Show 0 0 41 ditke mm hem ALO N LO 6 I 1 at me blips Vs I 1 1 itai 7 J i A ned X Bunt liTle U by ELMO SCOTT WATSON UG HE increasing popularity of hobby shows through through the country Is bringing into the limelight once more a type of native literature to which an older generation of amer leans looks back with fond memories for nearly all such exhibit eions display examples of the little yellow backed books which the boys of yesteryear read in secret with avid interest their enjoyment 4 he by the almost certain knowledge that discovery meant a stern what s heading reading a dime novel I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 from disapproving parent or teacher those of a later generation who get their vicarious thrills from watching movie melo dramas or listening to radio murder mysteries are likely to be scornful of the blood and thunder heroes whose desperate deeds and hairbreadth escapes so enthralled dad aw bunk I 1 they say I 1 batcha there never was any such fella as Dare death dick the king of the cowboys or captain cool blade the man shark of the mississippi I 1 maybe not I 1 but ask dad about some of the other dime novel heroes dlan didn t he smuggle a copy of buffalo bill the border king ring up to bed with him one night and there by the dim light of the old coal oil lamp read how with one leap the border king ring sprang up behind his disguised pard back to back and opened fire with his trusty revolvers on the yelping redskins and a few months later he go down to the county seat town and with his own eyes see that same border king ring enter the arena of buffalo bills bill s wild west show ush ered in by a blaring band and the excited yells of several hundred young americans like him self that tall long haired buckskin clad fig ure sitting on his wh te horse with regal grace wasu t he a story book hero come to life yes sir despite the fact that many a bloody pete and dead shot dick and reckless feckless ralph ex sted only in the fertile imagination of old frastus r bid dies die s scribblers some of the characters immor in that prolific publisher publishers s dime novels half dime library pocket novels or boys library were real persons even though they never had one tenth of the adventures ascribed to them chief among tiem of course was this same border king william frederick cody youthful guide tor for army officers in kansas in 1867 1866 67 and hunter who supplied meat for builders bu illers of the kansas pacific railroad may have been dubbed buffalo bill by the grateful I 1 P workers or he may haye have won that sobriquet in a buffalo shooting match with billy comstock but it remained for two dime novelists adward zane carroll judson who wrote under the name of ned buntline and col prentiss ingraham to make it world famous other dime novel heroes who had counterparts in real life were wild bill california joe texas jack pawnee bill capt jack art arl zona joe buckskin sam roving joe fan cy frank Dead deadwood dick diamond dick calamity jane the evil spirit of the plains and old grizzly james butler hickok a native of illinois a soldier and scout in the union army in missouri during the civil war overland stage driver mar of roaring kansis cow towns gambler and gunman par excellence was already famous as wild bill before ever buntline multiplied his adventures tenfold in the little yellow back books even after his assassination in deadwood S D in 1878 1870 he was still good copy for the d me novelists as he has been for the more serious historians several of whom have tried to sort out the fiction from fact and write authentic biographies of him in recent years however texas jaci jacl was a name of bunt line lines s manufacture for john B a native of virginia who ho emigrated to texas be fore the civil war became a mustang breaker and rancher a soldier in the confederate army and afterwards a hunter scout and indian tighter lighter until his death in leadville colo in 1880 in 1875 buntline brought cody hickok and to chic igo wrote a play scouts of the I 1 lains for them in less tl an four hours which prompted the classic remark of one reviewer one wonders why it took him so long I 1 and presented them in it to the public next day the case of california joe is similar to that of wild bill in that he was famed under that name before ever the dime novelists took him up although one of ingraham s novels char him as the mysterious plainsman an unknown man alan whose real identity like that of the man alan of the iron mask Is still unsolved there was no real mystery about his identity he ile was moses E milner a kentuckian who first crossed the plains in the golden days of 49 was A bax MN D M no K california JOE the My plainsman 5 9 ad ar wk M vb 1 I ia n k n BY co U PRENTISS T AWAY M dm wa go dm so on mom am reproductions of dime novels from the col lection of charles brag n brooklyn N Y 0 a miner in montana and the pacific northwest and tor for a brief time chief of scouts for gen george A ouster custer during the campaign of 1867 68 against the tribes of the southern plains he also served as a scout and guide for army officers in wyoming and montana in the was wag a pros in the black hills gold rush and met the same fate as his friend hickok like wild bill he was shot down from behind by an as sassin in just before setting out from the old bed red cloud agency in nebraska to guide the expedition of gen ranald S mackenzie against the sioux and pawnee bill was maj gordon lillie a nathe of illinois who went to oklahoma in the earl days as a boomer was a friend of the pawnee ind ans who adopted him into their tribe was associated for a time with cody