Lester Moore -- No Les No More

The American Cowboy Chronicle ^ | June 1, 2017 | Tom Correa

[Texas Fossil]

Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona, is the final resting place for over a couple of hundred people. They include gunmen, outlaws, lawmen, gamblers, cowboys, a man wrongly hanged, blacksmiths, soiled doves, miners, business men and women, housewives, children, and those only known to God "who died with their boots on."

Those buried there includes Marshal Fred White who was 31 years old when he was accidentally shot and killed by Curly Bill Brocius on October 30th, 1880. The reason I say "accidentally" is because that's what Marshal White said before he died.

Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, and Billy Clanton are there. We all know they were killed in the shootout near the O.K. Corral on October 26th, 1881.

James "Tex" Howard, William E. "Billy" Delaney, Dan "Big Dan" Dowd, Omer W. "Red" Sample, and Daniel "York" Kelly are buried there. All were the perpetrators of the Bisbee Massacre.  All were legally hanged on March 28th, 1884. 

Then there's the story of how William Kinsman ended up in Boothill. The story goes that someone put a notice in the Tombstone Epitaph that William Kinsman intended to marry May Woodman. Since they were already living together, this made Kinsman angry. His anger obviously overrode his better judgement and he made the big mistake of running his own ad in the Epitaph stating that he had no intentions of ever marrying May Woodman. 

On February 23rd,1883, William Kinsman was standing in front of the Oriental Saloon on Allen Street when May Woodman walked up and shot him dead. And yes, this goes to the heart of not publicly embarrassing a woman.  After all, it's one thing to be talked about in whispers and a whole nother thing to be made a fool of in the local newspaper.

Woodman was sentenced to five years in Yuma Territorial Prison for killing Kinsman. The acting governor pardoned her after she had served less than one year. And while Kinsman is in Boothill, there's no telling whatever happened to May Woodman.

Jack Dunlop, the bandit known as "Three Fingered Jack," died of gunshot wounds on February 24th, 1900, after an attempted holdup. And yes, he's there.

George Johnson's marker can be found there. It states "Here lies George Johnson, hanged by mistake 1882. He was right we were wrong. But we strung him up and now he's gone." Of course the only problem with his marker is that no one can verify that a man named George Johnson was lynched in Arizona in 1882.

As for John Heath, he was accused of organizing the robbery that led to the 1883 Bisbee massacre. He has a grave marker near the grave of the five perpetrators of the massacre. Heath was arrested and convicted, and was later removed from the Tombstone jail by an angry group of 50 citizens. 

Those citizens lynched Heath on February 22nd, 1884, from a telegraph pole on Second Street. And though there is a grave marker there for him, he was not buried in Boothill Cemetery. In fact, John Heath's body was returned to his wife in Terrell, Texas, and buried in the Oakland Cemetery there.

Thomas Harper is an outlaw supposedly buried in Tombstone's Boothill Cemetery. He was said to be a friend of Curly Bill Brocius. Harper was hanged for murder by Sheriff Bob Paul in Tucson on July 8th, 1881. And though he too has a marker there in Tombstone's Boothill, Harper is actually buried in Tucson.

One marker that is there simply reads, "DUTCH ANNIE 1883." It is an epitaph too short for someone known by the broke and desperate as a true friend. She is said to have grub-staked many. She is also said to have gone to her eternal rest with more than 1,000 people following her coffin. All paying tribute to "Dutch Annie – Queen of the Red Light District."

In Tombstone's Boothill Graveyard, there is a plot in row six that has become famous. It has become famous more for the marker that says who's there, than for the soul that's buried there.

Lester Moore has become forever known for the epitaph inscribed on his headstone. It reads, 

Here Lies

Lester Moore

Four Slugs

From a .44

No Les

No More

When was he born? No one knows. As for his death? It's said to be 1880, but no month or day is known. Then again, it could be a year other than 1880. Supposedly there was a Lester Moore who was a Wells Fargo Station Agent in the Mexico-United States border town of Naco, Arizona. in the early 1880s. As the station agent, Moore was responsible for delivering items shipped. Yes, he worked the window and dealt with all sorts of customers.

It's said that Hank Dunstan arrived at the Wells Fargo station to pick up a package he was expecting. Dunstan was surprised to see that the package was badly handled and was actually a shambles when Moore handed it to him. And as expected, Dunstan wasn't happy with the condition of his delivery and soon became angry over the poor condition of the battered package.

Dunstan voiced his complaint to Moore, and soon enough they were arguing. Their argument quickly escalated to where both men reached for their guns. And yes, soon shots were fired. 

The rest of the story goes that Hank Dunstan shot Lester Moore four times with his .44 caliber revolver. Moore didn't go down without a fight since it's said that he managed to fire at least one shot. It hit Dunstan in the ribs. So when the smoke cleared, Lester Moore lay dead behind his window and Hank Dunstan lay mortally wounded. All in all both men ended up dead.

Lester Moore's body was transported to the town of Tombstone, where he was buried in the Boothill Graveyard. As for Hank Dunstan, no one knows where he is buried. That's the tale of Lester Moore as repeated for years. But frankly, there may be more to this story.

