THE JOHNSON COUNTY WAR

By Lynda Cox

 The Johnson County War, also known as the War on Powder River and the Wyoming Range War, was a range war that took place in Johnson, Natrona and Converse County, Wyoming in April 1892 and became so brutal and disruptive that the US Cavalry was ordered by President Benjamin Harrison to intervene. This range was fought between small ranchers and the large, wealthy, and much longer established ranchers and culminated in a lengthy shootout between the local ranchers, a group of hired killers, and a sheriff’s posse.

Conflict over land was a somewhat common occurrence in the development of the American West but was particularly prevalent during the late 19th century and early 20th century when large portions of the west were being settled by Americans for the first time. Historian Richard Maxwell calls this time period the “Western Civil War of Incorporation” and Johnson County seemed to be the epicenter. Early in Wyoming’s history most of the land was public and open to both raising stock on the open range and for homesteading.

Large numbers of cattle were turned loose on this open range by the large ranches. Ranchers would hold a spring roundup where the cows and the calves belonging to each ranch were separated and the calves branded. Before the roundup, calves (especially orphan or stray calves) were sometimes surreptitiously branded. Many of the ranchers owning large swaths of land tried to defend against rustling by forbidding their employees from owning cattle and lynching (or threatening such) suspected rustlers—often without benefit of a trial. Heaven help the cowboy found with a branding iron in his saddle bags. Property and use rights were usually respected among big and small ranches based on who was first to settle the land (the doctrine is known as Prior Appropriation) and the size of the herd. Nonetheless large ranching outfits would sometimes band together and use their power to monopolize large swaths of range land, preventing newcomers from settling the area.

It was against this backdrop that the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (WSGA) was formed with a membership comprised of some of the state’s wealthiest and most popular residents. Socially, the group met at the Cheyenne Club in Cheyenne, Wyoming. As the membership was made up of the elite, the organization carried a great deal of political sway in the state and even in the region. The WSGA carried so much political clout that they were able to set a schedule for roundups and shipments of those beeves East. They also created a detective agency to investigate cattle rustling.

The often uneasy relationship between larger, wealthier ranches and smaller ranch settlers became steadily worse after the winter of 1886-1887 when a series of blizzards and temperatures of 40-50 degrees below 0 °F (-45 °C) had followed an extremely hot and dry summer. It started snowing in October of ’86 and didn’t stop until late May of ’87. When it wasn’t snowing, the weather complicated matters with freezing rain, creating a crust so thick on the snow that the cattle couldn’t paw through to get to what there was of the drought stricken grasses. Thousands of cattle died and while many large ranches went belly up, others of the large land and cattle companies began to appropriate land and control the flow and supply of water in the area. Some of the harsher tactics included forcing settlers off their land and setting fire to settler buildings as well as trying to exclude the smaller ranchers from participation in the annual roundup. The justification for these strong armed tactics was the catch-all allegation of cattle rustling.

In Johnson County, with emotions running high, agents of the larger ranches killed several alleged rustlers from smaller ranches. Many were killed on dubious evidence or were simply found dead while the killer(s) remained anonymous. Frank M. Canton, Sheriff of Johnson County in the early 1880s and detective for the WSGA, was rumored to be behind many of the deaths. The double lynching in 1889 of Ella Watson and storekeeper Jim Averell (who never owned a cow in his life) enraged local residents. A number of additional dubious lynchings of alleged rustlers took place in 1891. At this point, a group of smaller Johnson County ranchers led by a local settler named Nate Champion formed the Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers' Association (NWFSGA) to compete with the WSGA. The WSGA “blacklisted” the NWFSGA and told them to stop all operations. The NWFSGA refused the WSGA's order to disband and announced their plans to hold their own roundup in the spring of 1892.

The WSGA, led by Frank Wolcott (WSGA Member and large North Platte rancher), hired gunmen with the intention of eliminating alleged rustlers in Johnson County and break up the NWFSGA. Twenty-three gunmen from Paris, Texas and four cattle detectives from the WSGA were hired with Idaho frontiersman George Dunning who later turned against the group. Some WSGA and Wyoming dignitaries also joined the expedition including State Senator Bob Tisdale, state water commissioner W.J. Clarke, W.C. Irvine and Hubert Teshemacher, both instrumental in organizing Wyoming's statehood four years earlier. They were accompanied by surgeon Dr. Charles Penrose as well as Ed Towse, a reporter for the Cheyenne Sun, and a newspaper reporter for the Chicago Herald, Sam T. Clover, whose lurid first-hand accounts later appeared in eastern newspapers. A total expedition of 50 men was organized. To lead the expedition the WSGA hired Canton, a former Johnson County Sheriff-turned-gunman and WSGA detective. The group became known as “The Invaders”, or alternately, “Wolcott's Regulators”.

