John Selman

Children from El Paso in the late Nineteenth Century remembered John Selman as the kindly town constable, "Uncle John", who would hand out candy as he walked down the street. Citizens of Lincoln County, New Mexico remembered John as the leader of the "Selman Scouts", a band of killers who made the depredations of Billy the Kid and his friends look like an evening concert of the Vienna's Boy Choir. Of course, western history buffs know John as the man who shot John Wesley Hardin.

John Selman, one of the deadliest and most murderous gunman in the history of the Old West, was born November 16, 1839. Like many southerners, he joined the Confederate Army. He also deserted the Confederate Army and returned home only to be arrested and brought back for court martial. Fortunately (for John) by that time the war was over, and Uncle Sam was in charge again. John was allowed to return to his family at Fort Davis.

John at first seemed a fairly typical farmer of the post-bellum West Texas Plains. He moved his family to Fort Griffin where he became a friend and associate of, John Larn, the sheriff of Shackleton County. Fort Griffin, we should add, was one of the roughest and wildest places in the West, and John Larn one of the roughest and wildest of men. He had no hesitation in shooting a man down if it suited his purpose and was reported to have killed several men, some for no reason. Selman became Larn's deputy, although as typical for lawmen of the time, they were also ranchers and entrepreneurs.

Oh, yes. And rustlers as well. This might normally not be too much of a problem since, as one old timer put it, rustling was hardly considered a crime - if you could get away with it. Respectable ranchers and rustlers were often one and the same.

That was true for law breakers and law men as well. It was common enough for a man to pin on a badge one year and go rob banks another - and sometimes even in the same year. There were, though, certain bounds you should not overstep. In particular, a lawman should not rob and steal from the local citizenry. That was the problem with the two Johns. Eventually the good people of Shackleton County noticed how their own herds got smaller, while the Larn and Selman herds got larger. Eventually feelings ran high enough so that in 1877 Larn resigned as sheriff. But he and Selman continued in large scale rustling and eventually the matter came to the attention of the Texas rangers and private detectives.

Indictments were returned against both men, and in the summer of 1878, Larn was arrested at his ranch. But the townspeople knew that the workings of (legal) justice in West Texas were often slow and uncertain, and a group of men wearing masks - quote - "overpowered" - unquote - the jailers (one of whom later helped Pat Garrett find Billy the Kid). Informing John they would not hang him because they knew of his good qualities, they shot him down in his cell. Selman avoided arrest and headed off for greener pastures

The greener pastures John high tailed it to were in Lincoln County, New Mexico. At the time, though, the region was in the midst of the "Lincoln County War", a period of violence and anarchy prompted by competition between two general stores a couple of hundred yards apart. The winner of the war was a young businessman named Jimmy Dolan, and the losing side was headed by the twenty-three year old Englishman, John Tunstall, and his attorney, Alexander McSween. Tunstall had also gone into ranching and at one point had hired a young cowboy named Henry McCarty. Henry, though, was on the lam for two murders (both in self-defense) and was going by the name of William Bonney. Only later did Henry (or William) pick up the sobriquet of Billy the Kid.

Selman, though, wasn't involved in the actual Lincoln County War itself, but simply took advantage of the chaos the war engendered. He and a group of men, which included his brother Tom and an equally hard case named John Gunther, roamed the countryside as "Selman's Scouts". They stole cattle and horses, burned homes, shot down the local citizenry, and - in the words of the news reports - "used women for their own pleasure". The depredations were both indiscriminant and inconsistent. John and his friends might kill a fourteen year old boy to steal his horse and then let an older man go with his mount because the man showed grit.

Eventually, though, the Lincoln County residents banded together and drove John and his men out of the territory. Back in Texas, the band split up, partly through internal dissention, but also because Selman came down with smallpox. The others left John at Fort Davis and the townspeople put him in a tent a mile from town. This may seem harsh, but in their own way they were doing what they could. They even paid a local man to bring John food and drink. After a while the man either forgot or simply got bored and left John by himself.

