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Dick Glass
DICK GLASS. NEGRO. MEMBER CREEK TRIBE.
BOOK USED: The Road to Disappearance By Angie Debo
NORMAN: UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS : MCMXLI
Copyright 1941 by the University of Oklahoma Press Publishing Division of the University.
[NOTE: NEWSPAPERS USUALLY SPELLED HIS NAME AS SPIECHIE...WHICH I HAVE STUCK WITH. MAW 6/30/2000]
Important Names.
Isparhecher. [Evidently known as Spieche.]
Leader of conservatives: pages 225, 240
District Judge: 246, 273
Biographical Sketch: 246f
Candidate for principal chief: 246f, 281-88, 325f
In Green Peach War: 268-81, 314.
Supreme Court Justice: 283, 325, 338
Delegate to Washington: 283f, 344, 348-40
Meaning of name: 294
Administration as principal chief: 361-75
Death: 368
Checote, Samuel.
Early life: 97
Methodist preacher: 121, 204
Delegate to Washington: 140-42, 283f
In negotiation of Confederate Alliance: 144
As Chief of Confederate Creeks: 164, 169, 171, 173, 177
In formation of constitution: 179, 182
Candidate for principal chief: 182f, 192-95, 214, 246-48, 281-83
Administration as principal chief: 183-215, 220f, 228f, 248-83, 307, 318, 327
Alliance with Isparhecher: 282f
Death: 284
Sands.
Elected second chief: 124
In Civil War: 143-49, 160f, 163f, 167
Chief of Southern faction: 177, 179, 205
Peace settlement: 169, 171-173, 177, 179, 205
Opposition to constitution: 182, 184, 187, 189-96, 199f.
Death: 200
In Okmulgee Council: 206-298
Sands Party: 182-202 passim, 214, 217, 220f. 268, 281
FROM BOOK:
Glass, Dick: 255-57, 269, 275-77
Starting on Page 253...
Serious trouble broke out in Muskogee on Christmas Day, 1878, when the negro lighthorse disarmed John and Dick Vann, two young Cherokees of prominent family connections, who were passing through the town. A lawless Texan, who also was passing through, undertook to reduce the negro officers to their proper place in the universe, and placed himself at the head of the Cherokees. In the ensuing battle one of the lighthorsemen was killed and three others were wounded. The following August another fight took place in Muskogee between the Cherokees and the negroes. This time John Vann was killed, several negroes including the lighthorse captain were wounded, and a white man working in a store was killed by a stray bullet. Railroad promoters of Muskogee immediately carried the news to the Cherokees hoping to start a disturbance that would lead to the liquidation of the two tribes, but Vore, who was in charge of the agency, persuaded the Cherokees to await the orderly processes of Creek law. The white residents of Muskogee, tired of dodging bullets, held an indignation meeting in one of the churches, but they too decided not to intervene.
...turned out Muskogee had few Indians there. Muskogee was left for the time to its negro defenders, but a force of Indian police was soon established for the Five Tribes under a recent act of Congress. Indian Police: (In United States service. Worked under the orders of the Union Agent in enforcement of the Intercourse Laws. They spilled intoxicants, removed intruders, and arrested white criminals and turned them over to Judge Parker’s court.) It worked. Muskogee became a law-abiding place.
Coachman [Creek Chief] and later Checote entered into correspondence with Cherokee Chief Dennis W. Bushyhead regarding trial of the negroes who had shot Vann. Case was dropped. Cherokee witnesses afraid and left the vicinity. Creek Council paid negro lighthorse captain $200 to compensate him for injuries he received during the fight.
Cherokees raided Marshalltown settlement, shooting into the houses, and killing several of the negroes. On night of July 26, 1880, a mob took two men supposed to be horse thieves from their houses, conveyed them to the Cherokee side of the line, and hanged them. Cherokee Government made no attempt to discover identity of murderers, although it was known that they were mixed-blood Cherokees. The next morning two parties of negroes from the settlement rode over into the Cherokee country in search of the bodies.
One party under Dick Glass met seventeen-year old William Cobb and young Alexander Cowan, both members of prominent Cherokee families. A running fight ensued that took them back and forth across the Creek-Cherokee line. The Cherokee boys and several of the negroes were wounded, and Cobb died as soon as he reached the house. The mixed-blood Cherokees were thoroughly aroused, and more than one hundred started from Fort Gibson to destroy the settlement, but Bushyhead managed to dissuade them.
