John Wesley Hardin Part II

 Captured and tried

John Barclay Armstrong

On January 20, 1875, the Texas Legislature authorized Governor Richard B. Hubbard to offer a $4,000 reward for Hardin's arrest. An undercover Texas Ranger named Jack Duncan intercepted a letter sent to Hardin's father-in-law by Hardin's brother-in-law, Joshua Robert "Brown" Bowen. The letter mentioned that Hardin was hiding out on the Alabama-Florida border using the name "James W. Swain". In his autobiography, Hardin admitted that he had "adopted" this alias from Brenham, Texas, Town Marshal Henry Swain, who had married a cousin of Hardin's named Molly Parks.

In March 1876, Hardin wounded a man, in Florida, who had tried to mediate a quarrel between him and another man. In November 1876, in Mobile, Alabama, Hardin was arrested briefly for having marked cards. In mid-1877, two former slaves of his father's, "Jake" Menzel and Robert Borup tried to capture Hardin in Gainesville, Florida. Hardin killed one and blinded the other.

On August 24, 1877, Rangers and local authorities confronted Hardin on a train in Pensacola, Florida. He attempted to draw a .44 Colt cap-and-ball pistol but it got caught up in his suspenders. The officers knocked Hardin unconscious. They arrested two of his companions, and Ranger John B. Armstrong killed a third, a man named Mann, who had a pistol in his hand. Hardin claimed that he was captured while smoking his pipe and that Duncan found Hardin's pistol under his shirt only after his arrest.

Trial and imprisonment

Hardin was tried for Webb's killing, and on June 5, 1878, was sentenced to serve 25 years in Huntsville Prison. In 1879, Hardin and 50 other convicts were stopped within hours of successfully tunneling into the prison armory. Hardin made several attempts to escape. On February 14, 1892, during his prison term, he was convicted of another manslaughter charge for the earlier shooting of J.B. Morgan and given a two-year sentence to be served concurrently with his unexpired 25-year sentence.

Hardin eventually adapted to prison life. While there, he read theological books, becoming the superintendent of the prison Sunday School, and studied law. He was plagued by recurring poor health, especially when the wound he had received from Sublett became re-infected in 1883, causing him to be bedridden for almost two years. In 1892, Hardin was described as 5.9 feet (1.8 m) tall and 160 pounds (73 kg), with a fair complexion, hazel eyes, dark hair, and wound scars on his right knee, left thigh, right side, hip, elbow, shoulder, and back. On November 6, 1892, during Hardin's stay in prison, his first wife, Jane, died.

While in prison, he wrote an autobiography. He was well known for fabricating or wildly exaggerating stories about his life. He claimed credit for many murders that cannot be corroborated. Hardin wrote that he was first exposed to violence in 1861 when he saw a man named Turner Evans stabbed by John Ruff. Evans died of his injuries and Ruff was jailed. Hardin wrote, "... Readers you see what drink and passion will do. If you wish to be successful in life, be temperate and control your passions; if you don't, ruin and death is the result."

After prison

On February 17, 1894, Hardin was released from prison, having served seventeen years of his twenty-five-year sentence. He was forty years old when he returned to Gonzales, Texas. Later that year, on March 16, Hardin was pardoned, and, on July 21, he passed the state's bar examination, obtaining his license to practice law. According to a newspaper article in 1900, shortly after being released from prison, Hardin committed negligent homicide when he made a $5 bet that he could "at the first shot" knock a Mexican man off the soapbox on which the man was "sunning" himself, winning the bet and leaving the man dead from the fall and not the gunshot.

On January 9, 1895, Hardin married a 15-year-old girl named Callie Lewis. The marriage ended quickly, although it was never legally dissolved. Afterward, Hardin moved to El Paso, Texas.

Death

An El Paso lawman, John Selman Jr., arrested Hardin's acquaintance and part-time prostitute, the "widow" M'Rose (or Mroz), for "brandishing a gun in public". Hardin confronted Selman and the two men argued. Some accounts state that Hardin pistol-whipped the younger man. Selman's 56-year-old father, Constable John Selman Sr. (himself a notorious gunman and former outlaw), approached Hardin on the afternoon of August 19, 1895, and the two men exchanged heated words.

That night, Hardin went to the Acme Saloon where he began playing dice; his last words were "Four Sixes to Beat". Shortly before midnight, Selman Sr. entered the saloon, walked up to Hardin from behind, and shot him in the head, killing him instantly. As Hardin lay on the floor, Selman fired three more shots into him. Hardin was buried the following day in Concordia Cemetery, in El Paso.

 

Selman Sr. was arrested for murder and stood trial. He claimed self-defense, stating that he witnessed Hardin attempting to draw his pistol upon seeing him enter the saloon, and a hung jury resulted in his being released on bond, pending a retrial. However, before the retrial could be organized Selman was killed in a shootout with US Marshal George Scarborough on April 6, 1896, during an argument following a card game.

