Posts
It is curious to find J. Frank Hunt listed in Bill O’Neal’s Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters (Oklahoma University Press, 1979). The great virtue of this book, especially when compared to the countless of books on Western gunfighters, is its complete lack of sensationalism. O’Neal just counts the bullet-ridden bodies and states the facts relating to each, followed by the killer’s demise. Hunt was involved in two gunfights: in the first, the killing of Caldwell City Marshal George Flatt in June of 1880 he was merely a suspect, reported to have been seen fleeing the scene, and in the second one which took place in October of the same year he is not the slayer but the slain.
The paucity of this record made me go back to reread O’Neal’s introduction in order to consider the basis for his choices. He writes as follows:
The 587 gunfights described in this book were not, of course, the only shooting scrapes that occurred in the West. The shootouts that are omitted from these pages were chance affairs between men. The gunfights included here involved men who proved themselves professionals . . .
What this last word indicates is that these men either killed their antagonists or were killed in the process of establishing or defending their reputation as a pro. The table below shows the five years in which Kansas figures at the top for the number of deadly duels. I have added one more year, 1878, to the statistics for the sake of comparison. It shows New Mexico in the year of the Lincoln County War.
1870 | 1871 | 1872 | 1873 | 1878 | 1883 | 1884 | |
Kansas | 4 | 8 | 6 | 12 | 3 | 6 | 5 |
Texas | 2 | 5 | 2 | 10 | 10 | 1 | 5 |
New Mexico | 2 | 1 | 3 | 23 | 1 | 3 |
Though wannabe western writers love to sensationalize the violence of the cow towns, by a national standard the towns don’t rate very high. A useful scale is provided by the FBI based on the number of homicides per 100,000 people. Dodge City in the 1870s had a rate of 50 on this scale, but that quickly dwindles when compared to the California mining town of Bodie in the High Sierras which in the same period had a rate of 116.
Yes, armed with six-guns and deprived of the civilizing company of women, the cowhands were violent. Though O'Neal restricts himself to professionals, a broader survey would note that while firearms were the principal cause of death in Kansas in the 1870s and 1880s, “less than a third of the victims died in an exchange of gunfire. Most were gunned down unarmed” in drunken brawls and shooting accidents.” Collateral damage, so to speak. Hine and Faragher in The American West: A New Interpretive History, comment:
Particularly dangerous were the new “double-action” revolvers introduced by the Colt Repeating Firearms Company in the late 1870s, guns that could be fired either by pulling the trigger or by cocking and releasing the hammer.”
The Dallas Weekly Herald reported that “It is well known that most of the accidents with revolvers arise from the unintentional manipulation of the hammer. Either it receives a blow, or it is allowed to slip off the thumb in cocking it, or it is caught against the clothing, and particularly when it is at full cock.”
Despite such problems and despite the modest statistics on carnage, the cowtowns were grist for the mills of the eastern dime novelists who were chief among those who enjoyed giving the towns a reputation as "wild, woolly, and wicked" places.
"Wichita especially," wrote one paper, "is a most abandoned place--a sort of pandemonium where the offscourings of humanity have congregated as harpies to feed upon the moral and physical being of Texas shippers." (Craig Miner, Kansas: A History of the Sunflower State, p. 137.)
Into this heady cocktail of harpies and carnage came riding a young man from Ray County, Missouri. who would soon join the constabulary force of Caldwell, Kansas, but mortality rode faster and soon caught up with him. Like others in that post before and after, he didn’t last long. One wonders whether he couldn’t see the writing on the wall, or whether he was so young and naïve that he thought he could beat the odds. He may just have been cocky, a common failing among the short-lived City Marshals. He was surely skillful with a sidearm, but one can’t help wondering what other factors may have predisposed him to run this six-gun gauntlet.
Needless to say, Frank Hunt was a complete unknown until his destiny encountered him in the murk of the Red Light Saloon, Caldwell’s showplace saloon with its effluvium of stale beer, whiskey, and tobacco. His death provoked one article from his native Richmond, Missouri, which provides a beginning note for the researcher. It appeared in the Richmond Democrat for 21 October 1880, about ten days after Frank’s death:
Frank Hunt, a brother of Mr. W. M. Hunt of this county, was shot and killed by an assassin in Kansas last week. He was a young man, we learn, not 25 years old, and was well and favorably known in this section. He was formerly a student of Prof. Tompkins of our public school.
