Legends of the Old West - TEXAS JACK Ep. 5 | “Lies and Statistics”

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Texas Jack sets the record straight after his honor and reputation are slandered in a newspaper. He leads another hunting trip to Yellowstone National Park, and his trip collides with the Nez Perce as they make their epic run for freedom. Jack races to save tourists who crossed paths with the Nez Perce column, and then he returns to the stage for another tour. But the tour is plagued by theft and other problems, and Jack feels the end of his career on the horizon. For the full story of Texas Jack, check out Matthew Kerns’ book! Texas Jack: America’s First Cowboy Star Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 2nd, 1877, Texas Jack's first show without his old friend Buffalo Bill Cody premiered at New York's Bowery Theater. The show was called Texas Jack, or Life in the Black Hills, and Jack must have been concerned that he wouldn't be able to pull in audiences as he had in the past with Bill Cody or Wild Bill Hickok. The previous year, Jack had headed into the Wyoming wilderness following the catastrophic loss of his hotel to a fire at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. At the same time, Bill Cody returned to the stage to capitalize on his fight

with the Cheyenne warrior named Yellow Hair. He kicked things off in Rochester in early October 1876, and by the time Texas Jack's show premiered in April of 1877, Cody had played more than 60 cities in six months. Newspaper clippings in a scrapbook kept by Jack's wife answered his concerns. Texas Jacks play beats Buffalo Bills play all hollow, says one. Oceans of applause greet Texas Jack at the Bowery Theater, and Jack unquestioningly deserves it, reads another. 1876 was a difficult year for Jack. His old mentor Wild Bill was dead, his dramatic partnership with

his best friend Buffalo Bill was over, and his fortune had literally gone up in smoke in the Centennial Fire. Here in the spring of 1877, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Here in the spring of 1877, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Little did Jack know that it wasn't the light of salvation. It was closer to the headlight of an oncoming train. Texas Jack's short-lived dramatic company, the Texas Jack Combination, went from dazzling heights to devastating lows. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling a six-part anthology about the famous cowboy, scout, and stage performer, Texas Jack Omohundro.

This is Episode 5, Lies and Statistics. The shows with Ned Buntline, Buffalo Bill, and Wild Bill Hickok always started with the scouts walking onto the stage and explaining where they were coming from and what kind of danger they expected. Audiences in the Bowery Theater probably expected the same thing. So when Texas Jack's pony, Modoc, ran full speed across the length of the theater's stage, pulling up suddenly at the footlights, mouth agape with one fiery eye looking down sideways at the audience and the orchestra alike, the crowd went wild. The performance put to shame all previous attempts to make a horse a dramatic animal, wrote a reviewer for the New York Sun. Shot out of a gun is nothing compared with the manner of Jack and his pony, attested a report in the New York Dispatch.

If ever a horse and rider were a cord and knew how far to go and no further, they are Texas Jack and his Mustang. It's worth a month's wages just to see Jack mount and dismount. Once again, it wasn't the play that the audiences were coming to see, it was the star. Each show was performed to a sellout crowd that one critic described as testing the capacity of the building and attesting to Texas Jack's popularity. The tour moved from Manhattan to upstate New York, then to Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, and Pennsylvania, hitting 28 cities in just over two months. In every theater, in every city, the show was a hit.

Audiences flocked to see Texas Jack and his wife, the Peerless Morlocki, as she was called, and critics lavished praise on the pair's respective abilities. The tour finished with a successful week of performances in Pittsburgh, and Texas Jack headed west to spend another summer trekking through Yellowstone Park and the wildest parts of Wyoming territory. His co-stars agreed to meet him in Chicago for another tour starting in September. A little over a month later, in October 1877, Jack was in New York when an unprecedented crisis exploded.

It seemed the perfect embodiment of the famous quote by Mark Twain, there are three kinds of lies, lies, damned lies, and statistics. On a quiet Monday afternoon at the offices of the New York Sun newspaper, the silence was broken by the heavy footsteps of a pair of leather cavalry boots. An editor looked up from his work and saw a tall man in a fringe buckskin jacket and a large Stetson hat approaching with a folded newspaper in his hand. Texas Jack focused on the editor, and his lips were drawn into a frown beneath his mustache. Jack removed his Stetson and flung it on the editor's desk, unfolded the copy of the newspaper he carried,

and pointed to an article with a scarred finger. That's the most outrageous lie I ever read, he said with a seething anger. The editor scanned the article. It was an extract from the previous day's edition that was reprinted from the Sioux City Journal. The article was about a pair of British aristocrats who had recently visited Sioux City after a long trek through the wildest parts of Wyoming. As the editor quickly scanned the article, the headline was stunning. Dime Novel Jack, a stage Indian fighter accused of cowardice on the plains. of cowardice on the plains. The article pulled no punches. It read, Two Englishmen left this city in the early summer under the guidance of the notorious Texas Jack.

