S66 he ; OLIVE, ISOM PRENTICE
KETCHUM, Samuel W. (a.k.a. Black Jack) (1854-1899)
Sam Ketchum was born on Richland Creek in San Saba County, Texas. He and his younger brother Tom both had the nickname of "Black Jack," although why is obscure. Sam worked as a cowboy before turning hardcore outlaw by the mid-1890s. He and Tom gathered a gang, including now and then members of the Wild Bunch, an outfit that on occasion killed but became primarily known for stage and train robberies, mostly committed in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
On July 11, 1899, the Ketchum outlaws held up a train at virtually the same site, near Folsom, New Mexico, where Sam had robbed one in 1897. This time, however, a posse chased the fugitives into Turkey Creek Canyon, in Colfax County, where a brisk fight occurred. The desperadoes killed Sheriff Edward J. Farr and wounded five of the eight posse members, one of whom, Henry Love, died. For their part, the posse wounded Sam Ketchum and William Ellsworth Lay (Elza Lay). The two forces now went their separate ways, each to attend to its wounded and dead. Sam Ketchum made it to a ranch in Ute Park, where gangrene set in. A farmer and his wife amputated the arm. New Mexico lawmen picked Ketchum up shortly afterward. He died not of his wounds but of amputation shock on July 24, 1899, in the Santa Fe prison.
.366 490: KETCHUM, TOM; LAY, WILLIAM ELLSWORTH; TURKEY CREEK CANYON, BATTLE OF
KETCHUM,Tom (a.k.a. Black Jack) (1863?-1901)
The outlaw Tom Ketchum was born on Richland Creek in San Saba County, Texas, as the youngest of three boys. During his early years he seems to have wandered West Texas and New Mexico, usually working as a cowboy but early on realizing that cowboy wages would have to be supplemented. He was
tall and muscular, with dark hair, a handlebar mustache, and piercing dark eyes. In late 1895, he and some friends shot and killed John N. "Jap" Powers, a Knickerbocker, Texas, rancher. Mrs. Powers assisted. She went to jail. Ketchum fled to New Mexico.
There is uncertainty regarding the name "Black Jack," as it seems to have been applied to his brother Sam as well. There was also a Black Jack Will Christian, a bandit operating along the New Mexico/Arizona border. The moniker "Black Jack" seemed to apply to all three, but after Christian was slain in Graham County, Arizona, it was easier for lawmen to sort out the other two.
To make matters worse, various members of the Black Jack gang and the Wild Bunch in the Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana area had a habit of frequently moving back and forth, of interacting, of being in one area of the country for a while and then appearing somewhere else. However, Wild Bunch members like Will Carver and Elza Lay seemed to prefer Sam Ketchum's leadership to that of the more awkward and less thorough Tom.
Although the gang robbed stagecoaches, even Tom realized that trains carried more money, so the focus shifted to the rail transportation category. On May 4, 1896, the Black Jack Tom Ketchum gang held up a train in Terrell Texas. A few months later they hit the Texas Fy and took the strong box but had to lay a slaughtered beef across it when they applied dynamite, the weight of the beef holding everything together. However, much of the money was blasted to smithereens, along with the beef.
In December 1896, Tom assaulted the Southern Pacific as it crossed Stein's Pass, near the New Mexico/Arizona border. However, Wells Fargo agents were waiting, and they killed Ed Cullen, one of the bandits. A couple of years later, Sam Ketchum died of gangrene after being wounded during a train robbery.
At Cape Verde, Arizona, on July 2, 1899, Tom Ketchum made his worst mistake. He killed two miners during an Arizona saloon fight, the murders making him eligible for the death penalty. Shortly thereafter, on August 16, 1899, his string of robberies ended when Ketchum single-handedly held up the Colorado & Southern train near Folsom, Arizona. He shot a mail clerk through the jaw after calling on him to open the baggage car doors. At that moment, Frank Harrington, the conductor, armed with a shotgun, approached Ketchum, and they exchanged rounds. Both men wounded the other, but Ketchum took a load of buckshot in his right arm. He reeled off into the darkness, to be found the next morning lying propped against a tree, flagging down a train, once a symbol of ill-gotten gains but now a vehicle of mercy.
