Wild Bill Hickok

James Butler Hickok (27 May 1837 -2 August 1876) better known as Wild Bill Hickok, was a legendary figure in the American Wild West. He is remembered as a gunfighter, gambler and lawman.



early 1860's



Mendota, Illinois in 1869

Born and raised on a farm in Illinois, his parents were William Alonzo and Polly Butler Hickok. 

 

James Hickok went west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice. 

He had many jobs: a stagecoach driver, a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska, a soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War, a war scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler.

Hickok was involved in several notable shootouts.

 

He was shot from behind and killed at the age of 39 while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. 

The card hand he held at the time of his death (aces and eights) is called the "Dead Man's Hand".

RESOURCES:
Nebraska State Historical Society
The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickok
Wild Bill Hickok: The Man and His Myth

Find out more about him here:


OX Teams in Sturgis

A photograph of the Ox Teams resting in the main street of Sturgis, Dakota Territory. 

The photograph was taken by John C.Grabill and is dated to between 1887 to 1892.

You can see the line of oxen and then the wagons.

From Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.

An ox wagon was used to transport goods. It was a wooden wagon with four iron covered wheels, pulled by teams of oxen, that were harnessed to the wagon in pairs. Most of the wagon was covered in canvas in a high arch to protect the goods.

Buffalo Soldier

An Afro-American Corporal, in the 9th Cavalry. Snow covers the ground

                                              Buffalo soldier from Denver, Colorado in 1890 

More photos and information on Buffalo soldiers

Get along little dogies or Dogie's Lament

Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies
It's your misfortune and none of my own
Whoopie ti yi yo, git along little dogies
You know that Wyoming will be your new home

Do you know this American folk song? Little dogies means the cattle or more specifically a motherless calf which was sometimes referred to as a dogie, (pronounced with a long "o")  In this traditional song, Dogie's Lament, also known as Git along little dogies, the "dogies" meant cattle strong enough to be herded from Texas to Wyoming, including  young, non-orphaned animals. 

"In Western Words Ramon F. Adams gives one possible etymology for dogie, whose origin is unknown. During the 1880s, when a series of harsh winters left large numbers of orphaned calves, the little calves, weaned too early, were unable to digest coarse range grass, and their swollen bellies "very much resembled a batch of sourdough carried in a sack." Such a calf was referred to as dough-guts. The term, altered to dogie according to Adams, "has been used ever since throughout cattle land to refer to a pot-gutted orphan calf." Another possibility is that dogie is an alteration of Spanish dogal, "lariat." Still another is that it is simply a variant pronunciation of doggie." THE FREE DICTIONARY

You can hear different versions of the song on:
Cisco Houston Sings Songs Of The Open Road, 1960 ALBUM
Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs Volume 2, 1964 ALBUM
Creek Nickel Little Cowpoke, 1998 ALBUM

Have you heard this song before? I originally thought Woody Guthrie wrote it but have learnt that he often takes traditional songs and changes them around. Do you know any other cowboy songs?

Wordless Wednesday

Will Rodgers

Deadwood

Custer and Pleasonton 1863

Union Cavalry Generals George A. Custer (left) and Alfred Pleasonton in the Autumn of 1863

Custer was only 23 when this photo was taken. He was quoted as saying that "no father could love his son more than General Pleasonton loves me."  Alfred Pleasonton was a General of Union cavalry during the American Civil War who took Custer under his wing. Custer served on Pleasonton's staff while still continuing his assignment with his own regiment and was one of the youngest generals in the Union Army at age 23 when in June, 1863, Pleasonton promoted Custer from captain to brigadier general of volunteers.

CUSTER

Native American Chiefs

1865

Red Cloud and other Souix created between 1865 and 1880

Standing - Red Bear, Young Man Afraid of his Horse, Good Voice, Ring Thunder, Iron Crow, White Tail, Young Spotted Tail. Seated - Yellow Bear, Red Cloud, Big Road, Little Wound, Black Crow

Both photos from Matthew Brady studios

View more Native American Images

 

What's the connection?

Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill taken in 1885 by William Notman Studios, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The Battle of Picacho Peak on April 15, 1862  was part of the American Civil War.  
Picacho Peak is near Tucson, Arizona and was the battle on the western front of the Civil War.  The battle was between a Union cavalry patrol of 13 men and a group of 10 Confederates.
The Union commander Lieutenant James Barrett and two of his men were killed and three others were wounded during the 90 minute battle. The remaining Union men retreated but Union forces from California later rode to Tucson and  captured the Confederate settlement there.

Custer's Blackhills expedition

1874



"Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills and announced the discovery of gold on French Creek near present-day Custer, South Dakota. Custer's announcement triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush. Among the towns that immediately grew up was Deadwood, South Dakota, notorious for lawlessness."

From Wikipedia

American bison



Also known as the American buffalo, it is a bison that once roamed North America in massive herds between the Great Bear Lake in Canada's northwest, south to Mexico and east to the Appalachian Mountains
The US Army sanctioned the slaughter of bison herds to allow ranchers free range of their cattle without competition and cruelly to remove the main food of the proud Native American Indians who were forced to leave the land or starve.

The Gem Variety Theater and Dance Hall in Deadwood Dakota

Annie Oakley

“I ain't afraid to love a man. I ain't afraid to shoot him either.”
 ~ Annie Oakley.

Calamity Jane

These photographs were taken in 1885 of Calamity Jane. They are from L.R. Freeman's book 'Down the Yellowstone' which was written in 1922.

Born Martha Jane Cannary Burke in about 1856, in Missouri she was a famous wild west figure -  a frontierswoman, a professional scout.
Martha Jane was the eldest of six children and had to look after them when both her mother and father died. The siblings all travelled by wagon and then Union Pacific Railroad to live in Wyoming where Jane worked as a cook, dishwasher, waitress, ran a dance-hall, ox team driver, prostitute and scout for General Custer. She became a good rifle shooter and horse rider. She often dressed as a man to enable her to do jobs considered only suitable for men and also swore and chewed tobacco. 

When she first met Wild Bill Hickok she was travelling by wagon train to Deadwood, Dakota and lived there from 1876 to 1881 sometimes working as a prostitute or a dancer. It was here that she endeared herself to the people and the town by nursing many of the sick during a smallpox epidemic of 1878.

In 1893, Calamity Jane started to appear in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show as a horse rider and a trick shooter but was fired due to her drinking. She was an alcoholic an addiction that was seen in her younger years.

In 1901 Calamity Jane started selling her small autobiography "Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane"
She died on August 1, 1903 and was buried in Mount Moriah Cemetary overlooking the city of Deadwood, next to Wild Bill Hickok.

The Trek West 1847

The Mormons migrated across America from the Midwest to the Salt Lake Valley in what is today the state of Utah using mainly large covered farm wagons and handcarts carrying their belongings^.

Their trail became known as the Mormon Trail. This Pioneer Trail is 1,300 miles (2,092 kms) and the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traveled on it from 1846 to 1868.

The Mormons were persecuted because of their beliefs, their farms were burnt, they were moved on and sometimes killed. 

The Mormon migration was a carefully planned journey to the Great Salt Lake Valley under the leadership of  Brigham Young. "Young and the pioneer party left Winter Quarters on April 5th, 1847 for the Salt Lake Valley. The Pioneer Company (Camp of Israel) consisted of one hundred and forty-three men, three women and two children. The company had seventy-two wagons, ninety-three horses, fifty-two mules, sixty-six oxen, nineteen cows, seventeen dogs, and some chickens." Historical facts of the Mormon trail by O. Ned Eddins.

More info...

Abraham Lincoln seated February1864 Author Anthony Berger

Movie cowboy

This is a still from The Great Train Robbery, an American Western silent film, made in 1903 by Edwin S. Porter. It is the famous shot of the robber firing his gun at the camera which could be seen at the beginning of the film or the end or both!  While the movie is only twelve minutes long, it was considered amazing when it was made for it's genuine portrayal of the outlaw bands of the frontier and its innovative techniques including on location filming.