Legends of the Old West - TEXAS JACK Ep. 6 | “Epitaph for a Cowboy”

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Texas Jack’s twin careers are winding down. He wraps up his final hunting expedition in the wilds of the American West, and then launches his final dramatic tour. Jack and Giuseppina Morlacchi arrive in Leadville, Colorado for several months of shows that will be Jack’s last performances. He adds one more heroic moment to his résumé before the end. Texas Jack’s friends and family honor him as a legendary cowboy, scout, hunter, and stage performer. For the full story of Texas Jack, check out Matthew Kerns’ book! Texas Jack: America’s First Cowboy Star 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

Texas Jack Omohundro first took the plunge into the world of acting in December 1872. He teamed up with his good friend Buffalo Bill and notorious rogue and best-selling dime novelist Ned Buntline for the play Scouts of the Prairie. Bill and Jack reworked that play, which was Buntline's creation, into a new version called Scouts of the Plains, and they added the star power of Wild Bill Hickok to the cast. Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack performed together and separately for nearly seven years. Between acting tours of cities in the East, Jack led long hunting trips in the wildest regions of the West, namely the area in and around Yellowstone National Park. By the end of his life, Jack believed no white man on earth knew the park better than he did, and he was probably right.

But as the hunting trips ended, so did the acting partnership with Buffalo Bill. Bill and Jack were still close friends. That hadn't changed. But as they grew older, they took separate roads. Jack formed his own small acting company called the Texas Jack Combination, and it embarked on a roller coaster tour in 1879. They played to packed houses and crowded theaters in some towns and empty venues in others. On a professional level, poor advertising and thieving managers took their toll on the tour. On a personal level, tuberculosis and alcohol took their toll on the tour. On a personal level, tuberculosis and alcohol took their toll on Texas

Jack. And for the first time, Texas Jack and his wife, Jessapina Morlocki, weren't performing together. They were in the same cities, her with her ballet and he with his drama, but performing at different theaters. In April, the touring company busted after a show in Albion, New York, and Jack headed back home to Lowell, Massachusetts, determined to see his farewell tour through to the end. But it turned out not to be his farewell tour. He soon returned to the stage with a new show that would become one of his most acclaimed yet, and that would prove to be his last. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling a six-part anthology about the famous cowboy, scout, and stage performer,

Texas Jack Omohundro. This is Episode 6, Epitaph for a Cowboy. The shows that Jack performed with Buffalo Bill, Ned Buntline, Wild Bill, and then later with his combination were ensemble affairs. Local actors were recruited to play the parts of the Savage Warriors, but all of the speaking parts were performed by touring cast members. When Texas Jack's new play, Life in the Black Hills, premiered in Boston at the end of April 1879, it was different. Thematically, it was a lot like the Blood and Thunder shows Jack had been performing for years. But now it was just Jack, with every other part played by local actors recruited for a week of performances.

Audiences still wanted to see their favorite cowboy star on stage, as attested by sellout shows in Boston. A week of Texas Jack's shows was followed by a week of Jessapina's ballet. This format followed as the couple traveled from Boston to Pittsburgh and then to Toronto, Cleveland, and Detroit. In September, Texas Jack and Jessapina Morlocki took their shows to Philadelphia and then New York City. The shows were well attended and well received by audiences and critics alike, but Texas Jack was suffering. Notices appeared in newspapers across the country that this would be the last tour before Texas Jack and Jessupina retired. The reason was Jack's health. Tuberculosis, known then as consumption,

was doing what Union soldiers, Native American warriors, lassoed buffalo, and grizzly bears could not. A report from a New York newspaper noted the changes to Jack's appearance. Texas Jack arrived in town yesterday afternoon wearing a white Stetson and a black velveteen suit with brass buttons. His long, unkempt hair lacks the raven luster that it had when he appeared as one of the scouts of the planes. He does not look like the Texas Jack who was here two or three times with Buffalo Bill. Texas Jack turned to the bottle to ease the pain of consumption, and as the tuberculosis grew worse, so did the drinking.