The two chiefs exerted all their influence to keep peace, and they promised a fair and speedy trial as soon as the question of jurisdiction could be settled. A mixed commission examined the ground, but they failed to agree. The matter was then referred to John Q. Tufts, the Union agent, and he decided in favor of the Cherokees. The Cherokees then indicted ten negroes, the members of both parties that had crossed the line the morning of the fight, and asked Checote to deliver them for trial. Checote according to Creek custom called on Judge R. C. Childers, of Coweta District, to make the arrest, but Childers refused to comply The Council then directed the judge to hold an examination and turn over only those who had actually participated in the affray; it was in fact fairly evident that five of the accused had not even been present when the shooting occurred. Childers failed to act again. Checote suspended him and appointed James McHenry in his place. [This back and forth nonsense continued. Nothing concrete really done.]
Fall of 1881. Creek Council elected Coweta Micco. Checote was ignored in attempt to get a decent trial. Cherokee officers told Coweta Micco that Checote had authorized them to make arrest of Daniel Lucky at negro settlement. They kidnaped Lucky and killed another of the accused.
Dick Glass, Douglas Murrell, and another of the accused negroes named Ben Doaker were discovered near Okmulgee with a herd of horses. The Creek lighthorse attacked, killing Doaker and badly wounding Glass. By this time Bushyhead had a reward out for Glass and apparently for the rest of the indicted negroes.
Cherokees got Murrell and placed him on trial. None of his witnesses were called. Turned out he was not in fight. Even so, he received a death sentence.
Lucky and Murrell remained in Cherokee prison at Tahlequah while Checote continued to protest and Bushyhead continued to grant reprieves. 1884: Murrell received an unconditional pardon. [Author not certain of Lucky’s fate. Thinks he was set free.]
Dick Glass was never apprehended, but he engaged in more ambitious lawbreaking and became the leader of a gang that hid in the Seminole Nation and dealt in stolen Creek horses and Texas whiskey.
1885: DICK GLASS WAS KILLED IN THE CHICKASAW NATION BY FEDERAL DEPUTY MARSHALS.
Before that time he figured prominently in the internal history of the Creeks.
[Shows footnotes from Indian Journal [1879-80, 1884-85]; Cherokee Advocate [1880-1884]; Indian Chieftain, 1883; Five Tribes Files, No. 5, 205f.; No. 11, 157, 204-204; No. 63, passim; Creek Tribal Records, 25807, 20449-35589.]
Embarrassment of Cherokee Chief Bushyhead and Creek Chief Checote:
1. Bushyhead over farcical nature of the Cherokee trials.
2. Checote over the impotence of Creek law enforcement.
Author points out that growth of crime (the one by failure to control criminals, and by the other in placing the whole negro community on the defensive) came about because of the ineptitude of two chiefs.
Note: During the time of this dispute the Cherokee and Creek governments were cooperating actively against the Boomers, led by David L. Payne.
1881: Judge Parker decision in May re Boomers was very important.
J. Milton Turner, a negro of St. Louis, sent circulars to negroes throughout the United States informing them upon the authority of Boudinot that the Oklahoma land had been ceded for Indians and negroes, and promising a quarter section to all who would join the Boomer organization.
Creeks were under impression that the Boomers were promoted and financed by the railroads. [They were wrong!] (All sorts of footnote notations on this one, which I have skipped. MAW)
1881: Creeks deeply aroused at attempt to build a branch of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas from Muskogee to Fort Smith without the consent of Congress, Indians, or Department of Interior.
1880: Fall. Checote party established friendly relations with negroes, a portion of the Seminoles, and with the Creeks of the Greenleaf settlement in the wooded Cherokee hills southeast of Fort Gibson. In September Isparhecher and Jefferson notified Checote that one of their party had been killed and demanded punishment of the murderer. The following March when Judge McHenry was rounding up the criminal negroes at the Point they wrote again to the Chief demanding the release of the arrested men and warning him “to examine carefully and not step too quick.” The members of the Isparhecher party were men of character and self-restraint, but Dick Glass and other negro outlaws seized the opportunity to join them, and their fastness in the Deep Fork District became a rendezvous for horse thieves. On the other hand it is clear that the administration sought to use the courts to punish political opponents under the pretext of law enforcement.
