Most Feared Bounty Hunters of the Wild West: John Duncan...

the term gunfighter is used heavily in discussions of the Wild West this is despite the word being a general phrase meant to describe a number of professions and lifestyles on the Western frontier back in the old west gunfighter could mean ranchers and cowboy archetypes you see an artistic representations of the time period it could also relate to the Polar Opposites both lawmen and outlaws alike were forms of gunfighters always armed and ready for a show either for the greater good or the selfish bad gunfighters were also men and sometimes women who were otherwise members of everyday Industries such as Farmers or Teamsters which were the drivers of the wagons stagecoaches and after the turn of the 20th century automobiles even folks stuck with the labels of con man and gambler were referred to generally as gunfighters people who could defend themselves when their Vice of choice LED them into murkier Waters of all the professions spanning all the industries the most fascinating subgroup of gunfighters was the bounty hunters men dispatched by both the government and Powerful entities who venture out across the land in search of a man or woman who owes someone else money or other Goods while bounty hunting wasn't as popular a career as many Hollywood films and tales of the Wild West would suggest it was a way for some of the most experienced and isolated gunfighters to make a living while using their talents to the best of their abilities to cover these intriguing and incendiary figures of Western frontier lore here's the first in our series of both famous and Infamous bounty hunters starting with the legendary Texas Ranger and Bounty Hunter John Riley Duncan foreign [Music] Duncan nicknamed Jack by his family and closest confidants was born on September 25th 1850 to James and Catherine Duncan the family resided in North Central Kentucky where John was ultimately born he was one of a few boys all brothers who grew up conducting hard work on the Family Farm their dedication to the family ranch was only magnified after 1861 when John was just 10 years old the Duncan patriarch James Duncan was called to serve in the Confederate Army in the American Civil War Kentucky fell on the side of the rebellion and John and his brothers were too young to join their father instead they became important cogs to their North Central Kentucky Community an endearment with the region that would benefit John and Company into the post-war years after James Duncan returned from the war in 1865 he and his boys hunkered down to make a better life for themselves and a rebuilding self over the next five years The Duncan Family invested in various small businesses ranging from General stores and Food Services to blacksmiths and cobblers one year John Duncan himself attempted to start a Saddler shop repairing the Saddles of returning military men and aspiring Confederates turned Cowboys unfortunately for the family neither the Saddler shop or any of the other business ventures panned out the rest of North Central Kentucky didn't have much to offer in terms of a new way of life either and the Duncans were left directionless that is until James and Catherine decided it was time to finally say goodbye to the little farming Community they had been welcomed into and journey West like so many others had done before them while the days of dangerous wagon trains and Manifest Destiny weren't quite what they were at the beginning of the 19th century it was still no picnic attempting to Traverse the long journey out west the Duncans were up to the task now however but the three boys now grown into young adult men able to take on the heavy lifting themselves in the early 1870s the Duncan Clan completed their Trek to Northeast Texas and settled near Dallas treated John and his family much better than the rebuilt towns of rural Kentucky at the time it was a booming industrial Town seeing unparalleled growth with the completion of the railroads heading further west in another five years The Duncan Family Fortune had reversed for the best with James and his son John taking on honest work as butchers one of the other Duncan brothers made his stake to claim in the Land Management business all was well by 1875. Duncan's Clan's assimilation into Dallas nearly complete away from the residents though the City's population had balloons to nearly ten thousand and with the increase in people came the increase in conflicts and with conflict on the Western frontier only one thing could follow with an increase in Conflict came an increase in crime and an increase in crime could only mean additional Texas lawmen were needed when John Duncan First joined the Dallas police force the unit only comprised ten or so men and only a percentage of them had any history in the military or gunfighting or other relevant industry as a result John's lack of a gun-fighting background didn't deter the Dallas Police superiors from giving the kid from Kentucky a chance to join ranks in October of 1876 and make a positive impact on the community at first John stuck with fairly easy yet monotonous police work during the time period Dallas and many other flourishing industry cities along the frontier dealt with an out of control feral dog endemic John was one of the lucky police officers tasked with rounding up the feral dogs and either keeping them out of local businesses by Sheltering them or Exterminating them it wasn't Humane but at