Legends of the Old West - OUTLAWS Ep. 5 | Ned Christie: “Ned’s Fort”

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

After the raid by Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas, Ned Christie builds a fortified cabin that is designed to withstand future attacks. He maintains his innocence in the case of the murder of Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Maples, and he does not intend to surrender. He continues his defiance, but he also starts to believe that the end is near…   Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial.   For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.   On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ned Christie's life changed dramatically in the space of one week in the spring of 1887. He went from being a prominent member of the Cherokee National Council, an advisor to the chief, and leading voice of the Cherokee Nationalist Party, to being an accused murderer and a fugitive from the law. In May of 1887, Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Maples was ambushed and killed outside the Cherokee capital city. The only other person present at the time of Maple's murder was his partner, Deputy George Jefferson, and Jefferson didn't see the shooter or shooters. But one week later, six men testified to a grand jury in the court of Judge Isaac Parker, the hanging judge, that Ned Christie planned and executed the murderous ambush.

As yet, there didn't seem to be a motive for why Ned would want to kill a deputy or deputies. But when Ned didn't show up to testify in front of the grand jury, Judge Parker issued an arrest warrant. As soon as word reached Ned that he was a suspect in the murder, he proclaimed his innocence, denied any involvement, and then went into hiding. Ned was convinced that in a federal court with an all-white jury, he would undoubtedly be convicted and sentenced to hang. So, he hunkered down at his home outside the Cherokee capital and avoided the lawmen who tried to arrest him. For two years, Judge Parker sent marshals to capture Ned, but every attempt failed. And during that time, Ned's reputation as a bloodthirsty outlaw rose to epic status. Newspapers wrote

salacious stories that claimed he had killed dozens of people, robbed everything that could be robbed, and committed countless other crimes. None of it was true, but it made for wonderful reading and it sold lots of newspapers. Finally, in September of 1889, two and a half years after the murder of Deputy Maples, Judge Parker sent legendary lawman Heck Thomas into Indian territory to bring Ned Christie in, dead or alive. Deputy Thomas and his posse cornered Ned at Ned's house and the situation quickly turned into a shootout. The posse set fire to the house with Ned inside and watched it burn to the ground. They assumed they had killed the alleged outlaw and they rode back to Judge Parker's court in triumph. But Ned survived.

He had escaped the house, and his wife discovered him in the nearby woods. And because he had survived, he knew the authorities would never stop coming for him. He set to work building a new fortified house in a defensible position. It was designed to withstand a shootout if necessary, and it would be harder to burn. was designed to withstand a shootout if necessary, and it would be harder to burn. More importantly, there was no way to sneak up behind it like Heck Thomas' posse had done at the original cabin. And while Ned worked, the media frenzy ramped up another notch. Ned Christie, the terror of Indian territory, or so the papers made him seem, was back, and the papers were thrilled to add more fantastical chapters to his legend.

From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the stories of two outlaws, stagecoach and train robber Sam Bass and controversial fugitive Ned Christie. This is Episode 5, Ned Christie Part 2 of 3, Ned's Fort. While Ned Christie recovered from injuries sustained in the shootout and the fire, the marshals and the press learned that Ned survived the engagement. The press was ravenous, as always, and reporters heard about Ned's most serious injury.

A bullet had grazed the bridge of his nose and hit his right eye socket. Luckily for Ned, he didn't lose the eye. His vision was blurred for a while but gradually improved. It would never fully return, but it was better than nothing. When the injury was reported in the newspapers, it was embellished and then used as more fuel on the fire of the man who was portrayed as a notorious outlaw. The press said Ned had been shot in the face and lost most of his nose and his right eye, and his face had been left horribly disfigured. One reporter speculated that the injury must have been devastating for Ned because he took such pride in what were referred to as his dark, fierce good looks. According to another reporter, Ned's gross disfigurement had altered his personality

and deepened his hatred of the white man. The reporter claimed that Ned pledged he would never speak English again. It was pretty extraordinary insight from a reporter who had probably never been within 50 miles of Ned Christie. Meanwhile, Judge Parker was still determined to catch Ned, and Ned was still determined to stay free. In Fort Smith, Arkansas, after Judge Parker learned of the failed attack, he issued another arrest warrant for Ned Christie. He requested the U.S. Attorney General approve a $1,000 reward for Ned's capture, which meant bounty hunters could now join the effort. At Ned's home, about 20 miles outside the Cherokee capital of Tahlequah,

