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. Continue reading
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