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Home , Bill Doolin, Dalton Gang, Wild Bunch

The and Their Family Ties

The Preservation of an Outlaw Hideout In the southern part of Meade, , four blocks south of high- way 54, still stands the two-room house that was first occu pied by Mr. and Mrs. J.N. Whipple. Eva Dalton, sister of the infa mous out- laws, married J.N. Whipple Octo ber 15, 1887, at which time they moved into the newly constructed house Whipple had built for his bride. The house was on the out skirts of town in those days; the landscape dropped sharply from the house to a streambed to the south where water occa sion ally flowed into Crooked Creek to the east. A sharp bluff to the south of the streambed formed a canyon of sorts, later dubbed, “Gallop Away Canyon.” Taking advan tage of the landscape, Whipple built his house half un derground with one exposed wall and a door leading from the basement to the south. Their barn also was half sheltered by the earth in the hill below. Eva Dal ton came to Meade shortly af ter the town was es tab - lished in 1885. She was engaged in a milli nery business with Flor-

4 The Hideout ence Dorland, who later married R.A. Harper, an early-day Meade County rancher. Whipple oper ated a mer cantile store on the northwest corner of the square. Fairly success ful as a business man, he was reported to have been a good poker player, often holding games at the Whipple home. The Dal ton broth ers were re port edly seen sev eral times in Meade be fore a price was set on their heads, but their sis ter was never heard to men tion their names af ter they be came famous. The Whipples left Meade by early 1892, and their property was sold under foreclo sure. Soon af ter, the H.G. Marshall family moved into the house. The new occu pants discov ered a tunnel from the house to the barn. Inside the house the mouth of the tunnel was hid- den by a small closet beneath the stairway leading to the two-room basement of the place. The tun nel was constructed by plac ing beams of wood across a deep rain wash which were then covered with earth. It was barely large enough for a man to walk through in a stooped posi tion. From the house the tunnel led into a small feed room in the barn, which hid the tunnel entrance. One of the Marshall daughters, Mrs. Roy Talbott, often told the story that several times horse back riders came up the canyon to the barn; placed their hoses in the barn and came on into the house through the tunnel. When the sur prised riders learned that another family occu pied the house, other than the Whipples, they im me di - ately fled back through the tunnel, mounted their horses and galloped away. Legend has it that many of the old-timers of Meade were very friendly with the Dalton Gang and thus the gang never raided the Meade banks or commit ted any overt acts in this vicin ity. Old timers were al ways tight lipped about the no to ri ous brothers. In 1934, the Wayne Set tle family was living in the house. At that time an old man came through Meade from Ohio on

5 Eva & John

Looking into a person's past a hun dred years later is quite an un- EVA der tak ing, as this ed i tor dis cov ered while trying to recon struct events in the lives of Eva Dalton and J.N. & Whipple as they took place in Meade, Kan sas, in the years of JOHN 1885 through 1892. I have been through all the local news papers of the day (there were by Nancy Ohnick three of them in Meade Cen ter at the time), through many records in the Reg is ter of Deeds’ Of fice and the Trea surer’s Of fice in the Meade County Court House, as well as all the history books I could find. The follow ing is my conclu - sion supported by all the above. It seems that J.N. Whipple and R.A. Harper had been friends for a long time. His tory tells us that Mr. Harper came to Meade County as early as 1884, when he came through on a cattle drive from and decided to home stead here. I have no background on Mr. Whipple, but his ads for Whipple’s Headquar - ters, “The Buffalo Store,” start show ing up in the local papers when they began in 1885. Some think he was the first mer chant in Meade Cen ter (as Meade was called in the early days). One local

19 The Dalton Gang and Their Family Ties news paper says he was for merly of Wellington, Kan sas. I mention them both because their lives seem to be inter twined through- out my story. They married best friends and seemed to re main close through the years I traced them. John Whipple was a merchant. He had a mercan tile store on the north- west cor ner of the square in Meade. From his ads we see he sold fancy gro ceries, fine clothing, boots, shoes and gents furnish ings, wholesale and re tail. It was named the “Buf falo Store” and a sign was displayed in the front of his building with a picture of a buffalo. A bache lor in his mid-thir ties, John Whipple was a well-re spected business man. He made the local “City News” any time he went away on business, had a mishap, or was taken ill. I first find John in this col- umn when he served on the refresh - ment com mittee for the grand opening of the New Opera House. One ar ti cle rec om mended him as good mate rial for City Coun cil in an upcom ing election. He must have been friends with the news paper edi - tors as they referred to him as “Johnny Whipple” and “Whip” on several occasions. We don’t know when Eva Dalton and her friend Florence Dorland came to town. They were said to have come from Chetopa, Kan sas, and that

20 The Dalton Family The Dalton Family by Nancy Samuelson

A lot has been written about the Dalton Gang, and much of what has been written is nonsense or pure fiction. Early writ ers invented “facts” and these “facts” have been cop ied and re peated by later writ ers. Some writ ers are still in vent ing new sto ries about the Dal - ton Gang family. Much of the liter a ture in books and mag-

Nancy B. Samuelson, Lt. Col. USAF. Ret.