This short notice gives us a favorable impression of Frank, for the writer remembers him as a student under Prof. Tompkins. Countless students pass through public schools, but only the good ones stay in the memory of their teachers. Prof. William S. Tompkins was a well known teacher at Richmond College, as the public school was called. He taught the fourth grade and was esteemed for his arithmetic classes. Frank seems to have been bright enough to catch his teacher’s attention, for Prof. Tompkins has to be the source of this memory.
The same article provides the reader another benefit, for it supplies the name of Frank’s brother, without which it might have been impossible to locate the family in Missouri. William Madison Hunt was the oldest child among twelve known siblings, and Frank was the next. The fact of being the two eldest may have created a strong bond between the brothers, with the older traveling a long distance to bring home his brother’s corpse. We are fortunate to have a photograph of William:
It’s a striking photograph, for it shows us the face of an honest and decent man, and raises Frank in our estimation for having such a brother. Whoever Frank was, as a youngster he showed promise, and he didn’t come from a family of hooligans.
The boys’ father was the Rev. John W. E. Hunt, a prominent Baptist minister in the Caldwell County (Missouri) area. When he died there in 1915, his obituaries don’t fail to point out that upon their conversion in 1843 both Rev. Hunt and his wife were Baptized into the church by Rev. Robert James, father of the outlaws Jesse and Frank. So Frank the wannabe gunslinger was the son of a Baptist minister who in his turn had been baptized by the father of outlaws. This speaks neither well nor ill of Frank. Many wild west outlaws and gunslingers had the same paternity. As the folk rhyme has it,
Preacher’s sons and cackling hens
Seldom come to any good ends.
My personal favorite among this numerous group is Jim Miller, hanged in Ada Oklahoma in 1909 and known variously as “Killer Miller” and “Deacon Miller,” whose pious activity in the Methodist Church earned him the second sobriquet. Miller was a killer for hire and is credited with fourteen official victims plus many more scores unprosecuted for lack of evidence. Word spread that his services were available for $150 per victim. Between jobs, he spoke regularly at prayer meetings. My impression is that the Methodists contributed more outlaws than the Baptists, but it is only an impression. Both churches were ripe fields because neither required education of their ministry. Enthusiasm was enough. But this is an inflammable subject, so I’ll say no more. I know the churches have me outmanned and outgunned--and anyway our subject is Frank Hunt.
My impression is that Frank was a young man of promise, and his story is the familiar one of a good lad gone bad. Like most young men, he wanted attention--or to use the older, traditional term he wanted fame, except that on the frontier they would not have said “fame” but “a reputation”--usually abbreviated to “rep.” He wanted a rep as a gunman but had little success. On September 9, 1880, the Caldwell Advance printed a mocking paragraph noting Frank’s pursuit of the bubble reputation.
Last Wednesday morning we were pestered by two of the gawkiest, most ague-looking greenies we had ever seen. They came sliding in through the door, their mouths wide open and their ears flopping in the breeze…. After having gaped and stared around to their heart’s content, and asked all kinds of idiotic questions, they made their errand known. They wanted to see their names in the paper. To get rid of them we assented to their request. The names of our very interesting visitors...were Frank Hunt and John Wilson, and--we hope they are satisfied.
John Wilson is remembered, if at all, as the constable who accompanied City Marshal George Flatt in July of 1879 on the day when between the two of them they killed two drunken cowboys. At the time of the visit to the Advance both John and Frank were deputy policemen. Their visit to the offices of the Advance recalls nothing so much as today’s world-wide popularity of FaceBook, which answers everyone’s need for self-promotion--usually without a gunfight.
Let us consider now Frank Hunt’s claim to fame. If it was the climax of his gunfighting career, it was also the anti-climax, for it was the final curtain. Two events preceded the final slaughter. On October 4th 1880, Frank was dismissed from his appointment as a deputy policeman. Having been appointed on May 6th, he had served about five months. Appointments and dismissals were determined by the mayor, who was of course a politician whose primary purpose was to be re-elected. It is hardly surprising--and this is the second event--that three days later Frank is reported getting drunk and rambunctious in the company of a new political candidate.
The festivities of a Bohemian wedding a few miles from Caldwell were interrupted by a drunken quartette of Caldwell Democrats, Wednesday night of last week. The following day Drs. Noble and McMillan, Sam’l Berry, Esq., and Policeman Frank Hunt were fined for assault and battery upon the participants. It will be remembered that Mr. Berry was the chief mogul of the late Democratic convention and made a spread eagle [i.e., highly patriotic] speech in nominating W. A. McDonald, Esq, for County Attorney.
