The Bisbee massacre (a.k.a. the Bisbee murders or Bisbee raid) occurred in Bisbee, Arizona, on December 8, 1883, when six outlaws who were part of the Cochise County Cowboys robbed a general store. Believing the general store's safe contained a mining payroll of $7,000, they timed the robbery incorrectly and were only able to steal between $800 and $3,000, along with a gold watch and jewelry. During the robbery, members of the gang killed five people, including a lawman and a pregnant woman. Six men were convicted of the robbery and murders. John Heath, who was accused of organizing the robbery, was tried separately and sentenced to life in prison. The other five men were convicted of murder and sentenced to hang.
Unsatisfied with Heath's sentence, a lynch mob forcibly removed Heath from jail and hanged him from a telegraph pole on February 22, 1884. The other five men were executed on March 28, 1884. They were the first criminals to be legally hanged in Tombstone. The graves of the five murderers is part of the popular Boothill Graveyard tourist attraction in Tombstone.[1][2]
Background
John T. Heath was born in Texas in 1855 to John and Sarah Heath. His family moved to Louisiana while he was young. The family eventually returned to Texas and in 1875 Heath married Virginia Tennessee “Jennie” Ferrell. In 1882, Heath left Texas, settling first in Clifton, Arizona, where he opened a saloon. In November 1883, Heath moved to Bisbee with James "Tex" Howard. Along the way, Heath and Howard met friends of Howard: Dan "Big Dan" Dowd, Omer W. "Red" Sample, and Daniel "York" Kelly. As an adult, Heath was indicted for cattle rustling, robbery, burglary, and running a house of prostitution.
Bisbee didn't have a bank, and it was common knowledge that the $7,000 cash payroll (or about $229,000 today[when?]) for the Copper Queen Mine was delivered to the Goldwater & Castaneda Mercantile store one or two days in advance of the company's payday on the 10th of each month. Heath was later convicted of arranging for Cowboys Daniel W. "Big Dan" Dowd, Omer W. "Red" Sample, Daniel "York" Kelly, William E. "Billy" Delaney, and James "Tex" Howard to rob the store and payroll.[2]
Before the robbery, Heath allegedly accompanied Howard and the three other men to Buckles' ranch, about 10 miles (16km) outside Bisbee, although no witnesses were later found to corroborate Heath's role. Heath and Howard continued on to Bisbee on November 20, 1883. Heath immediately partnered with a local man named Nathan Waite and prepared to open a new dance hall. Howard returned to the Buckles' ranch and waited with his confederates. Heath and Waite opened their dance hall behind the Goldwater & Castaneda Mercantile general store on December 8, 1883, the day the Copper Queen Mine payroll usually arrived.[2]
Robbery and murders
The Letson Loft Hotel (Letson Loft Block) located on 26 Main Street was where the Goldwater–Castaneda Mercantile Store was originally located. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places on July 3, 1980, as part of the Bisbee Historic District, reference#80004487.
