When My Great-Grandfather Was an Outlaw

 


Bill Cook (1872-1900)


     U.S. Deputy Marshalls S.T. Wyckoff and Bill Smith rode their horses onto the rolling prairie of Arthur Dodge’s XU ranch outside of Lenapah, Indiana Territory, January 12, 1895. They were there to see two of his ranch hands, Clyde Barbour, 19; and Dooley Benge, 20. It wasn’t the first time Dodge had lawmen on his property looking for outlaws. The northeastern portion of the Territory, where Lenapah is, was called “Land of the Six-Gun,” or “Robbers’ Roost.” 

    The two were arrested without incident and taken to the scene of their crime: the Lenapah train depot. It wasn’t to have them review what they’d done, but to put them on a train bound for Fort Smith, Arkansas.   

     Crimes committed in Indian Territory - the I.T. - were tried in federal court, the U.S. Court for the Western District of Arkansas in Fort Smith, which is why Clyde and Dooley soon found themselves far from home. The court was presided over by the infamous “Hanging Judge,” Isaac Parker. The I.T. was considered a wild and lawless place populated by bandits, horse thieves, whiskey peddlers, and of course Indians. The exploits of the “desperadoes” in the Territory fascinated the public, and were widely reported in the newspapers nationwide.

    Clyde is my great-grandfather, and Dooley was his friend, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Tribe. 

     Lenapah was served by the K & A.V. Railroad - the Kansas and Arkansas Valley, which had laid tracks and built a depot just five years earlier, in 1889. The post office started in 1890. It’s hard to say precisely what the population of Lenapah was in 1895, but on its first census in 1900 there were 154 residents. In a town that small, a town Clyde and Dooley frequented, it seems a particularly bone-headed move that they pulled their cowboy hats down low, tied kerchiefs over their nose and mouth, and held up the station agent of the depot at gunpoint. They got away with 99 cents - equivalent to about $35.50 today - or a whopping $17.75 each. They were also recognized by the station agent.

     As the St. Louis Globe Democrat said, “They were cowboys on a drunken lark.”

     The newspapers described them as what we’d now call “wannabes;” two young guys, 19 and 20,  trying to act like outlaws Bill Cook, Cherokee Bill and the Verdigris Kid. Bill Cook led the latter two in the Bill Cook Gang, which terrorized the I.T. with bank robberies, train robberies, and robberies of post offices, company payrolls, stores and individuals. In June 1894, as officials attempted to arrest Bill’s brother Jim, who was also a member of the gang, Cherokee Bill shot and killed a lawman. In July, the gang killed someone in a bank robbery and a gang member was captured. In August, during a shoot-out with lawmen, two of Bill’s gang were killed and another captured. In October they held up Schufeldt’s Store in Lenapah where Cherokee Bill killed another man. 

     If it’s true that Clyde and Dooley were inspired by outlaws, Henry Starr could also have been an inspiration. Movie-star handsome, Starr led a life that was truly an example of  “you can’t make this up.” (In fact, he would later star in a movie about his life.) Henry had also held up Schufeldt’s Store in Lenapah in addition to another store and was a suspect in a depot robbery, with a warrant out for horse theft. In December, 1892, Deputy Marshall Floyd Wilson and Detective Henry Dickey rode onto Arthur Dodge’s XU ranch looking for Starr. Dodge said he hadn’t seen him. 

     The next day, the two lawmen were eating dinner at Dodge’s bunkhouse. Clyde worked for Dodge then too, and was likely eating dinner in the bunkhouse. Dodge rode up and told the lawmen he’d just seen Henry Starr. Wilson jumped on Dodge’s already-saddled blaze-faced horse and took off alone, while Dickey hastily saddled his horse. Before Dickey could catch up to him, Wilson found Starr at the banks of Wolf Creek. A gun battle followed, with Starr shooting Wilson to death. Arthur Dodge later recovered the horse. This had to be exciting stuff in the life of 17-year Clyde.