The first target of the WSGA was Nate Champion at the KC Ranch (of which today's town of Kaycee, Wyoming is a namesake), a small rancher who was active in the efforts of small ranchers to organize a competing roundup. The “Regulators” traveled to the ranch late in the night of Friday April 8, 1892, quietly surrounded the buildings and waited for daybreak. Three men besides Champion were at the KC. Two men who were evidently spending the night on their way through were captured as they emerged from the cabin early that morning to collect water at the nearby Powder River, while the third, Nick Ray, was shot while standing inside the doorway of the cabin and died a few hours later. Champion was besieged inside the log cabin.

During the siege, Champion kept a poignant journal which contained a number of notes he wrote to friends while taking cover inside the cabin. “Boys, I feel pretty lonesome just now. I wish there was someone here with me so we could watch all sides at once.” The last journal entry read: “Well, they have just got through shelling the house like hail. I heard them splitting wood. I guess they are going to fire the house tonight. I think I will make a break when night comes, if alive. Shooting again. It's not night yet. The house is all fired. Goodbye, boys, if I never see you again.”

With the house on fire, Nate Champion signed his journal entry and put it in his pocket before running from the back door with a six shooter in one hand and a knife in the other. As he emerged he was shot by four men and the invaders later pinned a note on Champion's bullet-riddled chest that read “Cattle Thieves Beware”.

Two passers-by noticed the ruckus that Saturday afternoon and local rancher Jack Flagg rode to Buffalo (the county seat of Johnson County) where the sheriff raised a posse of 200 men over the next 24 hours and the party set out for the KC on Sunday night, April 10.

The WSGA group then headed north on Sunday toward Buffalo to continue its show of force. The posse led by the sheriff caught up with the WSGA by early Monday morning of the 11th and besieged them at the TA Ranch on Crazy Woman Creek. The gunmen took refuge inside a log barn on the ranch. Ten of the gunmen then tried to escape the barn behind a fusillade but the posse beat them back and killed three. One of the WSGA group escaped and was able to contact the acting Governor of Wyoming the next day. Frantic efforts to save the WSGA group ensued and two days into the siege Governor Barber was able to telegraph President Benjamin Harrison a plea for help late on the night of April 12, 1892.

Harrison immediately ordered the U.S. Secretary of War Stephen B. Elkins to address the situation under Article IV, Section 4, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which allows for the use of U.S. forces under the President's orders for “protection from invasion and domestic violence”. The Sixth Cavalry from Fort McKinney near Buffalo was ordered to proceed to the TA ranch at once and take custody of the WSGA expedition. The 6th Cavalry left Fort McKinney a few hours later at 2 am on April 13 and reached the TA ranch at 6:45 am. The expedition surrendered to the Sixth soon after and was saved just as the posse had finished building a series of breastworks to shoot gunpowder on the invader's log barn shelter so that it could be set on fire from a distance. The Sixth Cavalry took possession of Wolcott and 45 other men with 45 rifles, 41 revolvers and some 5,000 rounds of ammunition.

The WSGA group was taken to Cheyenne to be held at the barracks of Fort D.A. Russell as the Laramie County jail was unable to hold that many prisoners. They received preferential treatment and were allowed to roam the base by day as long as they agreed to return to the jail to sleep at night. Johnson County officials were upset that the group was not kept locally at Ft. McKinney. The General in charge of the 6th Cavalry felt that tensions were too high for the prisoners to remain in the area. Hundreds of armed locals sympathetic to both sides of the conflict were said to have gone to Ft. McKinney over the next few days under the mistaken impression the invaders were being held there.

The Johnson County attorney began to gather evidence for the case and the details of the WSGA's plan emerged. Canton's gripsack was found to contain a list of seventy alleged rustlers who were to be shot or hanged, a list of ranch houses the invaders had burned, and a contract to pay each Texan five dollars a day plus a bonus of $50 for each person killed. The invaders' plans reportedly included murdering people as far away as Casper and Douglas. The New York Times reported on April 23, that “The evidence is said to implicate more than twenty prominent stockmen of Cheyenne whose names have not been mentioned heretofore, also several wealthy stockmen of Omaha, as well as to compromise men high in authority in the State of Wyoming. They will all be charged with aiding and abetting the invasion, and warrants will be issued for the arrest of all of them.”

