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Khalifa Ahmad Tijjani Imam Agege(March 15, 18652) was the khalifa of tijjaniyyah in lagos state and the supreme leader of Tijjaniyyah in southwestern Nigeria
Alonzo "Lon" Van Oden was born in Tilden, McMullen County, Texas to Aaron Van Buren Oden and Mary Jane Walker Oden. His father was of Swedish descent, and had served several times as a Texas Ranger. Four months after Oden's birth, his father, accompanied by rancher George Hindes, encountered Julian Gonzales (a horse thief from Starr County, Texas). In an ensuing gunfight, both gunslingers killed Gonzales each other. Hindes, lacking proper tools, buried Aaron Oden where he died, and then informed Oden's 19-year-old wife, Mary Jane, of her husband's death. Mary Jane Oden, however, did not last long after her husband's death. She died on August 31, 1864, only a year after her husband. Her father, Joe, recorded in his journal that she died of a broken heart.
This left Oden to be raised by his grandparents; both the Walker family and the Oden family shared in this task. His grandmother edcuated him in Swedish classics, poetry, and the arts. From the Walker side, he learned the arts of shooting, and the skills necessary to survive in a harsh land. His grandfather, Joe Walker, had a total of nineteen children, but, due to the circumstances surrounding Oden becoming an orphan at the age of 1 year, Joe Walker took special interest in the child and his upbringing. When Oden was only 2 years old, Joseph Walker gave him 150 head of cattle, registering them with the "ODN" brand.
Oden learned the trade of cattle from his uncles, Tom and James. During this time, he often saw his family battle against raiding Comanche, who would raid the ranch for horse or cattle. On Christmas Eve 1868, his cousin William "Buck" Taylor was gunned down and killed, in a shooting which many attribute to have been the start of the Sutton–Taylor feud [1]
Lon Oden married for the first time in 1889, but the marriage ended shortly in divorce, and on March 1, 1891, he joined the Texas Rangers. For a time he worked the region surrounding San Antonio, but then was sent west to serve with Ranger John R. Hughes. Oden and Hughes were dispatched to Shafter, due to the Carrasco brothers gang, led by Antonio Carrasco, committing armed robberies in order to steal silver being shipped from the silver mines. Assisted by Ranger and undercover agent Ernest St. Leon, the Rangers set up surveillance on a mine where the thieves were expected to strike, based on inside information gained by St. Leon. When the outlaws opened fire after ignoring the command to surrender, the Rangers killed all three men.
Oden then was sent to El Paso, where he worked for some time, and where he became acquainted with, and friends with Ranger Bass Outlaw. In 1893, when Ranger Captain Frank Jones was ambushed and killed, John Hughes took over as Ranger Captain for that area. Because Jones and his small band of Rangers were mistakenly inside Mexico when the ambush had taken place, there was to be no prosecution of those responsible. However, still working undercover, Ernest St. Leon supplied a list of names of those known to have taken part in the killing to Captain Jones. Accompanied by a company of Rangers, including Oden and led by Hughes, the Rangers tracked down and killed all 18 men on the list, either by shooting them or by hanging them.
Oden had by this time settled in Ysleta, Texas. During this time he took part in several Ranger raids, and over time he and his fellow Rangers working that area drastically reduced the number of robberies and cattle rustling in that region. On April 5, 1894, Bass Outlaw was shot and killed by John Selman in El Paso. Outlaw was not innocent in his own death, a fact which made it all the more difficult to accept for Oden. Outlaw, intoxicated and furious at what he deemed mistreatment by a local judge, had shot and killed Ranger Joe McKidrict inside a brothel. When confronted by Selman, a constable at the time, Outlaw and Selman became involved in a gunfight, leaving Selman wounded, and Outlaw dead. Two years later, on April 5, 1896, lawman and friend to Outlaw, George Scarborough, would shoot and kill Selman in a gunfight over Selman having killed Outlaw.
Lon Oden continued working as a Ranger, and by this time he had developed a considerable reputation due to the numerous and mostly unknown outlaws and cattle rustlers he had either killed in shootouts, arrested, or hanged. He had become involved with widow Annie Laura Hay around 1894. On January 17, 1897, the couple married, and he left the Rangers shortly thereafter to become a rancher and businessman. He started a successful ranch in Marfa, Texas. He died there of an unknown lung ailment on August 11, 1910. In 1936, his daughter Annie Laura Oden Jensen published his diary of his exploits as a Ranger.
George Scarborough was a cowboy and lawman who lived during the time of the Wild West. He is best known for having killed outlaw John Selman, killer of John Wesley Hardin, and for his partnership with lawman Jeff Milton, with the pair bringing down several outlaws during their time together.
John Wesley Hardin was an American Old West outlaw, gunfighter, and controversial folk icon. Hardin often got into trouble with the law from an early age. He killed his first man at the age of 15, claiming he did so in self-defense.
Samuel Bass was a 19th-century American train robber, outlaw, and outlaw gang leader. Notably, he was a member of a gang of six that robbed a Union Pacific train in Nebraska of $60,000 in newly minted gold from San Francisco, California. To date, this is the biggest train robbery to have been committed in the USA. He died as a result of wounds sustained in a gun battle with law enforcement officers.
Leander Harvey McNelly was a Confederate officer and Texas Ranger captain. McNelly is best remembered for leading the "Special Force", a quasi-military branch of the Texas Rangers that operated in south Texas in 1875–76.