Jack's show played at the Metropolitan Theater in Louisville, Kentucky at the end of November. At the same time, his old friend Buffalo Bill was playing at another theater in the city. I ran across Texas Jack in Louisville, Cody wrote to a friend. Whiskey is killing him. In December of 1879, seven years after Ned Buntline first introduced them before the Scouts of the Prairie premiere, Texas Jack and Giuseppino were in Chicago. Theaters were full, and audiences were enthusiastic. A Chicago paper said, Texas Jack has been so popularly received during his recent engagements in this city that he has concluded to give another week's presentation of his show. The show moved on to St. Louis and then Kansas

City. They were working their way west toward the Rocky Mountains, where Jessopina had agreed to star in an ambitious series of performances of The Black Crook. When she made her American debut several years earlier, she had competed against that show. It was the most popular musical of the era, and now she was starring in it. They stopped in Denver, where Texas Jack sold out a series of performances, and the Denver Post reported that the production was a decided success and won enthusiastic applause from the audience. So, even if certain performances weren't as good, and Jack was lacking some of his star quality, he could still turn it on at other times.

With a successful run of shows behind them, Jack and Jessapina boarded a train to take them to the highest town in America, Leadville, Colorado. town in America, Leadville, Colorado. At 10,152 feet above sea level, Leadville, Colorado was a textbook boomtown when Texas Jack and his wife arrived at the end of March 1880. Prospectors had flocked to the vicinity in the late 1850s during the Pikes Peak gold rush, but had just as quickly abandoned the area when the placer gold ran out. The 10,000 prospectors dwindled to a few hundred enterprising souls by the 1870s. Then they discovered that the sand in the rivers

and streams contained a high level of silver. On May 3, 1878, the owners of the Little Pittsburgh mine struck a massive silver load, and the Colorado silver boom began. Over the next 14 years, $80 million worth of silver was pulled from the ground. Horace Tabor had come to the area with the gold boomers and maintained a mining supply business. He had outfitted the owners of the Little Pittsburgh on a contingency basis, and when he sold his one-third share for $1 million, he immediately became one of the wealthiest men in the state. He rolled his earnings into further mine investments and spent much of his vast wealth improving the city of Leadville, which included construction of a theater.

By the time Texas Jack and Jessupina arrived in March of 1880, the town boasted 28 miles of paved streets, six major banks, five churches, three hospitals, gas streetlights, and regulated water mains. The town's Chronicle newspaper was the first in America to employ a female reporter full-time. And any town like that would, of course, boast an array of entertainment venues. The Chestnut Street Opera House was where Jack's show opened shortly after the couple's arrival. And the Grand Central Theater featured Jessapina in a series of shows

starting with The Black Crook. She immediately began training a cadre of dancers on the show's extensive choreography. But no theater in the city was as impressive as Tabers Opera House. Tabers was a massive three-story stone and brick building that was not only the largest theater, but the most expensive building in Colorado. In addition to his opera house, Horace Tabor provided funding for a ceremonial militia unit of local men who were tasked with keeping the

peace in the city. Soon after Jack's arrival, he was made an honorary member of the Tabor Light Cavalry. A local reporter wrote that Texas Jack received a warm welcome and crowds flocked to see him. Children asked him to shoot coins out of the air, ladies commented on the handsome actor, and men offered to buy the scout a beverage of his choice at one of Leadville's numerous saloons. A local man later recalled a vivid image of Jack. One of the sights of Leadville in those days was Texas Jack with a quart of whiskey sitting down on the floor of Ed Murray's saloon on Chestnut Street with a $1,200 overcoat on and not getting up until the whiskey was gone. Consumption and whiskey aside,