1881. Biggest problem with Creek Government. Ineffectual laws. [After 1881 Indian Office no longer seriously concerned itself with the enforcement of treaty pledges against unauthorized white residence. Believe it or not, Creeks got payment due them for orphans according to Treaty of 1832 in 1881. It had been overlooked until then. When it was given to them after a lapse of 36 years, it was not done in accordance with
the Treaty of 1832.]
Book not clear...either latter part of 1881 or 1882: Isparhecher had taken refuge among the Cherokees. Constitutional authorities remembered that he had killed a man back in 1873, and they sought to try him for this crime and others they came up with. He stayed with the Cherokees in the Creek settlement in their country.
Eleven members of the party that had attacked Scott and Barnett were apprehended, tried in Wewoka District, and sentenced to death for murder. Petitions with hundreds of names of prominent mixed bloods, full bloods, and leading negroes were presented to Checote asking for their pardon. He delayed action until he could ask for advice of the Creek Council. Council met. Recommended executive clemency for the men convicted of the murder of the two officers, and Checote pardoned all but three who were considered the leaders. Two were shot. Third one escaped death because wound inflicted by executioners was not fatal and they hesitated to fire a second time.
Checote wrote personally to Isparhecher and other leaders inviting them to return.
Isparhecher and most of his negro followers remained in the Greenleaf settlement in the Cherokee Nation. Sleeping Rabbit, the leader of these Creeks who were Cherokee citizens, was his close friend, and there was no doubt that Sleeping Rabbit was in constant communication with Greenleaf Town in the Creek Nation and with other full bloods who had remained at home.
[Author advocates that Isparhecher had aspirations to be another Tecumseh and to unite the Creek conservatives and the western tribes, invade the Creek country and seize the government, and build an Indian league upon the basis of the ancient customs.]
1882 (?). Checote forces went to a house on Pecan Creek and attempted to capture three thieving negroes who were believed to be stirring up trouble. In the ensuing melee one of the negroes was killed. Dick Glass hastened to Isparhecher’s camp and reported the occurrence, and fifty men set out at once to avenge the death. In full war paint they passed through Muskogee on the morning of December 24 and went on west to the negro settlement, but failing to find any of Checote’s men, they returned the same evening to the Cherokee Nation. It was probably at this time that Sleeping Rabbit also invaded the Creek country with his armed Creek Cherokees. Several opposing groups gathered. War broke out. Tufts finally woke up and left for Okmulgee with fifty Federal soldiers, leaving ten to guard Muskogee and dispatching seven to Eufaula.
The presence of the Federal soldiers brought immediate quiet. Tufts submitted a proposition for an arbitration tribunal to be chosen by a committee of five from each side, both parties in the meantime to declare an armistice from which the Glass Gang was specifically excluded. Checote consulted a convention of leading men and accepted the plan and appointed his committee January 1. By January 3 the constitutional forces had been disbanded and the Federal soldiers were all back in Fort Gibson. Tufts returned to Muskogee and Isparhecher with twenty-five armed men came over from the Greenleaf settlement to visit him there. He accepted the peace plan January 6 and started at once for Nuyaka with the avowed intention of calling his adherents together in convention for the election of his committee.
Checote raised an “army” of 700 men and placed “General” Porter in command. Isparhecher’s followers began to desert. He loaded his women and children and his provisions in wagons and started for the Sac and Fox country. Dick Glass dashed out to attack Porter, but was driven back, and Porter surrounded the enemy camp. The Sac and Fox Indians protested, their agent ordered Porter to withdraw. Porter returned to Okmulgee to confer with Tufts and Inspector Pollock, who had just been sent out from Washington. More trouble! Sleeping Rabbit was allowed to step out of the council house under guard at Okmulgee. He was shot “while attempting to escape.” [Author says: “It is probable that the old man was deliberately murdered.”] Creeks did not trust Sleeping Rabbit. He had once led an armed band into the Creek Nation, and the Cherokee government was not blameless in permitting the invasion.
Arkansas City Traveler, August 9, 1882.
TROUBLES IN THE INDIAN TERRITORY.
The trouble which began in the northwest part of the Cherokee nation last week by the arrest of a criminal and the murder of his jailor, Captain Scott, by a gang of sandsmen, is not yet settled. The United States marshal, who was in Fort Smith yesterday, gives the following view of the situation.
