Legends of the Old West - BASS REEVES Ep. 4 | “Honor Until Death”

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

WARNING: LISTENER DISCRETION ADVISED. Bass Reeves investigates several brutal murders while he also deals with repeated tragedies in his personal life. Reeves’ duties change as the times, territories, and attitudes change around him at the dawn of the 20th century. But he remains a revered and respected lawman until the very end. Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Warning. This episode contains some language and descriptions of violence that may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. On the morning of May 15, 1895, the body of a man was found floating face down in a creek. The body had been lodged among some rocks and dead branches in the shallow ford. Two fingers had been shot off. The victim's head had been nearly severed with an axe. The arms and legs were cut, and the torso was badly mangled.

The murderer or murderers had tried to burn the body. Then they tried to sink it in a shallow stream by piling on rocks and logs. Finally, they placed leaves and brush on top of it in an attempt to hide it from view. Later, officials estimated the body had been there for about 10 days. It was in a horrible state of decomposition and stunk to high heaven, and that's what drew passersby to it. The people who discovered the body immediately sent a messenger to the marshal's office in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The deputy on duty that day was Bass Reeves. And it didn't take him long to figure out the awful events that led up to the man's demise.

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business no matter what stage you're in. shopify.com slash realm. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is a four-part series of some of the highlights of the career of one of the most respected lawmen in American history, Bass Reeves. This is Episode 4, Honor Until Death. Honor until death. By 1890, the land that used to be called Indian Territory looked a lot different than it did when Bass Reeves started working there 20 years earlier. The region was open for white settlement, and soon, a big chunk of it was called Oklahoma Territory.

Settlers rushed on to lands that were formerly for Native Americans. There were many changes in jurisdictions as people poured into the territory, and more courts were added. By 1895, there were four new federal courts to oversee the area that had once been worked by the Western District alone. Alcohol was still illegal in Indian Territory, but not Oklahoma Territory, so saloon towns sprang up almost overnight in Oklahoma. With the saloons came rampant fighting, gambling, and prostitution, and sometimes murder, as in the case of the body floating in the creek.

It was May of 1895, and Bass Reeves had been in the marshal's office in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He was assigned to solve the mystery of the body in the creek, and he decided the best way to start the investigation was to head to the saloons. He needed to identify the dead man first, then he might be able to figure out who killed him. Reeves learned that the dead man was the uncle of a guy named George Wilson. Wilson and his uncle had gotten very drunk in the Red Dog Saloon in Keokuk Falls. Witnesses saw them stumble back to camp together. Later that night, other witnesses heard two gunshots. It didn't take long for Reeves to catch up to Wilson. Wilson denied that he'd murdered his uncle, but Reeves saw that Wilson had dried blood all over his pants. Wilson said it was

rabbit's blood, but the deputy knew better. He searched Wilson's wagon and found a blood-stained axe. Reeves was a stickler for evidence. He located the men's former campsite and found two campfires. Reeves was suspicious of the second fire pit. If there were only two men in camp, a second fire pit was unusual. If there were only two men in camp, a second fire pit was unusual. Reeves dug down below the ashes and found blood that had seeped into the dried cracks of the soil. He and a posseman scooped chunks of the dirt and put them in saddlebags as evidence.

Reeves took Wilson to jail and then testified at Wilson's trial a year later. Wilson was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang. His sentence was carried out July 30, 1896. George Wilson was the last man executed on the famous gallows at Fort Smith. One month later, Congress stripped Judge Parker's court of its authority in Indianory. Parker's rulings had become more controversial as time progressed. As the court system evolved, more and more of his judgments were overturned by higher courts. By that time, Parker was dying of kidney disease.

He passed away two months later, in November 1896. It was the end of an era in the American West, and the end of an era for Bass Reeves as well. Judge Isaac Parker had sworn in Reeves as one of the first black deputies west of the Mississippi 21 years earlier. Parker's loss was certainly felt, but he wasn't the only person Reeves lost that year. Seven months earlier, in March, Reeves' wife Jenny passed away at the age of 56. They'd had nine children together, and Jenny and the younger children were still living in Arkansas near Fort Smith. Reeves spent weeks or months away from home on assignment from various courts he now served. The work never let up, and certainly never stopped.

