Sherman W. McMasters was an outlaw, Texas Ranger, and lawman best known for his participation in the Earp Vendetta Ride. Born in 1853 in Illinois, McMasters headed west where he gained a reputation as a gunfighter. He was in Dodge City, Kansas at the same time as were Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, where he made friends with the pair. There, he also reportedly killed a man in self-defense after a gambling dispute in a saloon.

By September, 1878, McMasters was working with the Texas Rangers in El Paso County, a position that he held until the following spring. It was in the Lone Star State that he met Curly Bill Brocius, and by some accounts, helped him to escape from jail.

In 1879, had hooked up with other illustrious characters of the Dodge City Gang in Las Vegas, New Mexico. He was known to have associated with the likes of such characters as Hoodoo Brown, who ran the gang that for a time, was firmly in control of a criminal cartel participated in several stage coach and train robberies, organized cattle rustling, and were said to have been responsible for multiple murders and lynchings.
 

Later, McMasters drifted to Tombstone, Arizona, where he was friendly with not only the likes of Curly Bill Brocius, Johnny Barnes and Pony Deal, who supported the outlaw Clanton faction; but, was also friendly with the Earp brothers, who were at obvious odds with the Clantons.

During this time, McMasters was a suspect in the stealing of Army mules in July, 1880, and the next year, the theft of two valuable horses from the Contention Mine, and a Globe, Arizona stagecoach robbery. However, by 1882, he was allegedly employed by Wyatt Earp to help track down "Curly Bill" Brocious and Pony Deal follow a January, 1882 robbery of the Bisbee, Arizona stagecoach. Whether McMasters was truly an outlaw or was working undercover to break up the Cowboy faction remains a mystery.

McMasters was in the saloon in which Morgan Earp was assassinated in March, 1882. After Morgan's death and an attempt on Virgil Earp's life, McMasters was clearly in allegiance with the Earps, when he joined Wyatt and Warren Earp, when they began their Vendetta Ride. He took part in the murder of Frank Stillwell at Tucson, Arizona, and of Florentino Cruz, who was also called Indian Charlie, two days later. However, he was not present at Earp's alleged confrontation with Curly Bill Brocius. Following the two week revenge ride of the Earps, McMasters left Arizona with Wyatt and disappeared from history.

Later, Will McLaury, in a letter written to his father, stated that McMasters had been killed in a shootout with the Cowboy faction in 1884. However, Wyatt would say that McMasters died in the Phillipines in 1898, while serving as a soldier in the Spanish American War, though there are no documents to support this. The most reasonable account was by McMasters siblings, who indicated that he died in Colorado in 1892.

© Kathy Weiser/Legends of America,  updated January, 2011.