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Show Recent Deaths of Two Men, One in the West and One in the East, Recall Days When Gunfighters Wrote Their Names in Blood in the 'Wild West' By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. THE Old West lived again recently and, paradoxically, paradoxi-cally, it lived again because of the deaths of two men within the span of two weeks. One of them died in the West and-the other in the East, but both had once been closely associated with events in what was once known as the "Wild. West" the West of roaring cow towns and rowdy mining camps, of quick-shooting peace officers and equally hair-trigger-fingered outlaws, of lusty, action-filled life and Boot Hill burials. When death claimed the Rev. En-dicott En-dicott Peabody at the age of 87 in Groton, Mass., newspaper dispatches dis-patches chronicled the fact that he had been the founder of the Groton school and its headmaster for many years, during which time he had molded the minds and characters of many an eastern notable, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roose-velt. But few, if any, of these dispatches dis-patches mentioned the fact that this same Rev. Endicott Peabody had once lived and labored in one of the wildest towns in the history of the American frontier Tombstone, Arizona. Into such an environment in the summer of 1881 came a young Episcopal Epis-copal minister, recently ordained in Boston, and what happened thereafter there-after is best told in the words of a man who knew him then and there. That man was William M. Breaken-ridge, Breaken-ridge, who was one of Sheriff Johnny John-ny Behan's deputies in Tombstone at the time. In his book, "Helldo- DR. ENDICOTT PEABODY rado: Bringing the Law to the Mes-quite," Mes-quite," published by the Houghton Mifflin company in 1928, "Billy" Breakenridge writes of "The Fearless Fear-less Preacher" thus: "His name was Endicott Peabody. He was about twenty-four years of age, and full of vim and energy. He immediately got busy building up a membership for his congregation and getting funds together to build a church. He was a good mixer and soon got acquainted, not only with the very best element of society in Tombstone and there were some educated people there but he undertook un-dertook to get acquainted with everybody, ev-erybody, with the mining magnates and managers, the federal, county and city officials, the professional and business managers, the miners and muckers, the ore-haulers or teamsters, and the saloonkeepers and gamblers. He soon had a large congregation and had the money donated do-nated to build his church. When it was completed, he had the money to pay for it, and the church has never been in debt since.," How the Money Was Raised. An incident which Breakenridge relates sheds light on the young preacher's money - raising ability. One day a group of mining men, including E. B. Gage, general manager man-ager of the Grand Central and Contention Con-tention mines, was sitting in a back room of the Prospector hotel enjoying enjoy-ing a stiff poker game in which frequently fre-quently as much as a thousand dollars dol-lars was in the pot. "Gage was an Episcopalian," writes Breakenridge. "Mr. Peabody Pea-body came back where they were playing and introduced himself and' asked them for a donation to help build a church. He explained that it was something needed badly, and the only way it could be built was to get everybody he possibly could to subscribe toward building it. Gage counted out about a hundred and fifty dollars from his pile In front of him, and everyone elst in Episcopal Church in Tombstone Built by Dr. Peabody. the room followed his example. Peabody was dumbfounded for an instant, and then told them that it was a much larger contribution than he had expected, but it was for a good cause and he knew they would never regret it. "Peabody was a fine athlete, and was named the official referee in all baseball games and other outdoor sports that were carried on by the young men of Tombstone. His decisions were never questioned, as he was known as being absolutely square and he had no favorites. He loved a good horse-race, and frequently fre-quently attended the gymnasium where he kept himself in fine physical phys-ical condition by exercise; he never refused an invitation to put on the gloves with anyone and never was bested." Bad Man "Backs Down." Perhaps that fact had something to do with the "back-down" of one of the bad men who infested Arizona Ari-zona in those days when he tried to bluff the "fearless preacher." Breakenridge tells the story thus: "In the summer of 1881 the Reverend Rev-erend Mr. Peabody was invited down to Charleston to deliver a sermon. ser-mon. His subject was the evil of the cattle-stealing rustlers and the drinking- and carousing cowboys. Billy Claybourn, the would-be bad man who had killed one or two in saloon fights in Charleston and who was afterwards killed by Frank Leslie Les-lie in Tombstone, heard of the sermon ser-mon and sent word to Mr. Peabody that if he ever came to Charleston again and preached such a sermon, he, Claybourn, would come to the church and make him dance. Peabody Pea-body