Every first Friday in August the Frontierado Holiday is celebrated. Frontierado is about the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. Here’s another seasonal post.
SHOTGUN JOHN COLLINS – This overlooked gunslinger was like a talented session musician whose name isn’t better known to laymen mostly because of his time with assorted big-name rock bands. Shotgun John was born Abraham G. Graham in South Carolina on November 22nd, 1851. His great-grandfather had served under General Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, during the Revolutionary War.
In 1859 he and his family moved by wagon to Limestone County, Texas. As a teenager, this figure started getting in and out of trouble with the law and began using aliases like George Graham, John Graham, and John Collins. It was as Shotgun John Collins that our subject became best known.
During his teen years Shotgun John was in and out of jail for assorted offenses, but to that point not fatal ones. This time period saw our man forge casual friendships with future notorious figures like Johnny Ringo and John Wesley Hardin.
Once he started getting involved in cattle rustling, gunfights and horse theft it was a different story, and for a time Collins took it on the run to Mexico to lie low until the heat settled down. By the early 1870s Shotgun John was back in Texas working as a cattleman. Continue reading
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