John Wesley Hardin facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John Wesley Hardin
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This ferrotype photograph is a mirror image of Hardin.
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| Born | May 26, 1853 Whitewright, Texas, U.S.
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| Died | August 19, 1895 (aged 42) El Paso, Texas, U.S.
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| Cause of death | Gunshot wound |
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| Occupation | gambling/card sharp, cowboy, cattle rustler, lawyer |
| Known for | very young outlaw and prolific gunfighter |
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| Parent(s) | James Gibson "Gip" Hardin Mary Elizabeth Dixson |
John Wesley Hardin (May 26, 1853 – August 19, 1895) was an American Old West outlaw, gunfighter, and controversial folk icon. Hardin often got into trouble with the law from an early age. He killed his first man at the age of 15, claiming he did so in self-defense.
Pursued by lawmen for most of his life, in 1877 at the age of 23, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison for murder. At the time of sentencing, Hardin claimed to have killed 42 men, while contemporary newspaper accounts attributed 27 deaths to him. While in prison, Hardin studied law and wrote an autobiography. He was well known for exaggerating or fabricating stories about his life and claimed credit for many killings that cannot be corroborated.
Within a year of his 1894 release from prison, Hardin was killed by John Selman in an El Paso saloon.
Contents
Early life
Hardin was born in 1853 near Bonham, Texas, to James Gibson "Gip" Hardin, a Methodist preacher and circuit rider, and Mary Elizabeth Dixson. He was named after John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist denomination of the Christian church.
In his autobiography, Hardin described his mother as "blond, highly cultured ... [while] charity predominated in her disposition." Hardin's father traveled over much of central Texas on his preaching circuit until he settled his family in Sumpter, Trinity County, Texas, in 1859. There, Hardin's father established and taught at the school that John Hardin and his siblings attended. Hardin was the second surviving son of ten children. The Hardins were Southerners and politically prominent. His great-grandfather was North Carolina provincial Congressman Colonel Joseph Hardin, the cousin of Senator Martin D. Hardin of Kentucky and father of Congressman John J. Hardin; relatives included Congressman Benjamin Hardin, Revolutionary war Colonel John Hardin of Virginia, and opposing Civil war Generals Martin Davis Hardin and Benjamin Hardin Helm. At the outbreak of Civil War, Hardin's father was elected a Confederate Captain; In 1862, at age nine, Hardin tried to run away from home and join the Confederate army.
Life as a fugitive
At age 15, Hardin committed his first killing, though he claimed it was in self-defense. What followed were incidents of gambling, drinking, fighting, and killing. Hardin became a notorious gunfighter and outlaw.
Hardin worked as a cowboy driving cattle to Kansas, where he got into more gunfights. He claimed to have killed several men along the cattle trails. Hardin spent years on the run from law enforcement. He fled to Florida at one point, living under aliases in various cities including Jacksonville.
Despite his outlaw status, Hardin married Jane Bowen in 1872 and had three children with her.
Captured and tried
On January 20, 1875, the Texas Legislature authorized Governor Richard B. Hubbard to offer a $4,000 reward for Hardin's arrest. An undercover Texas Ranger named Jack Duncan intercepted a letter sent to Hardin's father-in-law by Hardin's brother-in-law, Joshua Robert "Brown" Bowen. The letter mentioned that Hardin was hiding out at a lumber yard on the Alabama-Florida border using the name "John (or James) W. Swain". In his autobiography, Hardin admitted that he had "adopted" this alias from Brenham, Texas, Town Marshal Henry Swain, who had married a cousin of Hardin's named Molly Parks.
In March 1876, Hardin wounded a man, in Florida, who had tried to mediate a quarrel between him and another man. In November 1876, in Mobile, Alabama, Hardin was arrested briefly for having marked cards. In mid-1877, two former slaves of his father's, "Jake" Menzel and Robert Borup tried to capture Hardin in Gainesville, Florida.
On August 24, 1877, Rangers and local authorities confronted Hardin on a train in Pensacola, Florida. He attempted to draw a .44 Colt cap-and-ball pistol but it got caught up in his suspenders. The officers knocked Hardin unconscious.
