The son of William Alonzo and Polly Butler Hickok, he was by all accounts a master marksman from an early age. In real life, Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Canary) never met 'Doc' Holliday: she actually was in love and pursued 'Wild Bill' Hickock. The trial began on December 4 and it only took two days for the jury to find McCall guilty. [38], In July 1869, Hickok returned to Hays and was elected city marshal of Hays and sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas, in a special election held on August 23, 1869. It was at this time that Hickok came across a bear blocking a road, an encounter that would become part of the lore surrounding him: Hickok shot the bear, which only angered it, and a struggle ensued, during which Hickok used a knife to slit the bears throat, but not before he was nearly crushed to death. Hickok joined the antislavery Free State Army of Jayhawkers and, having already become skilled with a gun as a youth, served as a bodyguard for Gen. James H. Lanes. He was released from the group after a few months. When Jane arrived in Deadwood, South Dakota in 1895, she told others that she needed money to enrol Jessie in a convent school at Sturgis. Upon being sprung, Jane whisked into Castle City, picked up the girl, and went on her way. In the film version, Howard Keel co-stars as Hickok to Doris Day's Calamity Jane. Between her birth in the 1850s and her death in 1903, Jane left a dizzying trail as she blazed around the west. Wikimedia Commons Advertisement 11. His own show, The Daring Buffalo Chase of the Plains, did not fare well, but in 1873 he joined Buffalo Bill Codys The Scouts of the Prairie, which was based in Rochester, New York. ", DeMattos, Jack (1980). During the Civil War, Wild Bill Hickok served in the Union Army as a civilian scout and later a provost marshal. James Butler Hickok was born May 27, 1837, in Homer, Illinois, (present-day Troy Grove, Illinois) to William Alonzo Hickok, a farmer and abolitionist, and his wife, Polly Butler. Alonzo and Polly Hickok moved to Illinois in 1833, finally settling in Troy Grove (known as Homer at the time), LaSalle County, along the banks of the Little Vermillion Creek. was advancing on him with a drawn pistol and that Tutt had previously made threats of personal injury to Deft. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,.css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}contact us! But Coe "reckoned without his host". Many people knew that Jane had a "crush" on Hickok but few, if any, knew that they were married. They performed together until Bill was tragically murdered in 1869. Astrological Sign: Gemini, Death Year: 1876, Death date: August 2, 1876, Death State: South Dakota, Death City: Deadwood, Death Country: United States, Article Title: Wild Bill Hickok Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/personality/wild-bill-hickok, Publisher: A&E Television Networks, Last Updated: July 28, 2020, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014. Lorenzo Butler Hickok spoke with McCall after the trial, and said McCall showed no remorse. McCall alleged that John Varnes, a Deadwood gambler, had paid him to murder Wild Bill. Writing in 1911, he detailed his admiration for Hickok and included a paragraph on the shooting that differs considerably from the reported account: "Phil" Coe was from Texas, ran the "Bull's Head" a saloon and gambling den, sold whiskey and men's souls. The movie The Plainsman (1936), starring Gary Cooper as Hickok, features the alleged romance between Calamity Jane and him as its main plot line. Trachoma is often associated with poverty and poor hygiene that allows the bacteria to infect and re-infect eyes; if left untreated, it can cause blindness. When he saw Hickok, he leveled his cocked rifle at him. Hickok lost his re-election bid to his deputy. [citation needed] Although he was just 39, his marksmanship and health were apparently in decline, and he had been arrested several times for vagrancy,[53] despite earning a good income from gambling and displays of showmanship only a few years earlier. Since he was actually shot in the back of the head, that plot element is a complete artifice of the episode writers. To date, four children have been credited to the lady, although some of the claims have come from the children themselves. Although the show brought Hickok some much-needed income, he was unhappy, began drinking heavily, and returned to the West in March 1874. Hickok was of English ancestry. McCanles reportedly threatened Wellman, and either Wellman or Hickok, who was hiding behind a curtain, killed McCanles. [i][68], Jack McCall was hanged on March 1, 1877, and buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery. Did Nick McGlashan have a family? Perhaps most famously, Harper's New Monthly Magazine printed an account of the story in 1867, claiming Hickok had killed 10 men. [a][8], In 1855, at age 18, James Hickok fled Illinois following a fight with Charles Hudson, during which both fell into a canal; each thought, mistakenly, that he had killed the other. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. He twice asked another man at the table, Charles Rich, to change seats with him, but Rich refused. Russell, Majors and Waddell had not kept up with their payments for the station, and the gun-brandishing McCanles had come to demand his money from Wellman, who insisted that he did not have it and refused to relinquish the property to McCanles, as did his wife. Brink, were tried for killing McCanles, but were found to have acted in self-defense. [62][63] Hickok may have told his friend Charlie Utter and others who were traveling with them that he thought he would be killed while in Deadwood. Lancaster, California. Wild Bill Hickok's iconic status is rooted in a shootout in July 1861 in what came to be known as the McCanles Massacre in Rock Creek, Nebraska. [d] The jury voted to clear Hickok, resulting in public backlash and criticism of the verdict. [3][4] James was the fourth of six children. He was very famous as a lawman as he established law and order in some of the most notorious towns on the frontier. [81], Hickok's birthplace is now the Wild Bill Hickok Memorial and is a listed historic site under the supervision of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. Jane was well-known for her abilities as a sharpshooter . She was born in Missouri and spent most of her life on the country's western border. The trial did not last more than fifteen minutes.[23]. In her book Calamity Janes Daughter: The Story of Maude Weir, Weirs own daughter, Ruth Shadley, said her family secretly knew that Maudes real mother was Calamity Jane. The old cemetery was in an area that was better suited for the constant influx of new settlers to live on, so the remaining bodies there were eventually also moved up the hill to the Mount Moriah Cemetery (in the 1880s). From William Alonzo and Polly Butler's marriage, they welcomed six children in total, and HIckon is the fourth among them all. [citation needed], From 1871 until his death in 1876, Hickok had vision problems. In the HBO show Deadwood (2004-2006), Wild Bill is played by Keith Carradine. Hickok moved west in 1855 to farm and joined General James Lane's Free State (antislavery) forces in Kansas. Hickok is known to have fatally shot six men and is suspected of having killed a seventh (McCanles). On December 9, Hickok and Lanihan both served legal papers on Macintosh, and local newspapers acknowledged that Hickok had guardianship of Hays City. 22nd August 2017 Hickok managed to fire another shot, wounding the bear's paw. Witnesses confirm that the story was true to the extent the party had set out to find whoever had killed the four men,[e] but the group returned to the fort "without nary a dead Indian, [never] even seeing a live one". On September 4, Hickok was wounded in the foot while rescuing several cattlemen in the Bijou Creek basin who had been surrounded by Indians. His father was said to have used the family house, now demolished, as a station on the Underground Railroad. [25][26]:136 Hickok had not been paid for some time, and was hired as a scout by General John B. Sanborn by early 1865. This was his sixth murder. [21] Hickok subsequently visited McCanles' widow, apologized for the killing, and offered her $35 in restitution, all the money he had with him at the time. Hickok accused a J.V. [6][35] Witnesses confirm that while working as a scout at Fort Harker, Kansas, on May 11, 1867, Hickok was attacked by a large group of Indians, who fled after he shot and killed two. She said she was the daughter of Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, and was born in a cabin near Livingston, Montana in 1873. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. Hickok has remained one of the most popular and iconic figures of the American Old West, and is still frequently depicted in popular culture, including literature, film, and television. Why were some shotguns called Greeners by cowboys in the Old West. McCall was brought to trial the next day. Michelle Renes novel, Hour Glass, is a moving, revealing picture of the legendary Calamity Jane., A bar in Hays City, Kansas, on July 17, 1870. [59], The next day, Hickok was playing poker again. Hickok is a playable character in the 2018 board game Deadwood 1876 by Faade Games. Calamity Jane (1852-1903) was a well-known American frontierswoman and entertainment who was well-known for her marksmanship and acquaintance with Wild Bill Hickok. Like his friend Buffalo Bill Cody, Hickok was the son of an abolitionist. They refused, so Hickok altered it himself. Hickok encouraged McCall to quit the game until he could cover his losses and offered to give him money for breakfast. Wild Bill Hickok was one of the early "Heroes of the West." He had built a reputation as an extraordinary gunfighter with a sense of fairness and justice. On July 21, 1865, in a shootout in Springfield, Missouri, he killed David Tutt, a skillful gunfighter who had been flaunting the watch he won from Hickok in a poker game. [50] The two entrepreneurs had painted a picture of a bull with a large erect penis on the side of their establishment as an advertisement. Col. George Armstrong Custer. Hickok was born and raised on a farm in northern Illinois at a time when lawlessness and vigilante activity were rampant because of the influence of the "Banditti of the Prairie". [28] Strawhun "made remarks against Hickok", and Hickok killed him with a shot through the head. In 1876 in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, Hickok married Agnes Lake Thatcher, a former circus performer. His exploits as a gunfighter, scout, and lawman were legendary and he became the topic of many fictionalized accounts. 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