On the evening of December 8, 1883, the five outlaws rode into Bisbee. They tied their horses near the Copper Queen Mine smelter at the end of Main Street and walked to the Goldwater and Castaneda store. At the store, three of the men, including "Tex" Howard, who wasn't wearing a mask, entered the store while the other two remained outside. They leveled pistols at the store owner and persuaded him to open the safe, only to find that the payroll had not yet arrived. The robbers took some cash and a gold watch in the safe and robbed all of the employees and customers in the store. Accounts differ as to how much money they stole, but it was reported they took between $800 and $3,000 in cash along with the gold watch and jewelry.[2]
While three Cowboys were inside looting the safe and robbing the customers, two Cowboys outside were confronted by citizens who recognized that a robbery was in progress. When assayer J. C. Tappenier exited the Bon Ton Saloon next door, they ordered him to go back in. He refused and the robbers, armed with Winchester repeating rifles, killed him with a shot to the head. Cochise County Deputy Sheriff D. Tom Smith was having dinner with his wife across the street at the Bisbee House. He ran onto the street and the robbers ordered him to go back inside. Smith refused, and told them he was an officer of the law. One of the bandits reportedly said, "Then you are the one we want!" and killed him. He fell beneath a freight wagon. Annie Roberts, who was pregnant, came to the door of the Bisbee House restaurant, which she and her husband owned. The Cowboys shot her and the bullet shattered her spine, mortally wounding her. John A. Nolly, a local freighter, was standing near his wagon when he was shot in the chest. A local man, known only as "Indian Joe," was wounded in the leg as he was trying to escape the shooting. Nolly died later that evening, as did Roberts and her unborn child.[3][4]
The robbers exited the store and ran for their horses, firing at anyone they saw. Deputy Sheriff William "Billy" Daniels, who had come from his saloon when he heard the shooting commence, emptied his revolver at the fleeing outlaws, but missed. The bandits mounted their horses and rode back up Main Street, over Mule Pass, and out of town. At Soldier's Hole, a site east of Bisbee, they divided the money and went their separate ways.[1][4][3]
Posse captures suspects
The Copper Queen Mine offered a reward of $2,000 for the arrest and conviction of the Cowboys. Since four of the robbers wore masks, it was at first difficult to trace them.[2]
Riders from Bisbee immediately left for the county seat in Tombstone to notify Cochise County Sheriff Jerome L. Ward. Deputy Daniels immediately formed two posses. The first posse immediately left in pursuit of the murderers. It included John Heath who was later convicted of planning the robbery. He rode with Nathan Waite and Henry Frost (a local gambler and acquaintance of John Heath). Waite and Heath were deputized by Daniels.[citation needed]
The second posse rode out after daybreak on December 9. Daniels' posse soon caught up with Heath's posse. During the manhunt, Heath noticed that the outlaws' tracks separated with three horsemen going east and the two others going south. Heath brought this to Daniels' attention, but Daniels didn't believe Heath. Heath, Waite, and Frost followed the southbound tracks and finally lost the trail of their quarry outside Tombstone. Daniels doggedly followed the other tracks and eventually lost that trail. He returned to Bisbee empty-handed.[citation needed]
Exhausted, the three men spent the night in Tombstone. Since Sheriff Ward was absent, they met with Under-Sheriff Wallace, and then returned to Bisbee. Heath and Waite were arrested the following day. Waite was released, but Heath was held in jail as a suspected accomplice.[5][6] When Heath was tried for his role in the robbery, Daniels testified that Heath was trying to mislead the posse when he pointed out that the trail had split.[citation needed]
Because he had neglected to wear a mask, "Tex" Howard was quickly identified as one of the robbers. After further investigation, Deputy Daniels was able to determine the names of the other four men suspected of being involved. Suspicion fell upon Heath as he was acquainted with Howard and had been seen in the company of the other four men at Buckles' ranch. The first of the outlaws to be apprehended was Daniel "York" Kelly. Kelly was caught near Deming, New Mexico.
"Tex" Howard and "Red" Sample made the mistake of returning to their old haunts in Clifton, Arizona. While there, the outlaws visited with bartender Walter Bush. After the two men left town, Bush notified authorities. A posse was assembled and within a matter of days, Howard and Sample were captured and placed in jail. Daniel W. Dowd and William E. Delaney had, as Heath had seen by their horse tracks, left the others outside Bisbee and traveled to Sonora, Mexico. Dan Dowd was captured by Deputy Daniels across the Mexican border in Los Corralitos, Sonora. William Delaney was apprehended by Deputy Daniels with the aid of Deputy Sheriff Robert Hatch in the town of Minas Prietas, Sonora where he had been detained after getting in a brawl with a local mine foreman.[1][2][3][7][8] Given the reward, Mexican authorities were glad to release him to the Americans.
