19th Century Outlaws
Big Nose George Parrot, also known as George Manuse and George Warden, was a cattle rustler in the Wild West in the late 19th century. He is known for being made into a pair of shoes after his death.Many legends surround Big Nose George - including one which claims him as a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch. Cassidy, however, would only have been 14 at the time of George's death, so this theory has been ruled out by historians. There is also speculation that he ran with the James brothers - with the flames of this rumor fanned by George himself. During a pre-trial interview in 1880, Big Nose stated that his outlaw pal Frank McKinney had claimed to be Frank James. He also told investigators that another member, Sim Jan, was the gang leader - leading to wild rumors that Frank and Sim were the infamous James brothers, Frank and Jesse.
However, it is generally agreed that George was more of a run-of-the-mill horse thief and highwayman. His gang enjoyed a successful run of robbing pay wagons and stage coaches of cash in the late 1870s, but a yearning for bigger profits led to the attempted train robbery.
Joaquin Murrieta (1829–ca. 1853), also called the Mexican or Chilean Robin Hood or the Robin Hood of El Dorado, was a semi-legendary figure in California during the California Gold Rush of the 1850s. He was either an infamous bandit or a Mexican patriot, depending on one's point of view. Murrieta was partly the inspiration for the fictional character of Zorro. His name has, for some political activists, symbolized resistance against Anglo-American economic and cultural domination in California.
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (1867 - November 6 1908?), sometimes spelled Longbaugh, born in Mont Clare, Pennsylvania, also known as the Sundance Kid, was an outlaw and member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, in the American Old West.
On August 30, 1882, young Harry went west with a cousin George Longenbaugh to homestead in Colorado. However, he soon left and headed north with a cattle drive. On February 27, 1887, he stole a light greay horse from the VVV Ranch near the town of Sundance, Wyoming.
After his arrest and 18 months in jail, he became better known by his alias the Sundance Kid. He joined the Wild Bunch, an outlaw gang led by Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy. However, the Pinkerton Detective Agency and local sheriffs made things a bit hotter than they liked, so on February 20, 1901, Sundance took his wife Ethel and shipped out with Butch to Argentina.
Not much is known about Ethel except she used the name Ethel Place, which resulted when she married Sundance under his alias of Harry Place. She later returned to the States where she disappeared.
Sundance and Butch died on November 6, 1908, in San Vicente, Bolivia, after robbing a silvermine payroll. They committed suicide rather than be captured.
The Sundance Kid was, of course, immortalized by Robert Redford in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." While we are not entirely certain of all the facts, one thing can be stated for sure: Sundance has become a legend of the Wild West.
William Clarke Quantrill (July 31, 1837 – June 6, 1865), was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War. After leading a Confederate bushwhacker unit along the Missouri-Kansas border in the early 1860s, which included the infamous raid and sacking of Lawrence, Kansas in 1863, Quantrill eventually ended up in Kentucky where he was killed in a Union ambush in 1865, aged 27.
Sam Bass (21 July 1851 in Mitchell, Indiana - 21 July 1878 in Round Rock, Texas) was a nineteenth-century American train robber and outlaw.
Bass and his gang staged a string of robberies, yet never netted over $500 at any one time. In 1878, they held up two stagecoaches and four trains within twenty-five miles of Dallas and became the object of a manhunt by Pinkerton Agents and by a special company of the Texas Rangers headed by Captain Junius Peak.
Bass was able to elude the Rangers until a member of his gang, Jim Murphy, turned informant. John B. Jones was informed of Bass's movements, and set up an ambush at Round Rock, Texas, where Bass planned to rob the Williamson County Bank.
On 19 July 1878, Bass and his gang were scouting the area before the robbery. When they bought some tobacco at a store, they were noticed by Deputy Sheriff A. W. Grimes. When Grimes approached the men to request that they surrender their sidearms, he was shot and killed. As he attempted to flee, Bass was shot by Ranger George Herold. He was found lying in a pasture by a group of railroad workers, who summoned the authorities. He was taken into custody and died the next day. Bass was buried in Round Rock. His original headstone is kept at the Round Rock Public Library.