“Monday night the sandsmen were captured on Pecan creek, nine miles from Muskogee, in command of a noted desperado named Dick Glass. Chief Cochet, of the Cherokee Nation, was in camp eighteen miles distant with 550 men, and citizens were still coming to his aid. He says that when his command reaches 800 he will arrest the twelve slayers of Capt. Scott. The sandsmen called on Agent Tufts, at Muskogee, who advised them to surrender the men wanted by the authorities as the only means of preventing bloodshed. This they emphatically refused to do, and declared their intention to stand by their commander to the bitter end. Great excitement prevails all over the Nation, and, as matters now stand, the Glass gang must either disperse or let Capt. Scott’s murderers take their chances with the officers, or bloodshed will follow.”
A Notorious Character: Glass.
Winfield Courier, September 7, 1882. Confined within the Cowley County jail at present is a negro whose career is as deeply stained with crime as human hands are often found to be, and whose deeds of murder and lawlessness compare favorably with those of the notorious Jesse James.
From Deputy U. S. Marshal Addison Beck we received a partial account of his doings that were enough to make the blood run cold. He has for the past five or six years made the Indian Territory his home and was married into the Creek tribe of Indians, and is named Glass. His hands have been reddened with the blood of perhaps a dozen men, killed on different horse-stealing excursions, and one crime even more horrible than this, is laid to his hands. Sometime last fall a lone woman and little child applied at a house in the Territory for something to eat. She said her husband had left her and she was trying to make her way back to Missouri with her child. She was given something to eat, and started on over the prairie afoot. Some time after, the negro was seen riding up the gulch in the direction the woman had taken, and a few days afterward the bodies of the woman and child were found with their throats cut from ear to ear. This was but one of the many terrible crimes laid at his door.
Once he and two others stole a herd of twenty-nine ponies. They were followed by fourteen well armed men, who overtook them in the night. They found the horses grazing on the prairie, and after driving them to a safe place, returned and surrounded the place where the three thieves were sleeping. In the morning they rose up out of the grass and began firing, and after an hour’s battle two of the thieves, Shenneman’s ward and another, escaped, leaving their companion and four of the pursuers dead on the ground.
In his own country Glass is a terror, but no open enemy is tolerated. His enemies died, one way and another, and all died early. He is as quick as lightning with a six-shooter, and handles two of them with as much ease as a lady would handle a knife and fork. Those who know him best in the Territory never provoke his wrath, as the crack of his pistol meant death, quick and certain.
In personal appearance Glass is tall, slim, and not overly dark, with a large scar on his face, and is covered all over with pistol wounds.
When Shenneman captured him, he was in a barber’s chair and had his revolvers wrapped in a paper and laid on a table. Before he knew what was up, our Sheriff had him under the muzzle of his big revolver.
Chief Bushyhead, of the Cherokee Nation, offers a reward of $500 for the delivery of Glass at Vinita, and, as soon as the necessary arrangements are made, he will be taken there. At present, he is strongly shackled and the jail is guarded.
Shenneman Taking Glass to Cherokee Authorities.
Winfield Courier, September 14, 1882.
Sheriff Shenneman left for the Cherokee Nation, Monday, with Dick Glass, the noted negro murderer and criminal. Governor St. John issued a requisition for his delivery to the Cherokee authorities. Sheriff Shenneman will secure the reward of six hundred dollars.
Two Accounts. Desperado, Dick Glass, Escapes from Shenneman & Thralls.
Arkansas City Traveler, September 20, 1882. The notorious desperado, Glass, escaped from Sheriff Shenneman last week while he was taking him to the Territory. He was handcuffed and hobbled, but succeeded in breaking a link in his hobble chain, and when the buggy stopped to camp at night, he jumped and ran, making good his escape almost before the officers knew it. He is regarded as one of the most desperate characters in the Territory, and a reward of $500 is offered for him by the chief of the Cherokee nation.
Winfield Courier, September 21, 1882. Last week as Sheriff Shenneman and Joe Thralls, Sheriff of Sumner County, were taking Dick Glass through the Territory, overland to the Cherokee Nation, he jumped from the wagon and escaped.