told the man who delivered the message that he expected to return re-turn to Charleston in about two weeks, and would preach a sermon ser-mon that he thought appropriate, and if Mr. Claybourn would come to the church and listen to it, and then thought he could make him dance, to try it. "Peabody was known to go into the saloons 1 and gambling-houses and go up to the gambling-tables when they were in operation, with a crowd around them, and say 'Gentlemen, 'Gen-tlemen, I am going to preach a sermon ser-mon on the evil of gambling Sunday Sun-day night, and I would like to have you all come to the church and listen lis-ten to it.' All who could get away went to hear him. He had large audiences always." Less than two weeks after the death of Dr. Peabody, the wires carried car-ried the news that Albert Bacon Fall had died at the age of 83 in El Paso, Texas. The news of his passing served to recall briefly a great national na-tional scandal in the recent past how Senator A. B. Fall of New Mexico Mex-ico was appointed secretary of the interior in President Harding's cabinet, cab-inet, how he was one of the chief figures in the Teapot Dome oil case, and how he became the first cabinet cabi-net officer in American history to serve a prison sentence for a crime. Again few, if any, of the newspaper newspa-per accounts gave much space to his career as a young lawyer in the Southwest or told of his association associa-tion with some of the notables of the frontier. Yet he was the attorney attor-ney for the defense who won freedom free-dom for the slayers of two famous gunfighters both of whom illustrate the truth of the age-old saying that "he who takes the sword perishes by the sword." One of these gunfighters was John Wesley Hardin of Texas, possibly the most notorious killer in the annals an-nals of the "Wild West" and popularly popu-larly credited with 40 notches on his six-gun 39 of them before he was 21 years old. The 40th notch it was Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb of Brown county coun-ty put Hardin in the penitentiary for 15 years. He employed them usefully, studying law, and after his release in 1894 he hung out his shingle shin-gle in various Texas towns, ending up in El Paso the following year. There he became involved in a dis pute with the Selmans Young John, a city policeman, and Old John, a constable 'who had a record as a killer himself. The result was that on the night of August 19, 1895, Hardin Har-din went down before the blazing six-shooters of Old John Selman shot from behind, so his friends said, as he stood drinking at the bar of the Acme saloon. Selman, when tried for the killing, denied that he had shot Hardin in the back. He insisted that Hardin was looking him straight in the eye and apparently about to draw his gun when the constable fired. A young attorney, named Fall, who had just come to El Paso, agreed to assist in Selman's defense. Years later, Ex-Senator Fall, recalling the case, told Eugene Cunningham, author au-thor of "Triggernomerty: A Gallery of Gunfighters": "I couldn't help being impressed by Selman's appearance when he assured me that he had been looking Hardin in the eye. I knew Selman well and I felt that he wouldn't lie to me and he had all the appearance of a man telling what he firmly believed. be-lieved. It puzzled me, so I went down to look over the scene of the killing. I stopped at the Acme's door and looked inside. There was a man standing at the bar and he lifted his head. Then I had the explanation ex-planation of Selman's statement. For as that man stared into the mirror, mir-ror, I had the illusion for an instant of looking him straight in the eye." Apparently Fall's explanation was convincing to the jury, for Selman was freed. "Few of the gunmen of. that era lived past the turn of the century," says an editorial on the passing oi Albert B. Fall which appeared in the Chicago Daily News recently. An exception to that statement is Pat Garrett, slayer of Billy the Kid, the 21-year-old gunman with the 21 notches. That killing made Garrett a national figure. Three times he was elected sheriff of Donna Ana county in New Mexico. In 1901 President Theodore Roosevelt appointed ap-pointed him collector of customs in El Paso, Texas. Then he retired from public life and took up ranching ranch-ing in New Mexico. He had a dispute dis-pute over some trifling matter with a comparatively unknown young f t t $ A " j u i 1 ALBERT B. FALL man named Wayne Brazel and on February 29, 1908, a shot from Bra-zel's Bra-zel's six-shooter ended the career of the great Pat Garrett. Brazel was tried for the killing and acquitted. His attorney was Albert Al-bert Bacon Fall. "Few of the men who knew these gunmen or who saw them alive remain alive today," continues con-tinues the Daily News editorial. "Albert "Al-bert Fall knew a lot about many of them. It was popularly believed in the Southwest that he might, if he chose, shed light on mysterious circumstances cir-cumstances surrounding the sudden demise of a number of them. But, if he could, he didn't. And, with his death, another colorful segment of frontier history grows fainter and recedes farther and farther into the fabulous past." |
