Tom Horn

Tom Horn (born November 21, 1860 or 1861 near Memphis , Missouri , † November 20, 1903 in Cheyenne , Wyoming ; actually Thomas Horn Jr. ) was a member of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency . He participated as a scout for the United States Army in the search for the Apache Geronimo . He later worked as a bounty hunter and was hired by ranchers in the Wyoming area to take action against cattle thieves. However, when he was charged with the death of a 14-year-old boy, he was tried and sentenced to death by hanging . The 1980 film Me, Tom Horn , starring Steve McQueen , refers to his life story. After the Indian Wars , Horn is said to have murdered between 22 and 24 people, but this number can neither be confirmed nor refuted.

youth

Tom Horn was the fourth of eight children of the German-born farmer Thomas S. Horn and Mary Ann Maricha nee Miller. He was a restless boy during his childhood. He was often beaten by his parents, who both had strong religious principles. After receiving a beating from his father, he ran away from home at the age of 13 or 14. In Kansas , Horn found short-term employment with the railroad. As a driver for the Santa Fe interurban post office, he was paid $ 50 a month.

Scout, deputy and detective

At sixteen, he decided to join the United States Army as a scout. He remained in the army for about a decade, taking part in the battle against the Apache Geronimo and his men, which surrendered in the Sonora area in 1886 . His contacts with the Indians and his language skills meant that he was called in as an interpreter at the trial against the Apache Kid . The Apache gave him the name "Talking Boy". In 1886 he succeeded Al Sieber as “Chief of Scouts” . On July 4, 1889, Horn von Globe traveled to the then still small town of Phoenix to take part in a competitive sport called the "Cowboy Competition". Horn as a trained cowboy won this competition against the legendary Charlie Meadows . Although the bull had a 50 yard lead, he was able to lasso and tie him up in a new record time of 58 seconds . On 16-18 In October 1889 there was another head-to-head race against Meadows. Again, he won the competition with one minute and 19 seconds. Buffalo Bill was among the audience . The performance convinced him so much that he offered both men to appear on his Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show . At that time Horn was serving as Deputy Sheriff in Gila County , Arizona with Sheriff Glenn Reynolds. The Pinkerton Detective Agency also noticed him and hired him. His investigative trips took him to Colorado and Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains . His calm manner in which he was able to solve the cases assigned to him made him known far beyond the agency. In 1894 he did not quit his job at the Pinkerton Detectiv Agency entirely voluntarily.

In the following years he was Deputy US Marshal and worked as a detective for some wealthy ranchers in Wyoming and Colorado. During the Johnson County War he was employed by the Wyoming Stock Grower's Association.

Under General William Rufus Shafter he was hired as a packer in 1898 after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War . According to unconfirmed statements, Horn in Cuba suffered from malaria and probably did not take part in any acts of war as a result.

Horn came back to Wyoming around 1900 and worked for the wealthy cattle baron and chief of the Iron Mountain Ranch Company, John C. Coble. He carried out his orders to prevent cattle theft harshly and mercilessly. The perfect sniper would also shoot cattle thieves from a long distance. According to his own statements, he received $ 600 for every cattle thief shot. Killing became his business. After killing two cattle thieves named Powell and Lewis, he was immediately suspected of the act. Then he lay in wait and shot and killed the cattle thief leader, a certain Matt Rash. When a black cowboy named Isom Dart was suspected of grazing stolen cattle on his ranch, Horn got money and ambushed the suspect. Isom Dart was shot dead on October 3, 1900. After these 4 murders, Horn had "cleaned up" the whole of Brown's Hole and was sent out to clean up cattle thieves in other areas as well.

Willie Nickell

On July 18, 1901, Willie Nickell, the fourteen-year-old son of a sheep farmer, was murdered in ambush near Iron Mountain on the Powder River, near Cheyenne, Wyoming. The tall son wore his father's hat and coat, and from 300 yards away he looked very much like his father.

Court hearing

Horn had been arrested for the murder in 1902 after a questionable conversation with Joe Lefors, a US marshal. The public prosecutor's office was represented by Walter Stoll in this case. During the investigation, the prosecution received a vague confession from Lefors, which he had recorded by Horn while he was drunk. Since only certain parts of Horn's statement were used, this distorts the meaning of the statement. Glendolene M. Kimmell, a schoolteacher who knew the Miller family, testified that Jim Miller was nervous the morning of the murder. Jim Miller and young Nickell's father had several arguments over Nickell grazing his sheep in the Millers' meadows.

No effort was made to investigate the involvement of other possible suspects. In essence, Horn's reputation and life story made him an easy target of justice. Horn was sentenced to death by hanging. To this day, it is still debated whether Horn really committed the murder.