Charges against the men “high in authority” in Wyoming were never filed. Eventually the invaders were released on bail and were told to return to Wyoming for the trial. Many fled to Texas and were never seen again. In the end the WSGA group went free after the charges were dropped on the excuse that Johnson County refused to pay for the costs of prosecution. The costs of housing the men at Fort D.A. Russell were said to exceed $18,000 and the sparsely populated Johnson County was unable to pay.

Emotions ran high for many years following the “Johnson County Cattle War” as some viewed the large and wealthy ranchers as heroes who took justice into their own hands in order to defend their rights, while others saw the WSGA as heavy-handed vigilantes running roughshod over the law of the land.

A number of tall tales were spun by both sides afterwards in an attempt to make their actions appear morally justified. Parties sympathetic to the invaders painted Nate Champion as the leader of a vast cattle rustling empire and that he was a leading member of the fabled “Red Sash Gang” that supposedly included the likes of everyone from Jesse James to the Hole in the Wall Gang (of which the most famous members were Butch Cassidy and The Sundace Kid). These rumors about Champion have since been discredited. Parties sympathetic to the smaller ranchers spun tales that insinuated the Regulators hired some of the west's most notorious gunslingers such as Tom Horn and Big Nose George Parrot (whose skull was later used by the warden at the prison in Laramie as an ash tray). Horn did briefly work as a detective for the WSGA in the 1890s but there is no evidence he was involved in the war.

As many historians as there are is as many theories as to why this dispute over land and resources turned into a shooting war, but one thing remains consistent and that is the popular image depicts the Johnson County War as an act of vigilantism by aggressive foreign-owned land and cattle firms against small, individual settlers defending their rights.

Sources include: 

http://www.wyohistory.org/essays/johnson-county-war

http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/guns/2013/02/johnson-county-war

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/tamucush/00155/tamu-00155.html

Aftermath of Ella Watson/James Averell lynching

Both Ella Watson and James Averell were left to hang for two and a half days in the July heat. When their bodies were cut down, they were taken to Averell’s roadhouse, where Justice of the Peace B.F. Emery, a Casper attorney, solemnly swore in those present and held an official coroner’s inquest over their bodies. Further, he made the resulting verdict to the effect that the deceased met their death at the hands of John Durbin, Tom Sun, A.J. Bothwell, Robert Conner, Robert Galbraith and a man named Earnest McLean.

Ella and James's remains were then returned to Averell's ranch about 3:00 a.m. on July 23, 1889 by E. Joseph Healy, who was a juror on the inquest panel.  Ralph Coe, along with another man by the name of Jess Lockwood, buried the couple. With the formation of the Pathfinder Reservoir, Ella Watson's and James Averell's graves were covered with several feet of water. 

At the time of their deaths, Jim was 38 and Ella was 27.

Deputy Philip Watson arrested the six vigilantes: Albert Bothwell, M. Earnest McLean, Robert “Captain” M. Galbraith, John Henry Durbin, Robert Conner, and Tom Sun, and took them to Carbon County, where they were turned over to Sheriff Frank Hadsell. The following day, on July 26, 1889, the Cheyenne Daily Leader reported:

“A Rawlins telegram says that all the men were arrested by Sheriff Hadsell of Carbon County and given a preliminary hearing yesterday afternoon. Bail was fixed at a $5,000 bond. Each lyncher was allowed to post each others bond.”

The Grand Jury was convened for August 25, 1889, but before the witnesses could testify, they begin to mysteriously die or disappear. Shortly after the hangings, Gene Crowder disappeared, never to be seen again. Some said that his father heard of the affair and took him away to protect him from the powerful members of the Stock Association. John DeCorey, the boy who worked for Ella, allegedly went to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, but was never summoned for the hearing.

Then Frank Buchanan also disappeared before the hearing. He was reportedly last seen in protective custody in Cheyenne, Wyoming. However, a year or so later, W.R. Hunt, a reporter working for the Chicago Inter Ocean reported seeing him.  A notebook by Hunt, found years later in the attic of a Kansas City home, tells where Buchanan wandered all over the country for the next year or two, hiding from the powerful cattlemen and fearing for his life.

Ralph Coe, Jim Averell’s nephew, mysteriously died on the very day of the scheduled hearing, possibly from poisoning.