Ned spent about a week recovering from his injuries, and then he got right back into the action. He didn't want to leave the area where he had grown up and where his family and friends lived, but he couldn't stay on the same plot of land. So Ned found a piece of land about 10 miles outside Tahlequah and started building a new house for himself and his family. And it wasn't just any house. The outer walls were double walls. Two logs were stacked one behind the other with sand packed

in between. The extra layers made the house virtually bulletproof. And with the thick logs and the sand, the house was about as fireproof as it could be. Ned created gaps in the walls on all four sides to act as gun ports. And the whole setup was about 800 feet above sea level, so he had at least a slight advantage in terrain. But here again, Ned's fortified cabin became something almost mythical for reporters of the day, and later authors of Western lore. Some referred to, quote, Ned's Mountain, where his new house was built on a sheer cliff with a 360-degree panoramic view that enabled him to watch for any approaching threats. Others referred to his cabin as Ned's Fort, a compound that featured walls six feet high and a watchtower. Another writer claimed

Ned had built a fort of stone, almost like a small castle. Another credited Ned with building an escape tunnel with a trapdoor. Most of the details were extreme exaggerations or wholesale fabrications, but the thing about the trapdoor will be the one to keep in mind. There might have been some truth in that one, even if a writer thought he was just making up a fun story to sell more papers. thought he was just making up a fun story to sell more papers. When work was complete on Ned's new fortified cabin, he lived quietly with his family, tended his livestock and vegetable garden, and worked in his blacksmith shop. When friends and family gathered, he entertained them with his impressive fiddle playing. In some respects, Ned's life went back to normal, but only in some respects.

He had once been a prominent member of the Cherokee National Council and one of three advisors to the Chief, but those days were long gone. Now he was in his third year as a wanted fugitive, and newspapers had invented a legend for him that almost seems comical in hindsight but was accepted as fact back then. In the fictional crusade, Ned was accused of robbing, raping, and murdering all over Indian territory. Then, the press reported that Ned ran a crime ring that was like the Cherokee Mafia with Ned as the godfather. The supposed network ran a huge illegal whiskey operation and became associated with every violent act in the territory.

But probably the toughest part was that there were some facts in the wider story. Ned had a really big extended family, and some of his relatives became genuine criminals. The truth of their exploits were added to the fiction of Ned's, and they were all mashed up into one story. And in December 1891, two more mysterious murders were added to the tally, and they started the chain reaction that led to the explosive finale in 1892. in 1892. global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage, all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage.

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Poorboy, who was Cherokee, had been shot in the back of the head, execution style. Close by was the body of Thomas Whitehead, a government detective, who was just 23 years old. He had been working with Deputy Poorboy to investigate the illegal whiskey operation that was allegedly run by the, quote, Ned Christie gang. Information about the whiskey operation was allegedly given to the lawmen by a known killer from Alabama. Therefore, one newspaper reported that poor boy and Whitehead had been intentionally lured into a death trap and murdered by the Ned Christie gang. Technically, it wasn't true, but it was an example of how easily the story could become muddied. of how easily the story could become muddied. It was later discovered that the double homicide was committed by a 16-year-old named Waco Hampton,

who was one of Ned's nephews. Hampton was found guilty of the murders, but due to his age, he was sent to a youth reformatory from which he later escaped. Another Christie relative whom federal lawmen kept an eye on was Ned's teenage cousin, Little Arch. Nearly three years ago, he was the boy who had been shot by one of the lawmen during Heck Thomas' raid. The injury and the event had left him with a pretty big chip on his shoulder. Then a man named William A. Dare accused Little Arch and his father Thomas of attempted murder.

A. Dare had been shot three times, and he believed the father and son were the shooters. Thomas was identified in the press as a member of Ned Christie's mob, and it was another violent act that was attributed to the Christie gang. But the A. Dare example was in more of a gray area. William A. Dare had been married to Ned's wife Nancy. William and Nancy had been married for less than two years, and they'd had a daughter who died as an infant. After that tragic episode, Nancy saw no reason to stay in an unhappy marriage, so she got a divorce. Sometime later, she married Ned Christie. So, jealousy could have been the reason why William accused Ned's relatives of attempted murder. But it's

also possible that it was a member of Ned's extended family who did the shooting. It can't be ruled out, but there's just no proof either way. And the love triangle aspect was good fodder for the press. They happily reported that Nancy was Ned's fifth wife, which was meant to make him look bad. But his four previous wives had all died. He hadn't cast them aside for a new one, even as some writers tried to paint him as the Cherokee version of Henry VIII. But if there was a silver lining in the press coverage, it was that the nonsense seemed to be reaching its saturation point. A newspaper called the Tahlequah Telephone, which had white owners, finally wrote, Rumor after rumor are only contradicted by the previous one.

The two big Cherokee newspapers wrote little, if anything, about Ned. Maybe they recognized the absurdity of a lot of what had been written, or maybe they had bigger issues to cover. Two years earlier, a few months before Deputy Dan Maples had been killed, America witnessed a Seminole event. April 22, 1889 was the first official land rush in Indian Territory. Lands that formerly belonged to the creek and the Seminole were opened for white settlers. The land rush, or land run as it's also called, was the first of five that happened in the territory over the next six years.