Five Cowboys convicted
On February 6, the grand jury "found indictments against Dowd, Kelly, Sample, Howard and Delaney". The men appointed as their legal counsel included James B. Southard, Col. Stanford, Thomas J. Drum, F. V. Price, and Col. William Herring (father of Sarah Herring Sorin, one of Arizona's first female attorneys). The trial of the five suspected killers began in Tombstone on February 17, 1884. The evidence against the men was fairly conclusive. Four of the five of them had been recognized either during the robbery or as they ran from the mercantile. Additionally, there was a chain of physical and circumstantial evidence linking the men to the crime. The trial lasted only three days. After an hour's deliberation the jury brought back a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder. On hearing the verdict, Daniel Kelly was reported to have remarked, "Well boys, hemp seems to be trumps". On February 18, after their motions for a new trial were quashed by Judge Daniel Pinney, the five outlaws were sentenced to be hanged by the neck until they were dead.[9][10]
John Heath convicted
The lynching of John Heath on February 22, 1884
At his request, John Heath was tried separately beginning on February 12, 1884. He was represented by Colonel William Herring. The prosecutors could not produce a witness who could tie Heath to the robbery. Certainly he had known the outlaws previously, but proving he had conspired with them was problematic. Unable to produce a witness, County Attorney Marcus Aurelius Smith found a prisoner to testify against Heath. Sergeant L. D. Lawrence, of the 3rd Cavalry, had been indicted for killing two men during a saloon brawl in Willcox, Arizona, and had been incarcerated with Heath and the others since their arrest.
Sgt. Lawrence swore he had heard Heath and the outlaws discuss the robbery and how and why their plan had failed. Heath's attorney questioned Lawrence as to whether he had made a deal with County Attorney Smith to testify against Heath in exchange for a lighter sentence in his own case. Lawrence swore he had not but three months later, in May 1884, he was represented in his murder trial before Judge Pinney by Smith's private law firm. He was found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter and sentenced to only two years in the Yuma Territorial Prison.[5][11][12][13]
The jury, which split several times over the verdict, with some calling for conviction and some calling for acquittal, finally chose a "compromise verdict" and convicted Heath of second-degree murder [14] Judge Pinney sentenced him to life at the Yuma Territorial Prison.
Heath lynched
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Some men of Cochise County were not satisfied. On February 22, a large lynch mob, reported as 50 to 150 men,[1][15] mostly miners, armed themselves. They appointed a committee of seven men to enter the county jail in the Tombstone Courthouse and get Heath out. The jailer thought their knock was the Chinese cook bringing breakfast, and the seven men forced the sheriff and guards at the point of their guns to release Heath to them. The mob took Heath from the jail, leaving his five convicted associates who were scheduled to be executed in March. As the mob exited the courthouse with the prisoner, Sheriff Ward attempted to intervene. The mob pushed him aside.[16][2]
The mob took Heath down Toughnut Street and lynched him from a telegraph pole at the corner of Second and Toughnut Streets. Heath's last words were:
Boys, you are hanging an innocent man, and you will find it out before those other men are hung. I have one favor to ask, that you will not mutilate my body by shooting into it after I am hung.
His executioners agreed. Heath was then blindfolded and the noose was placed around his neck. Members of the mob then pulled the rope until Heath was suspended beneath the pole, where he slowly strangled to death. When the body finally came to rest, someone placed a placard on the telegraph pole bearing the inscription:[16]
JOHN HEITH
Was hanged to this pole by the CITIZENS OF COCHISE COUNTY for participating in the Bisbee massacre as a proved accessory AT 8:00 A.M., FEBRUARY 22, 1884 (Washington’s Birthday) ADVANCE ARIZONA!
Newspaper accounts
The lynching at Tombstone was covered nationally, reported by The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune as well as by western newspapers. The February 24, 1884 issue of the Times reported:
... At 9 o'clock on Thursday morning Judge Pinney sentenced John to confinement in Yuma Penitentiary for life for complicity in the Bisbee murders. Twenty-four hours later the dead body of Heath dangled from the cross bar of a telegraph pole near the foot of Toughnut Street, where it was suspended by a rope... The seven men approached the door leading to the corridor of the jail and... Jailer Ward opened the door unsuspiciously, and was immediately covered by weapons and told to give up the keys of the jail. Seeing any attempt at resistance would be useless he did as requested, and in a few minutes the deputation was in the presence of the sought-for man... Arriving at the place selected for the hanging one of the party climbed a telegraph pole and passed the rope over the cross-bar. Heath pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and, placing it on his knee, coolly and deliberately folded it, and, placing it over his eyes, asked someone in the crowd to tie it.
