John Wesley Hardin was born on May 26, 1853 in Bonham, Texas to a respectable family. His father, James Hardin, was a Methodist preacher and schoolteacher. He reached adolescence during the early Reconstruction period just after the Civil War.
His first recorded violent act came at the age of 14 when he stabbed another boy in a schoolyard quarrel over a girl. Shortly after the war, Hardin’s uncle’s family was massacred by Union sympathizers and it was revenge for this deed that began Hardin’s killing spree.
He killed his first man, a former slave, in 1868. In fleeing from the law for this murder, he is reputed to have killed one or more of the Union soldiers who were chasing him.
Hardin fought against the Reconstruction government in Texas and most of his killings were deemed honorable by the sympathetic populace.
Hardin and Hickok
By 1871, Hardin had gained quite a reputation for his skills with a gun and his hair-trigger temper. After following the Chisholm Trail as a cowboy to Abilene, Kansas he encountered Wild Bill Hickok.
Proud of his own reputation and unimpressed by others, Hardin ignored the local regulation against carrying guns in town. Hardin claimed that he faced down Wild Bill Hickok, but supporters of Hickok disagree.
John Wesley Hardin Goes to Prison
In 1874, Hardin killed a deputy sheriff in Comanche, Texas. He fled to Florida with his family, his wife and three children, living the life of a refugee.
He was captured by Texas Rangers in Pensacola, Florida and was subsequently tried and convicted. Sentenced to 25 years in Huntsville at hard labor, Hardin was pardoned on March 16, 1894. However, his wife passed away while he was serving his time.
He remarried in January 1895, but the marriage lasted only a short time and he drifted to El Paso without his children. While in prison, Hardin had studied law and was admitted to the Texas bar when he regained his freedom. He made an attempt at politics but was unsuccessful.
In El Paso, he spent his spare time composing an autobiography that was published posthumously. The Life of John Wesley Hardin as Written by Himself was published in 1896 and reprinted in 1961.
On the night of August 19, 1895, while at the Acme bar in El Paso, he was shot in the back by John Selman, a city policeman. Selman is rumored to have shot Hardin to further his own reputation as a gunfighter.
Sources:
Famous Texans Retrieved on 2/27/09.
Lamar, Howard R, ed. The New Encyclopedia of the American West. New Haven and London, Yale University Press.
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