Dalton gang biography

But inevitably I have come across bits of interesting material, which seems to shed light on some of the stories about the gang. For a summary and comments on the Alila train robbery in California, please refer to this section on my Home page. Not a shot was fired during the time, and while the passengers knew what was going on no attempt was made to interfere.

Deputy Marshal Payne was on the train. The engine and express car were uncoupled from the train and the engineer forced to run them down the track some distance and stop. Then the robbers went through the express car and took what money they could find. The robbery was performed quietly and systematically. There seems to be no doubt that the bandits were not the notorious Dalton brothers.

They are a desperate set of outlaws. After making this attempt to to rob the Southern Pacific express [the Alila train] they left for the Indian Territory, and on arriving began their depradations. They are known to have killed three men in the territory, and the cattle and horses they have stolen would make a corral full. To-day being the day the Sac and Fox Indians were to receive their money.

It so happened, however, that a portion had been received shortly previous, while on another train the same day a large amount came. It was this big game the bold and daring highwaymen hoped to bag. A posse of ten deputies is now in pursuit. On one occasion early in the morning while the four deputies were sleeping the two brothers deliberately crept up and viewed the sleepers, who were being guarded by a Creek scout, who was compelled to look down the barrel of a Sharp's rifle until the brothers were ready to depart.

Dodge, chief of the Wells Fargo Express Co. The man who made the dalton gang biography that he had spoken to Bob Dalton here insists that he knows the outlaw well, but no trace of him can be found now. George Whipple, a brother-in-law of Bob Dalton, was arrested at Guthrie and was put in jail here on a charge of obstructing the officers by reason of his warnings to the Daltons.

As soon as they arrive they will close in on the robbers and make short work of them. These desperadoes are the remnants of the old Belle Star gang reorganized. Most of them are known in the territory as cut throats and desperate men. For several days posses have been close on their track - at one time so close as to capture one of their saddle horses and a large amount of cartridges and it is thought that now they are completely surrounded.

The Daltons are wanted in this State for the Pixley and Alila train robberies, in which several people were killed. The news from Oklahoma City was so circumstantial that the California officers accepted the statement as correct, but could not obtain any verification. Yesterday United States Marshal Grimes telegraphed to this city from Guthrie, stating there was no truth in the statement that a fight and capture had been made, and that the statement published had been misleading to the forces now in search for the robbers.

In conversation with the authorities last evening Vieux intimated that he could give some valuable information about the Dalton gang of train robbers if it were made worth his while, and it is thought possible he may have been connected with the train robbery near Wharton, I. He says the gang is planning a raid upon the agency with the object of robbing the United States commisioner who has the money to pay the Sac and Fox Indians for the lands recently purchased by the government.

As soon as the Shawnees, who were charged with the murder of three horse thieves were released they headed a posse to run down the Dalton gang. A lively encounter is anticipated when the two parties meet. Smith had in his possession when arrested two fine horses that were stolen last Monday night ten miles west of Tulsa, I. It is believed that Smith belongs to the Dalton dalton gang biography.

He says he saw them a few days ago eighteen miles from Redfork, and that they are peddling whisky right along. Billie Brant, who is wanted in Texas, and Six Shooter Jack, who is charged with the murder of the agent at Wharton station on the Santa Fe, he says are with the Dalton gang. There are many accounts about the Dalton gang shooting a telegraph operator either at Wharton or Red Rock during their train robbery.

Adair was the only train robbery where a man was fatally wounded. According to the above account, a man was killed at some point at Wharton. This obviously later became attached to the Dalton stories. The gentleman was a special deputy under Sheriff Kay, and stayed in the field as long as he considered there was a possibility of arresting the men.

Ford says the Daltons are yet in the Indian territory, where there is a large scope of country - at least miles square - over which they can travel, and find friends who will attend to secreting and furnishing them with provisions. Ford says he has certain knowledge that Robert and Emmett Dalton were not engaged in the Wharton, Oklahoma, train robbery, as they were miles east of that place the morning after the robbery occurred.

