Born in Memphis, Missouri in 1860, he became an expert hunter and a dead shot while still a boy. Like most young men of the time, he went west to make his fortune, but the fates were not kind to him.
After much misfortune and hunger assailed him, he reached Prescott, Arizona in 1875, first finding work as a stage driver, then as a Mexican interpreter and straw boss for Al Sieber, the chief army scout at the San Carlos Indian Reservation.
Tom Horn and Geronimo
Horn learned to speak Apache fluently and worked for Sieber intermittently from 1875 to 1886. Riding with Sieber, he trailed Geronimo and other renegade Apache into Mexico. He claimed to have arranged Geronimo’s final surrender in 1886 to General Nelson A. Miles.
With scouts no longer needed, Horn worked as a deputy sheriff for a time in Arizona. He was an expert rodeo cowboy and won the steer roping contest in Phoenix with a time of 45.5 seconds.
His first detective work came with the Pinkerton Detective Agency from 1890 – 1894, where he tracked down outlaws wanted for bank and train robberies. He was reputed to have killed 17 men during this time, but resigned because the job was too tame for him.
Tom Horn and the Wyoming Cattleman's Association
Horn offered his services to the Wyoming Cattleman’s Association to exterminate cattle rustlers. For every rustler he killed, he charged $500. It was during this time he was reputed to have said, “Killing men is my specialty. I look at it as a business proposition, and I think I have a corner on the market.”
Horn established a reputation as an ambush killer. He would track his victim for several days and dispatch the man from a concealed location with a single shot to the head. To mark his kills, he placed a large rock under the head of each of his victims. His reputation became so pronounced that when news of his arrival in an area spread, most cattle thieves left the vicinity.
The Spanish American War of 1898 found him serving as a mule packtrain operator with the Rough Riders, but after the war concluded, he resumed his activities as a hired killer.
Horn’s killing spree came to an end when he was convicted for the death of Willie Nickell, a fourteen year old boy. A lot of controversy surrounds the issue as a confession was obtained from Horn while he was intoxicated. And many believed he was framed because of his reputation; the debate still rages on to this day.
Tom Horn was hung just one day short of his 43 birthday in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The total number of men he killed will never be known.
Sources:
<Tom Horn Bio> Retrieved on 2/27/08.
Lamar, Howard R, ed. The New Encyclopedia of the American West. New Haven and London, Yale University Press.
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