From the beginning, Olive and Mary Ann were well treated by the Mohave. On the first day of the trip to their village, the Indians did push the girls too hard and their feet were nicked and raw. But on the second day, the Mohave, upon realizing this, made shoes out of skins for the girls and covered less ground. Also, Topeka shared the blankets that she carried with the girls each night.
After eleven days, the party reached the Mohave’s valley, which the girls found quite beautiful. They were taken to the house of the local leader, Espaniole, Topeka’s father. (This was to become their house, as well.) After greeting Topeka as if she had been gone for months, Espaniole welcomed the girls to the village. They were taken outside and their arrival was celebrated by singing and dancing. This was not unusual; the Mohave always met strangers with hospitality.
The girls did many of the things that they had done with the Yavapai; they carried water and wood, and helped with the farming. But they also played – they played tag, played dice, swam in the Colorado, and climbed trees. The girls sang their Sunday school hymns, which greatly impressed the Mohave, who had high regard for singers. The Mohave even gave the girls presents for singing.
Their Mormon upbringing, however, did not prepare the girls for some of what they encountered. After a good harvest, there would be a feast. The Mohave would wear masks and paint their faces and dance until midnight. The next day they would eat. At one banquet, Olive “witnessed some of the most shameful indecencies, on the part of both male and female.”
The Mohave considered sex natural and fun. They even encouraged the young to engage in sexual activity, and many Mohave lost their virginity by the time they reached puberty. How much of this, if any, Olive entered into is unknown. She never said. Olive was adopted into the tribe and given a clan name, so the feeling today, is that she probably was sexually initiated into the tribe.
It is also unknown whether she ever married a Mohave or had any children. The mores of the late nineteenth century would have labeled her as hopelessly “damaged goods” if she had. So, again, she never spoke on the subject.
Olive Oatman Fairchild
The Mohave women wore chin tattoos as a passport to the afterlife. Both Olive and Mary Ann were tattooed. This is a further indication of their acceptance into the tribe. The Mohave did not tattoo anyone who did not want to be. (The picture at the right shows the tattoo – it was taken in Rochester, NY.)
In early 1854, Lt. Amiel Whipple, traveling with a group of more than one hundred scientists, soldiers, and guides, was sent to survey a railroad route from the Mississippi to the Pacific. In February he met some Mohave who took him to their village. There was much trading and the two groups freely mingled.
Strangely, he later said that he saw no white women while he was there. He never saw the Oatmans and they never approached him. If Olive was hidden from the survey party, she never mentioned it in her biography. If she was roaming freely among the whites with the other Mohave, why did she not make herself known to Whipple or anyone else? (If she was moving freely among the whites, she might very well not have been recognized as white – she wore only a bark skirt that went to her knees, she was tanned, and her light brown hair was dyed black with the gum of the mesquite tree.)
This episode likely shows Olive’s complete assimilation into the tribe – she might very well not have wanted to return to the white world. She was tattooed. And white society would probably have assumed the worst about her experiences with the Mohave. And, above all else, she had become Mohave.
Mary Ann was never to return to the white world. She had always been frail. At one point in 1853 she became too sick to work. In 1855, after several good years, there was a spring drought, and the Mohave found themselves with very little to eat. (The Mohave only grew what they needed and never put away excess for “a rainy day.”) People, mostly children, were dying. Mary Ann was one of them. When Mary Ann died, Olive had her buried where the two of them had gardened.
During their years with the Indians, the girls were not forgotten. Their brother, Lorenzo, survived the massacre.
After the initial attack, when the Yavapai were removing Lorenzo’s hat and shoes, he moaned. The Indians dragged him to the edge of the mesa and threw him off.
But Lorenzo did not die. The next morning he awoke, hurt and dazed. He managed to climb back up the mesa, and viewed the carnage. He realized that Olive and Mary Ann had been taken captive. He staggered off toward Maricopa Wells.
On the second day he was found by two friendly Pima Indians and escorted toward the town. On the way, they ran into the Kellys and the Wilders, two of the families that the Oatmans had traveled with.
The party returned to Maricopa Wells, feeling that it was too dangerous to continue. Eventually, with the protection of several army deserters who were heading west to look for gold, the two families, along with Lorenzo, headed to California.
At Fort Yuma, Lorenzo told his story. But, using one excuse or another, the commander refused to search for the girls.
Lorenzo stayed at the fort while the Kellys and Wilders pushed on, but eventually he also headed to California.