In 1896, there were at least 110 murders in Indian Territory. That was one murder for every 3,000 people in the area. No state in the Union had a murder rate even half as high as Indian territory. So Reeves stayed busy despite the loss of his wife and his mentor. He captured thieves and bootleggers and killers as always. But in 1898, he started to encounter more instances of crime accompanied by racial violence. violence. In December 1897, near Maud, Oklahoma, a young man left his wife in charge of their farm while he traveled to market. While he was away, someone stole money and a saddle from his wife and then bludgeoned her to death while their small children watched. The killers were allegedly two Native Americans. Two weeks later, in January 1898, a vigilante mob of about 30 men grabbed two Seminole boys. They tortured the boys for days. Not surprisingly,

the boys eventually confessed to the murder, even though the victim's children said they didn't recognize the boys. Still, the mob chained the young men to a tree and burned them alive. The brutal murders shocked even the most hardened people in Indian Territory. In response, the Seminole rose up in a fury. Indian territory. In response, the Seminole rose up in a fury. They burned down nearly the entire town of Maud and killed 25 white residents. Reeves was based in Muskogee, 80 miles away. His role in quelling the violence isn't documented except to say that nearly every available marshal in the northern district was sent to investigate while they waited for reinforcement by federal troops. Members of the mob that killed the two boys were never identified, and no one was arrested.

Nor was anyone arrested for the murder of the farmer's wife. The government offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons who killed the farmer's wife, but the vigilantes were never caught. Two months later, Reeves was called to investigate another horrific crime. This one was a double homicide and a self-defense killing. A couple named Ed and Mary Chalmers settled about 10 miles north of Muskogee. Ed was black and Mary was white, and they had just relocated from southern Iowa, where they were run out of town because they were a mixed-race couple. They mostly kept to themselves. On a Saturday night during a rainstorm, several white neighbors formed a mob and headed to the Chalmers' home. They didn't want a mixed-race couple living near

them either. They put on masks and broke into the home. At least one person in the mob shot Mary and Ed while they lay in their bed. Mary died instantly, but Ed managed to fire a few shots at the invaders. He killed one of them, but the mob forced a rope around his neck and dragged him on the floor while shooting him in the back four more times. In spite of his injuries, Ed managed to survive until about 9 o'clock the next morning. Before he succumbed to his wounds, some of Ed's friendlier neighbors visited his bedside. Ed told them the names of the invaders. bedside. Ed told them the names of the invaders. Shortly thereafter, a body was discovered next to some railroad tracks near the Chalmers' home. It was the body of the man Ed Chalmers had killed, though that fact might not have been understood right away. Bass Reeves was dispatched to the

scene. As usual, his gentle way of speaking with people earned him their trust, and he learned some solid clues. He collected the names of people he was sure were involved with the murders of Ed and Mary Chalmers. The next morning, Reeves arrested five men, though he suspected more were involved. One of the suspects was a rich man who owned two cotton gins. Reeves sneaked up on him in his cotton fields to make the arrest. For a black man to apprehend a white man on his own property was so remarkable that several newspapers made it the focal point of their stories. And Reeves was able to solve the riddle of the dead man by the railroad tracks. Apparently, after the man had

been shot by Ed during the home invasion, the other members of the mob dragged the body away and placed it by the tracks. They hoped it would look like a lone gunman broke into the house, killed Ed and Mary, was shot in the process, and then staggered outside. Case closed, no loose ends. and then staggered outside. Case closed, no loose ends. The ruse didn't work, but it also didn't matter. The five men whom Reeves arrested were arraigned before a grand jury, but no one went to prison for killing Ed and Mary Chalmers. Against the backdrop of shifting land boundaries and categories of crime, Bass Reeves continued to be one of the hardest-working marshals in Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. He was effective as a lawman because he kept a good rapport with a large portion of the population in both regions. In January 1899, at about the age of 61, Reeves married again.

His bride was a Cherokee freedwoman, and she had three children from a previous marriage. The new couple and three of his sons moved into a house in Muskogee. His new marriage did not hamper his lawman duties in the slightest. His new marriage did not hamper his lawman duties in the slightest. Reeves' work was slightly more urban in nature than it used to be. He still arrested horse thieves, but more and more he was arresting livestock thieves closer to home. He chased people for crimes like stealing from a store or a house. Instead of hounding violent thugs for hundreds of miles, the marshal chased adulterers from one side of the town to another. Breaking up bar fights took up more of his time

than he liked, and he probably didn't relish dealing with brothel owners who beat their employees. It probably wasn't as exciting to bring in runaway teens as it was to bring in train robbers, but he did it all the same. Reeves didn't appear in the newspapers as often as he did in decades prior. The headlines more often went to big busts by younger deputies. Those included the exploits of the three guardsmen who captured notorious outlaw Bill Doolin and killed the rest of his gang. The guardsmen were Bill Tillman, Chris Madsen, and Heck Thomas. And Madsen and Thomas had narrowly missed catching Bill Doolin's former cronies, the Dalton Gang, before the gang's infamous raid on Coffeyville, Kansas a few years earlier.