Reburial controversy

A century later, on August 27, 1995, there was a confrontation between two groups at the site of Hardin's grave. One group, representing several of Hardin's great-grandchildren, sought to relocate his body to Nixon, Texas, to be interred next to the grave of his first wife, Jane. The other group, consisting of locals from El Paso, sought to prevent the move. At the cemetery, the group representing Hardin's descendants presented a disinterment permit for the body, while the El Pasoans presented a court order prohibiting its removal. Both sides accused the other parties of seeking the tourist revenue generated by the location of the body. A subsequent lawsuit ruled in favor of keeping the body in El Paso.

Known contacts with the law

Hardin had numerous confirmed clashes with the law:

January 9, 1871: Arrested by Constable E.T. Stakes and 12 citizens in Harrison County, Texas, on a charge of four murders and one horse theft. It is alleged that Hardin was an accomplice in the killing of ex-Texas State Policeman and Waco Texas Town Marshal Laban John Hoffman on January 6, 1871. Hardin claimed not to have been involved in Hoffman's murder.

January 22, 1871: Hardin killed Texas State Police officer Jim Smalley and escaped. Up to November 13, 1872, the Grand Jury of Freestone County, Texas had not filed an indictment against Hardin for Smalley's killing.

August 6, 1871: In Abilene, Dickinson County, Kansas, Charles Couger was killed in the American House Hotel. Hardin, aka "Wesley Clemens", was found guilty by a coroner's jury of the killing.

October 6, 1871: Texas Special Policemen Green Paramore and John Lackey were killed and wounded, respectively, by Hardin in Gonzales, Texas.

July 26, 1872: Texas State Policeman Sonny Speights was wounded in the shoulder by Hardin in Hemphill, Texas

September 1872: Hardin surrendered to Sheriff Reagan, but escaped in October 1872.

November 19, 1872: Hardin mysteriously escaped from the sheriff of Gonzales County, Texas, despite a guard of six men. A reward of $100 was offered for his re-capture.

June 17, 1873: Hardin assisted in the escape of his brother-in-law, outlaw Joshua "Brown" Bowen, from the Gonzales County, Texas, jail. Bowen had been charged with the December 17, 1872, killing of Thomas Holderman. After Bowen's execution in the summer of 1878, Hardin was implicated in Holderman's death as well.

July 18, 1873: Hardin killed Dewitt County Texas ex-Deputy Sheriff Morgan and later killed Dewitt County Sheriff Jack Helm.

August 26, 1873: Cuero Texas Sherriff D.J. Blair prevented a gunfight between two well-armed parties, one of which was headed by John Hardin and the other headed by Capt. Joe Tomlinson.

October 1873: Hardin was indicted in Hill County, Texas, for the 1870 death of Benjamin Bradley, but was never tried.

May 26, 1874: Hardin killed Brown County Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb in Comanche, Texas.

November 1876: Hardin (under the alias of "Swain") and Gus Kennedy were arrested in Mobile, Alabama, for having a deck of marked cards, and ordered to leave town. A police Sgt was wounded in the arm.

August 1877: Reported to have been under indictments in five Texas counties: Trinity County, Texas; Comanche County, Texas; Wilson County, Texas (the last was in July 1873 for the killing of Sheriff Jack Helm) on three separate murder charges; Navarro County, Texas; and Smith County, Texas, on two separate charges of assault with intent to murder.

May 1, 1895: Hardin used a pistol to get back money that he lost in gambling at El Paso's Gem Saloon. Hardin would later publish a defense of his action.

July 1895: Fined $25 for gaming, relating to the May 1 incident, where he lost and took back $100 at the Gem Saloon. His gun was confiscated.

Confirmed shootings

Prior to December 9, 1868: Hardin shot and mortally wounded "Maje" (Major) Holshousen near Moscow, Polk County, Texas.

January 5, 1870: Hardin killed Benjamin Bradley and claimed to have brought about the "disappearance" of a "Judge Moore." in Hill County, Texas.

January 22, 1871: Hardin killed Texas State Policeman John Smalley.

June 1, 1871: Hardin killed three Mexican cowboys in Park City, Kansas.

July 20, 1871: Hardin was involved in the killing of Mexican outlaw in Sumner City, Kansas.

August 6, 1871: Hardin killed Charles Couger in Abilene, Kansas.

October 6, 1871: Hardin killed Texas Special Policeman Green Paramore and wounded policeman John Lackey.

June 19, 1872: Hardin is wounded in a gunfight in Willis, Texas.

July 26, 1872: Hardin wounded Texas State Policeman Sonny Speights in Hemphill, Texas.