Trial and imprisonment
Hardin was tried, and on June 5, 1878, was sentenced to serve 25 years in Huntsville Prison. In 1879, Hardin and 50 other convicts were stopped within hours of successfully tunneling into the prison armory. Hardin made several attempts to escape. On February 14, 1892, during his prison term, he was convicted of another manslaughter charge for the earlier shooting of J.B. Morgan and given a two-year sentence to be served concurrently with his unexpired 25-year sentence.
Hardin eventually adapted to prison life. While there, he read theological books, becoming the superintendent of the prison Sunday School, and studied law. He was plagued by recurring poor health, especially when the wound he had received from Sublett became re-infected in 1883, causing him to be bedridden for almost two years. In 1892, Hardin was described as 5.9 feet (1.8 m) tall and 160 pounds (73 kg), with a fair complexion, hazel eyes, dark hair, and wound scars on his right knee, left thigh, right side, hip, elbow, shoulder, and back. On November 6, 1892, during Hardin's stay in prison, his first wife, Jane, died.
While in prison, he wrote an autobiography. He was well known for fabricating or wildly exaggerating stories about his life. He claimed credit for many murders that cannot be corroborated.
After prison
On February 17, 1894, Hardin was released from prison, having served seventeen years of his twenty-five-year sentence. He was forty years old when he returned to Gonzales, Texas. Later that year, on March 16, Hardin was pardoned, and, on July 21, he passed the state's bar examination, obtaining his license to practice law. According to a newspaper article in 1900, shortly after being released from prison, Hardin committed negligent homicide when he made a $5 bet that he could "at the first shot" knock a Mexican man off the soapbox on which the man was "sunning" himself, winning the bet and leaving the man dead from the fall and not the gunshot.
On January 9, 1895, Hardin married a 15-year-old girl named Callie Lewis. The marriage ended quickly, although it was never legally dissolved. Afterward, Hardin moved to El Paso, Texas.
Death
An El Paso lawman, John Selman Jr., arrested Hardin's acquaintance, the "widow" M'Rose (or Mroz), for "brandishing a gun in public". Hardin confronted Selman and the two men argued. Selman's 56-year-old father, Constable John Selman Sr. (himself a notorious gunman and former outlaw), approached Hardin on the afternoon of August 19, 1895, and the two men exchanged heated words.
That night, Hardin went to the Acme Saloon where he began playing dice; his last words were "Four Sixes to Beat". Shortly before midnight, Selman Sr. entered the saloon, walked up to Hardin from behind, and killed him. Hardin was buried the following day in Concordia Cemetery, in El Paso.
Legacy
The memorable circumstances and the sheer number of Hardin's life events, real or exaggerated, made him a legend of the Old West and an icon of American folklore. His autobiography was published posthumously in 1925 by Bandera publisher, historian, and journalist J. Marvin Hunter, who founded both the Frontier Times magazine and the Frontier Times Museum.
Firearms and effects
Hardin's weapons of choice, and several of his personal effects, have been well documented and auctioned to private collectors. Court records show that Hardin carried a Colt "Lightning" revolver at the time of his death. He also carried an Elgin watch when he killed. The revolver and the watch had been presented to Hardin in appreciation for his legal efforts on behalf of Jim Miller at Miller's trial for the killing of ex-sheriff George "Bud" Frazer. The Colt, with a .38-caliber 2+1⁄2" barrel, is nickel-plated, with blued hammer, trigger, and screws. It features mother-of-pearl grips, and the back-strap is hand-engraved "J.B.M. TO J.W.H.". This gun and its holster were once sold at auction for $168,000. Another Colt revolver (known as a .41-caliber "Thunderer"), which was owned by Hardin and used by him to rob the Gem Saloon, was sold at the same auction for $100,000.
In 2002, an auction house in San Francisco, California, auctioned three lots of John Wesley Hardin's personal effects. One lot—containing a deck of his playing cards, a deck of his business cards, and a contemporary newspaper account of his death—sold for $15,250. The bullet that killed Hardin sold for $80,000.
