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Joseph "Joe” W. Ventioner (1852-1941) -
Born near Fort Worth,
Texas on
April 21, 1852, Ventioner migrated to
Indian Territory, where he resided
in Lenora, on the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation. In the spring of 1895, he
was commissioned as a
U.S. Deputy Marshal
by Marshal Evett Nix. Residing just three
miles of the
Doolin-Dalton Gang
hide-out, he was one of the strongest forces in driving them from the
area. Known by his friends and family, as "Uncle Joe,” Ventioner resided
in Dewey County before the territory was opened for settlement. Described
as always wearing his white-handled Colt pistols and a genial smile, Joe
also served as an under sheriff, special deputy, and jailer in Dewey
County.
He was best known for
tracking down and killing ruthless
Oklahoma
outlaw,
George "Red Buck” Weightman
in 1896. When
U.S. Deputy Marshal
Joe Ventioner heard that
Red Buck
was in the area after having returned from
Texas, he,
along with
Deputy Marshals William
Holcomb and Bill Quillen began to trail the outlaw, who was riding with
another fugitive named George Miller. Pursuing the pair to Custer County,
they found that the men were hiding out at a farm owned by Dolph
Pickelseimer, who had a history of befriending outlaws. On the morning of
March 4, 1896, when the marshals tried to arrest the men, gunfire erupted
and Joe Ventioner killed
Red Buck Weightman.
Retaliating, George Miller shot Ventioner in the abdomen. Holcomb then
fired at Miller, striking his cartridge belt and causing several rounds to
detonate, blowing off his right hand at the wrist and the three middle
fingers of his left hand. George Miller was arrested and sent to prison in
Texas. In the
meantime,
U.S. Deputy Marshal,
Joe Ventioner recovered from his wounds and continued his life as a
lawman. He died in at the home of his daughter on August 11, 1941 and was
laid to rest at the Raymond Cemetery, south of Lenora,
Oklahoma.
 Frank
J. Wattron - When Navajo County,
Arizona
was first formed in 1895,
Commodore Perry Owens was appointed as its first sheriff, and beneath
him worked Deputy Frank J. Wattron, a former school teacher and editor.
However, during the first sheriff’s election the following year,
Owens moved on and his deputy, Frank Wattron was
elected to the post in 1896. In December, 1899, the
Navajo County Courthouse was
holding one of its most notable prisoners, a murderer named George Smiley.
The killer was sentenced to be the first
person executed in Navajo County, on December 8, 1899. Wattron,
goaded by his friends, issued a "novel” invitation, professionally
printed on gilt-bordered paper, to what was quickly looking to be a
"social affair.” However, when a reporter got a hold of the
invitation, he wired it to the Associated Press and there soon
hundreds of protesting letters regarding the sheriff's poor sense of
humor. Reprimanded for his flippancy, Smiley was granted a month’s
reprieve. However, the killer finally went to the gallows on January
8, 1900.
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 Harry
Cornwall Wheeler
(1875-1925) - The son of
an army officer, Wheeler was born in Florida and grew up on a series of
army posts. After serving in the Spanish American War as a Rough Rider
he was transferred to the
Arizona
Territory. He worked briefly as a miner in
Tombstone
before joining the
Arizona
Rangers
in 1903. An expert marksman, he soon obtained the rank of captain and
replaced
Thomas Rynning who resigned in
March, 1907. Wheeler,
who had served the rangers at
every rank, brought discipline and idealism to the group which he
continued to command until the
Arizona
Rangers were disbanded in 1909. Later, he was elected sheriff of Cochise
County, and during a 1917 labor dispute at the Bisbee copper mines
he led the group responsible for the "Bisbee Deportation," where
nearly twelve hundred strikers and sympathizers were forcibly
removed from the area. During the First World War Wheeler reached the
rank of captain in the U.S. Army. After the war he was defeated for the
Cochise County sheriff's office in 1922, and he drifted from job to job
until his death in 1925 from pneumonia. He is buried in Bisbee,
Arizona.
William Fletcher Wheeler (1824-1894) - A U.S. Marshal in
Montana Territory, Wheeler was the son of a Methodist minister, born
at
Warwick, New York on July 6,1824. Though the family
moved around alot during his childhood, Wheeler received a good
education and in 1843
became an apprentice for the Ohio Statesman as a printer and
reporter under Samuel Medary. He remained in that position for three
years, studying law in his spare time, and in 1848 was admitted to
practice in front of the bar.
Wheeler
moved to St. Paul, Minnesota in 1856, and in 1857 he accepted an
appointment as Territorial Librarian and private secretary to Samuel
Medary, who by then was Territorial Governor of Minnesota. Wheeler was
continued in this position under Governor Sibley, the first state
governor. Sibley commissioned Wheeler as a Lieutenant Colonel of the First
Minnesota Voluntary Infantry in 1858. In the Spring of 1860, Wheeler
projected and located the first telegraph line in Minnesota and
incorporated a rail line from Duluth to St. Paul.
At the
outbreak of the Civil War, Wheeler assisted in raising a company of
volunteers which became part of the Fourth Minnesota Regiment, stationed
at Fort Snelling. As the war progressed, he saw action at Cornith, Iuka,
and Vicksburg. On the drive towards Chattanooga, Wheeler became severely
ill and was discharged in the Spring of 1864.
After
President Grant's inauguration, Wheeler was appointed as United States
Marshal of Montana Territory on May 15, 1869, succeeding Neil Howie. In
1870, as Marshal, Wheeler wrote an extensive account of the Piegan War and
coordinated the taking of the U.S. Census in Montana. Marshal Wheeler was
also assigned as Superintendent of the United States Penitentiary at Deer
lodge in 1871. This duty consumed a great deal of time, as the prison had
to be constructed from the ground up. Wheeler retained the office Montana
U.S. Marshal until 1878, when Alexander C. Botkin replaced him.
