John Horton Slaughter

File:John Horton Slaughter with shotgun.jpg

John Horton Slaughter with his shotgun

File:Slaughter’s Cowboys.jpg

Incorrectly identified as "Terry's Texas Rangers" in fact these were cowboys of John H. Slaughter<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

John Horton Slaughter (October 2, 1841 – February 16, 1922), also known as Texas John Slaughter, was an American lawman, cowboy, poker player and rancher in the Southwestern United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After serving in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, Slaughter earned a reputation fighting hostile Indians and Mexican and American outlaws in the Arizona and New Mexico territories. In the latter half of his life, he lived at the San Bernardino Ranch, which is today a well-preserved National Historic Landmark in Cochise County in far southeastern Arizona. In 1964, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Biography

Early life

Slaughter was born in 1841 on a horse Southern plantation in Sabine Parish near Many in western Louisiana.<ref name="encyclopedia">Amanda Oren, "Slaughter, John Horton (1841–1922)" Handbook of Texas Online. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.</ref><ref name="slaughterranch">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="tombstone">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="clifford">Clifford R. Caldwell, John Simpson Chisum: Cattle King of the Pecos Revisited, Santa Fe, New Mexico: Sunstone Press, 2010, pp. 77–78 [1]</ref> His parents were Benjamin Slaughter and the former Minerva Mabry.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> He was educated in schools in Texas in Sabine County and Caldwell County.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> From Mexican vaqueros, he learned how to herd cattle and how to speak Spanish.<ref name="encyclopedia"/>

In the early 1860s, Slaughter defended American settlers against hostile Comanche as a Texas Ranger.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> During the Civil War, he served in the Confederate States Army.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> He fought Union forces in Burnet County, west of the capital city of Austin, Texas.<ref name="encyclopedia"/><ref name="tombstone" />

Career

In 1874, he, along with his brother, became a cattle driver in Atascosa County, south of San Antonio.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> The two formed a cattle-transporting company, the San Antonio Ranch Company, which drove cattle to Kansas via the Chisholm Trail.<ref name="encyclopedia"/><ref name="clifford"/> One (if not the only) of his cattle drive bosses was his first cousin Lewis Warren Neatherlin. Neatherlin's brother, James Franklin Neatherlin, also the Slaughter brothers' first cousin, assisted on the drive.<ref>Kelley, J. (1988, Spring) Up the Trail in '76: The Journal of Lewis Warren Neatherlin, Chronicles of Oklahoma, 66(1), pp. 22–51. Published by the Oklahoma Historical Society</ref>

In the late 1870s, Slaughter left Texas for New Mexico, where he traded cattle and planned to start a ranch.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> However, he eventually decided to establish the ranch in the Arizona Territory.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> Initially settling in Charleston, Arizona, he later purchased the San Bernardino Ranch, on the U.S.–Mexico border near Douglas, in 1884.<ref name="encyclopedia"/><ref name="tombstone" />

In 1886, Slaughter was elected sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, five years after the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.<ref name="encyclopedia"/><ref name="slaughterranch"/><ref name="clifton">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="altonpryor">Alton Pryor, The Lawmen, Roseville, California: Stagecoach Publishing, 2006, pp. 95–97 [2]</ref> He was later re-elected to a second term.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> As sheriff, he helped track Geronimo, the Apache chief who was caught on the San Bernardino Ranch.<ref name="encyclopedia"/><ref name="tombstone" /><ref name="clifton"/> Slaughter fought for law and order with his six-shooter, a shotgun, and a repeating Henry rifle.<ref name="altonpryor"/> He arrested desperados like the Jack Taylor Gang and brought them to justice.<ref name="tombstone" /><ref name="altonpryor"/>

He also became a prominent poker player, often playing all night long.<ref name="clifford"/><ref name="altonpryor"/> He was reportedly good at bluffing.<ref name="altonpryor"/> He often played with the cattle baron John Chisum.<ref name="altonpryor"/> Once, in San Antonio, he was cheated by cattle rustler Bryan Gallagher.<ref name="clifford"/><ref name="altonpryor"/> Slaughter claimed the pot but Bryan fled. Slaughter tracked down Gallagher all the way to New Mexico at Chisum's ranch and shot him down.

Personal life

Slaughter married Eliza Adeline Harris on August 4, 1871.<ref name="encyclopedia"/><ref name="tombstone" /> Of their four children, only two, Addie and Willie, survived until adulthood.<ref name="encyclopedia"/> Eliza died in 1877 of smallpox in Tucson.<ref name="encyclopedia"/><ref name="slaughterranch"/>

On April 16, 1879, Slaughter, at the age of thirty-seven, married eighteen-year-old Cora Viola Howell at Tularosa, New Mexico Territory.<ref name="encyclopedia"/><ref name="slaughterranch"/><ref name="tombstone" /> The Slaughters had no children of their own, but they adopted several children, including Apache May, whom Slaughter encountered in 1896 while chasing the Apache Kid in Mexico.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Years later, when he became ill, the Slaughters moved to an apartment on Twelfth Street in Douglas, Arizona.<ref name="tombstone" /><ref name="clifton"/>

Previously believed to be Slaughter's former slave, John Swain (Slaughter), an experienced cowboy, settled in Tombstone and became one of its oldest and longstanding residents, dying at the age of nearly 100 in 1945. However, John Slaughter hired Swain on as an employee in Texas in 1879 <ref>Arizona Republic October 1, 1964, Page 22.</ref> prior to moving to Arizona. Swain was employed by Slaughter for a brief period before leaving the San Bernardino ranch and moving to Tombstone where he remained until his death. <ref>The Cochise Quarterly, Volume 15, No. 4, 1985</ref> John Horton Slaughter never owned a slave.

Death

Slaughter was found on the morning of February 16, 1922, in his Douglas apartment, having died sometime during the previous night.<ref name="encyclopedia"/><ref name="clifton"/> He was buried at the Calvary Cemetery in Douglas.

Further reading

• Baird, Clayton. "I Knew John Slaughter." Real West, September 1972.
• DeMattos, Jack. "Gunfighters of the Real West: John Slaughter." Real West, March 1982.
• Erwin, Allen A. The Southwest of John Horton Slaughter 1841–1922, Pioneer Cattleman and Trail-driver of Texas, the Pecos, and Arizona and Sheriff of Tombstone. Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clarke Company, 1965.
• Farfan, G. B. "Patchy Slaughter." Frontier Times, September 1963.

See also

• Texas John Slaughter, 1958–1961 TV series