It was their third night out, and just as they drove up to a ranch to put up, Glass sprang from the wagon and rushed for a thick patch of underbrush near the road. It was about nine o’clock and very dark. The prisoner was shackled hand and foot and, as the sheriffs thought, perfectly secure. He was sitting between them, and his actions were so quick that he was two rods away before they got their revolvers on him. They fired twice each, but failed to bring him down; and nothing more was heard of him. He left a part of the shackles in the wagon and an examination showed that he had filed them nearly in two between the jams before leaving the jail, and had, by rubbing his feet together, broken them apart. It was also found upon examination that Quarles and Vanmeter, the two in jail here now, also had their shackles filed and the three were to have made a grand rush for liberty on the self-same night that Glass was taken away. Glass has accomplished a feat that few men would care to attempt. The chances were desperate, but the man was equal to the attempt, and escaped from two of the shrewdest and bravest officers in this or any other state.
Sheriff Shenneman feels badly over losing the prisoner and the five hundred dollar reward which he was to get.
Quarles and Van Meter Cutting Shackles Again in Jail.
Winfield Courier, October 12, 1882. Tom Quarles and Van Meter cut their shackles again last Friday. They were cut between the jaws, just as Dick Glass had cut his. While making his usual morning examination of the jail and prisoners, Sheriff Shenneman detected the cut in the shackles, which was neatly filled with soap and blackened with charcoal. Quarles is one of the worst prisoners ever confined in our jail, and it takes watching to hold him.
Winfield Courier, January 4, 1883. Dick Glass, the negro who was captured and escaped from Sheriff Shenneman, has been heard from. We clip the following dispatch in relation to the matter from the Kansas City Journal.
A dispatch from Muskogee, Indian Territory, says that forty of Spiechie’s men, who were previously reported as having crossed the Arkansas River, passed through town yesterday in full war paint under command of the notorious Dick Glass. They went west in pursuit of the band of Checote’s men, who killed one of their party day before yesterday, but returned in the evening, not having been able to find them. United States Agent Tufts has notified them that he will disarm both parties on the committal of any open act of war. A company of United States troops arrived at Muskogee last evening from Fort Gibson, under command of Lieutenant Irons, to protect the lives and property of United States citizens. Another squad will go to Muskogee today. The Checote party are said to have seized and are guarding all ferries on the Arkansas River to prevent reinforcements from the northern part of the Nation joining Spiechie. Dispatches from the Territory give no explanation as to why these Indians are roaming about in armed bands, nor is anything regarding the matter known here.
[DICK GLASS - CREEK FACTIONS.]
Winfield Courier, February 15, 1883.
DICK GLASS.
Dick Glass, the noted desperado whom our late Sheriff Shenneman arrested here last fall and who escaped from him when he was being escorted to Fort Smith to be delivered up to the authorities for trial, is still at large and committing murders and depredations in the Territory. He was one of the leaders of the Spiechie party in the late outbreak, and in the amnesty arrangement which followed, he was not included. Now both parties are agreed that he should be killed on sight.
Winfield Courier, February 15, 1883.
THE CREEK TROUBLES.
A dispatch from Muskogee, Indian Territory, says there are strong indications of a renewal of hostilities between the contending bands of Creeks. George Parker has been appointed commander of the Checote faction, and has called in all available men, and, it is said, will attack the consolidated forces of the Spiechies, now camped about fifteen miles from Okmulgee, as soon as the weather is favorable. Both parties are buying all the Winchester rifles and other weapons and ammunition they can obtain, and it looks as though trouble may result.
Winfield Courier, February 15, 1883.
Dick Glass, the noted desperado, has been captured by the U. S. Marshal at Fort Smith, and will possibly be held for keeps this time.
[SEARCH FOR GLASS, SPIECHIE LEADER.]
Arkansas City Traveler, February 21, 1883.
The Journal says while a guard of soldiers were conveying some $20,000 belonging to the Creek Orphan Fund to Okmulgee, where it was to be distributed, they were fired upon from the brush by unknown persons. The troops returned the fire, but no casualties are reported. Ratilcaghala, a whiskey peddling Indian, was dragged from his home recently by a party of Indians, beaten, and shot to death. Dick Glass, one of the leaders of the Spiechie party during the late troubles, and a noted desperado, marauding over the country to the terror of the inhabiting citizens, was not included in the recent amnesty arrangement, and both parties are advised to kill him.
[COMMENTS ABOUT COBB HANGING.]
Winfield Courier, February 22, 1883. Editorial.
THE COBB HANGING.
On another page we give a communication from Mr. Evans of Vernon, because it is well written and forcibly put, and contains a strong plea against violence and in favor of none but legal measures in dealing with criminals, which we heartily endorse. But at the same time many of its incisive questions tend to do injustice to some officers, clergymen, and other citizens. We have no more knowledge that he worked and talked to prevent the threatened hanging than he seems to have of such efforts on the part of officers, clergymen, and other citizens, yet we know that there was a great deal of such work and talking done by several though the act was very generally approved.