Heath restated his innocence before the crowd put the rope around his neck and hoisted him off his feet.[17] The mob left Heath "hanging for half an hour, when he was cut down".[2] After his death, Heath was described as "a notorious gambler, burglar, horse and cattle thief" on February 28, 1884, by The Kaufman Sun in his home town of Terrell, Texas.[15]
Coroner's verdict
The grave marker for John Heath at the Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona
Dr. George E. Goodfellow, who had witnessed Heath's hanging, was County Coroner and responsible for determining the cause of death. His conclusion reflected the popular sentiment of the town. He ruled that Heath died from "...emphysema of the lungs which might have been, and probably was, caused by strangulation, self-inflicted or otherwise, as in accordance with the medical evidence."[18]
While a grave marker for John Heath is currently located in the Tombstone Boothill Graveyard, his body was returned to his family in Terrell, Texas, where he was buried at the Oakland Cemetery in an unmarked grave.[1]
Remaining five executed
After the trial and conviction of the five bandits, residents celebrated the day of their execution in March 1884. Sheriff Ward sent out invitations to a select number of people to view the hanging, In addition, a local businessman erected a grandstand of his own outside the jailyard and began selling tickets at $1.50 per seat. Nellie Cashman, a local philanthropist, was disgusted when she learned of these plans. She protested to Sheriff Ward, but he would not act. On the day before the executions, she and others she recruited chopped up the grandstand.[2] During this row, seven people were injured, one breaking a leg and another an arm.[2]
According to the Tombstone Epitaph, about 1,000 persons witnessed the hangings. A special gallows was built that could accommodate all five of the outlaws. On the morning of their execution, they were shaved and dressed in matching black suits. Sheriff Ward allowed them to walk unfettered to the gibbet and to wear their hats. Once on the platform, the men were bound again. Each of the bandits protested his innocence and that of Heath, who had been lynched a month earlier.[citation needed]
Having converted to Catholicism during their tenure in the county jail, [citation needed] the outlaws asked for their bodies to be delivered to the local Roman Catholic priest, Father Gallagher. Their hats were then taken from them and black hoods pulled down over their heads. The nooses were subsequently adjusted around their necks. It was then that Daniel "York" Kelly, his voice muffled by the hood which covered his features, said, "Let her go!" On March 28, 1884, at 1:18p.m. James "Tex" Howard, Dan "Big Dan" Dowd, William Delaney (or DeLaney), Omer W. "Red" Sample, and Kelly were executed. They were dropped together and, except for Dowd, died quickly. Dowd's body was seen to twitch and jerk for several minutes as he strangled to death. The bodies of the Bisbee bandits were allowed to hang there in the early spring air for nearly half an hour before they were officially pronounced dead. Then, at 1:45p.m. the corpses were cut down and “placed in neat but plain coffins” and conveyed to the city morgue, where they were each identified in turn by Gallagher.[19]
Learning that a medical school intended to exhume the bandits' corpses for research, Cashman intervened, hiring two miners to guard the graves of the bandits for ten days.[2] A joint gravestone marks the graves of the five executed bandits, which can still be seen in Tombstone.
Current graves
The following are the images, as of 2017, of the individual graves of Dan Dowd, William E. Delaney, Daniel Kelley, James Howard and Omer W. Sample in Boot Hill Graveyard in Tombstone.
The Current graves of the 5 Bisbee Massacre outlaws
John Peters Ringo was an American Old West outlaw loosely associated with the Cochise County Cowboys in frontier boomtown Tombstone, Arizona Territory. He took part in the Mason County War in Texas during which he committed his first murder. He was arrested and charged with murder. He was affiliated with Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, Ike Clanton, and Frank Stilwell during 1881–1882. He got into a confrontation in Tombstone with Doc Holliday and was suspected by Wyatt Earp of having taken part in the attempted murder of Virgil Earp and the ambush and death of Morgan Earp. Ringo was found dead with a bullet wound to his temple which was ruled a suicide. Modern writers have advanced various theories attributing his death to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Frank Leslie or Michael O'Rourke.