Hanging of Tom Ketchum, 1901 (Author's Collection)
Doctors amputated his arm, and in September 1901, the territory tried him for train robbery, found
him guilty, and sentenced him to hang. Tom heartily denied the charges and appealed the conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the verdict. In the Clayton, New Mexico, jail he gave numerous interviews, saying he "expected to go straight to hell after his death." Otherwise, his life's philosophy could be summed up in a brief paragraph he wrote on April 26, 1901, the hanging date: "My advice to the boys of the country is not to steal either horses or sheep, but to either rob a train or a bank when you have got to be an outlaw, and every man who comes in your way, kill him; spare him no mercy, for he will show you none. This is the way I feel, and I think I feel right about it."
During his time in prison, Black Jack Ketchum had gained weight, but the rope was not adjusted proportionately to account for it. As a result the drop decapitated him. He was the only man ever hanged in the United States for train robbery.
co; KETCHUM, SAMUEL W.
KIDDER, Jeff P. (1875-1908)
Jeff Kidder never wanted to be anything other than a lawman, so this South Dakota-born cowboy in 1903 joined the Arizona Rangers, taking with him an unfortunate tendency of pistol-whipping men he didn't like or intended to arrest. These actions cost him $50 for one such offense in Bisbee, Arizona.
Kidder rose rapidly to sergeant and traveled with Capt. Thomas H. Rynning on a futile search for three Americans in Mexico. Upon returning, Kidder killed Tom Woods during a Douglas gun battle, the reason not being entirely clear. Then on April 4, 1908, Kidder crossed into Naco, Sonora, Mexico; 300 yards south of the international border he shot it out with Mexican police. He killed one officer and wounded two others but was himself seriously wounded while trying to recross the border. Mexican police threw him in jail, where he died of his wounds.
S66 Co: RYNNING, THOMAS H.
KILBURN, William Harvey (1864-1904)
W. H. Kilburn was from Livingston County, Missouri, but at 18 he headed west for Leadville, Colorado. Shortly thereafter he traveled to the booming silver camp of Lake Valley, New Mexico Territory, where he worked at odd jobs until he amassed an amount sufficient to engage in the cattle business. Moving over to Grant County, Kilburn staked out a ranch and systematically increased his herd. Later he founded successful mercantile enterprises in Hanover and Silver City.
During 1888, W. H. Kilburn signed on with the Grant County sheriff's office, in the process serving as the Silver City town marshal for various terms: 1889-91, 1895-99, and 1903-04. Kilburn was fearless, although he exercised good judgment, usually.
An exception occurred on the night of August 27, 1904, when, in his capacity as town marshal, Kilburn assisted Deputy Sheriff Elmore Murray during a desperate struggle with Howard Chenowth, a local cowboy who had just shot his foreman, Pat Nunn. Before the bloody melee ended, Kilburn lay in the street mortally wounded. Deputy Perfecto Rodriguez was killed outright.
Suffering a neck wound that severed the sixth cervical vertebrae, W. H. Kilburn died on September 4, 1904, succumbing to the irreversible injury done to his 40-year-old frame. Local newspapers described Kilburn as a prime example of the "Western Man" and then shrugged off the shooting incident with the headline "A Cowboy Runs Amuck."
See chho ; CHENOWTH, HOWARD
KILPATRICK, Benjamin Arnold (a.k.a. the Tall Texan) (1874-1912)
Ben Kilpatrick was born in Coleman County, Texas, and grew up as a six-foot two-inch cowboy who joined the Black Jack Ketchum gang as well as the Wild Bunch. Whether he ever killed anyone is questionable, although he never hesitated to draw and fire. He participated in the Wild Bunch double robbery of the Union Pacific, the first in 1898 and the second in September 1900. Following that, he assisted with a bank heist at Winnemuca
on September 19, at the conclusion of which the gang decided to take some time off and visit Fort Worth. Kilpatrick participated and became part of the celebrated photograph of November 21, 1900, featuring himself, Will Carver, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Harvey Logan.
During this same period Will Carver married Laura Bullion, an attractive Fort Worth prostitute. When Carver died later during a shootout, Laura transferred her affections to the Tall Texan and became his common-law wife. In the meantime, the Wild Bunch struck again on July 3, 1901, robbing the Great Northern train at Wagner, Montana. With the countryside by now swarming with posses, Cassidy and Sundance fled to New York and from there to South America.