Nancy Samuelson was born No vem ber 12, 1940, in Dent Co. Mis souri. She is the daugh ter of Ray mond and Rosa Dal ton McDonough. She has a Bach e lor of Arts de gree from Har ris Teacher’s College, St. Louis, Mis souri and a Mas ter of Busi ness Ad min is tra tion from Syr a cuse Uni ver sity. Nancy served in the United States Air Force from 1964-1984. She served in a va ri ety of man age ment and com mand po sitions in the lo gistics ca reer fields for about fif teen years; then as an As sistant Pro fes sor of Aerospace Studies in the Air Force ROTC (Re serve Of fi cer Train ing Corps) pro gram at the Uni ver sity of Con nect i cut. She is also the grad uate of a number of pro fes - sional mil i tary schools. Mil i tary awards and dec o ra tions in clude the Bronze Star, the Mer i to ri ous Ser vice Medal and Out stand ing Sup ply Of fi cer of the Year. Over seas tours of duty were in Eng land and Thai land. Nancy is mar ried to Dr. Reid R. Samuelson (PhD Elec tri cal En gi neer ing) also a retired Air Force Lt. Col. The Samuelsons live in a 200 year old house in ru ral Con nect i cut. Since re tire ment, Nancy keeps busy with re search, writ ing and gar den ing ac tivi ties. Research and writing projects focus primar ily on women in the mil- i tary, west ern his tory and ge ne al ogy. Her ar ti cles and book re views had ap - peared in Air Uni ver sity Re view, Armed Forces and Soci ety, Mi nerva, Quar terly Re port On Women And The Mili tary, The Herb Quar terly and in a num ber of ge ne a log i cal pub li ca tions. Her in ter est in the Dalton Gang be gan when she started re search ing her own Dal ton family line. Both fami lies came from the same general area of Vir- ginia, but so far no com mon an ces tor has been found. Nancy Samuelson has pub lished a book, The Dal ton Gang Story, that con - tains a much more in-depth look at the Dal ton fam ily as well as copies of all the mate ri als she used to docu ment the facts she presented here. It is recom - mended read ing for Dal ton fam ily mem bers who want ge ne a log i cal in for ma - tion. Shoot ing Star Press, PO Box , Eastford, CT 06242.

29 The Dalton Gang and Their Family Ties azines such as Real West, True West, etc. is ex tremely in accu rate. The Dalton Gang by Har old Preece is a very readable book about but it con tains a lot of incorrect information. The best book to date about the Daltons is Dalton Gang Days by Frank F. Latta. Latta re peat edly in ter viewed Emmett Dal ton, the brother who sur vived the Coffeyville, Kansas, bank rob bery at- tempt; Littleton Dalton, an older brother of the outlaws; and numer - ous law men who were involved in attempt ing to bring the Daltons to justice. Latta had to wait un til af ter Emmett’s death to publish his book because Emmett refused to allow anything to be published that dis - agreed with his two books, and Be yond The Law. Emmett’s books con tain a lot of fiction and they do not always agree with each other. West Of Hell’s Fringe by Glenn Shirley is a well-researched and docu mented book and con tains a lot of mate rial on the Daltons.[1] The Dalton Gang consisted of Robert, Gratton and Emmett Dal- ton, and vari ous other men who rode with them when they robbed trains. The entire outlaw career of the gang lasted just about two years. The first robbery attempt was in Alila, Cali for nia , in Febru - ary, 1891, and the gang’s activ i ties ceased in Oc tober, 1892, when they attempted to hold up two banks at the same time in Coffeyville, Kan sas. Rob ert, Gratton and two other gang members were killed in the Coffeyville raid. Emmett was badly injured; he received about twenty bullet wounds. He was sen tenced to life in prison but was pardoned after serving fourteen and a half years. Robert, Gratton and an older brother, Frank, had all served as U.S. dep uty marshals out of Fort Smith, Arkan sas, be fore the youn- ger brothers turned to crime. Emmett had also served as a posseman with his brothers. was killed while trying to arrest whis key runners in the Indian Terri tory. Af ter his death the other three brothers were accused of stealing horses. The ex-police Daltons then left the Terri tory and joined the older broth- ers in Cali for nia and shortly after turned to robbing trains. Bill Dalton was the fourth of the Daltons to turn outlaw. He was not a member of the Dalton Gang, but after the Coffeyville raid he joined the Gang. After several robber ies with the Doolin

