John Wesley Hardin

Hardin, a wanted man, was by now always on the move, suspicious of everyone he met, and in constant fear of his life. His only way of making a living was by gambling or taking what he wanted at the point of a gun. His paranoia acute, he was more dangerous than ever. In August, 1872, he was shot and almost killed in a dispute over a game of poker. Bedridden for months, he decided to give himself up. He wanted, he later said, ” to clear the slate.” He soon changed his mind, however, once he discovered just how many murders they wanted to charge him with. Yet again he made one of those sudden departures with which he was by now well versed. Furious at their failure to apprehend him local Texas Rangers broke into the jail where Hardin’s relatives had been placed under protective custody and lynched his brother Joe and several of his cousins.

Hardin, in the meantime, had fled to Florida, where he lived under the false name Jim Swain; with a bounty on his head, unable to work, deeply suspicious of everyone he met, and increasingly paranoid,  he was more dangerous than ever. Constantly on the move he was finally tracked down by Texas Rangers and arrested on a train bound for Pensacola. Hardin had wanted to shoot it out but his pistols had become entangled in the lining of his waistcoat. At his trial Hardin expected to be sentenced to death but he had by now become something of a Texan folk hero so instead he was sentenced to 20 years in prison of which he served 17. While in prison he studied for and gained a law degree. Upon his release he settled in El Paso where he established his own law practice. Though frequently drunk and prone to violent mood swings it would appear that for a time he prospered. In 1895, he began writing his autobiography.

On 19 August, 1895, a lady friend of Hardin’s was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Hardin, unable to steer clear of an argument, decided to confront the lawman responsible, John Selman Jr, and a furious row erupted during which Hardin is believed to have threatened Selman’s life. A threat against your life from John Wesley Hardin was not something to be taken lightly. Selman’s father, John Sr, also a lawman reproached Hardin for his behaviour and tried to smooth things over, but Hardin would have none of it, and they traded insults in what was becoming a very public dispute. Later that same evening as Hardin was playing poker in the Acme Saloon, John Selman Sr, walked up to Hardin and shot him through the back of the head. So died one of the most dangerous men to emerge from the Old West, like so many of his victims, murdered in cold blood