John recovered from the smallpox but by then he was nearly dead from starvation and thirst. However, a Mexican farmer and his daughter came by and found the outlaw raving and near mad, covered with flies, and with open sores festering with maggots. They were able to treat John's wounds and bring him back to health. John offered them payment, which they refused. This episode seems to have mellowed John considerably.

By 1880, then, John was a reasonably respectable citizen of Fort Davis, although it was still a wild and wooly town. But even though John had adopted more or less (sometimes less) law abiding ways, there was still the indictment outstanding against him from Shackleton County. Given all the crimes John was guilty of, a charge of rustling seemed insignificant, and eventually the charge was dropped. John's wife, left back in Texas, had died, and John and his two boys, William and John Marion, now nearly grown, moved to El Paso.

After a number of jobs - including being a salesman for John Deere farm equipment - John managed to get elected town constable. Despite his questionable past, he seems to have been a fairly straightforward lawman, running a respectable department. He married a young Hispanic woman, and according to John Marion (usually called John, Jr.), the family life was congenial. John, Jr. got along well with his stepmother who was by all accounts an educated and gracious woman. The younger John served as his father's deputy and was widely liked and respected. Jeff Milton, an extremely tough lawman and US deputy marshal, called John, Jr., "the finest boy with the sorriest daddy" you ever knew.

Running a respectable department, though, doesn't mean Old John was a saint. There were rumors he had various shading dealings, and one time he nearly got killed by two mysterious assailants - mysterious to the townspeople, though probably not to John. He also had some problems with the famous John Wesley Hardin who was now living in El Paso, having recently been paroled from his life sentence. Wes had set himself up as (get this) an attorney, but spent much of his time gambling and hanging out in barrooms. It's hard to tell how Wes and Old John got along, but during the course of official duty, John, Jr. had arrested Wes's girlfriend, Beulah M'Rose, for being disorderly and carrying a pistol. This may have forged hard feelings between the Selmans and Wes, but at the time Beulah laughed the episode off. After all, everyone liked John, Jr., and Wes didn't seem perturbed, either.

Be that as it may, on August 19, 1895, Old John walked into the Acme Saloon where Wes was shooting dice. John pulled his pistol and shot Wes dead. Whether the shooting was in the back, or if Wes turned and was pulling his own gun has been disputed every since. John was arrested by his son, John, Jr., but the trial ended in a hung jury.

On the night of April 5, and while awaiting retrial, John encountered the US Deputy Marshal George Scarborough. A discussion began, and the men repaired to a back alley. No one knows what happened but voices were raised and the men went for their guns. John was shot and died the next day. George himself was arrested and acquitted. Four years later George was in a gunfight near Deming, New Mexico. He was wounded in the leg, which had to be amputated. George died four days later, which was, as many people like to point out, four years to the day after the death of John Selman.

 

References

John Selman: Texas Gunfighter, Leon Metz, University of Oklahoma Press (1980). As usual, Leon's books are well worth reading. This is the best - and as far as CooperToons knows - the only biography of John Selman. A well written and documented book with details on his fights with John Wesly Hardin and George Scarborough.

Jeff Milton: A Good Man with a Gun, J. Evetts Haley, University of Oklahoma Press (1948). The biography of Jeff Milton, an acquaintance (but not friend) of John. The author, J. Evetts Haley, was an early and renown (and long lived) western historian who interviewed many of the actual principles of Old West history, Among Evetts sources were Jeff himself and George Coe, a rancher of Lincoln County whose house was robbed and burned by John Selman, and who was a friend of Billy the Kid. Evetts himself was known to attract controversy, particularly when he, a Texan, published "A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power", which had quite a few pointed comments and sharp opinions on the then President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters, Bill O'Neal, University of Oklahoma Press (1983). A standard reference work listing all documented gunfights of the Old West. Bill compiled the statistics for the most active gunfighters and Uncle John ranks surprisingly, high.