His mentor Al Sieber said after learning about the verdict: “As I know him and taking into account all possible possibilities, I cannot and will not believe that Tom Horn is the man as the newspapers try to make the world credible to make that it was him. These words and feelings cannot be posed, because I cannot believe that the happy, funny and honest Tom Horn, as I knew him, was a deeply unhappy murderer. "

In 1993 the case was retried in Cheyenne at a show trial and Horn was acquitted.

"The Julian Gallows"

Tom Horn was the first of nine people in the "Wild West" to be hanged using an automated process. The designer James P. Julian from Cheyenne, Wyoming, designed and built the "machine" in 1892, after which it was called "The Julian Gallows" (The Julian Gallows).

On the morning of November 20, 1903, one day before his 42nd birthday, Tom Horn was taken to the gallows after a hearty breakfast . Straps were placed around his arms and legs. Horn was the least nervous about any of the witnesses present at this point. The noose was put around his neck and the bound man went into the trapdoor; so he started the rest of the process himself. A three-part support beam connected by two hinges was pressed down on a compression spring by its weight . A valve was opened by means of a lever, allowing water to flow out of a storage container via a hose. A metal bucket attached to a rocker arm served as a storage container . A counterweight was loosely placed on the opposite side of the rocker arm. Due to the continuously flowing water and the decrease in weight, the counterweight, curved in the shape of a horseshoe, began to slide. After slipping off the rocker arm, it fell down and pulled over a pulley and a knotted rope on the support beam. The support beam was jerked under the trap door after about 50 seconds to tip over, the trap door opened and the 91 kg delinquent fell almost 2 meters through until the rope tightened and broke his neck .

• However, the version of another source reports a different process:

“ Because of the handcuffs, Tom couldn't go on the trap door himself, so he had to be lifted onto it. A black hood was pulled over him and 31 seconds later the trap door opened and he fell four and a half feet (137 cm [too short]) deep. His death was not as quick as shown in the film, but was knocked unconscious by the hangman's knot , but his neck was not broken. He only died 17 minutes later as a result of the strangulation. "

Tom Horn's brother Charles (1852-1930) brought the body to Boulder, Colorado to be buried there in Columbia Cemetery.

Cinematic reception

• 1954: Stories of the Century (TV episode) - with Louis Jean Heydt as Tom Horn
• 1979: Mr. Horn - His Path to the Gallows ( Mr. Horn ) - with Richard Widmark as Al Sieber and David Carradine as Tom Horn
• 1980: Me, Tom Horn ( I, Tom Horn ) - with Steve McQueen
• 2009: TV series: Frontier Hitman

literature

German

• Willy Henry: I Tom Horn. Heyne Verlag, 1982, ISBN 3-453-20355-0 .
• Robert (di Heinz J Stammel): Tom Horn, the gunslinger. Ullman Verlag, ISBN 3-404-48020-1 .

English

• Tom Horn, Dean Krakel: Life of Tom Horn, (Government Scout and Interpreter: A Vindication). University of Oklahoma Press, 1979, ISBN 0-8061-1044-9 , Autobiography , 1904.
• Lauren Palme: TOM HORN - Man of the West. Barre Publishing Company, 1963.
• John H. Monnett, Miachel McCarthy: Colorado Profiles. University Press of Colorado, 1990, ISBN 0-87081-439-7 .
• Chip Carlson: Tom Horn; Killing Men Is My Specialty. The Definitive History of the Nortorious Wyoming Stock Detective. Beartooth Corral, 1991, ISBN 0-9630248-0-9 .
• Chip Carlson: Tom Horn; Blood on the Moon (Dark History of the Murderous Cattle Detective). High Plains Press, 2001, ISBN 0-931271-59-2 .
• Eugene Cunningham: Triggernometry (A Gallery of Gunfighter). Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8061-2837-2 .
• Jay Monaghan, Larry D. Ball: Tom Horn: Last of the Bad Men. University of Nebraska Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8032-8234-6 .
• Dean Fenton Krakel: The Saga of Tom Horn: The Story of a Cattlemen's War. University of Nebraska Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8032-2719-1 .
• Will Henry: The Hunting of Tom Horn. Leisure Books, 1999, ISBN 0-8439-4484-6 .
• Andrew J. Fenady, Claws of the Eagle: A Novel of Tom Horn and the Apache Kid. Thorndike Press, 2004, ISBN 0-7862-5933-7 .
• Andrew J. Fenady: Tom Horn and the Apache Kid. Leisure Books, 2009, ISBN 0-8439-6223-2 .
• Tom Horn: Life of Tom Horn, Government Scout and Interpreter. BiblioBazaar, 2009, ISBN 1-110-32432-4 .
• Jon Chandler: Wyoming Wind: A Story of Tom Horn. BBC Audiobooks Ltd, 2009, ISBN 0-7862-3769-4 .