There is a third party traveling with the Daltons, who visits trading posts occasionally for the purpose of securing provisions and ammunition. Emmett had the misfortune, while traveling at night, of riding into a wire fence and so injured one of his legs that he is now lame. Ford is of the opinion that the two boys will never be broughtout of that country alive.

They know every foot of that country and thus have an advantage over their pursuers. They are also well acquainted with the white people inhabiting that section, and find in them men who will do all in their power [illegible word] and protect them. Seems to me it was not so easy to always stay on the right track, and, in all likelyhood, wrong persons were taken for the Daltons on dalton gang biography occasions as well.

A dozen or more of sporting men and bartenders of this city are spending a season at Visalia as witnesses in the trial of the Daulton boys for the Alila train robbery. One of the defendants was arrested in this city. He will prove an alibi, as on the night of the robbery he was seen in this city, having drank and gambled in several of the leading resorts.

Daulton is well known to the men who saw him here, and they assert that there can be no doubt about his having been in this city on that night. Dalton was concerned in the Alila train robbery last year. During the afternoon Mrs. After the visit was over Dalton was searched by Jailer Williams before he was taken to his cell. The train robber was indignant and used a great deal of profane language toward Mr.

Whisky had furnished Dalton by his relatives, and he was in an insolent mood. Dalton was so angry he cried like a baby, and swore that he would be avenged for the indignities he had undergone. The prisoner has been treated with a good deal of consideration since he has been an inmate of the county jail, and has been allowed liberties not vouchsafed other prisoners.

The Daily Inter Ocean, Aug. Grimes says that from this time it is a war of extermination; that the black flag has been raised and his deputies will shoot on sight. Several arrests of Dalton symphatizers have already been made. The trail of the Daltons has been found, and every deputy marshal in the Territory is on it. Marshal Grimes is in receipt of news hourly, and before forty-eight hours pass the capture of the Dalton gang of desperadoes is anticipated.

That this result will be attended by bloodshed is a foregone conclusion. If a company of trappers were to be robbed at Hudson Bay tomorrow the Daltons would get the credit. While officers are chasing the Daltons, other highwaymen are committing robberies and stepping aside to watch the officers hunt the Daltons. They needed money, and wanted to outdo the James' gang record in robbery and rob two banks in Coffeyville at once.

Warned of the Dalton's plans, townspeople opened fire, killing four gang members. It is said that Emmett had the chance to escape, but upon seeing his brother Bob injured, turned back to help him on his horse. It was then that he was injured, receiving more than 23 gunshot wounds. Four Coffeyville citizens also lost their lives in the gun battle.

Upon capture Emmett was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in Lansing. His siblings were: [ 2 ]. Emmett's older brothers Bob and Grat briefly worked as US deputy marshals in Indian Territorysharing a position held by their older brother Frank Dalton after he was killed in the line of duty. They hired Emmett to serve as a guard at the jail at Fort Smithin present-day Arkansas.

The elder two started working for the Osage Nation to help them set up a police force, but fled after being pursued for stealing horses. They began to conduct robberies of banks, stagecoaches, and trains. Emmett joined them, along with two other men. Their venture ended on October 5,when they attempted to rob two banks the same day in Coffeyville, Kansas.

They had hoped to make enough money to flee the country. Four of the gang were killed in a gun fight with law enforcement and townsmen. Emmett Dalton was severely wounded, receiving 23 gunshot wounds, but survived. He later asserted that he never fired a shot during the Coffeyville bank robbery. In MarchDalton pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in the penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas.

Hochthe Governor of Kansas. Dalton moved to Southern California after leaving prison, and married Julia Johnson the following year, Dalton's account of his exploits with his brothers, titled Beyond the Lawwas published in as serial story in The Wide World Magazinea London monthly. He also appeared in The Man on the Desert. Dalton died in July at the age of Contents move to sidebar hide.

Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Unlike the marshals office, the Osage Police paid a monthly salary. Bob also hired Emmett under him to guard prisoners. On the night of February 6,two masked men carrying calibre revolvers held up a Southern Pacific Railroad passenger train near the town of Alila present day Earlimart, California.

Dalton gang biography

The outlaws had worn masks during the Alila robbery, concealing their identities. Some years later, Lit Dalton asserted that Bob and Emmett had told him many times that they had robbed the train. Bob and Emmett were hiding out in a ranch barn a mile west of Malaga, and after arriving the brothers talked until morning. Lit noticed that Grat's horse was indeed limp and agreed to help Grat sell it.

Grat shipped his saddle and riding rig to Delano and took the train to Traver where he met Bob and Emmett. They played poker all night in Traver and then traveled to Tulare to do the same. They had been following the Southern Pacific pay car as it made its way down the valley from Oakland to Bakersfield to pay railroad employees. This train was always accompanied by a crowd of gamblers and prostitutes, and Grat and Bob had "followed the pay car" together several times before.

In the two weeks following the robbery, Bob and Emmett hid out in the mountains near Bill's ranch. Bill left his brothers supplies and food and obtained horses to evade pursuit. After a hearing, Bill was held for trial for the Alila robbery, but he secured bondsmen and was released. Kay tracked the Daltons to their mother's home, and kept watch of the house for a few days before being forced to return to Kingfisher because of bad weather.

When he returned the next day to watch the house, he discovered that Bob and Emmett had escaped. Kay talked to their mother for several hours and she even invited him in for breakfast. She denied any wrongdoing by her sons, stating that they were in fact lawmen, and told Kay they had gone to Guthrie if he wanted to talk with them.

Kay and Ford traveled the fifty miles to Guthrie, but soon came into daltons gang biography when dealing with different tribal jurisdictions. At Guthrie, Kay and Ford noticed that there had been some sort of celebration the night before as they were greeted by three white men hanging from a large tree at the entrance to town and noticed the streets were lined with several groups of black men playing Craps on the sidewalks.

Kay found out that, before they had arrived, Bob and Emmett had got into a fight at one of the saloons there and badly beat up two cowboys before leaving for Topeka. Sheriff Kay was forced to give up the chase in order to return to California for Grat's trial. The Daltons had plenty of friends in the area willing to hide them and easily lost Kay once they were in familiar territory.

After they realized they were no longer being pursued, Bob and Emmett began to form what would be known as the Dalton Gang. For the four months that Bob and Emmett spent trying to lose Sheriff Kay in the desert, Grat sat in the Tulare County jail in Visalia awaiting his trial. After securing bondsmen, Bill immediately went to Merced and hired John W.

Beckenridge, the best attorney in the San Joaquin Valley, to defend Grat. What Bill did not know is that Beckenridge was also a consulting attorney for the Southern Pacific railroad. To help pay him the two thousand dollars he asked for, Bill sold almost all of his horses and mules. Their mother also came to California from Kingfisher to pay Beckenridge after she mortgaged her home and borrowed money from neighbors.

Grat's trial did not start until that June and it lasted three weeks. Though much of the evidence showed that Grat was in Fresno the night of the Alila robbery, including the testimony of several witnesses, the influence of the powerful Southern Pacific Railroad caused him to receive an unfair trial. Beckenridge showed up to the trial late and drunk, and neither the defense, nor the prosecution mentioned that the fireman had been accidentally killed by the dalton gang biography.

This was unknown to Grat, since the Dalton brothers had all assumed that Emmett had killed the fireman. Almost all of Beckenridge's witnesses were bar keepers, gamblers, saloon hanger-ons, or pimps. Sheriff Kay even pointed out during the trial that Beckenridge had overlooked Grat's rights. Southern Pacific detective Will Smith visited Grat's cell almost every day during the trial trying to get a confession out of him and Grat began to despise Smith.