30 When the Daltons Rode

When the Daltons Rode By Bill Phillips

Bill Phillips is the grandson of Elizabeth Dalton, sister to the notorious outlaws. At the time of this writing, Bill still lived in the “Territory of Oklahoma” where so many of the family ended up. The following is his story of the Daltons and his family ties. ______

The Dalton brothers, there were ten of them, will al ways be re - membered for the mis deeds of the four bad ones, Grat, Bob, Emmett, and Bill. They rode across the Chero kee Strip a cen tury ago and provided a never-ending source of stories for the newspa - pers of the day, while most of the Dalton family led honest and sed- en tary lives in the King fisher area. The three broth ers were cred ited with shootings and robber ies from one end of the country to the other. The rumor that the Daltons might be headed for a partic u lar town struck terror in the hearts of its business men. Those who claimed to

61 The Dalton Gang and Their Family Ties know said one good reason why the Daltons were the way they were was be cause of their bad blood. Adeline Younger Dalton, mother of the clan, was the aunt of an- other family of outlaws, the Youngers. Her nephews, Cole, Bob, and Jim, rode the out law trail in the fashion of some more of their rel a tives, Frank and . The Dalton boys were the sons of James Lewis and AdelineYounger Dalton, who had brought them out of Mis souri at the start of the Civil War and set tled the fam ily on a farm near Coffeyville, Kansas, just north of the Indian Terri tory. It was a wild and lawless fron tier town where the young boys grew up on the tales of their out law relatives. When the new Oklahoma Terri tory was opened in 1889, the Dal- ton family joined the land rush and the father and older sons ob- tained claims near Kingfisher, Oklahoma. The claim that James and Adeline Dal ton chose was the SW 1/4 of sec. 11, in township 17, north of Range 8, west of the Indian Me- ridian in Oklahoma. This claim contained 160 acres, all bottom land, 6 miles northeast of the town of Kingfisher, Oklahoma. Times were hard in the new raw land. James Lewis Dalton, father of the clan, returned to Kansas to work in Coffeyville while Mrs. Dal ton remained on the claim with the children to prove it up. James Lewis Dalton died in 1890, leaving the family on their own. He was bur ied at the Robbins Ceme tery in Dearing, Kan sas, near Coffeyville. Four of the sons served as dep uty marshals from time to time while the fifth moved to Montana and eventu ally to Cali for nia. Bill Dal ton served with the State of Cal i for nia two terms. Charles, Ben and Littleton Dalton took claims near Kingfisher. Henry Coleman Dalton partic i pated in the Chero kee Strip land rush and took a claim near Enid, Oklahoma. Frank, one of the elder of the brothers, was killed in 1887 while serv ing as a deputy in a fight with Indian horse thieves in In dian Terri tory. An other brother, Gratton, usually called Grat, also be- came a law man. He was wounded while on duty in 1888. Bob and Emmett served as depu ties for a time, but gradu ally they drifted to the other side of the law.

62 The Dalton Gang and Their Family Ties Bill Dalton, Bill Doolin and the By Nancy Ohnick and Roger Meyers ______Af ter Bob, Grat and Emmett Dal ton met their de mise in Coffeyville on Octo ber 5, 1892, William “Bill” Dalton took up where they left off. Incensed by the treatment his fallen brothers re - ceived in Coffeyville, Bill was very vocal as he stayed by brother Emmett’s side throughout his recov ery and trial. Bill surely seemed to have a chip on his shoulder and it wasn’t long before his name started appear ing in the newspa pers as he embarked on his own out- law career. He rode with Bill Doolin and several others from his brother’s old gang, but the name “Dalton” still held the repu tation, giving him credit as leader of the gang, mention of which put fear in the hearts of cit izens all over Kansas and Oklahoma. ______

William (Bill) Doolin was born in 1858, in Johnson County, Ar - kansas. In 1881, at the age of 23, he drifted west, working odd jobs and eventu ally ended up in Caldwell, KS, were he met Os car D. Halsall of Texas. Halsall hired Doolin to work for him on his ranch on the Cimarron River in Oklahoma, where he soon be came a top hand. It was dur ing his time of work ing as a that he met most of the mem bers of his fu - ture “Wild Bunch” gang, George “Bit ter Creek” New comb, Char- lie Pierce, Bill Power, Dick Broadwell, Bill “Tulsa Jack” Blake, and Emmett Dal ton. Doolin’s first brush with the law came in the summer of 1891, while working on the Bar X Bar Ranch. Several cowboys de cided Bill Doolin

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