Jack was not content to remain idle in Leadville after his run of shows concluded. One night in a saloon, Jack overheard some drunken strangers discussing a plan to hold up a departing stagecoach the following day. A mine owner had struck silver and cashed out, and the strangers were prepared to relieve him of his newfound wealth. Jack enlisted some of his comrades in the Tabor Light Cavalry and staked out the spot of the proposed stagecoach robbery. As Leadville's veteran stage driver rounded the corner, the low

rumble of the coach's wheels and the pounding of horses' hooves was interrupted by one of the aspiring thieves shouting, hands up! His partners appeared from the nearby woods with shotguns trained on the coach. As they slipped from their horses to relieve the passengers of their money, they were startled by a low, booming voice behind them, demanding that they drop their guns. The startled robbers turned to find themselves staring into the barrels of Texas Jack's revolvers, along with those of his companions. The outlaws were relieved of their weapons and tied up on top of the coach for the long ride down the mountain and into the arms of a waiting officer. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch.

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Unfortunately for Leadville and the American West and the friends and family of Texas Jack, stopping the stagecoach robbery was his last notable hurrah. Near the end of May 1880, after two months in Leadville, Jack's already declining health took a turn for the worse. Jack caught a cold, which turned into pneumonia. On top of his tuberculosis and alcohol consumption, it was too much for the famous cowboy. When he died at 7.30 in the morning on Monday, June 28, 1880, Texas Jack Omohundro was one month shy of 34 years old. Like Wild Bill Hickok, who died at age 39, Texas Jack lived a life that was almost impossibly full. He was not even technically in his mid-30s,

yet he had done more and seen more than most people would in a hundred lifetimes. In Leadville, only one building would do for the funeral service of one of the most famous men in America, the Tabor Opera House. Jack's coffin, draped in the stars and stripes, sat in the middle of the stage, covered in flowers that were imported for the occasion. The silver plate on top of the coffin read, J.B. Omohundro. The service was packed with mourners, and a line formed down the block to view the casket. As the crowd thinned, Jessopina haltingly approached the coffin, embraced it, and pressed her lips against the glass that covered her husband's face.

She wept until she fainted and was carried to a waiting carriage by concerned locals who feared she would never recover. The funeral was the biggest and most lavish that Leadville ever saw. Every theater in the city closed to allow the cast and crew of their shows to attend. The procession from the Tabor Opera House to Evergreen Cemetery included a 50-piece brass band with members of companies from five different theaters. In her despair, Jessopina left only a simple wooden slab to mark her husband's grave. Inscribed in Italian in her own hand, the pine marker read, John B. Omohundro, Dioguarda Miyakara Alma, died June 28, 1880, Tuvaasto Pronto, Texas Jack, Jessupina Morlachy.

In English, she said, God guard my dear soul. I'll see you soon, Texas Jack. God guard my dear soul. I'll see you soon, Texas Jack. In time, the wooden grave marker was taken by a souvenir hunter and replaced by another, featuring a carving of a cartridge belt, crossed pistols, a bowie knife, a Winchester rifle, and a horse. The new marker incorrectly listed Jack's age at death as 39, adding five years to his life. The incorrect age was maintained when his second marker was also stolen and replaced by a third. A month after her husband's funeral, a benefit was held for Jessapina at the Tabor Opera House. But in her grief, the widowed dancer was swindled out of the money the benefit raised. The New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper reported that she attempted to commit suicide soon after arriving back home in

Massachusetts. A year later, multiple papers stated that she had gone insane, having fallen under the influence of spiritualism in an attempt to communicate with Texas Jack from beyond the grave. But those were just fraudulent speculations. The truth was that she retired to a quiet life at her home in Lowell, Massachusetts. She never returned to the stage and spent her time charitably teaching dance to the female mill workers of Lowell. On July 25, 1886, Jessapina Morlocki Omohundro died of stomach cancer.