Kay knew that, besides Beckenridge's sabotage of the case, Grat would probably be found innocent and their case against Bob and Emmett would fall through. Towards the end of the trial, Sheriff Kay, Detective Smith, and District Attorney Power talked to Grat while taking him back to his cell from the court room when Beckenridge was not present.

Kay told Grat that he knew neither Bob or Emmett killed the fireman. He offered to admit this in court if Grat and Bill told the true story of the robbery. Detective Smith decided to chime in, but Grat said he would not say a word while Smith was present. Smith was told to leave and both Bill and Grat agreed to tell their story, but only if they showed that there was no first degree murder in the robbery.

The Daltons told their stories, but neither Kay or Beckenridge ever cleared up the murder point and ruined Grat's case. Grat was taken back to jail to await his sentence. While in jail, a train robbery occurred near Cereson September 3,but was unsuccessful with no money being taken. The only evidence found at the robbery was a coat made from a tailor from Visalia.

Kay suspected that this was probably the work of some suspects he had from Visalia, but the railroad detectives demanded the arrest of the remaining Dalton brothers. Kay telegraphed his deputy George Witty and told him to check on Bill Dalton and to immediately notify him when he was found. Kay checked on his Visalia suspects, who at the time were running a livery stable in Modestoand was convinced they were not involved with the Ceres robbery.

He then went to Fresno to check on Lit and Cole Dalton, and was convinced of the same. When Kay returned to Visalia, he immediately went with detective Smith to the tailor of the coat found at the Ceres robbery. The tailor remembered the coat, but he could not remember who had bought it, only that some girl had picked it up once it was clean.

After Kay finished talking to the cleaner, Deputy George Witty reported to him that telegrams from the coast said Bill was not in Paso Robles or Estrella. Neither was he in Merced or Livingston. Witty did have a clue from another deputy that two strange men had been seen hanging around after dark on the open plain near Traver and at the abandoned Overland Stage station at Cross Creek.

Kay suspected that Bob and Emmett might be back in California to free Grat from jail, and took Deputy Witty with him to the Cross Creek station in his buggy. Late in the afternoon, Kay and Witty were about four hundred yards from the station when they saw two men crouching as they crossed the road from the old stage barn to the station.

Kay's buggy was directly facing the setting sun, so they could not tell who the men were. The road curved behind some willow trees, and Kay told Witty to drive past the house, passing close to the door, and then to drive back. With his revolver in hand, Kay dropped to the ground as they passed the door and slowly entered the station.

Maggie Rucker, the woman who once ran the Cross Creek Overland station, was sitting with another girl alone in the front room, silently making dresses. Kay asked Rucker if there was anyone else around and she replied that there was not. Right as she said this, Kay heard someone rush across the floor of an adjoining room and through the crack in the door he could see a man taking position at the window.

Kay moved quietly across the floor and pushed the door a little farther open with his revolver. Standing with his back towards him was Bill Dalton, watching the horses and buggy Kay had just left, while nervously working the lever of his winchester. Kay nudged the door open with his elbow, aimed his revolver at Bill and said, "Bill! Bill, thrown off his guard, quickly turned around and mimicked the greeting, "Kay!

He then threw the butt of his winchester to the ground and the two nervously laughed at each other. Kay had Bill put his rifle down, backed him into the front room, and checked him for any other weapons. When they came back into the front room both Maggie Rucker and the girl remained quiet as they both expected Kay to have been killed. Deputy Witty entered shortly after, and was told by Kay to go in the room and grab Bill's rifle.

As Witty entered the room, he heard a noise come from somewhere inside. Thinking it might be Bob, Kay demanded that Bill tell him where he was. Bill told Kay that Bob was not in the country, that he had stopped at Rucker's place alone to spend the night. Kay knew this was untrue as he had seen two men cross the road. He soon discovered a worn place in the carpet and found a trap door hidden underneath.