in the wild vest show business and later had a similar show of his own he Is still living in oklahoma as the prosperous owner of a ranch famous for its herd of buffalo capt jack was john wallace crawford Craw tord a native of ireland a boy soldier in the union army a prospector and miner in the black hills a scout for the army in the sioux war of 1876 and until his death in 1917 was widely known as a chautauqua and lyceum lecturer under the name of capt jack the poet scout arizona joe was joseph bruce a noted frontier character a miner indian fighter and a close friend of texas jack calamity jane was mas the notorious martha jane canary a native of missouri who dressed in mens clothes worked as a teamster with gen george crooks army in the sioux war of 1870 1876 was vias a picturesque figure in the black hills gold rush and later drifted to montana where here she d ed in 1903 fancy frank was dr frank powell who started in life as a newspaper re porter studied medicine had a varied caider on the frontier was associated with cody in the wild na W est show in which he was known as white beaver and the medicine man of the Winnebago es and ended his career in his na five wisconsin where he was nas mayor of one town and a practicing physician in another both buckskin sam and roving joe were somewhat anomalous characters in that they were both heroes of dime novels noels and w aiters ot of such literature buckskin sam was maj sam S hall born on the frontier where he led an aden adventurous life before turning his attention to producing such thrillers as double dan the dastard or the pirates of the pecos and ker whoop ke hool or the tarantula of taos later he made I 1 s home in the eist east where here i he a wiry little man accord ng to one historian occasionally showed his virile western man hood by going on a shooting rampage at his home in wilmington delaware delan Dela wale aie joseph L badger was also a westerner who wrote the story of his life on the frontier calling it I 1 oving joe and signing it A 11 post liter he became one of beadles star NN writers under his own name of bidger As for deadwood dick and diamond dick tl e or ginals finals of both have hate been legion but the best evidence Is that Dea deadwood dood dick was a purely fictitious character created by edward L NN wheeler heeler a writer for beadle and adams and the first deadwood dick story appeared in beadle s half dime library in 1878 it was not wheelers first novel edmund pearson in his book dime novels or following an old trail in popular literature little brown and company but never a again aln in all his list of alliterations did he ever chance ulon on a name so felicitous or a character so appealing to his read ers as that of Dead deadwood dick As early as 1906 1006 an original of deadwood t I 1 k AN it Z r 17 41 I 1 X sus 4 the pistol arinee f vol D ck a certain I 1 rank palmer died in denver in 1990 another original died in los angeles this time being richard bullock who had been a guard on the stagecoaches which brought bul lion out of the black hills in recent years and until his death in 1930 a certain richard W blaik of south dakota aas as widely publicized as the original of deadwood dick says pearson there Is a far faraway resemblance between the pictures of the old frontiersman aged eighty two in 1928 and the drawings of the young desperado of the eighties in mr wheeler 8 stories I 1 fancy that this distant resemblance Is all that obtains between the career of richard dark clark and Dea deadwood dAood dick As for diamond dick in 1882 beadle and adams published diamond dick the dandy from denver A true story of the mines of new mexico by maj sam S hall buckskin sam but the gibat popularity of the diamond dick stories came in the late eighteen nineties and early nineteen hundreds when according to dime novel experts this form of literature was begin ning to degenerate from the virility and ad red bloo bloodedness deadness or gor borness ness which characterized the early ones but in the minds of many people dr richard J tanner of norfolk neb Is the original of diamond dick A native of illinois he went to nebraska at the age of nineteen became an ex pert with both the rifle and pistol and after a career of 0 beals eais with a circus where he was billed as diamond dick he decided to study medicine and retired from the show business for a quarter of a century he concealed his cir cus identity and was known only as a country doctor in a nebraska town then in 1025 1925 when he took part in an american legion show in norfolk the fact that he was the former dia mond dick was as made known the evil spirit of the plains was dr frank carver a frontiersman and buffalo hunter a far greater one than cody according to some author atles and better entitled to the title of buffalo bill mainly because of his victory o over oer er but falo jack jack mccall the slayer of wild bill hickok in a buftalmo shooting contest aiho w ho was for a time associated with cody in the wild west nest show business and later when he and cody quarreled produced his own show old grizzly was one of the most interesting of all the originals of dime novel heroes he ile was james capon adams born near seneca lake N Y who became famous as a bear tamer because he was accustomed to go about the country riding on an enormous grizzly bear with a second similar huge beast as a sort of a body guard for him his ills d me novel fame started in a book written by his nephew james fenimore cooper adams who was nas himself later known as bruin adams and was tl e subject of several rime novels by col prentis ingraham 0 by western newspaper union |