She was laid to rest at St. Patrick's Cemetery, more than 2,000 miles from the final resting place of her beloved husband. An inventory of her estate included more than $25,000 worth of diamonds and jewelry that were gifts from Texas Jack. When Jessopina passed away, she was the first person to leave money to the Actors Fund,

a charity that benefits performers and behind-the-scenes workers in performing arts and entertainment. It was founded in 1882 and still exists today. Years after Texas Jack's death, his old manager and co-star, John Burke, visited Leadville with a touring company. He walked to Jack's grave with a reporter from the local paper, regaling the man with stories of Texas Jack, Buffalo Bill, and Wild Bill on tour. When they arrived at the cemetery, Burke was horrified with the condition of the gravesite and the third wooden marker, now faded by the summer sun and winter cold. Burke swore that he would find a way to erect a proper monument to Texas Jack.

It took more than 25 years, but he accomplished his goal. On the first day of September, 1908, John Burke returned to Leadville. The last time he visited Texas Jack's grave, he was a traveling actor. Now he was the advance press agent for Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Over the course of those 25 years, Buffalo Bill Cody had pioneered outdoor entertainment spectacles and had become America's first superstar. His gigantic touring production entertained millions of spectators all over the world,

and the printed programs for each show contained the articles that were written by Texas Jack about his life as a cowboy and his summer hunt with the Pawnee in 1872. in 1872. Each show ended with Buffalo Bill Cody and a group of cowboys riding to the rescue of embattled settlers who were trapped in their cabin by attacking Sioux warriors. In reality, cowboys and Indians seldom fought in the American West. But in Buffalo Bill's Wild West, cowboys were the heroes, risking themselves to save lives, just as Texas Jack had saved Buffalo Bill's life when they roaned out of Fort McPherson in April of 1872. Because Buffalo Bill Cody told audiences that cowboys like his friend Texas Jack were the real heroes of the American West, the audiences believed him.

Jack were the real heroes of the American West, the audiences believed him. The trope of Cowboys and Indians started with Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack, and it became such a deep part of American cultural mythology that kids today still play a nebulous game called Cowboys and Indians, even if it isn't factually accurate. In September of 1908, Buffalo Bill gathered the cast and crew of his show, along with hundreds of Leadville locals, to deliver a eulogy at the grave of Texas Jack. Cody removed his ever-present Stetson to reveal his famous long hair, which was now silver and significantly thinned with age. He said, and significantly thinned with age. He said, My friends, many of you do not know the man we have gathered to honor.

He was one of my dearest and most intimate friends. John B. Omohundro, better known as Texas Jack, was a Virginian by birth. He was a member of the cavalry command under General Jeb Stuart and was one of his most trusted and faithful scouts, performing almost invaluable service for him. After the war, he drifted westward to Texas and took up the hazardous work of the cowboy. He was one of the original Texas cowboys, when life on the plains was a hardship and a trying duty. Finally, he located at North Platte. It was there that I first met him. He was an expert trailer and scout. I recognized this and tried to secure his appointment in the United States service. But authorities were unwilling to hire discharged Confederate scouts, so I had to take the matter to the Secretary of War. After much persuasion,

I was given permission to hire him. I learned to know him and to respect his bravery and ability. He was a whole-souled, brave, generous, and good-hearted man. Later, we went east to go into the show business. He was the first to do a lasso act on stage. It was during the tour of the large cities that he met and married Mademoiselle Morlocki, the famous dancer. In 1876, the Sioux War was being fought, about the same time General Custer was killed and we took part in many important engagements. They eventually came to Leadville. He was stricken with pneumonia and succumbed and was buried here by his many friends. Jack was an old friend of mine and a good one. Instead of this board which now marks his grave, we will soon have erected a more

substantial monument worthy of a brave and good man. May he rest in peace. Buffalo Bill paid for the stone monument that still marks the grave of Texas Jack to this day. Buffalo Bill didn't return to Leadville until January 6, 1917. Seventy years old and suffering from kidney disease, Cody had visited Glenwood Springs to improve his health, the same facility where Doc Holliday passed away exactly 20 years earlier. Cody was on his way to his sister's home in Denver when the train stopped at the Leadville station. Too weak to leave his train car,