Albert "Burt" Alvord was an American lawman and later outlaw of the Old West. Alvord began his career in law enforcement in 1886 as a deputy under Sheriff John Slaughter in Cochise County, Arizona, but turned to train robbery by the beginning of the 20th century.
William Brocius, better known as Curly Bill Brocius, was an American gunslinger, rustler and an outlaw Cowboy in the Cochise County area of the Arizona Territory during the late 1870s and early 1880s. His name is likely an alias or nickname, and some evidence links him to another outlaw named William "Curly Bill" Bresnaham, who was convicted of an 1878 attempted robbery and murder in El Paso, Texas.
John Harris Behan was an American law enforcement officer and politician who served as Sheriff of Cochise County in the Arizona Territory, during the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and was known for his opposition to the Earps. Behan was sheriff of Yavapai County from 1871 to 1873. He was married and had two children, but his wife divorced him, accusing him of consorting with prostitutes. He was elected to the Seventh Arizona Legislative Assembly, representing Yavapai County. In 1881, Wyatt Earp served for about five months as undersheriff of the eastern half of Pima County. When Wyatt resigned, Behan was appointed to fill his place, which included the mining boomtown Tombstone. When Cochise County was formed in February 1881, Behan was appointed as its first sheriff. Tombstone became the new county seat and the location of Behan's office. Sadie Marcus was his mistress, possibly as early as 1875 in Tip Top, Arizona, and certainly from 1880 until she found him in bed with another woman and kicked him out in mid-1881.
Pete Spence was a small-time criminal known for his association with outlaw Cowboys Frank and Tom McLaury, and Ike and Billy Clanton, of Tombstone, Arizona Territory. Spence was also a suspect in the assassination of Morgan Earp. His wife Marietta Duarte testified that Spence and several friends had talked about killing Morgan, but the judge ruled her testimony inadmissible. Spence was first suspected of robbery in 1878 in Goliad County, Texas. He was suspected of stealing mules and later a suspect in a stagecoach robbery outside Bisbee, Arizona. While a deputy sheriff, he pistol-whipped and killed a man for which he served 18 months of a five-year term before the governor pardoned him.
The Earp Vendetta Ride was a deadly search by a federal posse led by Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp for a loose confederation of outlaw "Cowboys" they believed had ambushed his brothers Virgil and Morgan Earp, maiming the former and killing the latter. The two Earp brothers had been attacked in retaliation for the deaths of three Cowboys in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. From March 20 to April 15, 1882, the federal posse searched southeast Cochise County, Arizona Territory for the men they believed were responsible for the attacks on Virgil and Morgan. Several suspects had been identified and were charged, but were soon released by the court, owing in some cases to legal technicalities and in others to the strength of alibis provided by the Cowboy gang. Wyatt subsequently pursued the suspects with a federal warrant.
WarrenBaxterEarp was an American frontiersman and lawman. He was the youngest of Earp brothers, Wyatt, Morgan, Virgil, James, and Newton Earp. Although he was not present during the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, after Virgil was maimed in an ambush, Warren joined Wyatt and was in town when Morgan was assassinated. He also helped Wyatt in the hunt for the outlaws they believed responsible. Later in life, Warren developed a reputation as a bully and was killed in an argument in 1900.
Frank C. Stilwell was an outlaw Cowboy who killed at least two men in Cochise County during 1877–82. Both killings were considered to have been self-defense. For four months he was a deputy sheriff in Tombstone, Arizona Territory for Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan. Stilwell owned interests in several mines and various businesses, including a saloon, a wholesale liquor business, a stage line, and at his death livery stables in Charleston and Bisbee. He was also a partner in a Bisbee-area saloon with ex-Texas Ranger Pete Spence.
