Later, French was moved to a cabin behind Frank Coe's place where he convalesced for several days. After recovering, French confined his activities to protecting the McSweens, a role he took seriously. In mid-July the so-called Five-Day Battle took place. The McSween house was under siege, and there was sporadic shooting. French remained inside the home, shouting profanities at the forces of James J. Dolan, who had replaced the seriously ill Murphy as head of the opposing faction. After five days of siege, Dolan's men set fire to the house and the gunfire increased. On the night of the 19th, five of the defenders--Billy the Kid, José Chávez y Chávez, Harvey Morris, Tom O'Folliard and French--broke out of the house, trying to create a distraction that would allow McSween and the others to escape. Morris and McSween were among the casualties that night. French, who, like the Kid, got away, later returned to Lincoln to protect McSween's widow, Susan.
Lincoln County Courthouse
Few folks have offered any hints as to what happened to French after the Lincoln County War. U.S. Army Captain G.A. Purington included in an 1879 field report a rumor that French had been killed during a quarrel over the distribution of stolen cattle. Nearly 60 years later, Herbert Cody Blake related that he understood French left for South America after the fighting. Some researchers have taken Blake's statement literally; however, it seems unlikely that a man without means or language skills would go to a foreign country for an extended period. What is more plausible is that Blake was using a colloquialism meaning that the man went beyond the reach of the law. Fellow Regulator Frank Coe insisted that French had returned to what would become Oklahoma and was shot there around 1924. Most researchers nowadays accept Coe's statement as being closer to the truth because of one letter written from Keota, Indian Territory. That letter, written in pencil on ruled paper, is reproduced here with spelling and punctuation unchanged:
Friend Sam,
I did not get my last pay before I left Lincoln, $5. please get it from Mrs. McSween and send it to me the old Biddy hates to part with money but she ought to pay up after all we done for her.
Do you remember the night we was garding outside her house and the Pole cat walked across your chest and wakened you up and you let out a yell you could hear a mile away and wakened Mrs Mac in the house and scared her so she thought Jim Dolans boys had come to Kill her sure enough.
When you write to me you can send the letter to Mr. Cochran, Gen. Del. Keota I.T.
Your friend,
Jim French
J.J. Dolan's House
Even though most questions about the letter have not been answered, it has been accepted as a genuine relic. But is it? French specifically asked that a response be addressed to Mr. Cochran rather than to himself, which suggests he was using an alias because he was still the subject of several arrest warrants or perhaps French was illiterate. Historians claim the "Friend Sam" of the opening was Sam Corbet, because the two were known to have mounted a guard at the widow McSween's house in the closing months of the Lincoln conflict. On the basis of the return address, Keota, Indian Territory, has been proclaimed to be the home of the mysterious Big Jim. The same historians arbitrarily assigned the undated note an origin of 1878-79.
There's one big problem. While a Keota exists in present-day Haskell County, no village of that name--based on a review of period maps and histories--was in Indian Territory in 1879. In fact, it was not until 1887, eight years after the purported date of the letter to Corbet, that folks started calling the location Ke-Otter, a corruption originating from a combination of the names Otter Creek and Jim Keese, who built a ranch on the spot. A town did not physically exist until the Midland Valley Railroad pushed its rails through in 1903-04 and a tent city was created, and the town did not officially exist until establishment of a post office in 1905. Thus the assumption that the letter to Corbet was written in 1879 simply isn't true; to carry a return address of Keota, I.T., the letter had to have been written 26 years later than originally thought.
Site of the McSween house marked with an "X"
Researchers have largely accepted at face value the allegation made by Frank Coe that French was a Cherokee Indian. In 1870s Lincoln, however, most men thought to have Indian blood were apparently labeled "Cherokee," including a Navajo herder. Outright acceptance of statements regarding Indian heritage is therefore questionable. Furthermore, the community of Keota is smack in the middle of the old Choctaw Nation.
