FERD THE DANDY: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER

FERD THE DANDY (1821-1866) – The Frontierado holiday is coming up on Friday, August 4th this year, so here is another seasonal post from Balladeer’s Blog. This one covers a ruthless, yet often forgotten, gambler-gunslinger.

Ferdinand J. Patterson was born in Texas in 1821 and stayed off the historical grid until 1856, when he arrived in California for the later stages of the Gold Rush. Dressed like a dandy but 6 feet tall and packing a colt pistol and a Bowie knife, he began to clean up at card games. 

Come 1859 Ferd the Dandy had acquired too big a reputation as a professional gambler to even get in a game anymore, so he gravitated to the Sailors’ Diggings Gold Rush near Waldo, Oregon. The mining town had already known the murderous rampage of the Triskett Gang by the time Patterson arrived to stain Waldo with his own activities.

Circulating among the saloons, the Dandy regularly wiped out prospectors who foolishly joined him at the card tables. Eventually a pair of losing miners wound up in an argument with Ferd – an argument that escalated to a gunfight, with the gunman shooting them both to death.

Though found not guilty on self-defense grounds, Ferd the Dandy had gained a powerful enemy in the local sheriff, former Texas Ranger George Wells. One day the situation came to a head outside a saloon when the pair exchanged insults then went for their guns, seriously wounding each other. 

Both men recovered from their injuries, but Wells had permanently lost the use of his shooting arm. Ferd Patterson was then unceremoniously driven out of the area and ordered not to return.

The Dandy made his way to bustling San Francisco, where he gambled, partied and shot it out with the other raucous, dangerous denizens of the Barbary Coast, gunning down at least 3 more men. By 1861, Ferd’s success at the gaming tables had earned him a fortune plus a crowd of hangers-on and fellow gamblers.

At length, Ferd the Dandy and his entourage decided to take the steamer Panama from San Francisco to Portland, OR. Patterson’s most intimate companion was a 20-something female gambler whose name has not come down to us.

By now used to throwing their weight around, Ferd and his group virtually took over the ship’s saloon and card room during the journey. Unwary passengers lost their shirts to the loud, hard-drinking gamblers whose partying went on until the wee hours. 

While the Panama was temporarily anchored at Astoria, OR before moving on to Portland, a group of passengers complained to Captain G.W. Staples about the bawdy, late-night antics of Ferd the Dandy and his people. The captain suggested that the partiers turn in for the night, prompting harsh words between him and Patterson.

Captain Staples threatened to have Ferd clapped in irons for the rest of the journey and the Dandy backed down, but demanded satisfaction through a duel with Staples when they reached Portland. In that city, Ferd tracked down Captain Staples to the Pioneer Hotel, where an exchange of gunfire in the lobby left the captain dead.

Patterson was arrested and tried for the slaying, but rough and tough Oregon juries of the era were known to care only about whether or not a killing occurred during a fair fight. If so, as it had in this case, a Not Guilty verdict was reached very quickly.

The Dandy and his fellow travelers continued their wanton ways in Portland, and eventually Ferd engaged in a drunken, heated argument with his female companion. Patterson accused her of eyeing up other men and used his Bowie knife to partially scalp her before he was subdued by lawmen and locked up.

After another questionable trial, Ferd the Dandy was found Not Guilty, but whether the jury was paid off was raised as a possibility. Patterson returned to drinking and gambling.

In 1863 the Dandy wandered into Idaho City, ID and settled into his usual pastimes. City politics ran hot with passion over the ongoing Civil War, with Ferd and other Democrats rooting for the Confederacy while Idaho City Republicans led by Boise County Sheriff Sumner Pinkham (at right) pulled for the Union.

One time during a multi-day binge, Ferd the Dandy and his latest partying pals literally occupied a local brewery to get their beer right at the source, so to speak. The owner of the brewery complained to Sheriff Pinkham and his Deputy “Rube” Robbins, who paid Patterson and his gang a visit.

In the resulting ugly confrontation, Ferd went hand to hand against Pinkham and lost. Patterson’s group was thrown out of the brewery. The Dandy seethed over this defeat and spent a lot of money on Sumner Pinkham’s opponent during the sheriff’s race in 1864.

In October Pinkham lost to Ferd’s candidate, A.O. Bowen. While celebrating with fellow Bowen supporters, Patterson caught a glimpse of Sumner Pinkham walking by and followed along, taunting him. At length Pinkham slugged the Dandy and tossed him in the gutter.

Before long the former sheriff left to visit his dying mother in Illinois. When he returned in early 1865, Idaho City braced itself for what might come next between Ferd the Dandy and Sumner Pinkham.

Things simmered between the town’s Union and Confederate supporters for a time, and when the Union won the war in April the Union crowds were jubilant while the Confederate fans sulked and drank.

On the 4th of July, 1865, Sumner Pinkham led a parade of Union backers through the Idaho City streets singing patriotic songs, including the old one about “hanging Jefferson Davis from a sour apple tree.” Ferd Patterson told Pinkham to shut his mouth or he would shut it for him.

Sumner told the Dandy to try, and Patterson attacked him, knocking the American flag out of Sumner’s hands in the scuffle. Ferd spit on the flag as it lay on the ground and Pinkham told his foe he would kill him for that.

Neither man took further action at the moment, and the Independence Day festivities resumed. On July 23rd and 24th both Pinkham and Patterson were at the Warm Springs Resort outside of town. They came face to face, went for their guns and Ferd the Dandy killed the former sheriff in the gunfight.

Patterson mounted up and rode out of town in a hurry. Soon, Sumner’s former deputy Rube Robbins (at left) caught up with the Dandy and took him into custody about 15 miles away from Idaho City. Ferd’s friend Sheriff A.O. Bowen arrived on the scene and he and his deputies arrested Ferd Patterson.

Back at Idaho City, Sheriff Bowen and his men thwarted a lynch mob who wanted to kill Ferd the Dandy and held Patterson in the city jail, which was situated inside a stockade for extra security. A strategically placed cannon in the stockade further discouraged the vigilante mobs who hovered around it.

Ferd’s trial began in early November 1865 and after the 6-day legal proceeding he was acquitted, disgusting the friends of the late Sumner Pinkham. The Oregon newspaper of November 16th opined “This ruffian has gone through the farce of a trial by a jury of fellow ‘Democrats’ at Idaho City and, of course, has been acquitted. By those who know the character of Patterson and his associates in Idaho, no other verdict was anticipated.”

Given the volatile situation, Ferd the Dandy left Idaho City for good. Settling in Walla Walla, WA Patterson resumed boozing and gambling. In mid-February of 1866 Ferd had a hostile encounter with Hugh Donahue, the man who had arrested him for scalping his lady in Portland back in 1861.

The two men exchanged insults, and the next morning, February 15th 1866, while Ferd the Dandy was getting a shave at Richard Bogle’s barbershop, Donahue entered and shot Patterson to death, gangland execution style.

Hugh Donahue was tried for the slaying, but the jury deadlocked and a second trial was ordered. While Hugh was waiting in jail for that second trial, unknown parties helped Donahue escape one night and he vanished into history.