Michael O'Rourke, aka "Johnny O'Rourke" or "Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce", was a professional gambler of the Old West. While living in Charleston, Arizona, he killed Henry Schneider, a popular mine engineer, in what O'Rourke said was self-defense. But citizens were aroused and threatened to lynch O'Rourke. Constable George McKelvey took O'Rourke to Tombstone, chased by the angry mob. Once there, Deputy U.S. Marshal and Tombstone Police Chief Virgil Earp, his brother Wyatt, Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, and others saved him from the crowd.
Harry Cornwall Wheeler was an Arizona lawman who was the third captain of the Arizona Rangers, as well as the sheriff of Cochise County, serving from 1912 into 1918. He is known as the lead figure in the illegal mass kidnapping and deportation of some 1200 miners and family members, many of them immigrants, from Bisbee, Arizona to New Mexico in 1917. Beginning on July 12, 1917, he took total control of the town of Bisbee, controlling access and running kangaroo courts that deported numerous people.
The Cochise County Cowboys is the modern name for a loosely associated group of outlaws living in Pima and Cochise County, Arizona in the late 19th century. The term "cowboy", as opposed to "cowhand," had only begun to come into wider usage during the 1870s. In that place and time, "cowboy" was synonymous with "cattle rustler". Such thieves frequently rode across the border into Mexico and stole cattle from Mexican ranches that they then drove back across the border to sell in the United States. Some modern writers consider them to be an early form of organized crime in America.
Cochise County in southeastern Arizona was the scene of a number of violent conflicts in the 19th-century and early 20th-century American Old West, including between white settlers and Apache Indians, between opposing political and economic factions, and between outlaw gangs and local law enforcement. Cochise County was carved off in 1881 from the easternmost portion of Pima County during a formative period in the American Southwest. The era was characterized by rapidly growing boomtowns, the emergence of large-scale farming and ranching interests, lucrative mining operations, and the development of new technologies in railroading and telecommunications. Complicating the situation was staunch resistance to white settlement from local Native American groups, most notably during the Apache Wars, as well as Cochise County's location on the border with Mexico, which not only threatened international conflict but also presented opportunities for criminal smugglers and cattle rustlers.
The Ruby Murders is the popular name for three separate incidents involving the deaths of six American citizens near the town of Ruby, Arizona. The first incident occurred in February 1920 when Mexican bandits robbed and killed the two owners of the Ruby Mercantile. A second attack happened in April 1921 when Mexican bandits robbed and killed the store's new owners. Two of the bandits were arrested for the crime, but they briefly escaped custody in July 1922 after killing another two men, which led to the largest manhunt in the history of the Southwest.
The Skeleton Canyon shootout was a gunfight on August 12, 1896, between members of the High Five Gang and a posse of American lawmen. Following a failed robbery on August 1 of the bank in Nogales, Arizona, the High Fives headed east and split up. The gang's leader, Black Jack Christian, and George Musgrave got away.
The Fairbank train robbery occurred on the night of February 15, 1900, when some bandits attempted to hold up a Wells Fargo express car at the town of Fairbank, Arizona. Although it was thwarted by Jeff Milton, who managed to kill "Three Fingered Jack" Dunlop in an exchange of gunfire, the train robbery was unique for being one of the few to have occurred in a public place and was also one of the last during the Old West period.
Boothill Graveyard is a small graveyard of at least 250 interments located in Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona. Also known as the "Old City Cemetery", the graveyard was used after 1883 only to bury outlaws and a few others. It had a separate Jewish cemetery, which is nearby.
William Kidder Meade was an American politician who served as a United States marshal and two-time member of the Arizona Territorial Legislature.
Wilson, R. Michael (2007). Frontier Justice in the Wild West: Bungled, Bizarre, and Fascinating Executions. Globe Pequot. pp.67–68. ISBN978-0762743896.
Madeline Ferrin Pare with Bert M. Fireman, Arizona Pageant – A Short History of the 48th State Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Historical Foundation, 1875, pp.231–232
Thomas Way, Frontier Arizona (A Milestone Book), Carleton Press, 1960
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