Through the years Lorenzo continued to try to get the authorities to search for his sisters – writing to the California government and the commander at Fort Yuma. Finally, in 1856, Lorenzo learned from a California rancher that a white woman was living with the Mohave.
In January 1856, Francisco, one of the Indians in the group that had first encountered the Whipple party, appeared at Fort Yuma, said that he knew where Olive was, and offered, for a price, to seek her release.
Negotiations with the Mohave did not go well. Espaniole did not want to let her go – he wanted to raise her. He also stated that the women of the tribe would be sad to see her go.
Francisco eventually became furious and said that millions of whites, hidden in the surrounding hills, would kill the Mohave, if the girl was not freed. The Mohave finally agreed, and for two horses, beads, and blankets, Olive was released. For a second time Olive was torn from her family.
After a trek of eleven days she reached Fort Yuma. Upon her return to civilization, she spoke well of the Mohave and her treatment with them. She was stunned to hear that Lorenzo was still alive.
Several weeks after her release she was reunited with her brother. After her release, much was written about her and she was reunited with other relatives as well.
Unfortunately, she came under the influence of a young reverend, Royal Byron Stratton. With Stratton’s help Olive wrote a book about her experiences. The contents of the book were at odds with Olive’s initial statements about the Mohave and her life with them. Stratton had his own agenda and was not a fan of the Indian.
Olive went on tour, giving lectures about her experiences, and promoting her book.
In 1865, she gave up touring. She was financially secure. And she broke ties with Stratton.
She met a Michigan farmer and rancher named John Brant Fairchild. They were married in Rochester, NY in November, 1865.
They moved to Sherman, Texas in 1872. Fairchild became rich. John was derscribed as handsome and distinguished; Olive as shy and reclusive – apparently never recovering from the sadness of her early experiences.
She did charity work, taking in children from the local orphanage. The Fairchilds adopted a girl that they named Mary Elizabeth. The Fairchilds never had any children of their own.
Olive battled eye trouble, headaches, and depression. She spent months in a sanatorium near Niagara Falls. She died of a heart attack in 1903 and is buried in the West Hill Cemetery in Sherman.
- Oatman AZ, is named for Olive. The name was changed from Vivian to Oatman after Olive’s death through the influence of a man named John Oatman, who claimed to be Olive’s Mohave son.
- For a much fuller account of Olive Oatman, see The Blue Tattoo – The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin.
They came to a steep ascent. The oxen balked. So the family unpacked the wagon and began to carry their possessions up the hill.
After the first load, they stopped for lunch; then continued to bring up their goods.
After the wagon was repacked, Lorenzo happened to look down the hill. He was the first to see them: nineteen Yavapai meandering up the hill. He alerted his father, Royce. Royce told the family not to be alarmed.
The Indians asked for tobacco. Royce shared a pipe with them. They also demanded food. Royce was hesitant, as his family had little, but he gave them some bread. They demanded more and started to search the wagon. Royce refused.
The Yavapai walked off to talk among themselves.
They pulled knives and clubs – it was over within a few minutes. Lorenzo and Royce were the first to go down. Royce’s wife, Mary Ann, and several of their children, Lucy, Roland, Royce Jr., and Charity Ann, followed. Only their daughters, Mary Ann and Olive, were not harmed. Seven-year-old Mary Ann had crumpled to the ground, crying into her hands. Fourteen-year-old Olive fainted.
It was February 18, 1851, on a mesa near the Gila River in, what would become, southern Arizona. It was also the beginning of the five-year captivity of Olive Ann Oatman.
The Oatmans were Mormons from Illinois. More Specifically, they were Brewsterites. The Brewsterites were a splinter sect that formed in 1837. James C. Brewster, eleven-years-old at the time, claimed to have had divine revelations.
Brewster claimed that there was a “promised land” at the mouth of the Colorado River: fertile, wooded, and temperate. He also claimed that the Indians in the area were friendly. He was wrong on all counts.
Eventually, Brewster decided to lead his followers to this “promised land” and, in May, 1850, the Oatmans started west. Collecting some families along the way, they arrived in Independence, Missouri, in June. The Brewsters arrived in mid-July.
The party consisted of about ninety people: a dozen or so families and some bachelors.
They finally set off in early August – a very late start for a cross-country trek.
About one hundred miles into the trip the squabbling began. Some wearied of the monotony of travel, some worried about Indians. There were also religious arguments. And at some point, Brewster had a new revelation: the “promised land” wasn’t at the mouth of the Colorado, it was on the Rio Grande near Socorro, Mexico.
