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Famous People in the Year of 1876 Part One
What a year this was!
Here’s a long-winded post about some inventions and events that happened way back in 1876. Our favorite rifle, the Winchester 1873, has been out for three years and the Colt SAA is also three years old and is being used by the US Cavalry chambered in 45 Colt. The powerful 45 had enough power to kill a runaway horse dragging a trooper!
This is the year the Winchester ‘73 movie takes place with actor Jimmy Stewart. America is having its Centennial celebration and Jimmy and his pal Hi-Spade go to Dodge City to kill Jimmy’s brother, Dutch Henry, and compete in a shooting match. Real-life exhibition shooter Herb Parsons was the man who shot the hole in the stamp-covered flat washer. He shot it with a Winchester 71 chambered in .348 WCF and stood just off-camera. That is one big cartridge – and some fine shooting! Salute, Herb!
Apparently Hollywood didn’t know Wyatt Earp was only 28 years old in 1876. Wyatt, in the movie, looks like he’s ready to retire or else he’s had a rough life! Ha! So much for Hollywood, here’s what was really going on way out west in the year of 1876.
Ed Schieffelin has yet to discover silver in Arizona so there is no town of Tombstone just yet but Wells Spicer, the infamous Judge Spicer of Tombstone fame, is the defense lawyer for John Doyle Lee, the Mormon leader and mastermind behind the Mountain Meadows Massacre that happened way back in 1857. The trial was in Utah Territory, 1876, nineteen years after it happened! Spicer lost his case and it was death by firing squad for ol’ John Lee!
1876 was also the year of the Black Hills Gold Rush and the town of Deadwood, South Dakota was incorporated. Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane moved there and that same year Jack McCall murdered Wild Bill in the #10 Saloon.
Meanwhile back at the Little Big Horn, Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s command is rubbed out by the irritated Lakota-Sioux Native Americans. They didn’t want a bunch of people taking gold out of their sacred Black Hills!
Down in Arizona, Billy the Kid is still known as Henry Antrim and gets fired from Henry Hooker’s ranch and falls in with ex-Civil War drummer-boy John R. Mackie who just got kicked out of the army for shooting a man in the neck. They hang out around a small town named Camp Grant where they make a living stealing blankets, saddles, and horses from the soldiers who come from Fort Grant looking for a good time in the saloons and dance halls.
After getting caught by the Army and escaping 3 times, Henry (Billy) fatally shoots blacksmith bully “Windy” Cahill in the stomach. He high-tails it out of Arizona for good and heads for a little place called Lincoln County, New Mexico. He was seventeen and the year was 1876.
Another kid that was just sixteen or seventeen at the same time was Thomas Horn Jr. His dad and mom lived on the family farm in Coshocton County, Ohio but had to leave in the dead of night to escape creditors. They settled in Scotland County, Missouri where Tom Sr. and Ma Horn had about ten kids and owned a big animal farm with acres of crops and orchards and plenty of hard work.
In 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel J. Tilden in the presidential race and this election symbolized the end of Reconstruction and “everybody” was moving west. “Go west young man!” Tom Horn wasn’t getting along with his folks or farm life and his dog died so he left Missouri with $11 in his pocket and a packed lunch and took off for the west. Walking! He eventually had some lively times in Arizona too!
Speaking of Arizona, this is Apache country! Former Rutgers divinity student John Clum, of Tombstone fame, is the Indian Agent for the San Carlos Agency where the Chiricahua Apaches are staying between raids into Mexico. The move to San Carlos, after the death of Cochise, gives rise to Victorio and Geronimo as up and coming Apache leaders. Remember, Tombstone isn’t even thought of yet but 1876 was one heck of a year!
It was also a year of brand new products and inventions from all over the world!
Stayed turned for Part 2 of Mo’s History of the West coming soon!
So long,
Slow Mo Dern
“Cowboy Action Shooting is a wonderful sport and these activities promote honesty, moral correctness, a love of history, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun!”
- David Chicoine
Think about it, where else could you go and dress up like a cowboy or western movie actor, talk like you were from Wyoming, even though you grew up in Akron, enjoy your favorite sport (shooting) and play the ham all at the same time without the slightest chance of being ridiculed?
Go out there and try it, you’ll be glad you did!