Tag Archives: neglected gunslingers

August 7, 2026 · 6:15 am

PRAIRIE DOG MORROW: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER FOR FRONTIERADO

HAPPY FRONTIERADO! The first Friday of every August marks Frontierado, the holiday devoted to the myth of the old west rather than the grinding reality.

Enjoy your buffalo steaks, rattlesnake fried rice, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, tumbleweed pizza, cactus salad and more today and tonight, and enjoy the leftovers on Saturday and Sunday.

PRAIRIE DOG MORROW – This overlooked gunslinger was also called Prairie Dog Dave Morrow. He was born on April 14th, 1837 in Jackson, Ohio. His was a farming family but that life didn’t appeal to David Morrow so in his teens he left home and made his way to California in hopes of making his fortune.

Morrow was still out there when the U.S. Civil War broke out and he enlisted in the Union Army at Camp Latham near Los Angeles. David served in the First California Cavalry as part of the storied California Column under Colonel James H. Carleton.

The unit was stationed in New Mexico and Arizona during the war, fighting Confederate forces and driving them out of short-lived Confederate Arizona and out of New Mexico and part of Texas. During the war years the First California also dealt with hostile Navajo and Apache flair-ups. Morrow was injured in the left leg and was later awarded a Veteran’s Pension of $4.00 per month. Continue reading →

14 Comments

Filed under FRONTIERADO

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

August 3, 2026 · 5:45 pm

BEAR RIVER TOM: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER

The Frontierado holiday is coming up this Friday, August 7th. As the holiday approaches and we are all making our preparations enjoy another seasonal post. 

Bear River Tom

BEAR RIVER TOM – That’s our neglected gunslinger in the photo to your left. One of the few actual gunmen to wear a fancy two-gun holster, Bear River Tom Smith’s tale begins with his birth in 1838 in New York City. He either did or did not serve in the Union Army in 1861 (accounts vary) but was definitely part of the NYC police force by 1862. By 1867 he headed west, working as a laborer laying track for the Union Pacific Railroad in Nebraska.

By 1868 the crew he was with had reached Wyoming, where the Hell On Wheels town of Bear River sprang up around their work camp. Bear River was to wild, lawless railroad towns what Dodge City, Kansas was to wild, lawless cattletowns.

Bear River Tom put his guns, fists and law enforcement experience to work protecting the town’s citizens from the drunken excesses of the railroad workers and the railroad workers from the Vigilante mobs the Bear River inhabitants had formed to curb the lawlessness.  Continue reading →

10 Comments

Filed under FRONTIERADO

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

July 16, 2026 · 10:13 am

TEXAS JACK VERMILLION: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER

The Frontierado Holiday falls on Friday, August 7th this year. As always, Frontierado is about the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. 

JOHN WILSON VERMILLION aka TEXAS JACK VERMILLION and “SHOOT-YOUR-EYE-OUT” VERMILLION, was born in Virginia in 1842 to William and Nancy Vermillion. After the Civil War broke out in 1861, Jack enlisted in the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry sometime in 1862.

When the war ended in April 1865, Jack moved to Indiana, where he married Margaret Horton that September. By 1866 Vermillion was working as a Territorial Marshall in the eastern part of still-chaotic post-Civil War Missouri.

As for how our man got the nickname Texas Jack, multiple possible explanations are given. One version states it came from his insistent preference for riding Texas Quarter-Horses. Another states it came from spending time in Texas in the late 1860s or early 1870s.

Some accounts state Vermillion claimed to be from Texas and related Tall Tales that the Lone Star State had jackrabbits as big as horses. One illogical account claims that when Jack was asked why he was called Texas Jack he replied “Because I’m from Virginia.” Well, okay then! 

At any rate, Jack and Margaret had a daughter named Mary and then a son whose name has not come down to us. A few weeks after that son was born, Marshall Vermillion had to travel as part of his duties. Different reasons are given, like extraditing a prisoner or prisoners, or pursuit of outlaws or prison escapees. Continue reading →

22 Comments

Filed under FRONTIERADO

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

August 29, 2016 · 8:24 pm

SAM SIXKILLER: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER

People who experienced their very first Frontierado with Balladeer’s Blog this year agreed it was a warm and beautiful experience they’ll remember for a lifetime. Anyway, to meet the demand for more Frontierado items til next year here’s one last neglected Wild West figure. 

Sam Sixkiller

Sam Sixkiller

1. SAM SIXKILLER – Not only does this  gunslinger have a name that screams out for cinematic treatment (or at least a cable television series) but he also saw more action than many western figures who are better known. Born in 1842 Sam Sixkiller was a Cherokee lawman in Oklahoma back when it was still being called Indian Territory and had not yet been opened up for white settlement. The unique setting of life in Indian Territory and the way it served as a microcosm of issues that the nation at large was dealing with after the Civil War adds layers of depth to Marshal Sixkiller’s tale that I find incredibly intriguing. 

After starting out in the Confederate Army, in 1863 Sam enlisted in the Union Army as the Civil War raged and saw action in Arkansas and Indian Territory. Because many Native Americans owned slaves (black and mixed-race) as their tribes had for centuries the Indian Territory was as split in terms of support for the Union and Confederacy as were badly-divided states like Missouri. Between conventional battles and Bushwacker raids the Territory was reduced to a wasteland in many areas by the  end of the war. In May 1865 Sam was discharged and returned to his wife Fannie to attend to their farm.

Following the Civil War the slaves in Indian Territory were declared Freedmen like the slaves in the late Confederacy, and as citizens of Indian Territory those Freedmen were in theory entitled to some of the money that was still being paid to the tribes in the Territory and to land. In reality the Five Civilized Tribes who called Indian Territory home were resentful of their former slaves’ new status and often used violence to drive out the freed slaves, even burning down their homes in many cases.

Outlaw bands would ride in to loot and pillage in the Territory then flee outside its borders to escape prosecution. In addition bootlegging and rustling were rampant and construction of railroads through Indian Territory brought new crimes. Throw in the usual inter-tribe conflicts that still surfaced and the Territory was a very dangerous place at the time. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Filed under FRONTIERADO

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

July 16, 2016 · 11:56 pm

SALLY SKULL: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER

Frontierado is Friday, August 5th! 

Sally SkullSALLY SKULL – Sara Jane Newman, the future Sally Skull, was born in Illinois in 1817. In 1823 her family moved to Fayette County in Texas, which was then part of the area that Mexico had seized from Native Americans. 

Like all the other ranch families in the area, whether from Mexico or the U.S., Sally and her family lived a rough life managing their land and surviving periodic assaults from the American Indians in the area. Sally killed her first man – an attacking Indian, when she was 11, using a rifle. At age 12 Sally was proficient with all firearms and provided plenty of food for the family table by hunting. 

In 1831 Sally’s father died and she began running the ranch for her grieving mother, even registering her father’s old brand in her own name. 1833 saw the 16 year old married to a Texas Ranger named Jess Robinson and settled in Gonzalez, TX, still part of Mexico.   

Over the next 10 years, as Texans rebelled against the tyrannical Mexican government and broke away to form their own Republic, Sally and Jess had 2 children who survived – a son and daughter. In 1843 the couple divorced and 11 days later Sally married a gunsmith named George Skull (or Scull), whose last name she would keep throughout all her future marriages.  Continue reading →

16 Comments

Filed under FRONTIERADO

Tagged as , , , , , ,