Through
the efforts of Wheeler and other early Montana settlers, the Montana
Historical Society was formed; and in 1884 he was appointed it's librarian
when the society became a state institution, a position he held until his
death. He devoted much of his time collecting the reminiscences of old
pioneers and writing their biographies. Wheeler was also the Crier of the
United States District Court at Helena. He died at his home in Helena on
June 24, 1894 due to heart and lung trouble which developed from
pneumonia.
 Harvey
Whitehill (1837-1906) - A miner and lawman, Whitehill was born in
Ohio on September 2, 1837 but by 1859, he was in
Leadville,
Colorado
and was one of the first discoverers of gold in California Gulch. By 1860,
he had taken some $15,000 in ore out of his claim and the following year,
moved to
New Mexico.
He worked as a freighter and a miner and by 1870 had settled in Silver
City. He built one of the first houses in town and mined for silver for a
number of years. Somewhere along the line, he married a woman named
Harriet Stevens, and the
couple would eventually have ten children. In 1874 he was elected Grant
County Sheriff. One of his first "claims to fame" was
Billy the Kid's
first arrest. When
Billy, known as
Henry McCarty
at the time, was just 15 years-old, Whitehill arrested him for
stealing several pounds of butter, but after
Billy
apologized and promised
never break the law again and Whitehill, who had really only
arrested the boy in order to ''scare him straight,'' released him. But
Whitehill's tactics didn't work, as he arrested the "Kid"
again in September on a charge of stealing
clothing from a local Chinese laundry. However, the young boy wasn't
placed in a cell and escaped the next day. That same year, Whitehall hired
a Dan Tucker, who would go on to make a
"name" for himself as a lawman -- most notably -- "Dangerous Dan."
Whitehall continued to hold the office until 1882, when he was elected to
the territorial legislature. However, by 1884, he was once again working
as a lawman and assisted in capturing the Kit Joy band of train robbers.
In 1891, he was indicted for allowing a prisoner to escape, as well as
embezzlement, ending his lawman career. He then turned to farming and
cattle ranching. He died on September 8, 1906 in Deming,
New Mexico
and buried at Silver City.
Chauncey "Cap" Belden
Whitney (1842-1873) - One of Ellsworth,
Kansas'
earliest settlers, Whitney arrived in 1867, the same year the town was
established by the railroad. He left Ellsworth on several
expeditions against the
Indians
and in 1868 fought at the celebrated Battle of Beecher Island. The
following year he was elected first lieutenant of a militia company which
manned a blockhouse near Ellsworth to guard against
Indian
depredations. In 1871, he became Ellsworth's constable and built the
city's first jail. In 1872, he became the county sheriff and on
August 18,1873, he was killed by Billy Thompson who claimed he fired his
bun by accident.
 Frank Wolcott
(1840-1910) - Born in
Canandaigua, New York on December, 13, 1840, Wolcott served in the
Civil War, leaving as a Major in 1866. He then moved to Kentucky, before making
his way to Cheyenne,
Wyoming
in 1870. He worked for the U.S. Land Office until being appointed a
U.S. Deputy Marshal
for
Wyoming.
However, he didn't last long in this role, as three years later he was
released because of what Governor John M. Thayer called "offensive"
behavior. He then bought a ranch in 1876 and became involved with the
Wyoming
Stock Growers Association and a number of large cattle barons. When the
conflict between the small ranchers and the cattle barons erupted in the
1880's, Wolcott sided with the large ranchers. Known as the
Johnson County War, Wolcott led a
group of 50 henchmen into Johnson County in April, 1892 with the intention
of killing some 70 suspected cattle rustlers who had been placed on a
"death list." However, after killing Nick Ray and
Nate Champion,
Sheriff
Red Angus,
leading a posse of 200 men, trapped the gunmen and besieged Wolcott's
forces at the TA Ranch until they were rescued by the 6th Cavalry three
days later. Over the next couple of years Wolcott continued in his efforts
to destroy the small ranch owners of the area. In 1894, he moved to
Nebraska
where he became general agent at the Omaha Stockyards. He died in Denver
March 30, 1910.
 Jacob "Blake Jake” Yoes (1839-1906)
- One of the best known of Judge Isaac Parker’s
U.S. Marshals, Yoes was
also a miner and an entrepreneur. Born in 1839 in West Fork,
Arkansas to
Reverend Conrad and Kissiah Bloyed Yoes. He left home at the age of 17,
later married Mary Ann Reed, and worked in the lead mines in
Granby,
Missouri.
In 1862, he enlisted in the First
Arkansas Cavalry of the U.S. Army where
he fought in the Battle at Prairie Grove. During his service, his primary
task was fighting bushwhackers, of which, he is said to have killed about
50 men. Along the way, he took shots in both hips and the left leg. In
1864, he refused a 1st Lieutenant's commission and was discharged.
In
1870, he established a country store near Winslow, about 25 miles south of
Fayetteville,
Arkansas and about the same time, was elected as the
Washington County Sheriff. Yoes entrepreneurial spirit continued as he
built a number of stores all along the Frisco Railroad between
Fayetteville and
Fort Smith, established a flour mill, and owned interests
in a canning factory and several hotels. Later, he would also serve in the
Arkansas legislature.
In
May of 1889 he was appointed U.S. Marshal of the West District of
Arkansas
with 200 deputies under his command. Later, he developed a number of real
estate interests and the community of Yoestown,
Arkansas was named for
him. Jacob Yoes died February 6, 1906 and was buried in the National
Cemetery at
Fort Smith,
Arkansas.
©
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of America, updated February, 2010.
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