With no witnesses to testify, all charges were dropped against the six cattlemen. No attempts were ever made to investigate the death of Ralph Coe, nor the three disappearances of the primary witnesses against the six ranchers.

Rumors abounded that Bothwell had some of his cowboys ride to the different homesteaders and small ranchers telling them, if they testified against the ranchers that they would be burned out or worse – end up like Jim and Ella.

A neighbor would later say that the whole affair grew out of land troubles. Averell had contested the land Conner was trying to hold, had made Durbin some trouble on a final proof, and kept Bothwell from fencing the whole Sweetwater Valley. He also stated that Ella Watson had a small bunch of cattle and had come by them honestly – freshly branded because she had only recently recorded her brand. Nevertheless, this unnamed neighbor did not come forward for the hearing.

There were others too, who did not come forward, either because they feared retribution from the powerful forces of Bothwell and his cadre or because they sided with the cattlemen – two from the local newspaper, the Sweetwater Chief. H.B. Fetz, editor of the Sweetwater Chief and his assistant J.N. Speer witnessed the abduction with field glasses from the rooftop of the newspaper building. Both men claim they were tipped off about the events by unnamed cattlemen. Watching the angry procession file very near, they first saw the procession as they made their way to examine Ellen’s calves and again later, when they had abducted Ella and Jim. Neither volunteered to give testimony at the grand jury hearings that were later held in Rawlings.

 Another witness to the abduction was a man by the name of Dan Fitger. While Fitger was plowing a hay meadow, he could clearly see the lynching party down in the river bottom, with Buchanan following far behind. Fitger never came forward at the hearings, but years later told this story to his family.

George W. Durant was appointed administrator of Ella's and James's estates. The land, which was not yet legally theirs as the length of residing on the property as per the terms of the homesteading act had not been fulfilled, would have to be turned back over to the government. Ella’s property, with the exception of a few personal items, was sold at auction for $322.75. Averell’s property netted $657.90. Durant also filed a lawsuit against A.J. Bothwell and John Durbin for the return of 41 head of cattle with the LU brand, but the lawsuit was never ruled upon.

In the same year as the lynching, both Albert Bothwell and Tom Sun were made members of the Wyoming Stock growers Association Executive Committee and Captain Galbraith were elected to the legislature. John Durbin served one year on the committee with his two neighbors in 1894.

A few years after Ella’s death, Bothwell finally acquired both Watson’s and Averell’s homesteads and moved his house onto what had been Ella’s homestead claim.

Much of the confusion surrounding this entire affair, as well as the apparently inaccurate information about the victims, resulted from the abundance of bad press that “Cattle Kate” and Jim Averell received from the Wyoming newspapers following their deaths. It appears that the press was also in the “pockets” of the powerful Stock Growers Association. In order to protect themselves against the public outcry, the Stock Growers Association used the power of the press. The three newspapers in Cheyenne trumped up the backstory that Ella was a prostitute and a rustler, while Averell was accused of being not only her pimp, but a murderer--that accusation resulting from the death of the man Averell shot and killed in Buffalo, WY, some years prior. 

The death of Ella Watson and Jim Averell prompted the organization of the Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers Association in direct opposition to the very powerful Wyoming Stock Growers Association. The formation of the NWFSGA ignited the cattle wars in Johnson County in the early 1890s.

Frank Canton, Outlaw Sheriff

Last month, I wrote about Nate Champion, one of the casualties of the Johnson County War in Wyoming. One of the men involved with killing Champion was Frank Canton.

Canton was born Josiah Horner on September 15, 1849, in Harrison Township, Henry County, Indiana. He drifted to Texas and worked as a cowboy. By 1871, frustrated with not having the money he wanted, Horner/Canton started robbing banks and rustling cattle. Cattle rustling was a capital offense. On October 10, 1874, Horner got into a gunfight with some Buffalo Soldiers, killing one and wounding the other. Somehow, he eluded justice for that. In 1877, he was arrested for robbing a bank in Comanche, Texas. He escaped from Texas Ranger custody and moved to Ogallala, Nebraska, and tried raising cattle, again. While in Nebraska, he officially changed his name to Frank M. Canton and vowed to give up his outlaw ways.

By the early 1880s, Canton was in the Wyoming Territory. He hired on as a stock detective for the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and with their backing, was elected sheriff of Johnson County, Wyoming.