Such were the preludes to the main event--the shooting death of Frank. The Caldwell Commercial provides a substantial account of the happenings at the Red Light dance hall that night headed Assassination of Frank Hunt:
Last Friday night, between the hours of ten and eleven o’clock, Frank Hunt was shot while sitting by a window in the Red Light dance hall, on the corner of Fifth and Chisholm streets. The particulars, so far as developed, are about as follows: During the evening Hunt had some difficulty with one of the cyprians belong to the house, and considerable bad blood was engendered between Hunt, the woman and her “man.” Shortly before the shooting Hunt had taken part in a dance, and after it was over sat down by a window on the north side of the room. A few moments after a shot was fired, and Hunt jumped from his seat exclaiming, “I’m killed! He did it out there!” at the same time pointing to the window.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was from Cyprus. Thus “cyprian” above was journalistic intended-humor for a prostitute. The latter word could not be used in polite conversation, and newspapers were nothing if not polite.
City Marshal J. W. Johnson was in attendance and he and an understudy ran to the door but the killer had already escaped. (A month later Dave Speer was charged with Hunt's murder but later discharged. No one was ever prosecuted.)
Hunt was taken care of as soon as possible, placed on a table in the center of the room and Dr. MacMillan sent for. On his arrival an examination was made, and it was found that Hunt was shot in the left side, near the back, the ball entering between the ninth and tenth rib. Hunt was removed to a building on Main street, and on Saturday morning a dispatch was sent for his brother. W. M. Hunt, who lives in Ray county, Missouri. Subsequently Hunt was removed to the Leland Hotel, where he died about noon on Monday. His brother reached Caldwell sometime during Sunday night, and was with him up to the time of his death.
Hard upon the final reunion of the two brothers came the gruesome particularity of the coroner’s jury and reports, in which the route taken by the rifle ball is traced through Frank’s anatomy.
This is followed by the usual encomiums, where we learn that we don’t know Frank at all. We thought he was a rowdy on his way to becoming a badass or at least a hooligan, but no: “During all the time he was on the [police] force Hunt was strictly temperate, quiet and unobtrusive, prompt and strict in the discharge of his duties.” Folks at the Red Light dance hall would have gotten a chuckle out of that. Here is a portrait of that palace of entertainment, kindly provided by the city fathers, and followed by a transcription:
On the NE corner of Chisholm and Ave A stood the Red Light Saloon which helped give Caldwell its reputation as the most lawless cowtown. In April 1880 George and Mag Wood literally disassembled their Wichita saloon and brought to Caldwell what became its most murderous establishment. People killed here included marshals, cowboys, bystanders and even the owner when he tried to protect the honor of one of his “girls” who both lived and “worked” upstairs. Though liquor was illegal in Kansas by state law and illegal in the Indian Territory to the south by federal law, somehow Caldwell always had a good supply for the dusty cowboys. The drovers also looked forward to the Red Light and other saloons for their “ladies of the night” or, in Caldwell, the “Border Queens”.
Though the coroner traced the route of the fateful rifle bullet, I am more interested in the final journey of Frank’s body but I have not succeeded in tracing it. Though the Caldwell paper states that his brother William would be taking the corpse back to Lathrop Missouri where their parents resided, I can find no trace of this burial either on Find-a-Grave or in a newspaper notice. Consequently I made a memorial for Frank at McVeigh Cemetery in Ray County Missouri, where his mother and two of his siblings are interred. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/221470694/john-frank-hunt
Perhaps I am the more attracted to this old rural cemetery because it lies on the border between Caldwell and Ray counties in Missouri, an area my own ancestors inhabited for a decade or two before and after the Civil War. McVeigh Cemetery now hosts a virtual family reunion for the Hunt family, bringing together Frank, Frank’s parents, and seven of his siblings. I have yet to find a grave for William Marion Hunt, who traveled to Caldwell Kansas to bring back the body of his dead brother to its native soil.
An overview of Frank’s career from Richmond Missouri to Caldwell Kansas permits one comment: the paths of glory lead but to the grave.
[Note: I regret that only found this book after completing my essay: Miller, Nyle H., and Joseph W. Snell. Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns, 1867-1886. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963. It's a work of impressive scholarship, no surprise when we learn it first appeared in issues of the Kansas State Historical Quarterly. Scholars will appreciate it, though the general reader may have trouble with the long transcriptions of newspaper articles.]
No comments:
Post a Comment