Murphy Dolan Store which later became the Lincoln County Courthouse
Researching Oklahoma Indian heritage is relatively simple. When the federal government decided to end tribal governments, the Dawes Commission was created in 1893 to identify by blood all Indians, so that lands and resources could be distributed among tribal members. The records created by the commission were preserved and are easily accessible. Motivated by the thought of free land, practically every person residing in the Choctaw Nation at the time filed a claim. In 1896 the eldest female member of a French clan, Lucinda French, did attempt to enroll for Choctaw tribal membership on the basis of "always having lived in the Choctaw Nation." The document gave a postal address of Cowlington, a community near present-day Keota that existed 20 years before Keota. Additionally, her declaration included a son, James French, with a birth year of 1851, some 25 years before things heated up in Lincoln County. The document also included names and ages of siblings, the name of Jim's first spouse, and the names and ages of four children and one grandchild. One of the children is much older than the others, with a birth year of 1873. The others were born in 1887, 1892 and 1894. This discrepancy suggests that French was remarried in 1886, or returned home after a long absence. (A direct descendant of the older daughter has said that French's first wife died about the time he appeared in Lincoln County and that their child was placed for adoption by a family in Denton County, Texas.) Supportive affidavits from relatives and friends suggest that the family was thought to be a mixture of white, Choctaw and Cherokee.
However, the family could not have "always" been in the Choctaw Nation. The 1870 census of Big Creek Township, Sebastian County, Ark., shows French, his wife and a month-old son were in dwelling 178, while his parents and siblings were in dwelling 176. The child, named Fredrick L., was not found in later information. By 1873, the French clan, according to a description given in a Federal Court case, was living in the Poteau River bottom of the Choctaw Nation. Other information shows that his siblings, except Alfred, list their birthplaces as Texas. Furthermore, Choctaw records prepared in 1884, a decade before the Dawes Commission, list members of the family as white intruders. This persona non grata status was quite likely a reaction caused by the family's predatory acts on prominent Choctaws. What is certain is that the intruder label led to the rejection of the clan's claim of citizenship in the Choctaw Nation. The ruling was not appealed; thus the truth about French's Indian blood is uncertain.
Lincoln As It Appeared Around The Time The Kid Was There
Just why Chisum selected French to go to the aid of McSween in Lincoln has never been explained, other than an oft-quoted theory that Big Jim was a crime-toughened outlaw--a statement no one seems to have followed up on with facts. Part of the problem in doing so is the fragmentary records preserved from the old Federal District Court of Western Arkansas, the court of the famed hanging judge, Isaac C. Parker, which had jurisdiction over the area purported to be French's stamping grounds. Those records are organized by crime rather than by individuals, making research of the criminal activity of a specific individual an exceptionally difficult process. But if one has names of family members, one can cross-reference the various criminals within the records. In this manner, some 20 cases of members of the Lucinda French family were identified, demonstrating that Big Jim was but a single member of a family of Indian Territory outlaws. Two cases associated with this family provide a specific location for their home from 1887 to 1896, at a site within four miles of present-day Keota--thus establishing for the first time a supportive link with a specific Jim French and the community of Keota.
Another court case establishes a possible reason for French's presence in New Mexico Territory during the Lincoln County War. In 1875 a warrant for horse theft was assigned to Oliver French, a brother, and it also includes an alias warrant for "one" French, which may have been Big Jim. The warrant was never served, but simply being the subject of a Federal warrant has certainly been sufficient cause for men to head for parts unknown.
Tunstall Store
In addition, another case supports the tradition that French returned to Indian Territory in the fall of 1878. French appeared before U.S. Commissioner James Brizzolara on July 5, 1879, to answer a larceny charge of selling the hide of a cow belonging to a man named Mitchell who rented from Edmund Burgevin, a wealthy intermarried citizen farming in the Cache Creek bottom west of Skullyville (sometimes spelled Scullyville), Indian Territory. During the trial, Mitchell testified he had last seen his cow in the fall of 1878 and had discovered the hide near the J.L. Tibbetts Store in Skullyville in March 1879. Tibbetts recalled his clerk had bought a "green hide," meaning one that was not tanned, from French during the spring. In response to a question from the court, Burgevin declared French was "a white man, not a citizen of the Indian Country by nationality or adoption." The significance of this announcement is that a recognized tribal leader clearly established the court's right to hear the case. This case was the first of many involving Burgevin and the French family, and is probably the source of the loathing Burgevin felt; it also explains why Burgevin was probably the tribal authority who listed them as intruders. Commissioner Brizzolara discharged French, dismissing the charge as unfounded after a reliable witness testified that it was the custom of the country for anyone discovering a dead cow to have the privilege of skinning the animal and selling the hide, regardless of actual ownership, and no testimony had been presented that Jim had actually killed the cow. But Jim was not quite done with court, for later in the day he and his parents testified on behalf of brothers Patrick J. and William Oliver French, who were being examined for stealing a team of horses from a widow.