For example, as for his name, the name of Lester Moore doesn't appear in a 1880 Census. But, a Lewis Moore does show up. A reader sent me information showing that while the 1880 Census doesn't have Lester Moore listed, it does list a Lewis Moore who is said to have lived in Tombstone, Pima County, Arizona Territory. It also states that Lewis Moore was born in Illinois in 1828. 

So was Lester Moore really Lewis Moore who lived in Tombstone, and was he born in Illinois in 1828?  Or, could there really have been a Lester Moore that arrived before the 1880 Census? Since it's only speculation that Moore was killed in 1880, could a Moore have been killed earlier during that time period?

Since Cochise County wasn't founded until 1881, and subsequently their records only start that year, could there have been a Lester Moore that arrived before the 1880 Census and was killed there? If so, than why is it that it's said there was never anyone named Lester Moore who was killed in Arizona Territory? As for a Lewis Moore being killed, who knows? 

Of course, what if it's simply a case of a grave marker being wrong? Was it changed at some point because it became too weathered to read? As I said, who really knows? Fact is, we don't have answers to this mystery as well as for the names of all of the unknown buried in Boothill. Yes, the same as how we also don't know who penned Lester Moore's famous epitaph. No one knows if it was the local undertaker, or just someone else good with words. 

Maybe it was someone when the cemetery was being cleaned up in the 1940s? During the 1940s, the Tombstone City Council is said to have sponsored a group to restore and preserve their Boothill. It's said that metal markers were used to replace the old wooden markers that had actually disappeared in many cases. 

During that time, it's said that as new markers were put into place, the preservation group actually researched as many of the graves as possible by contacting relatives, friends, older residents, and historical records. I can't him but wonder how they would explain Lester Moore's grave mystery? I can't help but wonder if it's true, that no Moore existed?

Tom Correa

[Texas Fossil]

I traveled Arizona for many years. Went to Tombstone often. There are a lot of legends about it, many of those legends are embellished upon.

Tom tries hard to see past that.

I like his work.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

In the little cemetery in my hometown a grave stone reads:

“Been here and gone.
Had a good time.”

[\/\/ayne]

26 Men was a TV Series in the 50's about the Arizona Rangers based on historical fact. I don't remember which episode but at the end of one of them a real Arizona Ranger comes on to say the events just seen really happened that way and he knows because he was there.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Here lies red-head Fred,
not so much for how he lived,
but very much for what he said,
is the reason this man is dead.

[Texas Fossil]

Sounds as if he wrote his own epitaph.

Interesting.

[Texas Fossil]

Thanks.

I think if they Eastern papers had not written exaggerated articles about the “West” a lot of Western History would have been forgotten totally.

So now we have the opposite problem? Filtering for truth.

With today's Fake News? Will we have the same problem 40 years form now trying to describe the history of this time?

[Texas Fossil]

As many times as I went to Tombstone over the years, I never went to boot hill.

Just never thought much about it.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Was there an episode of an Arizona ranger riding into the town of Agua Fria?

[Bob]

...and Hank Dunstan lay mortally wounded. All in all both men ended up dead.

Gee, mortally wounded and he ended up dead... Who would have expected that?

[Fiddlstix]

Bookmark

[Texas Fossil]

smile.

[NTHockey]

In doing a genealogical study of my family, I found the US census from 1900-1930 absolutely unreliable. The 1900 census had misspellings, wrong names and even different names (both wrong) on subsequent pages. The 1930 census even had a question mark in the middle of my families name!

[Texas Fossil]

Yes, sir.

And today with history recorded in electronic format? What do you think the accuracy will be in the future.

In the past the literate could read and write.

It was all in cursive or in printed letters. (before typewriters)

[Oystir]

A friend tells me of reading the S. Carolina census of that period. The names were quite colorful.

Of course we now have Laquizhsa, which is quite colorful in its own right but the names of yore couldn’t make it past censors

[Big Red Badger]

I visited Boothill in Tombstone along
with the Birdcage Theater...
Just WOW!

Next trip..
A nights stay at the
Copper Queen Hotel!

[rdl6989]

My family was there back in the 90’s. Many of those tombstones are “poetic”.

Here lies George Johnson, Hanged by mistake, 1882.
He was right, we was wrong, but we strung him up and now he’s gone.”

http://www.boothillgraves.com

[dfwgator]

[Texas Fossil]

I have eaten at the Copper Queen. But never stayed there. Always spent the night on my trips there in Sierra Vista.

[PUGACHEV]

We were passing through the area and decided to stop at Tombstone one weekday afternoon. I was expecting an over-hyped tourist trap, but found an historical gem instead. I was deeply impressed. The grave yard was touching and eerie, especially the five men hanged on the same day buried side by side.

The Birdcage Theater was very interesting. After a fire and flooding, Tombstone shut down virtually overnight. In 1889 the Birdcage was sealed up and not entered again until 1932. Almost nothing has changed since then, making it an unusually authentic piece of the old west.

[granite]