He had Bill lift the carpet and open the trap door and, instead of Bob, they discovered a man named Riley Dean, a saloon hanger-on from Visalia and Traver. It became apparent to Kay that Bill had been busy hiding Dean when he arrived, otherwise they would have heard him come in. Kay decided to place both men under arrest and took them to Visalia.

When Bill and Dean were acquitted, Bill was rearrested by Kay after his bondsmen were convinced to withdraw by detective Hume. He was then taken back to Visalia to await his trial for the Alila robbery. Bill was interviewed by the Fresno Expositor in September saying, "The truth is I am like Paddy Miles' boy no matter what goes wrong or what depredation is committed, Bill Dalton is always charged with the same.

Bob and Emmett, meanwhile, had been busy in Oklahoma forming their gang. After their unsuccessful career in California, they decided they could do much better in their home country, and unlike their first attempts, they began carefully planning their robberies. As a former lawman, Bob knew the difficulty officers had enforcing laws in Indian and Oklahoma Territories.

While the Indian Nations had their own tribal law enforcement, these daltons gang biography had no jurisdiction over non-Indians. The newly formed Oklahoma Territory had organized their own sheriff and city police departments, but there was so far very little cooperation between them. The only agency with jurisdiction over the dalton gang biography territory was the U.

Marshals Service, but it was quickly becoming fragmented due to power struggles between newly formed district courts and jealousy between marshals over their different jurisdictions. There was also little incentive among Deputy Marshals to search for potentially dangerous outlaws, their only pay being for fees and a set amount for each criminal they arrested.

Unless there was a high enough reward being offered, they would instead choose to focus their attention on petty criminals. With Bob as the leader, the boys recruited mostly men who had grown up with them in Oklahoma. First recruited were George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb and "Blackfaced" Charlie Bryantwho had received his nickname because of a gunpowder burn on one cheek.

Leading the pursuit was Bob's old friend, Deputy Marshal Heck Thomaswhose renown skills as a deputy kept the gang constantly on the move and in hiding. Angered by the charges against Grat and Bill which he knew to be false, Bob decided that the best way to help his brothers would be to acquire enough money to pay for their bail and defense.

The gang was also assisted by Bob's lover Eugenia Moore, known by her aliases "Tom King" and "Miss Mundays", who acted as their informant, but was also a notorious horse thief and outlaw. When not preying on the railroads, the gang spent their time digging out large rooms into the steep hills in the cedar brakes on the Northern Canadian River.

This was on the property of a man named Jim Riley, about eight miles from the present-day town of Taloga, Oklahoma. The deep canyons of the area, covered with dwarf cedar and blackjack oaks, made it an ideal hiding place. Riley would feed the outlaws, and would do the same for any passing officers, but he would never reveal each other's whereabouts to either parties.

In AugustCharlie Bryant was spotted in Hennessey, Oklahomaafter leaving the gang's hideout to visit his brother in Mulhall. The locals who identified him notified a deputy marshal named Ed Short. He arrested Bryant and took him on a train to be committed to the jail at Wichita, Kansaswithout notifying Marshal Grimes at Fort Smith. Ignoring the advice of the people in Hennessy, he also took the prisoner without a guard.

After the train left Hennessey, and was approaching the stop at Waukomis, OklahomaShort noticed a group of mounted men who looked as if they were trying to beat the train, and feared it was the Dalton Gang coming to free Bryant. Short took the prisoner back and placed him in the baggage car. He then put the baggage man in charge of Bryant and gave him his revolver.

Short then went to the rear platform with his rifle. The baggageman carelessly stuck the revolver into a pigeon-hole messagebox and went to work at the other end of the car. Without making any noise, Bryant went to the messagebox and secured the revolver. He then ordered the baggageman to ignore him and to go back to his work.