claimed a 160 acre tract of land in Johnson County, Kansas (in
what is now the city of Lenexa) where he became the first constable of
Monticello Township, Kansas.
In
1861, he became a town constable in Nebraska.
He became well-known for single-handedly capturing the McCanles
gang at Rock Creek Station through the use of force.
On several other occasions, Hickok confronted and killed several
men while fighting alone.
Hickok
invented the concept of “posting” men out of town.
He would put a list on what was called the “dead man's tree”
(so called because men had been lynched on it) while constable of
Monticello Township. Hickok
proclaimed he would shoot them on sight the following day.
Few stayed around to find out if he was serious.
Civil War and Scouting
When
the American Civil War began, Hickok joined the Union forces and served in
the west, mostly in Kansas and Missouri.
He earned a reputation as a skilled scout.
After the war, Hickok became a scout for the U. S. Army and later
was a professional gambler. He
served for a time as a United States Marshal.
In
1867, his fame increased from an interview by Henry Morton Stanley.
Hickok's killing of Whistler the Peacemaker with a long-range rifle shot
had influence in preventing the Sioux from uniting to resist the settler
incursions into the Black Hills. That
rifle shot, supposedly downhill on a windy day and reportedly at over 750
yards, helped cement Hickok's legend as a master of weapons.
Later Career as a
Lawman/Gunfighter
On
July 21, 1865, in the town square of Springfield, Missouri, Hickok killed
Davis K. Tutt, Jr. in a "quick draw" duel.
Fiction would later show this kind of gunfight as typical, but
Hickock's is in fact the only one on record that fits the portrayal.
The incident was precipitated by a dispute over a gambling debt
incurred at a local saloon.
While
Sheriff/City Marshall of Hays, Kansas on July 17, 1870, he was involved in
a gunfight with disorderly soldiers of the 7th US Cavalry, wounding one
and mortally wounding another. In
1871, Hickok became marshall of Abilene, Kansas, taking over for former
Marshal Bear River Thomas J. Smith. Hickok's
encounter in Abilene with outlaw John Wesley Hardin resulted in the latter
fleeing the town after Hickok managed to disarm him.
While
working in Abilene, Hickok and Phil Coe, a saloon owner, had an ongoing
dispute that later resulted in a shootout.
Coe had been the business partner of known gunman Ben Thompson,
with whom he co-owned the Bulls Head Saloon.
On
October 5, 1871, Hickok was standing off a crowd during a street brawl,
during which time Coe fired two shots at Hickok, resulting in
Hickok returning fire and killing Coe.
Hickok, whose eyesight was poor by that time in his life due to the
early stages of glaucoma, caught the glimpse of movement of someone
running toward him.
He quickly fired one
shot in reaction, accidentally shooting and killing Abilene Special Deputy
Marshall Mike Williams, who was coming to his aid, an event that would
haunt him for the remainder of his life.
His famous statement to Coe, who supposedly stated he could “kill
a crow on the wing,” (flying) is one of the Old West's most famous
sayings, and showed that Hickok was certainly a cool customer in a fight.
He answered Coe by sneering, "Did the crow have a pistol? Was
he shooting back? I will be." Whether or not Coe had actually made
the crow brag, and Hickok answered as reported, it certainly personified
the reputation Wild Bill accrued.
Hickok
is said, by Earp's biographer, to have met and been acquainted with later
famous lawman Wyatt Earp.
However, if they met, Hickok never gave any account of it.
Buffalo Bill
Some
accounts of Hickok report him as taking part in Buffalo Bill's Wild West;
however, that production was not in existence prior to 1882, well after
Hickok's death. Nonetheless, Hickok was reported by some to have appeared
with Buffalo Bill in 1873 in a stage play titled "Scouts of the
Plains".
Wagon train venture,
Calamity Jane
Hickok
joined Charlie Utter's July, 1876, wagon train from Colorado to Deadwood,
South Dakota, in which Utter made Hickok a partner, having known Hickok
for quite some time, and linking up with him when the wagon train passed
through Cheyenne, Wyoming. Hickok
would act as scout, and help lead the wagon train through any troubles
they might run across while en route.
The
goal, which was successful, was to ship gamblers, prostitutes, and other
needed commodities to the new boom town.
During its planning and organization, and the actual trip itself,
Hickok first met Calamity Jane.