July 17, 1873: Hardin killed J.B. Morgan in Cuero, Texas.

July 18, 1873: Hardin killed Dewitt Sheriff Jack Helm in Albuquerque, Texas.

March 11, 1874: Hardin was involved in Jim Taylor and William Taylor's killing of William Sutton and Gabriel Slaughter

May 26, 1874: Hardin killed Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb in Comanche, Texas.

March 1876: Hardin shot and wounded W.C. Overbey in Gainesville, Florida.

November 1876: Hardin and Joe Kennedy arrested for having marked cards in Mobile Alabama; Mobile policeman Sgt Ryan was shot in the arm.

Mid 1877: "Jake" Menzel and Robert Borup tried to capture Hardin in Gainesville, Florida; Hardin killed one and blinded the other.

1894: After his release from prison, Hardin won a $5.00 bet when he used a pistol shot to knock a sleeping Mexican off a box (victim was killed by the fall).

Unconfirmed claims

Hardin's autobiography is filled with statements which can either not be confirmed independently from his book, or differ wildly from the historical record:

Hardin claimed that after killing Maje, he shot three Union soldiers of the U.S. 4th Cavalry Regiment at a creek crossing at Logallis Prairie (now Nogalus Prairie, Trinity County, Texas).  None of the military records name Hardin as a suspect, nor do any facts agree with his claims. Circumstantial evidence is that a murder was committed here, but the names and number of victims is unknown.

In Pisgah, Texas Hardin claimed he shot a man's eye out to win a bottle of whiskey in a bet. 

Hardin said he shot one of the two soldiers killed in 1869 in "Richland Bottom", the other having been shot by his cousin, Simpson "Simp" Dixson, a member of the Ku Klux Klan (and the Bob Lee outlaw gang) who hated Union soldiers. Records indicate that a Sgt. J.F. Leonard of Company B, 6th U.S. Cavalry, was wounded at Livingston, Texas, on May 7, 1869. "Simp" Dixson/Dickson was killed by US soldiers In February 1870.

Allegedly, Hardin killed a black man in Leon County, Texas.

In January 1870, Hardin claimed he killed a circus hand at Horn Hill, Texas. A contemporary newspaper account did report a fight in Union Hill, Texas, between circus "canvasmen" and "roughs" who tried to get in without paying, although the outcome did not conclude the way Hardin claimed it did.

A few days later, Hardin killed a man in Kosse, Texas; there are no contemporary newspapers to confirm this shooting. Author Charles Adkins—in his 1970 book Texas, Guns & History—claimed the victim was named Alan Comstock; however he did not furnish any references to back up his claim.

Hardin claimed that, following his January 1871 escape from Stakes and Smalley, he killed a Mr. Smith, a Mr. Jones, and a Mr. Davis in Bell County, Texas. No contemporary newspaper accounts from Bell County confirm these additional killings.

In February 1871, Hardin claimed that a freedman, named Bob King, attempted to cut a beef cow out of the herd. When he refused to obey Hardin's demand to stop, Hardin hit him over the head with his pistol. That same month, Hardin claimed to have been involved in a shooting incident in which he wounded three Mexicans in an argument over a Three-card Monte card game, pistol-whipping one man over the head, shooting one man in the arm, and shooting the third man in the lung.

Hardin made the claim to have outdrawn "Wild Bill" Hickok. No contemporary newspaper accounts confirm this, but another report suggests that it was Hickok who made Hardin put up his guns.

Another claim was that he killed a man in Abilene, Kansas, in the summer of 1871.  No contemporary newspaper accounts with evidence of such a killing exist, although a 1924 account does report a saloon shooting in some respects similar to Hardin's version.

As noted above, Hardin claimed to have captured Abilene law officer Tom Carson and other officers and humiliated them sans clothing. Although Carson was a law officer, he did not have any interactions with Hardin

Hardin claimed that after killing Green Paramore in October 1871, he forced an African-American posse to flee after killing three of them.  There are no contemporary accounts to confirm this claim.

At an unknown date in May 1872, Hardin claimed those 45 miles outside Corpus Christie, Texas, he was followed by two Mexicans; that he killed one and the other fled.

Hardin claimed that on June 19, 1872, in Willis, Texas, some men tried to arrest him for carrying a pistol, "... but they got the contents instead".  Hardin was wounded in a gunfight around this time, but records indicate the fight occurred with just one other man.

After being wounded by Sublett in August 1872, Hardin claimed that in September he either killed or drove off one or two members of the Texas State Police in Trinity, Texas.  Hardin gave different versions of the event at different times. Although during his career he had killed two and wounded two of the Texas State policemen, these shootings did not occur in Trinity County.

