Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1925-04-24
WILD BILL HiCkOK
NOT "BAD MAN" TYPE
John Hays Hammonds
Tribute to Westerner

There was wild Bill" Hlckok.
As scout and spy on the Union side
In the Civil war he had made record
few men have equaled. AS a sharp
shooter 1t is doubtful whether he ever
was excelled. Like thousands of
others, the war over, he went seeking
his fortune In the West. He never ac-
cumulated anything to mention.
Quiet, unoffending, he was repeat
eddy forced to take life, by the law of
that day that each mans life and be-
longings we're his to have and to
hold-if he could--and as killer his
name stands above those of all the
other gunner the West developed. At
the age Of thirty-nine he was assas-
sinated from behind his chair where
he was playing cards in a saloon.
He had always fought alone, single
handed-double handed, to be exact,
for he was a two-gun fighter, and ter
rible with the knife. His total tally
of men slain, including some score of
Indians, was IS, and there were no
Hessian notches on his guns.
For time Wild Bill was United
States marshal at Hays City, Kan,
then one Of the toughest towns on
the frontier. There he had to kill two
malefactors while covered by their
pistols.
He was elected town marshal of
Abilene, at the Kansas head Of the old
Santa Fe cattle trail, wild, wild
town. Enemies down trail among the
cattlemen made up purse of $1,000,
and sent eight gunner on train to
Abilene to finish Bill off. Hickok got
wind Of their coming, met the train,
and ran seven of them out of town.
The eighth was killed leaping from
the car.
firing Of a life of unending trouble
with his fellow men, Bill gave up
official life and moved to DeadwOOd,
s. d., and married. Emerson Hough
says. ut was as bad a place as could
be found in the mining regions. There,
August 2, 1879, he was shot in the
back of the head and killed. The
undertaken found that his body was
a mass Of old bullet and knife wounds
Once while guarding some horses
not his own, he was attacked in dug
out by ten men whom he had refused
TO join in stealing the animals. Single
handed he shot and cut and dubbed to
death nine Of them; the tenth ran
away. Yet, says Hough, so big was
the heart Of Wild Bill that for years
he supported out of his meager funds
the widow Of the leader of this gang,
one McCandless, as he did the widows
Of several other men he had been
forced to kill. And he never failed to
provide at his personal expense decent
funerals for the white men he had
finished"
General Custer said of him: "He
was a plainsman in every sense OF the
word, yet unlike any other Of his
class. His manner was free from all
bluster and bravado. He never spoke
of himself unless requested to do so.
His influence among the frontiersmen
was unbOunded; his word as an officer
was law" General Miles has person
ally confirmed to me General Clusters
estimate of Wild Bill as a man.
This brief sketch of the old Vests
premier gunman is worthy a place
In these pages, believe, for one rea-
son: to correct an impression that pre-
walls among some millions of well
but uniformed Americans,
in the cities and elsewhere. that the
killer" Of our old mining and cattle
days was just bloody-minded wretch
undeserving marker on his grave.
There were many such, and--there
we're many who were not such. have
entertained with sense of being hon
ored number Of men of the HIckok
type. | would not permit the cheap,
sneaking, city KILLER" of today to
sleep on my gravel. In the parlance
Of the Wild West, l wouldn't "give
him hell room."-John Hays Ham
mOnd in ScrIhnpr'a Mapazina