Henry Starr (1873-1921)

      By chance, Bill Cook and Cherokee Bill were both arrested in January 1895; Bill while watering his horse. They were sent to Fort Smith, where Henry Starr was at the jail in the midst of the five years he spent enduring three trials. This is very fortunate for the family history researcher, because the national interest in the big-time outlaws meant coverage of Clyde and Dooley.

     The Coffeyville Daily Journal editor expressed his sympathy to Clyde’s parents, Myron and Agnes Barbour, describing them as among the “most highly respected people in the county,” and saying it was anticipated that Clyde would be able to prove his innocence. 

     Clyde and Dooley were transported in shackles to Fort Smith, accompanied by U.S. Marshals. The jail was a modern brick building, just five years old, standing in the center of the old stone 1841 fort. Built at a cost of $55,000 (about $1.6 million today), the new jail replaced a truly dismal and dangerous predecessor that had the nickname “Hell on the Border.” The new building was constructed by a company that specialized in building prisons. It featured a cell block three tiers high surrounded by an iron cage. Each level had 24 cells; each cell measured five by seven feet. There was an iron bunk bed to house two prisoners. Outside, the gallows stood in a shed-like structure in the southwest corner of the fort. During Clyde and Dooley’s stay, there were about 145 prisoners. 

     Bill Cook’s arrival in February caused great excitement. Nearly 1,500 people came to visit the jail the first day he was there. The jailer thought of not allowing any visitors, but changed his mind and put more guards on duty. People were escorted in groups of ten to fifteen. “The jam and push was terrible; the ladies who unfortunately wore balloon sleeves suffered more than anyone else,” a correspondent for the Yellville, Arkansas Mountain Echo reported. The jail was, he said, almost unbearably hot. 

Postcard view of the jail where Clyde was confined. 


     Clyde and Dooley must have felt like they were part of a zoo exhibition. 

     They were convicted on February 27th and sentenced to two years. It was considered a light sentence, but it was their first time in trouble with the law. 

     When the new jail was built, a new courthouse was too. Previously, it was also contained within the walls of the old stone fort. Now, officials had to transport convicts by wagonload a few blocks to court. This gave Clyde and Dooley an opportunity, and on the way back to jail,  another bone-headed move.  Dooley leaped from the wagon and took off at a sprint. Clyde was supposed to follow. Somehow, Dooley had the advantage of being the only one in the wagon who wasn’t handcuffed. After a “sharp race through the heart of the city” - one can imagine with shouts of encouragement from the wagon full of prisoners - Dooley was recaptured. A day or two later, there was “mutiny” in the jail, and “Benge and Barber [sic] took leading parts and were the last ones to tame down.” Because of this, their sentence was set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

April 15th they appeared before Judge Parker and were given an additional year for “bad behavior.” Convicted men and women from the I.T. served their sentences in a variety of facilities mostly in the east. They were ordered to the Albany Penitentiary in Albany, New York. 


Journey to Albany


     Clyde’s trip to prison was a spectacle, a bizarre phenomena. They departed April 23rd. Every stop was covered by the press, and just as crowds showed up when Bill Cook was brought to Fort Smith, crowds showed up at each stop. There was a carnival atmosphere with reporters and spectators jostling to see the bad boys of the West - but Bill was clearly the draw. 

     Twenty prisoners traveled in a special prison car, bright yellow and belonging to the Big Four Railroad (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis). It had thick iron bars on every window and heavily armed deputy marshals at each door, a total of seven in the car. The men were shackled together at the ankles in heavy iron manacles, though their hands were kept free. They were also chained to the wooden seats where they sat two-by-two for three days and nights. They would leave the car only once.

     Reporters delighted in describing them. They were a “choice gang of cutthroats,” “hardened villains,” “the most desperate-looking criminals one can imagine,” and “desperate border ruffians.” One reporter said, “The majority of prisoners were dirty and shabby, like typical border ruffians.” Another said, “They were not pretty. They looked very Indian-territory. In every face except Beck, were the marks of crime.” (John Beck was an Indian lawyer sentenced to postal fraud. More specifically, for a fee of about $650, he helped people get placed on the Cherokee tribal rolls so they could receive benefits.)