In early October, the party divided. Brewster wanted to go to Santa Fe to pick up his mail. About thirty people went with him. The rest, including the Oatmans, pressed on.
In early November, the two parties met in Socorro. The Oatman party went on without Brewster and his group.
The Oatmans arrived in Tucson in early January. Five families stayed there to farm and wait for other emigrant trains. The Oatmans and two other families moved on, after spending about a month in Tucson.
They arrived in Maricopa Wells in early February. Travel from there was dangerous and the other two families decided to stay. But Oatman, who by now had given up the idea of a “promised land” on the Colorado, wanted to go to the goldfields in California. And, after having covered fifteen hundred miles with only two hundred to go, he decided to push on. It was a fatal mistake. About two weeks later, he, and most of his family, would die on the mesa.
The Yavapai ransacked the wagon and looted the dead. After about an hour they pushed the barefoot girls – the Indians did not want to leave any shoe prints for anyone to follow – down the hill to begin a sixty-mile four-day march.
During the march the Indians killed the Oatman’s stock and ate them. (The reason for the Oatman attack was probably hunger. The drought during the previous year had left little for the Yavapai to eat in late winter.)
The march was grueling. The Indians kept a fast pace. The girls’ feet bled. Mary Ann collapsed and couldn’t go on. She was beaten. Olive pleaded for her sister and one of the warriors carried Mary Ann.
When they reached the Yavapai village the sisters were surrounded by the tribe. The Yavapai yelled and spit at them, and threw dirt at them. Some even slapped them.
Captives were taken for various reasons. In the case of the Oatman sisters it was to be slaves. For the next year they carried water and wood, and dug roots. They did whatever they were told to do.
Over time they learned the Yavapai language and, as a result, became a source of entertainment to the Indians. The Yavapai asked many questions about them, whites, in general, and white society. Because of their entertainment value, they were treated somewhat better.
In the fall of 1851, the Mohave came to trade with the Yavapai. Seeing the girls, the Mohave wanted to trade for them. But an agreement couldn’t be reached and the Mohave left.
After the Mohave departure, the Yavapai discussed trading the girls. They didn’t want the U.S. government to find out about the massacre, and thought that trading the sisters to the Mohave, a remote tribe, might forestall this.
Meanwhile, Mary Ann, who had been prone to sickness back in Illinois, caught a bad cold during the winter. Olive wondered if she would live to be traded.
In the spring of 1852 six Mohave came back to barter for the girls. One of the six was the chief’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Topeka.
For two horses, three blankets, vegetables, and beads, Mary Ann and Olive changed hands. It was to be for the better. Their lives would improve and Olive would eventually be reunited with someone she thought was long dead.
At about 4:00 PM on August 2, 1876, John “Jack” McCall walked into Nuttal & Mann’s No. 10 saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota, and shot James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok in the back of the head.
Jack McCall was born in 1852 or 1853 (or was it 1850?). He was raised, along with three sisters, in Jefferson County, Kentucky. He drifted west and was working as a buffalo hunter on the Kansas-Nebraska border by about 1869.
By 1876 he was living in Deadwood, using the name Bill Sutherland.
He was described as having thick chestnut hair, a small sandy mustache and goatee, a double chin, a snub-nose, and crossed-eyes. (The drawing at the right is based upon that description. There is (or was) a picture that hangs in a Deadwood saloon that is supposedly McCall. But the photo has no provenance and does not match the description.)
On August 1, 1876, McCall was in the No. 10. When a seat in a poker game became available, Jack sat in. McCall was drunk and lost all of his money. He couldn’t cover his losses – he was, according to one of the men there, $16.50 short. Hickok, who was in the game, advised him to not gamble if he couldn’t cover his losses and offered him some money for breakfast. McCall refused.
On August 2, Hickock entered the No. 10, and sat in on a poker game that was already in progress. Supposedly, Hickok liked to sit with his back to the wall, so that no one could get behind him – Hickok was a man with enemies. But the seat that Hickok wanted was occupied by Charlie Rich, and Rich refused to give it up.
McCall walked into the saloon and went to the bar, standing behind Hickok. He pulled out, according to some that were there, a Navy revolver. He shouted, “Damn you! Take that!”, and shot Hickok. The ball went through Hickok’s head and entered the wrist of Capt. William Massie, a former Missouri River pilot. (Some say that he refused to have the ball removed, and carried it in his wrist for the rest of his life.) McCall ran out of the saloon but was found hiding in a butcher shop and was taken prisoner.