As for the Tall Texan and Laura, they visited St. Louis, where detectives arrested them on November 5, 1901. On December 12, a judge sentenced Kilpatrick to 15 years in the Atlanta penitentiary. Laura got five years in a women's prison in Tennessee and was released on September 19, 1905. She waited in Birmingham, Alabama, for Ben to be released. Although scheduled to be released on June 11, 1911 the authorities instead transferred Ben to Paint Rock, Texas, and tried him for an earlier murder; the case was eventually dismissed.
Upon getting out of prison, the Tall Texan briefly waited for his cell mate, H. "Ole" Beck, to be released also. Then on the night of March 12, 1912, both men climbed aboard the Sunset traveling between Dryden and Sanderson, Texas. When the train stopped for water, they entered the express car with the intention of robbing it, but long years in prison had sapped Kilpatrick's timing and judgment. The guard, David A. Trousdale, let them in, then picked up a heavy mallet used for crushing ice. He struck Kilpatrick on the head, and the Tall Texan died on the spot. Trousdale then grabbed Kilpatrick's rifle and shot Beck dead. At Dryden, Texas, the two bodies were tossed out onto the baggage platform, then were propped up erect with the help of bystanders and photographed. They were buried together in a common grave at the Cedar Grove Cemetery.
Ben Kilpatrick, "The Tall Texan" (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)
As for Laura, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, lived under the alias of Mrs. Fredia Lincoln, and died on December 2, 1961.
CARVER, WILLIAM RICHARD; CASSIDY, BUTCH; KETCHUM, SAMUEL W.; KETCHUM, TOM; SUNDANCE KID; WILD BUNCH
KIMBELL, Russell G. (a.k.a. Rush) (1855-1954)
Rush G. Kimbell was born at Memphis, Tennessee, and relocated to the Lone Star State in 1870, winding up in Limestone County. Eight years later, Kimbell signed on with the Texas Rangers, not because he was seeking a "higher calling" but to satisfy the desires of the girl he wanted to marry. She had demanded that Kimbell pull a stint with the Texas Rangers before she would accept his proposal. So in exchange for wedded bliss, Rush became a lawman.
Enlisting at Austin, Kimbell initially accepted guard duty in the capital city but was soon transferred west, where he engaged in the pursuit of, and occasional skirmishes with, Indian raiders and outlaws.
Kimbell rose rapidly to sergeant. During one raid he led fellow rangers in a demanding chase after horse thieves Jim and John Potter, a father-and-son team who had taken livestock from the vicinity of the abandoned Fort Terrett, 30 miles east of Sonora. Following special instructions from Capt. Dan Roberts, Kimbell vowed to maintain his pursuit as long as the outlaws "stayed on top of the ground." Kimbell and his six-man squad followed a hunch and picked up the suspect's trail near Fort Lancaster. However, at Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River, Kimbell reluctantly ordered five rangers with run-down horses to return to the ranger station.
With ranger assistant Bill Dunham, Kimbell continued the chase, swapping run-down horses at the Hash Knife ranch, where cowboy Billy Smith joined the two-man posse. After an exhausting night's ride, it dawned on Kimbell that he had probably gotten ahead of the brigands in the dark. So he backtracked. Shortly afterward, Jim and John Potter were observed riding toward the lawmen. Kimbell deployed his two men, advising the civilian cowboy to "just play where he saw he was needed the most." After coming within shouting distance, Kimbell flashed his badge. Everyone pulled rifles, and the battle opened. Each side lost a horse in the blistering exchange of gunfire. When the smoke cleared, Jim Potter lay on the ground with a serious leg wound, his son beside him with a bullet through the chest. The lawmen survived unscathed. Kimbell left the prisoners under guard and rode toward Fort Stockton, 130 miles away. Arrangements were quickly made via telegraph communications, and a wagon was dispatched to retrieve the wounded rustlers. The effort was too late, however, at least for Jim Potter, who died waiting for help. John Potter was eventually turned over to local authorities in Kimble County, but he died of mob justice before he could stand trial. Sergeant Kimbell and his compadre had chalked up 1,118 tortuous miles during the pursuit.
Kimbell subsequently resigned from the Texas Rangers, and true to her word, his sweetheart accepted his marriage proposal. They tied the knot in October 1881. Kimbell eventually settled in Oklahoma, where he became a respected retail merchant. On January 18, 1954, Rush Kimbell, nearly 100 years old, died of natural causes. The ride for the bride-well, the results of that became an enduring success!