All the same, when Thomas went after famous Cherokee outlaw Ned Christie in 1890 and burned down his outpost, people assumed that 52-year-old Bass Reeves had done it. At the turn of the 20th century, Reeves primarily dealt with crimes in the black community. The vast influx of white and black settlers in Oklahoma created more areas of distinction between the two. Although Reeves could and would still arrest white lawbreakers if the occasion called for it, his biographer indicates that he preferred to work in communities of color if he had the choice. On more than one occasion, Reeves had to decide whether the fee was worth the trouble, because white officers refused to assist a black man. The last thing a lawman wanted to do was to try to arrest several prisoners without backup.

As Reeves transitioned from a frontier lawman to a city lawman and tried to settle into his new marriage, he experienced several traumas close to home. Nine months after he got married, his 17-year-old daughter died from epilepsy. A little more than a year later his 14-year-old son Bass Reeves Jr. died from pneumonia. In spite of the loss he accepted a reappointment as a deputy U.S. marshal. He was the most senior man in the district with 26 years service. As usual, his work kept him away from his family. He had two sons and a stepdaughter at his home in Muskogee and three older children back in Arkansas, and two daughters were married and living in Oklahoma. And then his sons began to get in trouble with the law. Newland Reeves was arrested for attempted aggravated assault and sentenced to five years in prison. Edgar Reeves

was sentenced to a year in prison for perjury. Later, in a fit of anger, he cut the throat of his girlfriend and then escaped. It's not clear if she survived or if Edgar was apprehended. And the troubles continued to mount. As bad as the situations were with Newland and Edgar, they were overshadowed by those of another of Reeves' sons. In 1902, Reeves and his deep-seated belief in the law were tested by his son, Ben. Two years earlier, Ben had moved out of Reeves' house in Muskogee and married a beautiful woman. They made their home in Muskogee also. At first, they were happy. But Ben's work took him on the road quite a bit, and apparently his wife got

lonely. Ben realized something was wrong. His wife drifted further away each day. As the story goes, he worked harder in the hope he could buy her nice things to keep her interested in their union. But the extra work compounded the problem. In order to earn more money, Ben needed to travel and be away from home even more. One day, Ben returned home unexpectedly and walked in on his wife with another man. Ben was hurt and mad, but he and his wife talked things over and decided to reconcile. Ben forgave her, thinking he was directly responsible because he was away from home so much. He found a new job closer to home, and things seemed to

improve. His wife seemed happier, and he looked forward to better times ahead. Ben and his father were close. One day, over a glass of 40-rod whiskey, Ben told Reeves about the trouble between he and his wife. He asked Reeves what he would have done if he had walked in on his wife with another man. Reeves' answer could be taken as gospel or just bravado. Either way, it was short and direct. He said, The response left a lasting impression on Ben. I'd have shot the hell out of the man and whipped the living God out of her.

The response left a lasting impression on Ben. A short time after their drinks together, Ben came home from work and again found his wife with another man. He beat the hell out of the man and shot his wife in the head. Then he tried to take his own life, but he wasn't successful and only gave himself a scalp wound instead. Realizing what he'd done, Ben ran into the wilds of Indian territory. The U.S. Marshal issued a warrant for his arrest, but with a bit of a heavy heart. Ben had to be caught, of course, but the Marshal in the Northern District Court hated the notion of going after

the son of Bass Reeves. For two days, the warrant lay on the marshal's desk, with all the deputies fearing they would be the one chosen to serve it. Reeves eventually resolved the problem himself. He was visibly shaken by the ordeal. He certainly remembered the advice he'd given to Ben, and he felt somewhat responsible for the outcome. But he set it aside. He went to the marshal and demanded the warrant. He told his boss that it was his son, and it was his responsibility. Reluctantly, the marshal agreed. Two weeks later, Reeves found his son and brought him in. Ben was convicted, sentenced to prison, and quickly transferred to the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas. Whatever discussion Reeves had with his son about the situation weren't recorded.

But historians have made an educated guess based on Reeves' convictions about the law and his personal conduct. He likely told Ben to ask God for forgiveness and to follow every rule in prison. If that was the advice, it seemed like Ben followed it. Ben became a model prisoner and was released after nearly 12 years. During that time, he learned how to be a barber and spent the rest of his life as an exemplary citizen. But the hits kept on coming for Bass Reeves. Not long after Ben went to prison, Reeves endured another heartache. His son Homer died of fever at 21 years old. But as always, Reeves continued working despite the hardships that were thrown his way.

But as always, Reeves continued working despite the hardships that were thrown his way. As Oklahoma inched toward statehood, some of the laws and customs began to change, but many of the experiences stayed the same. There were only two African American officers in the region where Reeves worked. He mostly patrolled the Creek and Seminole nations, but occasionally he was asked to arrest white suspects as well. Racial tension had always been a problem, but it became more of an issue as Oklahoma grew into statehood. More and more, white suspects refused to submit to the authority of black or biracial lawmen. At age 66, Bass Reeves smoothly handled such a confrontation.