James Brown Miller, also known as "Killin' Jim", "Killer Miller" and "Deacon Jim", was an American outlaw and title-holder gunfighter of the American Old West, said to have killed 12 people during gunfights. Miller was referred to by some by the alias "Deacon Jim" because he regularly attended the Methodist Church, and he did not smoke or drink. He was lynched in Ada, Oklahoma, in 1909 along with three other men, by a mob of residents angry that he had assassinated a former deputy U.S. marshal.
Newman Haynes Clanton, also known as "Old Man" Clanton, was a cattle rancher and father of four sons, one of whom was killed during the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Two of his sons were involved in multiple conflicts in Cochise County, Arizona Territory including stagecoach robbery and cattle rustling. One witness identified his son Ike Clanton as a participant in the murder of Morgan Earp. Billy Clanton and Ike were at the O.K. Corral. "Old Man" Clanton was reportedly involved with stealing cattle from Mexican ranchers and re-selling them in the United States. Records indicate he participated in the Skeleton Canyon Massacre of Mexican smugglers. In retaliation, Mexican Rurales are reported to have ambushed and killed him and a crew of Cowboys in the Guadalupe Canyon Massacre.
John M. Larn was a western American lawman and later outlaw who, with gunfighter John Selman, operated a cattle rustling ring in Shackelford County, Texas, for over a year.
Frank M. Canton was an American Old West fugitive who had a career as a deputy U.S. marshal under an assumed name. Although an ex-sheriff stock detective in Wyoming, Canton and his associates were accused of operating more by assassination than the law. Extrajudicial measures such as the lynching of Ellen Watson inflamed public opinion against the long-established big ranchers Canton worked for, and to re-establish control over grazing they funded an all-out assault on those small operators considered to be rustlers. Canton directed Frank Wolcott's imported gunmen in their planned vigilante campaign, known as the Johnson County War, which was quickly ended by a local posse. Finding himself a marked man in Wyoming, Canton considered it opportune to leave the state. He spent most of the rest of his working life in law enforcement for the court of hanging judge Isaac C. Parker.
John Henry Selman was sometimes identified as an outlaw and sometimes a working lawman of the Old West. He is best known as the man who fatally shot John Wesley Hardin in the Acme Saloon in El Paso, Texas, on August 19, 1895.
The Jesse Evans Gang, also known as The Boys, was a gang of rustlers and robbers led by outlaw and gunman Jesse Evans, which lasted from 1876 until 1880. The gang was formed after Evans broke with the John Kinney Gang. After breaking away, he brought along with him Billy Morton, Frank Baker, Tom Hill, Dolly Graham, George Davis, Jim McDaniels, Buffalo Bill Spawn, Bob Martin, Manuel "Indian" Segovia and Nicholas Provencio.
Ernest "Diamond Dick" St. Leon was a French-American law enforcement officer and a member of the Texas Rangers, known prominently during the 1880s as one of its finest undercover officers. He received the nickname "Diamond Dick" from his fellow officers due to his habit of wearing diamonds on his uniform.
The Seven Rivers Warriors was an outlaw gang of the Old West known primarily due to its part in the Pecos War and the Lincoln County War.
Abraham G. Graham, known by the alias "Shotgun" John Collins, was a little-known though well-associated gunfighter and outlaw of the American Old West.
The Horrell brothers, sometimes referred to as the lawless Horrell boys, were five brothers from the Horrell family of Lampasas County, Texas, who were outlaws of the Old West, and who committed numerous murders over a five-year period before four of the brothers were killed in different incidents. The brothers are probably best known for the Horrell-Higgins feud, although it resulted in relatively few deaths compared to other feuds. However, starting in 1873, the brothers went on an ethnically motivated killing spree during which they killed a Hispanic lawman and a white lawman in New Mexico, killed 11 other Hispanic men, and wounded one Hispanic woman. The brothers had previously killed five lawmen in Texas.
John Reynolds Hughes was a Texas Ranger and cowboy of the Old West, and later an author. Several books were written about him, known as one of the most influential Texas Rangers of all time.
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.
The Smith Gang was a band of American cattle rustlers who operated in the Southwest during the late 1890s to 1901. The gang was founded by Bill Smith and included six others, mainly Bill's family members. After an encounter with the law in Arizona Territory, known as the Battleground Gunfight, the Smith Gang was forced to escape to Mexico in October 1901.
Feuds in the United States deals with the phenomena of historic blood feuding in the United States. These feuds have been numerous and some became quite vicious. Often, a conflict which may have started out as a rivalry between two individuals or families became further escalated into a clan-wide feud or a range war, involving dozens—or even hundreds—of participants. Below are listed some of the most notable blood feuds in United States history, most of which occurred in the Old West.
The Battle of Tres Jacales was an Old West gunfight that occurred on June 30, 1893. While out searching for a gang of rustlers, a group of American lawmen under the command of the Texas Ranger Frank Jones were attacked at the Mexican village of Tres Jacales. During the exchange of gunfire, Jones was mortally wounded and the remaining Americans were forced to retreat back into Texas.
The Sutton–Taylor feud began as a county law enforcement issue between relatives of a Texas state law agent, Creed Taylor, and a local law enforcement officer, William Sutton, in DeWitt County, Texas. The feud cost at least 35 lives and eventually included the outlaw John Wesley Hardin as one of its participants. It began in March 1868, not reaching its conclusion until the Texas Rangers put a stop to the fighting in December 1876.
