More
than 110 years have passed since East Texas outlaw John Wesley Hardin was shot
down in an El Paso saloon, but he remains one of the most intriguing badmen in
history. Almost lost in Hardin's history are his three brothers, Joe, Jeff and
Gip, whose lives were also singed with violence.
John Wesley, named for
the founder of Methodism, was born at Bonham
in Fannin County on May 26, 1853, the son of Methodist circuit rider James Gibson
Hardin. Another son, Joe Gibson, was born in 1850. Jefferson (Jeff) Davis, named
for the Confederate president, came into the world in 1861, a few years after
the Hardin family moved to Moscow
in Polk County and then to Sumpter in Trinity County. James Barnett (Gip) Gibson
was born in 1874.
In
1868, during the aftermath of the Civil War, John Wesley shot and killed his first
man, a free slave. While on the run from Reconstruction soldiers, Hardin and his
brother Joe fled to Northeast Texas and linked up with unrepentant Rebels during
their raids on Union Army troops.
Their stay in Northeast Texas was short. So was Joe Hardin's life.
In
May of 1874, while living in Brown County, the Hardin brothers ran afoul of the
law when John Wesley killed Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb. A warrant was issued
for Hardin and on June 1, Sheriff John Carnes and a squad of Texas Rangers surprised
and captured brother Joe and cousins Bud and Tom Dixon. John Wesley was nowhere
around.
Joe and his cousins were placed in a rock building used as a jail,
but at midnight on June 1, a posse of men angry over Webb's death disarmed the
jail's guards, took the three prisoners, and hanged them from the limbs of an
oak tree a few miles south of Comanche.
Jefferson Davis Hardin, often known as "J.D.," also followed in John Wesley's
footsteps. He and his older brother shared horse race bets, drank heavily and
traded gunshots with more than a few men.
In June of 1874, John Wesley
sent 13-year-old Jeff to collect $500 at a stockyard in Kansas City, which owed
him money from the sale of cattle. John Wesley used the money to flee to Florida,
where he was arrested on a railroad car at Pensacola in August of l877.
In May of 1900, while operating a saloon at Clairemont,
Texas, Jeff started arguing with customer John Snowden, but the argument was
broken up by bystanders. Hardin approached Snowden again later in the evening,
but was found dead with a bullet in his heart. Snowden surrendered to the local
sheriff, but he was never tried.
John Wesley's third brother, Gip Hardin,
was a teacher at Junction in
March of 1896 when he shot and killed a friend, deputy sheriff John Turman, during
a dinner argument. A jury found Gip guilty and he was sentenced to 35 years in
prison. But a new trial resulted in a term of only two years.
After his
release, Gip separated from his wife and two daughters. During World War I, he
was working on a ship carrying horses to Europe for U.S. troops. In 1918, somewhere
off the coast of Florida, he was crushed to death by two shifting boxcars.
Gip's
death ended the violent legacy of the four Hardin brothers.
John Wesley
also had three sisters--Elizabeth, Martha and Nancy--but as far as we know, none
of them carried a gun. |