Even at the modern age of retirement, Reeves could still ride a horse better than most, and he was still crafty when apprehending criminals. One day, he set out with a warrant for two Texans who were wanted for murder. He met them on the road. Reeves bid them a good morning. One of them said he would not speak to a black man, and he used a racial slur to emphasize his point. Then the Texan asked if the lawman was the famous Bass Reeves. Reeves responded with a simple no. But the Texans pulled their guns and forced him to ride along with them. Their goal was to ride until they met someone who knew Reeves and could confirm their suspicions.

They rode quite a distance, but didn't meet anyone. They then told the deputy to dismount because they were going to kill him. They asked him if he had any final words. Thinking quickly, Reeves got down off his horse and told them he had a letter from his wife in his saddlebag. He asked one of them if they could read it to him before he died. The Texans dismounted. Reeves opened his saddlebags with trembling hands as he pretended to be scared. He handed the letter to the larger of the two criminals. The big man took his eyes off Reeves to read the letter, which gave the marshal the chance he needed. Reeves grabbed the man's neck and squeezed with one of his huge hands. He said, son of a bitch, now you're under arrest. Reeves kept

one hand on the man's throat and took the Texan's gun away with the other. The smaller of the two criminals was so scared, he dropped his own gun. Reeves secured far past the age when most lawmen retired, but he stayed busier than ever in the early years of the 20th century. His biographer said Reeves made as many as 100 arrests in 1904 alone. But as the first decade of the 20th century neared an end, the first decade of the 20th century neared an end, so did Bass Reeves' time as a deputy, through no fault of his own. On November 16, 1907, Reeves had his picture taken with all of his region's deputy marshals and their boss. The photo marked their last official act. The next day, many of the duties of the U.S. Marshal Service were given to the municipalities and counties of the new state of Oklahoma.

There was no longer a need for a large force of federal police, the men who had helped bring law and order to the territory. Notably, there were no more African American Deputy U.S. Marshals in Oklahoma until 1962, when Jerome W. Dickens took the position. After statehood, black men could only join what was then called the Negro Police, with orders to only arrest black suspects in towns where there were large black populations. It was genuinely the end of an era for Bass Reeves and the U.S. Marshals. But Reeves still wasn't done. He wasn't out of a job for long.

In the beginning of 1908, he was invited to join the Muskogee Police Force. His beat was roughly two square miles. At nearly 70 years old, he walked with the help of a cane. The marshal was slowing down, though he hated to stay at home unless he absolutely had to. He was on the city police force for two years, and he was proud of his record. It's probably an exaggeration, but it was reported that not even one crime was committed on his blocks. Reeves was more careful in his later years on the city streets. If someone called his name, he always put his back up against a wall before he turned around. He also had an assistant who walked alongside him with a satchel of extra guns. In spite of his age, Reeves could still draw a pistol faster than anybody, and he could spot a

fake $10 bill better than anyone. Banks and stores often called him to take a look. But by 1909, Reeves' body was really showing the pounding it had taken during more than 30 years of service, and a hard life long before that. He suffered from kidney failure. He was tended to by various family members and friends from work, including some judges. By the end of the year, the Marshal-turned-policeman knew he had to give up the badge for good. The marshal-turned-policeman knew he had to give up the badge for good. On January 12, 1910, Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves passed away at his home.

He'd served 32 years as a deputy marshal and two years as a city policeman. He was survived by his second wife, his 87-year-old mother, and several children. Newspapers recounted Reeves' many years of integrity and stellar service. One said Reeves faced death a hundred times over and taught all those who knew him lessons in courage, honesty, and faithfulness to duty. Reeves' biographer said the lawman's legend ranks right along those of Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill Cody, Geronimo, and all the others. And while there's no accurate evidence to tie the two together, some historians suggest that Reeves may have been the inspiration for the fictional masked crime fighter, the Lone Ranger.

Reeves' stoicism prevents us from understanding how his personal losses affected him. But what is well documented is that he committed his life to making Indian Territory a safer place. He became one of the most feared lawmen in the region, without being abusive or overbearing. He wasn't the only African-American peace officer in the territories, but he was far and away the most well-known. Thanks for listening to some stories of legendary lawman Bass Reeves here on Legends of the Old West. Up next will be a couple episodes that are special presentations for Women's History Month in collaboration with a documentary filmmaker. I'll release an update episode about those and a couple more things in the near future. Talk to you then.

And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They receive early access in the entire season to binge all at once. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This season was researched and written by Julia Bricklin. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. Original music by Rob Valliere. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer.

If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. at Sephora, Old Navy, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back.

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