the time the folks of Dallas had no other choice as it was creating sanitary and safety issues across town after John had shown his ability to adjust on the Fly and handle menial jobs with Grace He was ordered to move on from a feral dogs for a while and instead focus on the human element of Dallas rather John was instead tasked with arresting disorderly drunks and small-time Petty thieves who used the Knight as their cloak into villainy within six short months John went from a former butcher to amateur peacock to respected lawmen of Dallas Texas many fellow officers and citizens alike applauded John for his hard work despite the tedious thankless nature his tasks usually came with luckily for John these feelings extended well beyond the confines of Dallas and deeper into the Lone Star sea it just so happened that around the same time in the spring of 1877 Texas officials were attempting to fry a much bigger fish and John Riley Duncan was the perfect recruit to join the operation foreign in the early 1870s an Infamous Outlaw of the old west by the name of John Wesley Hardin or Wes Hardin for short heavily involved himself with the Sutton Taylor Feud the Dual family conflict a popular such event of the time period was a feud between state lawmen and local almond of South Central Texas with lifelong Texan gunfighter Wes Hardin mixed up on the side of the Taylor family after running from the law since he was a boy little Arkansas as they came to know him Wes Hardin pushed the top Texas officials both before and after the Sutton Taylor Feud he was Notorious for his outlandish stories and unhinged demeanor and always seemed to slip through long-term incarceration whenever the moment was imminent Wes Harden's ultimate downfall was eventually spurred on May 26 1874 in a small city called Comanche Texas he was about to have a drink with a popular Sheriff of Brown County at the time Charles Webb when he double-crossed Webb and killed him in a gunfight it's long been argued why Harden shot Webb despite the latter's claim he had no intention of arresting the Texan Outlaw that day despite his lengthy list of crimes some believe he was pulling out an arrest warrant for one of the Taylor family criminals a part of hardin's Posse and Hardin mistook it for a gun taking out his own weapon and starting the shootout in the aftermath Hardin escaped while the rest of his family and cohorts either went into hiding or were put into protective custody when the leader of the Sutton family faction was murdered the following year Harden's Time free from capture was coming to a swift close in January of 1875 the governor of Texas at the time Richard B Hubbard was given authorization by the state legislature to offer any Lawman a whopping four thousand dollars for the arrest of Wes Hardin many state and local authorities tried their hand at tracking down Hardin but nobody had the connections needed to pinpoint his location in the open Rural Plains of Texas if that is except for one Lawman who is brand new to the profession but a potential valuable piece to the Wes hardened puzzle John Riley Duncan after impressing the folks of Dallas for months and collecting a vast array of arrests and other achievements while on the police force John superiors gathered Intel on the Texas Rangers pursuit of Hardin the Rangers had been visiting other small locales around the area hoping to find fellow lawmen who might lend a hand in finding one at Outlaws a few Dallas officials remembered John and his family's presence in Northeast Texas and how the butcher turned officer was both friendly and familiar with the state's smaller settlements thus in July 1877 John Duncan met with a high-ranking members of the Texas Rangers in a meeting organized by his superiors while John didn't know much about bounty hunting which was a term not yet used by the general public he didn't need much persuasion to take on the Rangers assignment afterwards John began his Endeavor that now seems like it was ripped straight from a Hollywood Western rather than the Western frontier itself he was tasked with going undercover and collecting information in Gonzales County Texas where a bulk of hardin's family and his wife's family lived John hunkered down in Gonzales County for a couple of weeks maintaining his disguise so as to not draw suspicious eyes before long he was monitoring the Postal Service activities happening in and around the extended Hardin family residences this would later prove to be his first clue one day John Duncan intercepted an envelope marked for Wes hardin's father-in-law inside was a letter written by Joshua Brown Bowen Wes hardin's brother-in-law in the letter Brown wrote that Hardin had recently been using a small farming town near the border of Alabama and Florida as a safe house hiding under the Alias of James W Swain after procuring a bit more Intel John informed his fellow Texas Rangers of his discovery his supervisors including lieutenant John Barkley Armstrong applauded his work and dispatched him to Southeastern Alabama where his undercover work would progress it didn't take long for John to uncover the next clue just off the Gulf Coast in Pensacola Florida West Hardin was detected in the midst of a major gambling spree unaware that the Texas Rangers were hot on his Trail knowing they didn't have all the time in the world to act however John Duncan and the ranger company connected with the local authorities to fill them in on Wes hardened LED plans gaining