He seems to take it for granted that all the street rumors and stories favoring the prisoner were true and all those against him were false. There were a great many things said, no doubt, which had little or no foundation in fact.
The overwhelming public sentiment which demanded summary work, was not confined to Cowley County, but was nearly equally strong in adjoining counties and general throughout the state, compelling the officers to keep dodging about with the prisoner, to let him loose, or to jail him in Winfield. After the mob spirit had apparently subsided and all had been quiet for two days, they quietly confined him in the jail and watched him there. In all that long night there was not the slightest indication of a mob or any excitement. The streets were still and the opinion that no further effort to mob the prisoner would occur, seemed justified. It was not a mob which did the work. It was a band of thirteen masked men, perfectly organized under a thorough and skillful leader, and the work was done in the most quiet and perfect manner possible. If ever a work of the kind was done decently and in order, this was the time.
Again; it is not at all certain that any Cowley County man was in the gang of thirteen. We know of no person in this county who has the experience and skill shown by its leader. There is not the slightest evidence which points to any Cowley County man as in any way mixed up with the matter. Yet it cannot be denied that the overwhelming sentiment of the county, though earnestly opposed to mob law, justifies this taking off. Nor can it be denied that such is the sentiment of the state and the country generally. However bad that sentiment may be, it has grown out of the necessities of the case. Here was a young man seemingly destitute of conscience or human feeling; his brute nature corrupted by reading the exploits of desperadoes; his whole ambition to rival Jesse James. He had started out on a mission of killing, had been successful in two cases, or five as was believed, the last of whom was the noble, respected, and accomplished sheriff of this county. It was believed that he was determined to kill several persons who had helped in his capture if he ever got loose; and his chances to get away during the course of law seemed as nine to one, from desperate attempts, insecure jails, the delays and quibbles of the law and various other means, against whom the public indignation was justly aroused to its highest pitch, and it was not strange that the public desired sure protection against him.
Then it will be remembered that but recently Dick Glass, the infamous murderer and outlaw, had escaped from this best of sheriffs; that Van Meter whom Shenneman had arrested at the risk of his life, a shot from the prisoner’s revolver barely missing him, the proof of whose crime was perfect on his trial beyond a reasonable doubt, and yet he was acquitted by a jury; that Colgate was acquitted when from the evidence none doubted his guilt, and is it a wonder that the people desired some better security in the Cobb case than the legal course?
Moralize as we may, there is deep in the undercurrent of our natures a sentiment which asserts that a man has a right to protect himself and family even to the taking of life; that the community has a right to protect its members to the same extent, and that when the state has repeatedly failed to prevent known and hardened criminals when once in its hands, from repeating their murders and outrages, utterly failing in such cases to secure the citizens against them, the community will assert this right and it cannot be helped.
No more law abiding community than this can be found anywhere. Though cases have arisen in which the criminal would have been mobbed, even in staid old Massachusetts under similar circumstances, yet never before have the people attempted to take the law into their own hands.
Now while we agree with Mr. Evans in relation to the demoralizing effects of such performances in a community and the importance of a strict adherence to legal processes in such cases, we have no denunciations to make in this case.
Arkansas City Traveler, December 5, 1883.
Our future county treasurer, Capt. J. B. Nipp, came up from the Territory last Saturday. While down in the Pottawatomie country, he saw the notorious Dick Glass, who has so far evaded the officers of the law. Dick is a full blooded Negro, a hard character of the worst type, and one whom no officer cares to arrest without plenty of backing. He is at all times armed to the teeth, and is ever on the alert.
Information that MAW uncovered when on a trip with Janel Hutchinson.
From Oklahoma City...
Sac and Fox, I. T., November 18th, 1883.
Charles Hatton, Esq.
Assistant U. S. Attorney
Wichita, Kansas
Sir: yours of the 9 inst. is to hand and in reply I have to say that there is but little doubt in my mind but that Wright and the Wade boys are guilty and there are others “sitting in high places” that are aiding them in the matter, as they are engaged in buying their stock and getting it out of the county. There has been two men to see me today 70 miles south, one my agency and one from the Chickasaw Nation to see if the matter can’t be gotten in shape to have them arrested. They are well organized and are determined not to be arrested.