Buffalo Bill sat up in his bed when he was told he was in Leadville, telling his daughter about the grave of Texas Jack, his friend and partner. The train left for Denver, and Cody said goodbye to Leadville and to his best friend. Four days later, Buffalo Bill passed away, and another of the remaining Old West heroes was gone. By the time Hollywood started churning out westerns on the silver screen, Texas Jack was largely forgotten. He hadn't lived long enough to ensure his legacy like Buffalo Bill Cody, and he hadn't died with his boots on

like Wild Bill Hickok. Leadville isn't a mecca for enthusiasts of the American West like Deadwood, Tombstone, or Cody, Wyoming. There are roadside markers in Palmyra, Virginia, where Jack was born, and in Leadville, Colorado, where he died. But Texas Jack isn't as widely remembered as men who were much less famous at the time, like Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, or Billy the Kid. Without Bill Cody, there wouldn't be an American professional football team named the Buffalo Bills, and without Texas Jack, there might not be one called the Dallas Cowboys. Because of their popularity in Cody's show, Because of their popularity in Cody's show, cowboys took on nearly mythical status in the American imagination and became as fundamental to our story as armor-clad knights were to England. The cowboys of the Wild West became the heroes of the American West and the Western.

They were based on the cowboy who first popularized the profession, the cowboy who introduced the lasso to the stage, the cowboy whose description of his life on the open range spoke from magazine articles and show programs handed out at each stop of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, the cowboy who saved Buffalo Bill's life. The cowboys in Louis L'Amour's books, in TV shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza, and in movies

starring John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, all go back to the first cowboy star in American history, Texas Jack. In the late 1940s, an artist and firearms enthusiast named Herschel Logan purchased a Smith & Wesson revolver with the inscription, Texas Jack, 1872, Cottonwood Springs. Logan wrote a biography of Texas Jack and Jessupina called Buckskin and Satin, published in 1954. In 1980, a history buff named Frank Sullivan sat in on a meeting of the Sons of the American Revolution. As the session ended, he talked to another participant named Malvern Hill Omohundro Jr. Frank, who had discovered Texas Jack in the Earl of Dunraven's book about their Yellowstone trek, asked Malvern if he was related to the famous cowboy and scout. Malvern replied that he was Jack's nephew, the son of his youngest

brother. They founded the Texas Jack Association, a historical non-profit that keeps the memory of Texas Jack alive. Jack's Smith & Wesson revolver that once belonged to Herschel Logan is now in the collection of Mike Harvey, founder of Cimarron Firearms and Texas Jack Wild West Outfitter in Fredericksburg, Texas. Mike calls the gun, my most prized item. Cimarron produces world-class replicas of frontier-era firearms and recently introduced a replica of Texas Jack's Smith & Wesson Model 3 American. In March of 1994, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum posthumously awarded Texas Jack with its Western Heritage Award, inducting him into the Hall of Great Western Performers. Texas Jack Omohundro, the first man to turn the profession of cowboy into an entertainment career,

remains the first born person inducted into the hall. When Jack died in 1880, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper, the most widely read paper of the day, wrote of Jack, more refined than Wild Bill, more modest in asserting himself than Buffalo Bill. Texas Jack stood a plane above both. Nearly 150 years later, Texas Jack Omohundro's name isn't mentioned in the same reverent tones as those of Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill, Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, or Billy the Kid. But Texas Jack lives on. A part of him is in every cowboy gunslinger, in every western book, movie, TV show,

or video game, in every cowboy boot or Stetson hat, and in every kid running around the backyard playing cowboys and Indians. Wherever you find a cowboy, you'll find Texas Jack. Next time on Legends of the Old West, we move from one legendary frontiersman to another when we begin the complicated and sometimes controversial story of trailblazer and soldier Kit Carson. That's next time on Legends of the Old West. members of our black barrel plus program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes they receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes sign up now through the link in the show notes

or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Matthew Kearns, the author of Texas Jack, America's First Cowboy Star. 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. And all our episodes are available on YouTube. Just search for Legends of the Old West Podcast. Thanks for listening.