Governor Lew Wallace.
Nor was Commissioner Brizzolara finished hearing cases involving the French clan. In July 1886, brothers Pat, Oliver and Jim French were the subject of a criminal warrant for assault following threats against the life of their brother-in-law Charles Glenn, a man who had been the backbone of their defense in two earlier trials. Glenn's affidavit declared, "I do believe and fear that they will attempt to carry out this [murder] threat...." From this allegation forward, Jim does not appear in territorial court records as a defendant, probably because he remarried and settled down. But French may not have been as inoffensive as the lack of records seem to indicate; it's possible that Jim was no longer in Indian Territory. There is a cryptic notation in Big Jim's biographical information that observes, though there was no known connection, a man known as Jim French was wanted on felony charges in Grayson County, Texas, in 1886. Neighboring Denton County is where Jim French placed his infant daughter with an adoptive family, and didn't French disappear from the Oklahoma scene about the same time as this other fellow was charged in Texas? The rest of the family certainly did not become model citizens. Brothers Oliver, Pat, Al, Steve and Tom French continued to make frequent appearances in court, defending against such crimes as assault, kidnapping, whiskey peddling and theft. Eventually, Steve and Tom French were sent to Federal prisons. Although it has been established that one-time Regulator Jim French lived until at least 1905, a search of area resources failed to confirm the claim that French was killed in Oklahoma circa 1924. No verified photo of Big Jim French has surfaced. Much about his life will have to remain shadowy, and what became of him in the 20th century is simply unknown. Anyone for a Jim French posthumous pardon?
Additional Sources: www.angelfire.com/ mi2/billythekid
www.wcc.at
www.aozos.com
www.aboutbillythekid.com
The Lincoln County War: A Documentary History Courtesy of Fred Nolan
www.frontiertimes.com
www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/9560
www.chez.com
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on March 10:
1452 Ferdinand II the Catholic, King of Aragon/Sicily (expelled Jews)
1503 Ferdinand I German emperor (1558-64)
1538 Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk; executed by Queen Elizabeth (1572)
1628 Constantine Huygens Jr Dutch poet/painter/cartoonist
1748 John Playfair Scotland, clergyman/geologist/mathematician
1809 William David Porter Commander (Union Navy), died in 1864
1818 George Wythe Randolph Secretary of War (Confederacy), died in 1867
1824 Major General Thomas J Churchill Confederate Army/Fought at Wilson's Creek, Red River
1832 William Henry Penrose Brigadier General (Union volunteers), died in 1903
1845 Alexander III [Romanov] Russian tsar (1881-94)
1888 Barry Fitzgerald Dublin Ireland, actor (Academy Award-Going My Way)
1891 Sam Jaffe New York NY, actor (Gunga Din, Ben Casey)
1903 Bix Beiderbecke jazz cornet player (In a Mist)
1908 Carl Albert US speaker of house (1971-77)
1916 James Herriot Scotland, writer (All Creatures Great & Small)
1923 Kenneth C "Jethro" Burns Conasauga TN, mandolinist/country singer (Homer & Jethro)
1923 Ara Parseghian football coach (Northwestern, Notre Dame)
1928 James Earl Ray assassin (Martin Luther King Jr)
1940 Chuck [Carlos Ray] Norris Ryan OK, martial arts actor (Walker Texas Ranger, Missing in Action)
1940 Dean Torrence Los Angeles CA, surf music singer (Jan & Dean-Little Old Lady from Pasadena)
1947 Avril "Kim" Campbell Canada's 1st female Prime Minister/19th Prime Minister (June 25,1993-November 4, 1993)
1947 Tom Scholz rock guitarist/keyboardist (Boston-More Than a Feeling)
1958 Sharon Stone Meadville PA, actress (Basic Instinct, Sliver, Casino)
1965 Rod Woodson NFL cornerback/kick returner (Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers)
Deaths which occurred on March 10:
0037 Tiberius Claudius Nero Roman emperor (14-37), dies at 78
0483 Simplicius Italian Pope (468-83), dies
1735 Dirk T van Cloon Dutch lawyer/Governor-General of E Indies, dies at about 46
1865 William Henry "Little Billy" Chase Whiting Confederate General-Major, dies at 48
1910 Karl Lueger Austrian anti-semite/mayor of Vienna, dies at 65
1913 Harriet Tubman abolitionist, conductor on Underground RR, dies in New York
1953 Charles Gordon Curtis inventor of (Curtis-steam turbine), dies at 92
1973 Sir Richard Sharples Governor of Bermuda, is assassinated
1980 Herman Tarnower doctor (Scarsdale Diet), killed by Jean Harris
1985 Konstantin Chernenko party leader/President of USSR (1984-85), dies at 73
1986 Ray Milland actor (Lost Weekend-Academy Award 1945), dies at 81
1988 Andy Gibb singer, dies in Oxford England of an inflammatory heart virus at 30
1993 David Gunn abortion doctor, killed by Michael Griffin at 47
1996 Lucius E Burch Jr US civil rights leader, dies at 84
1998 Lloyd Bridges, actor, died at 85 (Seahunt)
Reported: MISSING in ACTION
1966 TAYLOR JAMES L.---NITRO WV.
1966 XAVIER AUGUSTO MARIA---SAN JOSE CA.
1967 LUNA JOSE D.---ORANGE CA.
[03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE 1999]
1969 LUNA CARTER P.---HAZELHURST MS.
1971 SMOOT CURTIS R.---VARNADO LA.
POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.
On this day...
0515BC The building of the great Jewish temple in Jerusalem completed
0241 BC Battle of Aegusa: Roman fleet sinks 50 Carthagean ships
0418 Jews are excluded from public office in the Roman Empire
0483 St Simplicius ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1526 Emperor Charles V marries princess Isabella of Portugal
1535 Bishop Tomás de Berlanga discovers Galápagos Islands
1578 Queen Elizabeth I gives Johan Casimir £20,000 to aid Dutch rebellion
1624 England declares war on Spain
1629 King Charles I dissolved Parliament; he called it back 11 years later
1681 English Quaker William Penn receives charter from Charles II, making him sole proprietor of colonial American territory Pennsylvania
1734 Spanish army under Don Carlos (III) draws into Naples
1776 "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine was published
1791 John Stone, Concord MA, patents a pile driver
1791 Pope condemns France's Civil Constitution's treatment of the clergy
1849 Abraham Lincoln applies for a patent; only US President to do so
1862 US issues 1st paper money ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 & $1000)
1864 Red River campaign Louisiana
1865 Battle of Monroe's Crossroads, North Carolina
1874 Purdue University (Indiana) admits its 1st student
1876 1st telephone call made (Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Watson)
1880 General Wolseley opens new legislative council in Pretoria
1880 Salvation Army of England sets up US welfare & religious activity
1888 Heavyweight Boxing champion John L Sullivan draws Charlie Mitchell in 30 rounds
1893 Ivory Coast becomes a French colony
1893 New Mexico State University cancels its 1st graduation ceremony, its only graduate Sam Steele was robbed & killed the night before
1896 After Bob Fitzsimmons KOs much larger Jim Corbett to win world HW championship he says, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall"
1902 Earthquake destroys Turkish city of Tochangri
1903 Harry Gammeter, Cleveland, patents multigraph duplicating machine
1906 Coal dust explosion kills 1,060 at Courrieres France
1910 China ends slavery
1910 Pittsburgh Courier, begins publishing
1913 William Knox, becomes 1st in American Bowling Congress to bowl 300
1914 Suffragettes in London damages painter Rokeby's Venus of Velasquez
1922 State of siege proclaimed during mine strike Johannesburg South Africa
1927 Albania mobilize by threat of Serbian, Croatian & Slovenes
1927 Bavaria lifts ban on Hitler's speeches
1931 British Labour party removes fascist sir Oswald Mosley
1933 Major earthquake in Long Beach CA
1933 Nevada becomes 1st US state to regulate narcotics
1941 Larry MacPhail, Dodger GM predicts all players will wear batting helmets
1945 Germany blows-up Wessel Bridge on Rhine
1945 Japan declares Vietnam Independence
1945 Patton's 3rd Army makes contact with Hodge's 1st Army
1945 Tokyo in fire after night time B-29 bombing