She
would later claim that they had a romantic relationship, and to have been
one of Hickok's closest friends but, in reality, they barely knew one
another, having met only a month or a little more before his death.
Although Hickok by all reports was friendly toward her, there was
nothing beyond casual hellos and goodbyes.
Also, Hickok had only recently married, and by all accounts he was
completely taken by his wife.
"Dime novel"
fame
It
is difficult to separate the truth from fiction about Hickok, the first
"dime novel" hero of the western era, in many ways one of the
first comic book heroes, keeping company with another who achieved part of
his fame in such a way, frontiersman Davey Crockett.
In the "dimestore novels', exploits of Hickok were presented
in heroic form, making him seem larger than life. In truth, most of the
stories were at the very least greatly exaggerated and in many cases
complete fabrication.
Hickok
himself told the writers with great seriousness that he had killed over
100 men. This number is doubtful, and it is more likely that his total
killings were about 20 or a few more.
There is no doubt that Hickok was a fearless and deadly fighting
man, equally at home with a rifle, revolver, or knife.
His story of fighting a grizzly bear, which he claims mistook him
for food due to his greasy buckskins, personified a man who feared nothing
alive, and after emptying his pistols into the bear, killed it with a
Bowie knife. That story is also thought to be an exaggeration.
Death
On
August 2, 1876, while playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon No. 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. His
paranoia was prescient: he was shot in the back of the head with a
.45-caliber revolver by Jack McCall.
Legend has it that Hickok, playing poker when he was shot, was
holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights, with the fifth card disputed.
The fifth card was either unknown, or some say that it had not yet
been dealt. The game was
interrupted by Hickok getting shot.
The
motive for the killing is still debated.
McCall may have been paid for the deed, or it may have been the
result of a recent dispute between the two.
Most likely McCall became enraged over what he perceived as a
condescending offer from Hickok to let him have enough money for breakfast
after he had lost all his money playing poker the previous day.
McCall claimed at the resulting two-hour trial (by a motley group
of assembled miners and businessmen) that he was avenging Hickok's earlier
slaying of his brother. McCall
was acquitted of the murder, resulting in the Black Hills Pioneer
editorializing:
"Should
it ever be our misfortune to kill a man ... we would simply ask that our
trial may take place in some of the mining camps of these hills"
McCall
was subsequently rearrested after bragging about his deed, and a new trial
was held. The authorities did
not consider this to be double jeopardy because at the time Deadwood was
not recognized by the U.S. as a legitimatly incorporated town (due to
federal laws that made it illegal to settle on Indian land; many people
did anyway). The new trial
was held in U.S. territory, in Yankton, South Dakota.
Hickok's brother, Lorenzo Butler Hickok, traveled from Illinois to
attend the retrial. This time
McCall was found guilty and hanged. After
his execution it was determined that McCall had never had a brother.
Utter
claimed Hickok's body, and placed a notice in the local newspaper, the Black
Hills Pioneer, which read:
"Died
in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876, from the effects of a pistol
shot, J. B. Hickok (Wild Bill) formerly of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Funeral
services will be held at Charlie Utter's Camp, on Thursday afternoon,
August 3, 1876, at 3 o'clock, P. M. All are respectfully invited to
attend."
Almost
the entire town attended the funeral, and Utter had Hickok buried with a
wooden grave marker reading:
"Wild
Bill, J. B. Hickok killed by the assassin Jack McCall in Deadwood, Black
Hills, August 2d, 1876. Pard, we will meet again in the happy hunting
ground to part no more. Good bye, Colorado Charlie, C. H. Utter."
At
the urging of Calamity Jane, Utter in 1879 had Hickok reinterred in a
ten-foot-square plot at the Mount Moriah Cemetery, surrounded by a
cast-iron fence with a U.S. flag flying nearby.
A monument has since been built there.
In accordance with her dying wish, Calamity Jane was buried next to
him.
Shortly
before Hickok's death, he wrote a letter to his new wife, which reads in
part: “Agnes Darling, if such should be we never meet again, while
firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife – Agnes -
and with wishes even for my enemies I will make the plunge and try to swim
to the other shore” and “My dearly beloved if I am to die today and
never see the sweet face of you I want you to know that I am no great man
and am lucky to have such a woman as you.”
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