At the ensuing trial, McCall claimed that Hickok had killed his brother in Abilene, Kansas. (After the second trial – keep reading! – it was discovered that McCall didn’t have a brother.) Despite the testimony of those present at the killing, the jury, after a two hour deliberation, found McCall innocent.
After the trial McCall went to work on a placer claim in Whitewood gulch.
When one of Hickok’s friends, Moses “California Joe” Milner, heard about the murder, he went to see McCall. California Joe told McCall that he had twenty-four hours to leave Deadwood, or else.
McCall took the hint and went to Wyoming.
Col. George May, who had prosecuted McCall in Deadwood, was furious with the verdict. He followed McCall to Laramie and heard him boast about getting away with Hickok’s murder. A bench warrant was obtained and McCall was arrested by Deputy U.S. Marshal Balcombe on August 29 and taken to Yankton.
The federal authorities in Yankton refused to recognize the legality of the trial in Deadwood. And since Deadwood was an illegal settlement in Indian territory, with no legally constituted law enforcement or court system, double jeopardy did not apply.
McCall decided to turn state’s evidence. He said that a gambler named Varnes had hired him to kill Hickok. According to McCall, Varnes and Hickok had had a row in Denver and it had continued in Deadwood. The claim was investigated, but nothing came of it.
McCall was retried, found guilty on December 6, and hanged on March 1, 1877. When the noose was placed around his neck, he said. “Draw it tighter, Marshal.” And as the trap was sprung, he was heard to say, “Oh, God!”
Jack McCall was the first person to be executed by federal authorities in Dakota Territory.
He was buried in a Catholic cemetery. When his body was moved at a later date, it was found that he was buried with the noose still around his neck.
One last point: aces and eights – the “dead man’s hand.” Was that the hand that Hickok held went he was killed? Likely not. There are no contemporary reports to support the claim. No one who was present when Hickok was killed mentioned “aces and eights.”
In the 1920’s Ellis T. Peirce, a barber in Deadwood who served as coroner and arranged for a coffin for Hickok, told Frank Wilstach, the author of a book on Hickok, that “Wild Bill” was holding “aces and eights” and referred to that as the “dead man’s hand.” But Peirce wasn’t in the saloon when Hickok was killed.
Harry Young, the bartender at No. 10, who was there when Hickok was murdered, said that he had just given Hickok $15 worth of chips and had turned back to the bar, when he heard a shot. He turned to see McCall standing behind Hickok holding a gun. He stated, in a book that he wrote in 1915, that Hickok held four sevens.
Whatever Hickok held, it wasn’t lucky!
Judge Roy Bean was born Phantly Roy Bean, Jr. in 1825 in Mason County, Kentucky. He was the youngest of three sons of Phantly and Anna Bean.
He led a very colorful life. At about age 16 he left home and took a flatboat down to New Orleans, where he got into trouble and fled to San Antonio. There he joined his brother Sam and worked as a freighter.
In 1848, Sam and Roy opened a saloon/trading post in Chihuahua, Mexico. Depending upon whom you believe, he fled to Sonora because he was wanted for cattle rustling or for shooting a Mexican who had threatened to kill a gringo. In 1849 Roy went to California to live with his other brother, Joshua.
Judge Roy Bean
Joshua was elected the first mayor of San Diego in 1850. He appointed Roy as a lieutenant in the state militia. And Roy worked in his brother’s saloon, the Headquarters.
Roy, who apparently was quite the lady’s man (hard to tell from the photo), got into a duel with a man named Collins. Collins was slightly wounded and both men were arrested. While in jail, Roy received many gifts from the local ladies. The last gift he received was a pair of knives hidden in some tamales. Roy dug through the jail wall and escaped.
He went to San Gabriel, where the Headquarters was located, and tended bar. When his brother was killed, Roy inherited the saloon.
In 1854 a lady that he was courting was kidnapped and forced to marry a Mexican officer. Roy challenged the officer to a duel and killed him. Some of the officer’s friends tried to hang Roy. They put him on a horse and put a noose around his neck. Then they road away. The horse did not bolt, as they supposed it would, and the bride came out from behind a tree and cut the rope. Roy was left with a permanent rope burn and a permanent stiff neck. (Could have been worse!)
Roy then went to live with Sam in New Mexico, where Sam was the sheriff of Dona Ana County. In 1861 Sam and Roy opened a store/saloon in Pinos Altos.
During the Civil War, Roy either rode with a group of irregulars called the Forty Rovers (known to the locals as the Forty Thieves, since they seemed more intent on robbery than fighting the Union army) or he ran the blockade hauling cotton from San Antonio to British ships off the coast of Matamoros. Which depends upon whom you talk to.