the help of the railroad officials and a longtime Florida judge the newly founded Posse set up an ambush at a Pensacola rail yard on the 24th of August 1877 the crew of ramen set up their posts around inconspicuous corners of the railyard as well as inside the actual train car in question it was there the railroad operator would intentionally smoke out the car withholding Harden and forced him into a crowd of Rangers as soon as the smoke started however Hardin knew something was amiss and tried to draw his gun a 44 Colt pistol at the time he didn't get afar however as the handgun got stuck in his suspenders the undercover officers on board leapt up and started a melee with the wanted Outlaw alongside the sidekicks he dragged along with him and rendered the gun useless after a few minutes of fist fighting and wrestling down the criminals of foot the aforementioned Lieutenant Armstrong knocked hard and unconscious after which he was promptly arrested one of his cohorts Jim Mann was shot and killed while the rest of the gang joined Hardin in prison the longtime Texas Outlaw was finally behind bars where he would remain for the next 17 years foreign Texas John Duncan was seen as a hero for orchestrating such a successful yet dangerous undercover mission taking down one of the Lone Star State's most notorious bad guys by the time the dust settled and John received that four thousand dollar reward from Governor Hubbard however his commitment to the Texas Rangers waned as Lieutenant Armstrong attempted to bring him into the fold full-time John had other ideas after a short four-month career with the Rangers John decided to pursue bounty hunting for the rest of his working life the reward was too good to settle for Trump change that came with state law enforcement he may have also fallen in love with the adrenaline filled lifestyle of hunting down criminals by his lonesome without the pressure of the law nipping at his heels nevertheless John Duncan pressed forward into the dark and seedy sides of the Greater Dallas Texas community feral dog assignments quickly became bounties for hardened violent strangers taking the former butcher through all sorts of crumbling gambling Halls scandalous brothels and his fair share of saloons soaked in controversy in one such instance John was shot by a sex worker while Undercover on February 9 1878. the circumstances surrounding the incident have always remained a mystery but it was so sudden and shocking to the Bounty Hunter he almost lost his life when a doctor attempted to find the bullet in the days after the shooting they were unable to remove it from John's body leading to lead poisoning years later due to the lead John underwent an emergency tracheotomy otherwise he would perish as a result the Bounty Hunter received a breathing tube made of silver to be inserted into his trachea while his breathing and voice were forever altered by the procedure it still didn't thwart his passion for bounty hunting nor did it diminish his skill by 1895 John Duncan had collected at least 20 other bounties after claiming the reward on Wes Hardin altogether these bounties totaled over twelve thousand dollars in prize money or about 425 thousand dollars when adjusted for inflation it might not seem like much when spread over an 18-year career but John was only 45 when he retired from bounty hunting the landscape of the law was rapidly changing both in Texas and throughout the rest of the frontier and bounty hunters were no longer relied on for rounding up the slippery Scoundrels that still roamed the streets vigilante justice wasn't looked on as kindly or rather officials could no longer turn the other cheek major reform took the bounty hunting profession by storm and many either rejoined local authorities or searched for new sectors popping up as City's populations grew John Duncan was of the latter group finding employment in areas such as carpentry and security for the core of engineers for a time he was the head inspector at Dallas sanitation the perfect job to hold while he helped raise four children with his wife Emma Jane Bowles two had married back in October of 1884 while John was still a bounty hunter [Music] in a cruel twist of fate John Duncan's revering life spent chasing criminals and outlawing Outlaws came to a tragic end on November 16 1911. John who is 61 at the time crashed his brush run about south of Dallas and died from his injuries it is unknown what exactly caused the death but many believe his breathing tube installed from the tracheotomy had been dislodged and lost in the crash if anything it was a sad way for a man of such Legend to go by regardless it's hard to read about The Life and Legacy of the former butcher turned Bounty Hunter and not feel like he helped Define the lifestyle at Large he embodied so much of what it meant to go against the grain of the old west and take down Outlaws he was intelligent but humble well traveled get a family man courageous without pride and above all willing to go the extra mile and outplay his Rivals it's why there were double-digit names on the list he crossed off for good in 1895. John Riley Duncan was one hell of a good Bounty Hunter and his capture of Wes Harden and the exploits that followed sure do make one hell of a good story much like the Wild Wild West itself

Channel: Footprints of The Frontier

Views: 145,401

Keywords:

Id: EvrDqghzXH8

Length: 18min 43sec (1123 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 27 2023