In 1890, in the middle of the Ned Christie saga, Indian Territory was officially reorganized as Oklahoma Territory, and the events became known as Oklahoma Land Runs. The one in 1893 was the one that Ned Christie and others had feared since the introduction of the Dawes Act six years earlier. That one opened Cherokee land to white settlement. But by then, Ned's story would be done. In the Cherokee Nation, Ned Christie still had lots of supporters and they wanted to clear his name. But short of Ned turning himself in to face judgment in court, there wasn't much of

substance they could do. And at the same time, they watched the other three men who had been indicted with Ned wreaking havoc on the territory. While Ned isolated himself on his farm, Charlie Bobtail, John Parris, and Bub Trainer seemed to prove that they were more justifiable suspects in the murder of Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Maples. more justifiable suspects in the murder of Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Maples. Maples and two other deputies had been sent to the Cherokee capital to investigate illegal whiskey sellers. Someone had fired three or four shots from ambush and killed Maples. Bobtail, Parris, and Traynor were three of the top six suspects aside from Ned Christie. At the grand jury hearing after the murder, the six men, though mostly bobtail, accused Ned of the crime. Eventually, the three suspects who were indicted

were released and were free to go about their business, while Ned remained under suspicion and was a constant target of the U.S. Marshals. In the roughly five years since all that happened, those three suspects showed why they were suspects to begin with. In October of 1887, six months after the murder of Maples, Bubb, Traynor, and a few friends went into a store, took the clerk's keys at gunpoint, and threw him out. For the next three days, the men lingered inside, eating and drinking whatever they liked. After the third day, they got drunk and got bored and set the store on fire. The store was connected to a house that happened to be occupied. As the women and children in the house ran outside to escape the flames,

As the women and children in the house ran outside to escape the flames, Bub and his buddies laughed and took pot shots at them. Traynor was tried for the crime and found not guilty. The verdict wasn't much of a surprise, because Traynor's father was a well-liked white man from Boston who had married a Cherokee woman. After the incident, Traynor got back into the whiskey distribution business, the same business he was in when Deputy Maples went to Tahlequah to investigate illegal whiskey distribution. Bub Traynor was indicted two more times for selling illegal whiskey, but there was no record of him ever serving time. John Paris had walked a similar path since being released as a serious suspect.

He was also arrested for distributing whiskey, but he was not as fortunate as his friend Bub. Parris spent a year in the Arkansas State Prison for his crime. After his release, he never returned to Indian Territory and he was never seen again. And then there was Charlie Bobtail. He had been in the whiskey business with his buddies Paris and Traynor back when Deputy Maples and his partners came to town. After Maples' murder, the bootleggers had accused Ned Christie of the crime. But a couple years later, there were allegations that Charlie Bobtail and Bob Traynor said it was their former partner John Paris who pulled the trigger. Now, none of the three are truly trustworthy, but if they changed their story,

it begged the question as to why. There were no good answers to the question, but it actually led to a new theory. Because there was so much confusion and finger-pointing in the wake of the Maples murder, some have floated the idea that Judge Parker may not have summoned Ned Christie to Fort Smith to arrest him or charge him with the murder. Maybe Parker wanted Ned to testify as a legitimate witness about what he may or may not have seen that night. Maybe this whole thing was even more tragic than everyone thought.

Judge Parker must have known about Ned Christie and his reputation as a respected and trustworthy Cherokee statesman. Parker had never met him because Ned had never been in Parker's court. So it is within the realm of possibility that Parker summoned Ned only because he thought Ned was trustworthy. But Ned assumed he was being told to surrender, and he would be railroaded for the crime. When Ned didn't show up, Judge Parker and the grand jury took it as an indication of guilt. If this scenario was true, then it's possible that the whole sad story was just a misunderstanding. Even now, 130 years later, historians and scholars can't agree on how and why Ned Christie's story unfolded the way it did. But by 1892, as the land runs in Oklahoma were increasing, the reasons why Ned Christie's story unfolded the way it did had become irrelevant. Ned was the only target-slash-suspect in the murder of Deputy U.S. Marshal