     But then there was Bill. He looked nothing like what was expected. He was only 22, medium height, part Cherokee, with light blue eyes. He was resplendent in a pink percale shirt, blue tie, blue flannel coat, and of course his black cowboy hat. He wore a silver cross on a chain around his neck. He did not look fierce, scary or hardened. He seemed unperturbed by the 48-year sentence he’d been given, and up until their last stops, when he was exhausted, he was calm, polite and soft-spoken.

     The other prisoners had a lot of fun at the expense of the crowds. Asked by spectators, “Where’s Bill Cook? Which one is Bill Cook?” they would each answer, “I’m Bill Cook.”

     At 6:50 a.m., when they rolled into the St. Louis Union Station, a large crowd was already waiting. They were marched, still shackled at the feet, into the station to a dining room where they were served beefsteak, fried potatoes, eggs, bread and coffee. John Beck stood and gave a speech to the crowd watching them eat, then offered photos of Bill Cook for sale for 25 cents, equivalent to about $8.50 today. At 8:40, the train rolled out of the station, Marshal George Crump and his men looking like “walking arsenals.”

     That night at 9:55 p.m. they arrived in Springfield, Missouri. Again there was a “gaping crowd,” and the prisoners “had a sport in strutting before the people who crowded the train windows.” The next day they passed through Muncie, Indiana with the same scene. It was the same in Marion, Ohio.

     In Rochester, New York, the guards allowed people to walk through the car, watching closely, the reporter said, to make sure no one handed the prisoners anything more than money, as Beck again sold photos of Bill. Beck and Bill had a running poker game the whole trip.

     By the time the train arrived in Buffalo at 7:18 a.m. Bill wasn’t feeling cooperative. Again the guards allowed reporters and spectators to walk through the car. Porters brought a breakfast of beefsteak, hard-boiled eggs, bread and coffee, but Bill did not eat. 

     As a reporter was leaving, accompanied by a local detective,  Dooley shouted, “Hey! Gimme a dime!” Clyde yelled, “ Yeah - gimme a dime!” and attempted to (jokingly, perhaps) pick the pockets of the detective. This riled everyone up. “Give us a dime! Give us a dime!” they all shouted, except Bill, who sat mute and unsmiling. The prisoners turned their attention to the crowd, shouting for dimes as the train began to roll. The crowd ran alongside them. Then Bill Cook threw a hard-boiled egg out the window, hitting a porter in the ear. Only then did he smile.

     They arrived in Albany at 2:30 p.m. As they had everywhere, they attracted a lot of attention, and it was noted that they “still wore their wild and wooly western costumes.” Three days and three nights chained to wooden benches with no bath or change of clothes naturally left them worse for the wear. They were transported to the castle-like penitentiary in a prison van and an old Delavan House stagecoach, Delavan House being Albany’s premier hotel. 

     The joking and clowning was over. 


What Happened Next


     The prisoners were all assigned jobs; the prison was virtually self-supporting. Bill was assigned to make shirts. A record of Clyde and Dooley’s assignment hasn’t been found yet.

Back in Fort Smith, the death sentence Judge Isaac Parker ordered for Crawford Goldsby -- Cherokee Bill -- was carried out in March 1896. He was hung at the prison gallows at the age of 20.



                                              Crawford Goldsby, aka Cherokee Bill

Bill Cook contracted consumption in prison and died in February 1900. His body was shipped back to Indian Territory, probably by his sister, and he was buried in the I.O.O.F. Cemetery in Hulburt, Oklahoma, a town in Cherokee County.

     Clyde and Dooley were far more fortunate: they served their sentences and went back home. Dooley married and had children, and then things get confusing. Oddly, he may have adopted the Barbour last name, and he became difficult to track.