During the Johnson County War, Canton signed on as one of Frank Wolcott's Regulators. On April 9, 1892, Canton led the Regulators to the "KC Ranch", where Nate Champion and Nick Ray were staying. Two other men at the ranch that day were captured as they emerged shortly after the Regulators arrived. Ray was shot and killed in the opening minutes of the ensuing gun battle. Champion, a one-time friend of Canton's, held off the Regulators for most of the day, killing at least four of the Regulators and wounding others. At 5:00 p.m., Canton set the house on fire. Champion soon burst out of the house firing his Winchester rifle and was shot 28 times.

Later in life, Canton said he regretted the incident with Champion. While continuing to work for the WSGA, Canton was also involved with the hanging of Ellen Watson (aka Cattle Kate), the woman painted with the blackest of brushes by the WSGA and the newspapers in Wyoming the wealthy cattlemen controlled. It was these incidents that made Canton leave the WSGA.

Canton then traveled to Oklahoma, and became a respected Deputy U.S. Marshal under Judge Isaac Parker, based out of Fort Smith, Arkansas. He worked with other famous lawmen such as Heck Thomas, Chris Madsen, Bass Reeves and Bill Tilghman during that time.

In 1897, Canton went to Alaska to follow the gold rush but instead became a Deputy U.S. Marshal. He returned to the states in 1907 and became Adjutant General for the Oklahoma National Guard. At some point during this time, Canton arranged a meeting with the Governor of Texas. He confessed that he was secretly Josiah “Joe” Horner, and the governor took his law enforcement service into consideration and granted him a pardon. He chose to be known as Frank Canton for the remainder of his lifetime. Canton died on September 27, 1927, in Edmond, Oklahoma.

Thanks for reading. 

Champion in every sense

Johnson County, Wyoming, April 1892 and the Wyoming Stock Growers Association "Regulators" and their hired hit-men from Texas were about to run into a force of nature named Nate Champion.

Nate Champion--by most accounts a good hand, cowboy, and gunman

Champion was the working-class hero in contrast to the cattle barons in Wyoming. He’d been a top hand at several ranches, was good with a gun, said to be a good cowboy, and generally was well respected by most everyone—UNTIL he organized the Northwest Wyoming Farm and Stock Growers Association for the smaller ranches struggling to survive against the cattle barons who composed the WSGA. He helped create a competing spring roundup after the large ranchers wouldn’t allow the small ranchers to join their annual roundup. Champion further incurred the wrath of the WSGA when he grazed his cows on the public range claiming he had as much right as the big ranchers did.

The barons didn’t appreciate his defiance. The newspapers in Cheyenne branded him “King of the Cattle Thieves” and leader of the “Red Sash Gang”, presumably at the behest of the WSGA, as the papers in Cheyenne were controlled/owned/told what to print by the cattle barons. This marked him for death even though WSGA attorney Willis VanDementer told them there was no evidence Champion was a rustler. You can assume VanDementer wasn’t popular for a while with the cattle barons. And there was no Red Sash Gang. Didn’t matter a bit to the cattle barons as they made out their hit list and then recruited more than twenty hired guns out of Paris, Texas to help rid them of their “rustlers.”

The morning of April 9^th was cold, with the wind howling down out of the north and bringing snow with it. In the snow, fifty of the most trusted men employed by the barons, as well as the twenty-two Texans, attacked Champion’s ranch. Nick Ray, Champion’s friend, was mortally wounded in the first volley of shots.

Under withering gunfire, Champion pulled his friend to safety, though Ray died shortly afterward. For several hours, Champion held off the hired guns of the WSGA until the gunmen set fire to his cabin. His journal--which miraculously survived the fire--reveals that Champion knew his time was up. He wrote that the gunmen were planning to fire the cabin and they aimed "to see me dead this time." Armed with a knife and his revolver, Champion charged out the door. More than 20 bullets were found in his body when he was finally allowed to be buried several days later. He was only thirty-five years old.

That Champion survived on April 9^th as long as he did ranks this gunfight as one of the most amazing fights imaginable. That the cattle barons of the WSGA didn’t realize by killing Champion they’d be creating a hero for the smaller ranchers to rally around was another amazement, or it goes to their arrogance. I never can decide which it is—or if it was both.

 

Bronze of  Champion outside the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum, Buffalo, WY--in Johnson County

The Johnson County war was the stuff that created larger than life heroes, revealed just how villainous greed, money, and power can make people and has provided fodder for Western writers for generations.