Dan Maples, and the Marshals were never going to stop pursuing him. The raids against Ned Christie's property resumed in June of 1892. Two deputy U.S. Marshals, Milo Creekmore and Joe Bowden, tried to capture Ned at his home. There were always several people in the cabin. They were mostly women and children, but there were usually a couple with guns, Ned plus two or three others. Ned's nephew, Arch Wolf, who was known as Little Arch, was often there. Three years earlier, he was the boy who had been shot in the chest by a member of Heck Thomas' posse. Now, the boy was a teenager who was in on the action. When deputies Creekmore and Bowden approached the cabin on June 2nd, they quickly realized they couldn't assault the position with

just two men. Accounts make it seem like the deputies exchanged gunfire with whoever was in the cabin, but the details are slim. Either way, the deputies were described as feeling outmatched, which they certainly would have been when faced with a fortified defensive position that had multiple defenders inside. They retreated and lived to fight another day. For Deputy Creekmore, that day arrived three months later in September of 1892. By that time, five and a half years had passed

since Deputy Dan Maples had been murdered and Ned Christie had gone into hiding. The other potential suspects in the murder were long gone, and the sole focus had been on Christy longer than anyone could have dreamed. Judge Parker and U.S. Marshal Yost were feeling the heat from political officials to both finish the murder case and bring a now-notorious outlaw to justice. They had sent multiple posses of various sizes against Ned for more than five years, and they'd received no results. And it wasn't like Ned had fled the territory and they were trying to track him through the

wilderness of the most remote parts of the country. He wasn't moving from hiding spot to hiding spot. He was right where he had always been, at his home. On September 12, 1892, Deputy Creekmore tried again. He approached Ned's cabin with a posse of six to eight men. As with the other attempts, they had an arrest warrant from Judge Parker and orders from Marshal Yowes. It was early morning, and there were six people in the cabin who were eating breakfast. Ned, Ned's wife Nancy, a stepson and a daughter, and two cousins, Little Arch Wolf and Charles Hare. The lawmen surrounded the cabin, and Deputy Creekmore

shouted for Ned to surrender. Ned replied as he had in previous raids. He opened fire, probably from one of the gun ports that had been cut in the thick walls of his cabin. fire, probably from one of the gun ports that had been cut in the thick walls of his cabin. He shot one deputy in the foot and another in the neck. After the opening salvo, reports say Creekmore rode to the nearest store where he could send a telegram. The message to Marshal Yost in Fort Smith read, Send deputies to Ned Christie's. We have him surrounded, but have not enough men. Joe Bowers and John Fields are wounded. Fields will die. The marshal's reply read, Have wired everywhere for deputies. You will have lots of help tonight.

Hold the fort by all means and get him this time. Deputies from Fort Smith, Bentonville, and West Fork, Arkansas were making their way to Ned Christie's cabin as fast as their horses could carry them. With Ned still holed up inside and two lawmen wounded, one seriously, all Deputy Creekmore could do was wait for reinforcements. After those reinforcements arrived, they took their positions and prepared for what promised to be a fierce gun battle. But Deputy Creekmore discovered they had a problem. Ned Christie was no longer there. He had somehow slipped away. Maybe he really had dug an escape tunnel. Or, more likely, he used the root cellar, a feature that would be used in the final showdown. For now, the posse left Ned's property, again without satisfaction. And again, newspaper accounts of the event made it seem bigger and

more devastating than it was. The Omaha Herald reported that the posse consisted of 60 men, and the chief of the Cherokee Nation had added 20 men of his own. Readers would have seen that Deputy Fields was mortally wounded, implying he would be yet another death attributed to Ned Christie, and the other deputy would lose his foot. Neither happened. Fields survived the wound to his throat, and he eventually healed. And so did the other deputy's foot injury. And for Ned, the latest raid seemed to signal a shift inside him. Something had changed. According to those who knew him in the fall of 1892, Ned seemed to be sensing the end was near and his time to die was approaching.

Ned knew the lawmen would return, and there seemed to be a clear pattern of escalation that summer and fall. At first, there had been two deputies. Then there was a posse of about eight. Next time, it would probably be more. And at some point, no amount of fortifications would hold them back. Ned also knew he had seriously wounded at least one deputy during the most recent gunfight, but he had no idea if the man had survived.

If the lawmen died, the marshals would return with an army, and maybe the actual U.S. Army. Even if the deputy survived, he had suffered a serious wound at the hands of Ned Christie. That was enough for the marshals to come in force. Ned had made a pact with himself that he would never be taken alive. His main concern now was for the safety of his family. So far, they had been spared, but that didn't mean it would always be the case. In his experience, federal law enforcement could be very unpredictable.

Ned shared his foreboding vision with his wife, Nancy. He asked her to use her kitchen knife to cut off the long hair he had always worn with pride. They tied the bundle of hair up with otter string, buried it on the east side of their house, and prayed over it. Cutting hair is a sign of grieving for the dead in the Cherokee tradition. Friends and family had encouraged Ned to flee Oklahoma Territory and save his life. Ned told them he wanted to die on his own land, around his own people. And before Thanksgiving that year, the vision would come true.

Next time on Legends of the Old West, it's the final showdown between Ned Christie and the U.S. Marshals, and then the long, slow journey to unravel the truth about the Ned Christie story and continue the debate about the Ned Christie story and continue the debate about his legacy. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. Plus Program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes.

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