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. Later, McMasters moved with Curly Bill, Johnny Barnes and Pony Deal to Arizona, where they joined up with the outlaw Clanton faction.

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 horse 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.

But, by the time that Wyatt and Warren Earp, began their vendetta ride, following the killing of Morgan and the attempt on Virgil's life, McMasters was clearly in allegiance with the Earps, riding right along side them. 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, © March, 2007