Life and career

 Early life

James Butler Hickok was born in Homer, IL (name later changed to Troy Grove, Illinois) on May 27, 1837. His birthplace is now the Wild Bill Hickok State Memorial, a listed historic site under the supervision of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. While he was growing up, his father's farm was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad, and he learned his shooting skills protecting the farm with his father from anti-abolitionists. Hickok was a good shot from a very young age. Unknown to most, he was an early opponent of slavery, and assisted his father in smuggling runaway slaves along the Underground Railroad. A secret room in his parent's house was used to conceal runaways on several occasions.

In 1855 Hickok, then 18, had a fight with Charles Hudson which resulted in both falling into a canal. Mistakenly thinking he had killed Hudson, Hickok fled and joined General Jim Lane's Free State Army ("The Red Legs") where he met then 12 year old William Cody, later to be known as "Buffalo Bill", who at that time was a scout for Johnston's Army.[1] Due to his "sweeping nose and protruding upper lip", Hickok was nicknamed "Duck Bill".[2] In 1861, after growing a moustache following the infamous McCanles incident, and not without some encouragement from himself, he was to become known by the nickname he is most famous for, "Wild Bill".[3]

 Constable

In 1857, Hickok claimed a 160 acre (65 ha) tract of land in Johnson County, Kansas (in what is now the city of Lenexa) where, on March 22 in 1858, he was elected as the first constable of Monticello Township, Kansas. In 1859 he joined the Russell, Waddell, and Majors freight company as a driver. The following year he was badly injured by a bear and sent to the Rock Creek Station in Nebraska (which the company had recently purchased from David McCanles) to work as a stable hand while he recovered. In 1861 he was involved in a deadly shoot-out with the McCanles gang at the Rock Creek Station after 40 year old David McCanles, his 12 year old son and two farmhands called at the stations office to demand payment of an overdue second installment on the property, an event still under much debate. Hickok and his accomplices, the station manager Horace Wellman, his wife and an employee J.W. Brink were tried but judged to have acted in self defense despite reports that none of the "McCanles gang" were armed.[1] McCanles was the first man Hickok killed in a fight. On several later occasions, Hickok was to confront and kill several men while fighting alone
Hickok invented the practice of "posting" men out of town. He would put a list on what was called the "dead man's tree" (so called because men had been lynched on it) while constable of Monticello Township. Hickok proclaimed he would shoot them on sight the following day. Few stayed around to find out if he was serious.

 Civil War and scouting

When the Civil War began, Hickok joined the Union forces and served in the west, mostly in Kansas and Missouri. He earned a reputation as a skilled scout. After the war, Hickok became a scout for the U. S. Army and later was a professional gambler. He served for a time as a United States Marshal. In 1867, his fame increased from an interview by Henry Morton Stanley.

During the Civil War, "Buffalo Bill Cody" served as a scout with Robert Denbow, David L. Payne, and Hickok. The men formed a friendship that would last decades. After the war, the four men, Payne, Cody, Hickok, and Denbow engaged in buffalo hunting. When Payne moved to Wichita, Kansas in 1870, Denbow joined him there while Hickok served as sheriff of Hays, Kansas. Hickok was rumored to have appeared in a stage play put on in 1873 by Bill Cody entitled "Scouts of the Plains." When Bill Cody started the Buffalo Bill shows, Denbow traveled with Cody all over Iowa with the Buffalo Bill shows.

Lawman and gunfighter

On July 21, 1865, in the town square of Springfield, Missouri, Hickok killed Davis Tutt, Jr. in a "quick draw" duel. Fiction later typified this kind of gunfight, but Hickok's in fact the only one on record that fits the portrayal.  The incident was precipitated by a dispute over a gambling debt incurred at a local saloon and likely exacerbated by the fact there was a long standing dispute over a mutual girlfriend Susannah Moore. Several weeks later Hickok was interviewed by Colonel George Ward Nichols and the interview was published in Harpers New Monthly Magazine. Using the name "Wild Bill Hitchcock" the article recounted the hundreds of men Hickok personally killed and other exagerated exploits. The article was controversial where ever Hickok was known and led to several frontier newspapers writing rebuttals and is credited as the reason for Hickok's failure to be elected Marshall of Springfield. Leaving Springfield he was recommended for the position of Deputy United States Marshall at Fort Riley Kansas. At this time the Western Plains were involved in indian wars and Hickok also served as a scout for George A. Custer's 7th Cavalry.[1]

In 1867 Hickok took a break from the west and moved to Niagara Falls where he tried his hand at acting in a stage play called "The Daring Buffalo Chases of the Plains".[5] He proved to be a terrible actor and returned west to be elected sheriff and city marshal of Ellis County, Kansas on August 23, 1869. In his first month in Hays, Kansas killed two men in gunfights. Nothing is known of the reasons and little else apart from their names. The first was Bill Mulvey who "got the drop" on Hickok. Hickok looked past him and yelled "Don't shoot him boys" which was enough distraction to win him the fight. The second was Sam Strawwhim.[1] On July 17, 1870, also in Hays he was involved in a gunfight with disorderly soldiers of the 7th US Cavalry, wounding one and mortally wounding another. He later failed to win re election. On April 15 1871, Hickok became marshal of Abilene, Kansas, taking over for former marshal Tom "Bear River" Smith, who had been killed on November 2nd, 1870.[6] The outlaw John Wesley Hardin was originally befriended by Hickok and the two often gambled and went "whoring" together, until he shot a snoring hotel guest for disturbing his sleep and had to leave town. Hickok's later encounter with Hardin resulted in the latter leaving Abilene peacefully in an uneasy truce after Hardin disarmed Hickok using the famous Road agent's spin during a failed attempt to arrest him for wearing his pistols in a saloon.[1]

While working in Abilene, Hickok and Phil Coe, a saloon owner, had an ongoing dispute that later resulted in a shootout. Coe had been the business partner of known gunman Ben Thompson, with whom he co-owned the Bulls Head Saloon. On October 5, 1871, Hickok was standing off a crowd during a street brawl, during which time Coe fired two shots and Hickok ordered him to be arrested for firing a pistol within the city limits. Coe explained he was shooting at a stray dog[7] but suddenly turned his gun on Hickok who fired first and killed Coe. Hickok caught the glimpse of movement of someone running toward him and quickly fired two shots in reaction, accidentally shooting and killing Abilene Special Deputy Marshal Mike Williams, who was coming to his aid, an event that haunted Hickok for the remainder of his life.[8]

Hickok's retort to Coe, who supposedly stated he could "kill a crow on the wing", is one of the West's most famous sayings (though possibly apocryphal): "Did the crow have a pistol? Was he shooting back? I will be." However, due to his having accidentally killed deputy Mike Williams, Hickock was relieved of his duties as marshal less than two months later.

In 1876 Hickok was diagnosed with both glaucoma and gonorrhea. It was apparent that his markmanship and health had been suffering for some time as despite earning a good income from gambling and displays of showmanship only a few years earlier, by this time he had been arrested several times for vagrancy. On March 5, 1876 Hickok married Agnes Thatcher Lake, a 50-year-old circus proprietor. Calamity Jane claimed in her autobiography that she was married to Hickok and had divorced him so he could be free to marry Agnes Lake. Hickok soon left his new bride to seek his fortune in the goldfields of South Dakota.

 Death

On August 2, 1876, while playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, in the Black Hills