Web links

• Tom Horn German website (archive.og)
• The Life Story of Tom Horn Deseret Evening News dated November 20, 1903
• Horn at IMDb (archive.org)
• Wyoming Photographs - Tom Horn
• Tom Horn in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Tom Horns Winchester
• The Arizona Prospector: The Spell of the West (archive.org)
• Newspaper reports “Tom Horn, Man of Mistery” at Saddletramp Swami
• Tom Horn in "Arizona Highways" - online , May 1996, PDF, 19.55 MB, accessed April 24, 2016

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The inscription with the year of birth 1861 on the stone of the grave, into which the older brother Tom Horns had him transferred, seems to be wrong. Photo of the tombstone .
2. ↑ Originally there were 12 children, four of whom died. Chip Carlson: Tom Horn: Blood on the Moon, pages 22-28.
3. ↑ For 26 days of work he received $ 21
4. ↑ Tom Horn met at the age of 15 ( July 1876 ) in Fort Whipple ( memento of the original from April 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Al Sieber, who was 33 at the time . Sieber hires Horn for $ 75 a month , looked after the young man like a son, and trained him to be a scout. For Tom Horn these were the happiest years of his life . 
5. ↑ In addition to English, Horn spoke German, Spanish, Apache and various other Indian dialects. The Kalispell bee., November 24, 1903, Page 2
6. ↑ Denis McLoughlin: The Encyclopedia of the Old West (Google Books, p. 236, line 5 ff) Tom Horn (met Al Sieber) learned to speak fluent Spanish (1880/1883) ... fluent Apache (1883/1885) ...
7. ↑ Wolf Kohl: Cinema . Kino Verlag, issue 27, August 1979, p. 72
8. ↑ Horn was already defeated by Meadows at the Payson "Rodeo" in November 1888 by just a few seconds. "Charlie Meadows was a genuine Western Idol and Legend" ( Memento of the original from February 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Tom Horn roping in Phoenix ( Memento of the original from February 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ The Roosevelt troop of the Rough Riders fought in Cuba. Spell of the West ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Horn joined a large pack train being organized in Saint Louis. By the time the train reached Florida on the way to Cuba, he had been promoted to packmaster. The war was brief, Teddy Roosevelt stormed San Juan Hill to land in the White House, and Horn came down with fever without seeing any action. Weak and still shaking from malaria, he arrived in New York to be discharged from the army as chief packer at $ 133 a month. 
11. ↑ Horn was receiving $ 600 for every rustler he killed. He is alleged to have killed around 22 to 24 rustlers during this period alone. Horn once is alleged to have said, “Killing men is my specialty”.
12. ^ Dart, Isom (1849-1900) , Black Past, The Online Reference Guide to African American History, accessed December 28, 2015
13. ↑ Original expression: "..knowing him, as I do, and taking all into consideration, I cannot, and will not, ever believe that Tom Horn was the man the newspapers tried to make the world believe he was." Sieber was adamant. "These words and sentiments cannot be put too strong, for I can never believe that the jolly, jovial, honorable and whole souled Tom Horn I knew was a low down miserable murderer."
14. ↑ The gallows were invented in 1892 by Cheyenne architect James P. Julian but had not been used before .
15. ↑ Wyoming Frontier Prison: "Nine men were hung this way."
16. ^ Image documentation by James Julian in Cheyenne prison and a functional model of the Julian Gallows
17. ↑ The Kalispell bee., November 24, 1903, Page 2: "... and in 50 seconds the trap fell."
18. ↑ 200lbs = approx. 90.72 kg
19. ↑ 6 feet corresponds to 183 cm
20. ↑ Quote "... after 45 seconds the mechanism automatically released the trap door. Horn falls 6 feet in silence. ”[John H. Monnett, Miachel McCarthy: Colorado Profiles , University Press of Colorado, 1990, ISBN 0-87081-439-7 , p. 133]
21. ↑ English drop tables from 1892/1913 to 1913, according to this weight, four feet and two inches were specified, but this turned out to be too short. From 1913 the table was changed, it was then at least 5 feet (= 1.5 m) {up to a maximum of 8 feet 6 inches (= 2.59 m) with a weight of 118 lbs. (= 53.5 kg)}
22. ↑ Horn Vs Hollywood : "Because of the shackles on Tom he had to be lifted onto the trapdoor of the gallows and then the black hood was placed over his head. Thirty-one seconds after Tom was placed on the trap he fell four-and-a-half feet into eternity. His death was not as pleasant as portrayed in the movie either. When he fell he was knocked unconscious by the heavy hangman's knot and died of strangulation seventeen minutes later. "
23. ^ R. Michael Wilson: Outlaw Tales of Wyoming: True Stories of the Cowboy State's Most Infamous Crooks, Culprits, and Cutthroats . Globe Pequot, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7627-4506-7 , p. 115.
24. ↑ Tom Horn TV series, with Louis Jean Heydt in the role of Tom Horn
25. ↑ Two-part television series German first broadcast on July 25, 1993 on ZDF
26. ↑ Cowboys and Outlaws at IMDb
27. ↑ Autobiography , Download – PDF, 16 MB