KING, Sandy (a.k.a. Red Curly; Sandy Ferguson) (1859-1881)
By some accounts Sandy King was born at Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. However, when the 22-year-old was booked into the Grant County, New Mexico, jail (1881) he told the registrar of prisoners that he was from Kansas. One writer claims that Sandy King may have been the Luther King who walked out of the Cochise County jail as a prisoner being detained for the murder of stagecoach driver Eli "Bud" Philpot, during a robbery of March 15, 1881.
He was sometimes described as a "hard, dangerous man of courage and a record" as well as a "purequill badman." These characterizations fitted the bill, since Sandy King spent his life as a desperado of note, having served time at Silver City for "wanton homicide." Regardless of exact details, Sandy King was in fact a hanger-on, a minor outlaw who staked out an unofficial claim at the legendary mining camp of Shakespeare, New Mexico Territory. Without repeating a roll call of reprobates and misfits stumbling up and down Avon Street, suffice it to say that Sandy King was one.
Although there is scant evidence, it is generally assumed that King was a friend of another Shakespearean, William Rogers "Russian Bill" Tettenborn, a gentlemen of noble birth who had gone bad. Whether or not they were actual pals, they were to share one experience-their last.
In what was to be a one-man act at a two-man show, Sandy King got drunk, ordered a new scarlet neckerchief, and instead of paying for the scarf with U.S. currency, shot the shopkeeper's finger off and fled. The authorities arrested him, but since the town had no jail, he was placed in a room under guard. At about the same time, "Russian Bill" stole a horse and headed east. At Deming, Deputy Sheriff Dan Tucker took him into custody. Tettenborn was returned to Shakespeare and tossed into the same cell with Sandy King. Tucker returned to Deming.
What then happened is best explained by a quick review of the L5 Paso Lone .star.
Two "Russian Bill-and "Sandy King-from the southern part of Grant county, were arrested last week by Deputy Sheriff Ticker and lodged in jail at Shakespeare last Monday. They were taken from jail that night by citizens who overpowered the guards, and hanged. "Russian Bill-has often declared that no man living could arrest hire, but when he found Tucker was on his track he gave himself up without resistance. Their fate has no doubt engendered the enmity of the element to which they belonged against Shakespeare and the people there will organize a safety as a means of protection. The two men hanged were noted horse and cattle thieves.
There the little story should end. In the absence of handy trees in the desert area, the two owl-hoots were hanged from a ceiling beam in the dining room of the Grant Hotel, where they dangled all night. The next day, a passenger fresh off the stagecoach asked what had happened, and the stationmaster simply pointed and remarked, "One was hung for stealing a horse, the other one for being a damned nuisance." Whether the little anecdote is historically factual, Sandy King wa
s dead.
S66 UISO TUCKER, DAVID
KINNEY, John (1847?-1919)
John Kinney probably was born in Massachusetts, most likely in 1847 or '48. At Chicago, on April 13, 1867, he enlisted in the Third U.S. Cavalry and listed his occupation as laborer. The records described him as five feet five inches tall, with hazel eyes, brown hair, and ruddy complexion. He spent time around Fort Selden, near Mesilla, New Mexico, participated in several Apache Indian expeditions, and was discharged at Fort McPherson, Nebraska, in 1873. Within a brief time he reappeared in southern New Mexico, clashing on January 1, 1876, at a dance with a number of soldiers. The soldiers won and returned to the bar, only to be shot to pieces by a group of cowboys, of which John Kinney was one. Two soldiers died, and three others were seriously wounded.
Kinney thereafter became a cattleman with other people's cattle, his rustling empire extending along the Rio Grande Valley north through Mesilla and centering around Rincon. Newspapers described him as "King of the Rustlers," a title he aptly deserved. He and gunman Jesse Evans made life difficult for honest ranchers, since the outlaws, also referred to as "the Boys" by the press, operated almost without interference in that isolated portion of the valley. Kinney established a butcher shop in Mesilla and operated it until a Dona Ana County grand jury indicted him on several counts of "larceny with meat cattle." In November 1877, the grand jury indicted him again, this time for the murder of Sheriff Ysabel Barela.
The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters Page 30