Harvey Alexander Logan (1867 - June 17, 1904), also known as Kid Curry, was a notorious outlaw and gunman who ran with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's infamous Wild Bunch gang. Despite being less well known than his counterparts, he has since been referred to as "the wildest of the Wild Bunch". He killed at least nine law enforcement officers in five different shootings, and another two men in other instances, as well as several shootouts with posses and civilians during his outlaw days.
Butch Cassidy (April 13, 1866 – ca. November 7, 1908), born Robert LeRoy Parker, was a notorious American train robber, bank robber and leader of the Hole in the Wall Gang. This gang consisted of members such as Cassidy, Kid Curry, George Curry, The Tall Texan, Willam Carver, and the Sundance Kid. Forming a gang consisting of these guys gets him on this list. Cassidy was a notorious bank and train robber, robbing a lot of Union Pacific Railroad trains. It is rumored that Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were gunned down by a group that had them barricaded. There are a lot of different rumors regarding whether or not they actually did it or not, the most believable being Cassidy’s youngest sister claiming that it didn’t happen.
Henry McCarty (reportedly November 23, 1859 - July 14, 1881), better known as Billy the Kid, but also known by the aliases Henry Antrim and William H. Bonney, was a 19th century American frontier outlaw and gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War. According to legend, he killed over 20 white men and a number of Mexicans and Indians, but he is generally accepted to have killed four men.
McCarty (or Bonney, the name he used at the height of his notoriety) was 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) to 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) tall with blue eyes, a smooth complexion and prominent front teeth. He was said to be friendly and personable at times, and many recalled that he was as "lithe as a cat". Contemporaries described him as a "neat" dresser who favored an "unadorned Mexican sombrero". These qualities, along with his cunning and celebrated skill with firearms, contributed to his paradoxical image, as both a notorious outlaw and beloved folk hero.
A relative unknown during his own lifetime, he was catapulted into legend the year after his death when his killer, Sheriff Pat Garrett, along with co-author M.A. "Ash" Upson, published a sensationalistic biography titled The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. Beginning with Garrett's account, Billy the Kid grew into a symbolic figure of the American Old West.
John Wesley Hardin (May 26, 1853—August 19, 1895) was an outlaw and gunfighter of the American Old West. He was born in Bonham, Fannin County, Texas. When Hardin went to prison in 1878, he claimed to have killed 42 men. Hardin's criminal career resulted not only in the deaths of his victims but also in the deaths of his brother Joe and two cousins who were hanged by a lynch mob seeking revenge for a Hardin killing.
Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank and train robber and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. Some recent scholars place him in the context of regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the American Civil War rather than a manifestation of frontier lawlessness or economic justice.
Jesse and his older brother Frank James were Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. They were accused of participating in atrocities committed against Union soldiers. After the war, as members of one gang or another, they robbed banks and murdered bank employees or bystanders. They also waylaid stagecoaches and trains. Despite popular portrayals of James as a kind of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there is no evidence that he and his gang used their robbery gains for anyone but themselves.
The James brothers were most active with their gang from about 1866 to 1876, when their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, resulted in the capture or deaths of several members. They continued in crime for several years, recruiting new members, but were under increasing pressure from law enforcement. On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford, who was a member of the gang living in the James house and who was hoping to collect a state reward on James' head.
Charles Earl Bolles (1829–Disappeared 1888?), alias Black Bart, was an American Old West outlaw noted for his poetic messages left after each robbery. A gentleman bandit, Black Bart was one of the most notorious stagecoach robbers to operate in and around Northern California and southern Oregon during the 1870s and 1880s. The fame he received for his numerous daring thefts is rivaled only by his reputation for style and sophistication.
Source: bezbrige