1945 US troops lands on Mindanao
1948 1st civilian to exceed speed of sound-Herb H Hoover, Edwards AFB California
1952 Military coup by General Fulgencio Batista in Cuba
1956 General strike in Cyprus protesting exile of archbishop Makarios
1956 Peter Twiss sets new world air record 1,132 mph (1,823 kph)
1957 Thousands of soccer fans riot in Italy
1959 Dorothy Comiskey Rigney, sells 54% of White Sox to Bill Veeck
1959 Uprising against Chinese occupation force in Lhasa Tibet
1960 USSR agrees to stop nuclear testing
1962 Due to it's no black policy, Phillies leave Jack Tar Harrison Hotel & move to Rocky Point Motel, 20 miles outside Clearwater FL
1963 Pete Rose debuts with hits in his two 1st at bats in spring training
1964 US reconnaissance plane shot down over East Germany
1966 5 time Horse of the Year, Kelso, retires
1966 North Vietnamese capture US Green Beret Camp at Ashau Valley
1969 James Earl Ray pleads guilty in murder of Martin Luther King Jr
1971 The Senate approved an amendment to lower the voting age to 18
1972 General Lon Nol becomes President & prince Sirik Matak premier of Cambodia
1972 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR
1975 "Rocky Horror Picture Show" opens at Belasco Theater NYC for 45 performances
1975 Dog spectacles patented in England
1977 Rings of Uranus discovered during occultation of SAO
1980 Willard Scott becomes the weather forecaster on the Today Show
1982 President Reagan proclaims economic sanctions against Libya
1982 Sygyzy: all 9 planets aligned on same side of Sun (We're all gonna die!)
1982 Travis Jackson & Happy Chandler elected to Hall of Fame
1983 Walter Alston, Dodgers manager, elected to Hall of Fame
1985 French socialists lose election (National Front 9%)
1985 World Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Tokyo won by Katarina Witt (German Democratic Republic)
1985 World Men's Figure Skating Championship in Tokyo won by Alexandr Fadeev (USSR)
1987 Vatican formal opposition to test-tube fertilization & embryo transfer
1991 Eddie Sutton is 1st NCAA coach to lead 4 schools into playoffs
1994 1 million Greeks attend Melina Mercouri's funeral
1995 Car bomb explodes in Karachi at shiite mosque, 17+ killed
1996 Birdwatchers noted the “act of raptor love” between two red-tailed hawks on the Hotel Carlyle at 2:30 p.m. in New York City. It lasted a full five seconds.
(Wamm Bamm Thank You Ma'am)
1997 The first Laos Int’l. Juggling Festival was held in Vientiane before a crowd of 40,000 as part of the annual That Luang Festival
2003 The European Union opens a new office in Cuba
Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
Dominica, St Lucia : Independence Day (1967)
Laos : Teachers' Day
Swaziland : Commonwealth Day
World : World Culture Day (leap years)
New Mexico : Arbor Day (Friday)
US : Aardvark Week (Day 5)
National Furniture Refinishing Month
Religious Observances
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of the 40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste, Armenia
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St John Ogilvie, Scottish Jesuit
Religious History
1528 Martyrdom of Balthaser Hubmaier, 48, German reformer and chief writer for the Anabaptist movement. Arrested in Moravia, Hubmaier was later condemned at Vienna and burned at the stake.
1681 English Quaker William Penn, 26, received a charter from Charles II, making him sole proprietor of the colonial American territory known today as the state of Pennsylvania.
1748 [O.S.] Slave-ship Captain John Newton, 22, was converted to a saving Christian faith. Newton later became an Anglican clergyman, and (as the author of "Amazing Grace") a greatly respected hymnwriter as well.
1937 English historian Arnold J. Toynbee wrote: 'In this really very brief period of less than 2,000 years Christianity has, in fact, produced greater spiritual effects in the world than have been produced in a comparable space of time by any other spiritual movement that we know of in history.'
1987 The Vatican declared its formal opposition to test-tube fertilization, embryo transfer and most other forms of scientific interference in human procreation.
Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.
Thought for the day :
"Most people wish to serve God - but only in an advisory capacity."