He spent the next twenty years in San Antonio working at various jobs. He ran a firewood business (he cut down his neighbor’s timber), a dairy business (he watered the milk), and he worked as a butcher (he rustled unbranded cattle from the area ranches).
In 1866 he married eighteen-year old Virginia Chavez. The had four (maybe five) children. They lived in a Mexican slum called Beantown. It was named after Roy and it wasn’t a complement (see the paragraph above).
By the late 1870’s Roy was separated from his wife and was running a saloon in Beantown. He sold the saloon and went west to Vinegaroon (scorpion), near the Pecos River. Vinegaroon was a construction camp for the Southern Pacific, which was extending the rails west.
In 1882 he was appointed justice of the peace (some say he appointed himself) for Precinct No. 6, Pecos County. His saloon was his place of business, home, and courtroom. He put up a sign on the saloon that said Law West Of The Pecos. He used only one law book, The Revised Statutes Of Texas. He allowed no hung juries or appeals. Jurors, chosen from the bar customers, were expected to buy drinks during recess.
An Irishman named O’Rourke killed a Chinese laborer. Two hundred Irish workers surrounded the court to make sure that O’Rourke was acquitted. Roy, being practical, casually thumbed through his law book. Finally he stated that there were many prohibitions against homicide, but there wasn’t anything specific about killing a Chinese. Case dismissed!
In December of 1882, he moved to Strawbridge and then to Eagle’s Nest, which was renamed Langtry. Roy said that he named it after Lillie Langtry, an English actress, with whom he was enamoured. Actually, it was probably named after a railroad engineer by that name.
He named his saloon the Jersey Lily, also after Lillie Langtry. (The misspelling was apparently the fault of the sign maker.) He was elected to the position of justice of the peace off and on for the next twenty years. Even when he wasn’t elected he continued to “hold” office. There was no jail, so all convictions resulted in fines, which he kept. The state of Texas never got its fair share. His response to the state’s demands was, “My court is self sustaining.”
When a worker died after falling three hundred feet from a viaduct, Roy didn’t feel that the $5 coroner’s fee was adequate. When the body was searched, a revolver and $40 were found. Roy fined the corpse $40 for carrying a concealed weapon.
He only sentenced two men to hang, and one of those escaped. Horse thieves, regularly hung in other areas, were freed, if the horse was returned. He had the power to marry, but not the power to grant a divorce. But he did it anyway, saying that he should have the power to rectify his mistakes. By the way, at the end of a marriage ceremony, he would say, “And may God have mercy on your souls!” (the usual end to a death sentence).
In 1890 Roy heard that Jay Gould was going to pass by on a special train. Roy stopped the train. Gould and his daughter spent the next two hours in the saloon. This caused a brief panic on Wall Street when it was reported that Gould had been killed in a train accident.
By the late 1890’s boxing matches were illegal in Texas and Mexico. So in 1896 Roy organized a championship match between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher to take place on a sandbar in the Rio Grande. The Texas Rangers looked on helplessly from a nearby bluff. The fight only lasted about a minute and a half, but the reports made Bean famous throughout the United States.
Bean spent money to help the poor and made sure that the local school’s wood box was always full.
Roy Bean died on March 16, 1903, after a bout of heavy drinking. He is buried with one of his sons in Del Rio, Texas.
As a post script, Roy always told the locals that Lillie Langtry would come and visit. Ten months after Roy’s death, she did. She spent time listening to stories about Roy. She later said that her stay was short, but unforgettable.
For those of you have seen the movie Tombstone (if you haven’t, see it or turn in your spurs), you may remember that after Morgan Earp’s death, Wyatt went on a vendetta ride. According to the movie, the others on the vendetta ride were Doc Holliday, Sherman McMasters, “Texas Jack” Vermillion, and “Turkey Creek” Jack Johnson. (There were apparently others; Warren Earp for one.)
We’ll start with “Turkey Creek” Jack. (If you thought the article on Etta Place had a lot of “ifs” and “maybes”, hang on for this one.)
Most of what we know about “Turkey Creek” Jack comes from testimony given by Wyatt in 1926. This was in connection with the estate of Lotta Crabtree. And he was talking about things that happened 45 years earlier!
Johnson was born in 1847. Or was it 1852? Depends upon whom you talk to. When he was in Tombstone in 1881, he was known to be 34. So I guess we’ll go with 1847.