September 1873, in Brooksville, Hernando County, Florida, a former slave named Allen May was shot and killed. A Savannah newspaper claimed the killer was John Wesley Hardin on a cattle drive in central Florida but offered no proof Hardin was involved.

In May 1874, while in Gainesville, Florida, Hardin confessed to having knocked down a black man and shooting another during a disturbance outside the Alachua County jail. A black prisoner named "Eli", was lynched when the jail was burned down by a mob. Hardin claimed to have been part of the mob. No contemporary newspaper accounts support this, except one suggesting that the first Alachua County jail building suffered a ”demise".

Hardin claimed that on July 1, 1874, he drove off 17 Texas Rangers who had been trailing him, and killed one of them.  This alleged shooting happened after a triple lynching of Hardin's cousin and two ranch hands during the Sutton–Taylor Feud. He also claimed to have driven off another group of men after killing one of them. There are no contemporary reports to confirm these stories. However, on June 1, 1874, a Texas Ranger's company did kill Hardin's cousins, Alexander Barekman and Alexander Anderson, in a gunfight and claimed to have wounded Hardin as well. Hardin wrote about his cousins' killings but does not confirm that he was wounded at all, and claimed to have heard about their deaths later.

Later, Hardin and Mac Young were supposedly stopped near Bellville, Texas, by a posse under Sheriff Charles Langhammer of Austin on suspicion of being horse thieves. Hardin pulled his guns on Langhammer but did not shoot him, fleeing instead; Young was arrested and fined $100 for having a concealed pistol.

Hardin claimed to have been involved in the killing of two Pinkerton agents on the Florida–Georgia border sometime between April and November 1876, after a gunfight with a "Pinkerton Gang" who had been tracking him from Jacksonville, Florida.  This confrontation is pure fiction, as the Pinkerton Detective Agency never pursued Hardin. However, in March 1876 it was alleged Hardin, a.k.a. "Swain", who had wounded W.C. Overbey, who had tried to act as a mediator between Hardin and another person.

Hardin claimed that in a saloon on election night in November 1876, he and a companion, Jacksonville policeman Gus Kennedy, were involved in a gunfight with Mobile policemen in whom one person was wounded and two killed. He further claims that he and Kennedy were arrested and later released.  This appears to be another case of an exaggerated encounter. Hardin and Kennedy were simply arrested and driven out of town for cheating at cards. Again Hardin's version does not fit with contemporary records which tell that nobody was killed and the only person injured was a Mobile policeman Sgt Ryan who was shot in the arm.

Hardin claimed to have met two notorious fellow outlaws during his life: in 1870, he supposedly gambled with Bill Longley.  It is possible they met after both were sentenced for their crimes, Hardin receiving 25 years and Longley execution. Longley, who boasted of having killed as many men as Hardin, was outraged at the different degrees of sentencing. After being sentenced in September 1878, Hardin supposedly met Johnny Ringo, a fellow convict, in an Austin, Texas jail; in fact, Ringo had been acquitted and freed in May 1878.

At least two other relatives of Hardin were also killers:

 

James "Gip" Hardin—his brother—killed Deputy Sheriff John Turman March 28, 1898, for which he served a jail term.

"Deacon" Jim Miller (outlaw)—a cousin by marriage—killed Officer Ben C. Collins August 1, 1906 and was later lynched April 16, 1909.

One relation was a law officer killed in the line of duty:

James Burch killed October 10, 1897

Legacy

The memorable circumstances and the sheer number of Hardin's life events, real or exaggerated, made him a legend of the Old West and an icon of American folklore. His autobiography was published posthumously in 1925 by Bandera publisher, historian, and journalist J. Marvin Hunter, who founded both the Frontier Times magazine and the Frontier Times Museum.

Firearms and effects

Hardin's weapons of choice, and several of his personal effects, have been well documented and auctioned to private collectors. Court records show that Hardin carried a Colt "Lightning" revolver at the time of his death. He also carried an Elgin watch when he was shot and killed. The revolver and the watch had been presented to Hardin in appreciation for his legal efforts on behalf of Jim Miller at Miller's trial for the killing of ex-sheriff George "Bud" Frazer. The Colt, with a .38-caliber “2+1⁄2" barrel, is nickel-plated, with blued hammer, trigger, and screws. It features mother-of-pearl grips, and the back-strap is hand-engraved "J.B.M. TO J.W.H.". This gun and its holster were once sold at auction for $168,000. Another Colt revolver (known as a .41-caliber "Thunderer"), which was owned by Hardin and used by him to rob the Gem Saloon, was sold at the same auction for $100,000.

In 2002, an auction house in San Francisco, California, auctioned three lots of John Wesley Hardin's personal effects. One lot—containing a deck of his playing cards, a deck of his business cards, and a contemporary newspaper account of his death—sold for $15,250. The bullet that killed Hardin sold for $80,000.