     Clyde settled first where he’d been raised, outside Coffeyville, Kansas. There was a girl he’d known since childhood.  Her name was Melissa J. Patchett, and she lived on the farm next to his uncle Lucius Taylor Barbour’s farm. Clyde and Melissa married in November 1898. In March, there was a sentence in the “Country Correspondent” column. Bruce Patchett and Clyde Barbour were going to try life in the I.T. That sounds like a couple of men "batching it," which wasn't uncommon. Their wives were simply not mentioned. Bruce was Melissa’s cousin, and he was married to Maud, who was Clyde’s half-sister. Each couple settled on a farm outside of Lenapah. In May, six months after Clyde and Melissa’s marriage, their first child, Russell, was born. 

     Clyde and Melissa had eight children together, two who died just after birth. Melissa was killed in a devastating house fire in 1910, leaving six children. My grandmother, Grace M. Barbour, the youngest, was two months shy of her second birthday. The oldest, Russell, was 11. Many men in Clyde’s position farmed their kids out to relatives. It was also common to place them in asylums like Masonic Children’s Homes. And people offered. They especially offered to take the two little girls, Grace and Vera. 

     But Clyde said, “I’m keeping all of my children.” He raised six kids by himself and did not remarry until they were grown. After his one crime, he lived an exemplary life. The biggest shock of all my uncovered family stories was this one. My cousin Teresa and I had a good laugh about it, sure that our grandmothers, Grace and Vera, never, ever knew. Grandma and Aunt Vera laughingly related stories of the famous Dalton Gang that attempted to hold up two banks at the same time in Coffeyville, and the wild lawlessness of the I.T. But we don’t think they ever knew about their dad’s one escapade. 

     Clyde made a couple of foolish mistakes in his youth, paid for it dearly with three years of his life, and lived the rest of his days as a good man.  

      

 Sources:


     Benedict, John D. Muskogee and Northeastern Oklahoma, Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing, 1922, p. 51.

     Galonska, Juliet L. “Reforming the Hell on the Border Jail: Changes in the U.S. Jail for the Western District of Arkansas, 1871-1896,” Fort Smith National Historic Site, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/fosm/learn/historyculture/reforming-the-hell-on-the-border-jail.htm

     Harman, S.W. Hell On the Border: He Hanged Eighty-Right Men, Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1898.

     Arrest: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 18 Jan 1895, p. 2. 

     “More Desperadoes Arrested,” Parsons Daily Eclipse (Parsons, Kansas), 19 Jan 1895, p. 4.

     Sympathy for parents: Coffeyville Daily Journal, 22 Jan 1895, p. 1.

     “From Fort Smith,” The Mountain Echo (Yellville, Arkansas), 15 Feb 1895, p. 3

     “Result of a Cowboy Lark,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 28 Feb 1895, p. 3.

     Blaze-Faced Horse: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 15 March 1895, p. 2.

     “Fort Smith Letter - Fate of Many Sinners,” The Weekly Chieftain (Vinita, Oklahoma), 11 April 1895, p. 2. 

    Additional Year: Coffeyville Daily Journal, 20 April 1895, p. 1.

     “Off For Albany - Bill Cook and Others Leave Fort Smith - Twenty Arkansas Toughs,” Buffalo Morning Express, 24 April 1895, p. 1. 

     “Bill Cook’s Last Ride,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 24 April 1895, p. 6.

     “Bill Cook Going East,” Springfield Leader and Press (Springfield, Missouri), 24 April 1895, p. 5. 

     “Bill Cook on Exhibition,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 25 April 1895, p. 12.

     “Bill Cook Goes to Prison,” Rolla Herald (Rolla, Missouri), 25 April 1895, p. 5.

     “Bill Cook the Train Robber,” The Muncie Morning News (Muncie, Indiana), 25 April 1895, p. 8.

     “Ha!” Said Bill Cook - Then He Chucked a Hardboiled Egg at Spectators,” Buffalo Morning Express (Buffalo, New York), 26 April 1895, p. 6.

     “Desperado Bill Cook - The Famous Western Bandit Passes Through This City on His Way to Prison,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York), 26 April 1895, p. 8.


Copyright Andrea Auclair © 2023

     


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