According to Wyatt, Johnson’s real name was John Blunt (or Blount – there’ll be a test later, so pay attention). Johnson and his brothers were involved in a street fight in a town in Missouri. Following the altercation, they hightailed it out of the state.
In 1876 Johnson may have been in Deadwood, where he killed two men with two bullets in a gunfight. There is, however, no written record of this.
There is a record of a marshal named Jack Johnson who killed a man in a gunfight in Nebraska in 1872. This same man, known as John Johnson, could have been the John Johnson that was listed in the Tombstone 1880 Census. If so, then he might be our “Turkey Creek” Jack. Maybe.
It is believed that Johnson first came to Arizona on a cattle drive in 1878. Also on the drive were Pony Diehl, “Curly Bill” Brocius, and Sherman McMasters.
It is not certain how he met Wyatt. (Surprised?) According to Wyatt, Lotta was friendly with a woman in Tombstone that Wyatt thought was Johnson’s sister. Wyatt, therefore, might have met Johnson through mutual acquaintances.
Again according to Wyatt, Johnson asked for help in getting Bud (Alan) Blunt (Blount) out of Yuma prison. Bud was in for manslaughter, and Johnson wanted Wyatt to help him petition the governor for Bud’s release. Wyatt apparently believed that Bud was Johnson’s brother, and, therefore, John Johnson was really John Blunt (Blount).
On March 20, 1882, Johnson left Tombstone on the train that carried Virgil Earp and Morgan’s body. He was there when Frank Stilwell was killed and was later indicted, in absentia, along with others, for the killing.
The next morning, Johnson went with Wyatt and others on the vendetta ride.
After the vendetta ride, Johnson went to Colorado and Texas. He supposedly died in Salt Lake City; possibly in 1887. Or was it 1906? Either way, I’m fairly certain that he’s no longer with us.
Oh, by the way, was he ever actually called “Turkey Creek” Jack? Wyatt referred to him as Jack or John Johnson or John Blunt (Blount). Stuart Lake, in his biography of Wyatt, referred to him as “Turkey Creek” Jack, but who knows where he got that from. Much of what Lake wrote is questionable. He might have made up the name.
Let’s move on to “Texas Jack” Vermillion, where we’re on firmer ground.
John Wilson Vermillion was born in Russell County, Virginia, in 1842. He was the second of 12 children.
He fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, serving under J. E. B. Stuart. (The accompanying photo is Jack during the Civil War.)
After the war he moved to Indiana and, on September 6, 1865, married Margaret Horton.
Texas Jack Vermillion
They moved to Missouri, where Jack served as a territorial marshal. While away on business, his wife and two children contracted diphtheria and died. Distraught, Jack headed west to Kansas.
He might (here we go again) have met the Earps and Doc Holliday while in Dodge City.
Jack went to Tombstone and served as a special policeman under Virgil Earp on June 22, 1881; the day of the large Tombstone fire.
He was not on the train with Virgil and Morgan’s body. He did, however, join the others on the vendetta ride the next day.
He was present at the killing of Florentino Cruz and he had a horse shot out from under him at the Iron Springs fight where “Curly Bill” was killed.
In 1883 he killed a man in an argument during a card game. The resulting reward poster referred to him as “Texas Jack” Vermillion. This was the first known reference to the “Texas Jack” nickname. Supposedly when asked once why he was called “Texas Jack”, he replied, “Because I’m from Virginia.” (Western humor!?)
Sometime later he became known as “Shoot-Your-Eye-Out” Vermillion – presumably because he shot someone in the eye; or maybe because he was a really good shot. Either way, it doesn’t have the ring that “Texas Jack” does.
He returned to Virginia and married Nannie Fleenor in 1883. They had two children, Opie and Minnie Bell. (Aren’t you glad that Jack wasn’t your dad?)
In 1888 he joined the Soapy Smith gang in Colorado. In August, 1889, he was involved in the Pocatello, Idaho, train depot shootout where a rival gang tried to snuff out Soapy.
Shortly thereafter, he left the gang and returned to Virginia where he worked as a Methodist preacher.
There is some question regarding his death. (You knew this was going too smoothly, didn’t you?)
Some sources say that he drowned in Lake Michigan in 1900. The family records, however, say that he died in his sleep on January 7, 1911. The family has a picture of Jack and Nannie from 1910. We’re going with the family on this one.
Mr. and Mrs. John Wilson “Texas Jack” Vermillion are buried in Mendota, Virginia.
* This was the way Kevin Costner referred to Johnson and Vermillion in the movie Wyatt Earp.