The notorious Dick Glass and George Macks are connected with them in the matter. The men will return home tomorrow and go to work on the case to get the evidence ready. These fellows keep nearly everybody intimidated so that they are afraid to testify. I don’t want to make a failure in this matter. Therefore, I don’t want to commence until I am sure of success. Very respectfully, J. V. Carter, U. S. Ind. Agent.
Indian Chieftain, Vinita, Indian Territory,
Thursday, June 11, 1885.
Dick Glass Killed.
Information reached here last Saturday of the sudden “taking off” of Dick Glass that morning at Postoak Grove, thirty miles west of Colbert.
Capt. Sam Sixkiller with Policemen Laflore, Murray, and Gooding, and C. M. McClellan, of Oc-wa-la, were in pursuit of a band of negroes headed by Glass, who had been to Denison, Texas, for a load of whiskey and were on their way back to the Seminole Nation. The officers were accompanied by a negro spy to locate them. After this was done the officers left the main road and got around ahead of them and selected a place near the roadside to await their approach. About 7 o’clock the negroes came along, one driving the wagon, and Glass and two others following close behind. When within ten feet Sixkiller stepped out into the road and commanded them to surrender. Instead of doing so, they started to run. After Glass ran a few steps he succeeded in getting his pistol out and as he turned to shoot, the police party fired on them.
Dick Glass and Jim Johnson were killed and the driver slightly wounded. Thinking the latter dead, the officers started in pursuit of the remaining desperado and succeeded in capturing him after a chase of half a mile.
Returning to the place where the shooting occurred, they found the driver and the horse gone, the wagon having broken down. After a six mile chase the diver was recaptured.
After returning with the prisoner to the scene of the first encounter, the bodies of Glass and Johnson and the two prisoners were loaded into a wagon and taken to Colbert where Glass was duly identified by a number of parties. Cheyenne Transporter.
June 15, 1885. Page 1, Column 1.
A report, which is said to be true, comes that the cold-hearted Territory outlaw, Dick Glass, has at last met his fate. He was killed last week in the Seminole Nation, while resisting arrest.
Interview: Hicks, H. W., Vinita, Oklahoma.
Dick Glass was quite a notorious outlaw of the 80s. He had been forced to leave the neighborhood of his native Creek Nation, near Wagoner, following his cattle stealing, the killing of young Billie Cobb, and the wounding of Alex Norman of the Cherokee side of the line. The latter resulted in a near Cherokee-Creek war.
After being run out of the Creek Nation, he took up his abode in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, and along with his other lawlessness took to bootlegging on a large scale. He sold by the barrel instead of the pint or quart. His base of operations was in the neighborhood of Stonewall.
Sam Sixkiller was chief of the Indian Police force headquartered at Muskogee.
Colbert: the last station on the M. K. & T. Railroad north of Red River.
Indian police picked up a colored man from the neighborhood and deputized him to act as scout and guide.
Dick Glass was filled with buckshot from waist line to neck, and had been hit in the side of the head with a Winchester bullet passing clear through the head, back of the eyes.
There was a full sized barrel of whiskey in the back end of the wagon, several Winchesters, one pearl handled 45 revolver, two ivory handled pistols, and one or two plain old frontiers. The fire arms were divided among the posse.
Glass had a fine Winchester carbine, a 40-60, which was left with me for more than a year before the officer who fell heir to it had me ship it to him.
H. W. Hicks: Station Agent for the M. K. & T. at Colbert, Indian Territory.
Interview: Bar, John T.
Notorious Whiskey Runners.
George Mack [Negro].
Dick Glass [Negro].
Headquarters: Seminole Nation.
Supply of whiskey came from Texas.
Had to pass through Chickasaw Nation to get whiskey, following what became known as the “Old Whiskey Trail.”
Dick Glass: A sixteen part Negro.
Seminole Chief: John Brown.
Montford Johnson [Johnson Ranch] Figure 8 brand.
Interview: Lu Ferguson, Limestone Gap, Oklahoma
Charley Laflore, Half-breed Choctaw Indian. United States Marshal.
He died, age 79, buried at Limestone Gap.
Laflore (with six or eight officers) was part of group that ambushed Dick Glass near Hartshorne or Wilburton. All fired. Not known who killed Glass.
Gun: Silver plated with a marble handle.
[Note: Sometimes “Laflore” was spelled “Leflore.”]