If they should ever go again, they would not go with Texas Jack. They employed him with the understanding that he had been all through Yellowstone Park and had full information in regard to the geysers, but the only knowledge he exhibited was what he had collected from books and magazines. The result is that he was no guide whatever for the party. Jack is a fair shot when he has his gun leveled at clawless game, but when it comes to attacking anything which is able to fight, he prefers to let it alone. There was not much difficulty with the Indians during the trip, but when it was feared that there was some danger, Jack wanted to leave the party. He was told this was the time he was most needed. He replied that he could look out for himself,

and the rest might do the same for themselves And he quit the party abruptly in the very contingency for which he had been engaged as a guide and guard From this they came to the conclusion that the stories about texas jack being such a terrific indian fighter Are rather on the dime novel order Jack's chief glories were one with his tongue. He is now in the East, displaying them on stage, where there is no chance to disprove his claims in actual service. After the editor finished reading, he looked at Texas Jack, who fumed patiently. It's a lie from beginning to end, Jack said,

and I can't see how any man could have the cheek to write it. Jack pointed to the one word in the headline, six letters, that he could not abide. Coward. I ain't much of a newspaper man, he said, but I can tell the story and you can write it down. Here's what I say, that's a lie. I'd be willing to wager a year's salary that I know that country better than any living man, and yet this makes it out

that I don't know anything at all about it. I told those Englishmen when we started that I could and would take them safely through Yellowstone Park and I did it. I can't understand how any person could get up such a tissue of bare-faced lies. For all their statements, I can prove to be untrue. Jack was appearing in a series of sold-out shows at New York's Bowery Theater. Questions of his integrity, his bravery, and his skill as a guide put his whole livelihood at risk, both as an actor and as an outdoorsman, and Texas Jack was eager to set the record straight. He sat down with the editor and gave his side of the story. The summer hunt started well for Texas Jack. The two British aristocrats, Captain Bailey and Lord Birmingham, met him in

Rawlins, Wyoming, and they trekked north. A few weeks into the hunt, Birmingham saw two grizzly bears sleeping in the shade of a pine tree and wanted to shoot them. Jack said shooting sleeping prey wasn't very sporting, but Birmingham insisted. Jack held their horses while the Lord fired the first shot. The Lord killed the first grizzly, but the other one woke up and charged them. Jack fired and hit the second bear right before it tore into the Lord. The shot knocked the bear back but didn't kill it. The bear recovered and chased the two men through the brush. But it was wounded and they were on horseback, so they eventually escaped. Birmingham's pride seemed to be wounded worse than the bear.

He was embarrassed, angry, and insulted. Tension built as the party cut a trail into Yellowstone Park through the Wind River Valley, with Texas Jack proudly predicting that the new route would soon be known as Texas Jack's Trail to Yellowstone. Unfortunately, it wasn't, and the adventure wasn't over. Unfortunately, it wasn't, and the adventure wasn't over. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage, all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and in-person POS system. So wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered.

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Go to shopify.com slash R-E-A-L-M now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash Realm. On Jack's first trip to Yellowstone with the Earl of Dunraven in 1874, he was the only party in the vicinity. Now, three years later, there were nine parties that totaled just under 40 people wandering around the park. None of them knew that the largest group of people in Yellowstone weren't tourists. They were upwards of 750 Nez Perce men, women, and children who were fleeing their homeland in Idaho, eastern Oregon, and eastern Washington. U.S. Army troops had been chasing them for nearly two months, and the groups had

clashed several times. The Nez Perce column crossed into Yellowstone Park, which was a name that the Nez Perce had probably never heard. They certainly knew the area. They had been traveling through it long before guided hunting parties, but they probably didn't know that it was now America's first national park. As such, it was now a tourist attraction, which was another concept that the Nez Perce almost certainly knew nothing about. One of the tourist groups in the park was from Raidersburg, not far to the north. George Cowan, his wife Emma, her brother Frank Carpenter, and their 14-year-old sister Ida went to the park to see the wonders of Geyserland for themselves.

In his journal, Frank Carpenter wrote that they were riding through the park when a man emerges from the bushes ahead. He is a tall, powerfully built man, and he rode carelessly along, with his long rifle crossed in front of him. He was a picture. He was dressed in a complete suit of buckskin, wore a flaming red neckerchief, a broad sombrero fastened up on one side with a large eagle feather, and a pair of beautifully beaded moccasins. The costume of the man, his self-confident pose, and the quick penetrating glance of his keen black eye would give the impression that he was no ordinary mountaineer.

It is the world-renowned Rocky Mountain hunter and scout, Texas Jack. While our leader was in conversation with him, our party sat silently staring at him. This was our first sight of the man, whom, above all others, we were anxious to see. A few days later, the fleeing Nez Perce and the Raidersburg party collided at a camp along Tangle Creek. George Cowan feared that any loss of supplies would endanger his party and refused to give the hungry and embattled Nez Perce any food. The Cowan party fled north, only to encounter a larger group of Nez Perce. George Cowan was shot three times and left for dead.

The others were briefly held and then released. They wandered around without supplies for a few days until they were fortunate to run into Texas Jack's group again. Jack offered to rush them to the safety of Bozeman, Montana. While they moved, Frank saw Texas Jack looking through his spyglass back up the canyon. Two people were running toward the party. They danced in and out of the bushes, skirting the river. I think it is two white men, Jack said, but there are five or six Indians following them. You go on and overtake our party.

I'll go back and give those Indians a shot or two. Jack fell back. Soon, gunfire erupted, and Emma and Ida assumed the worst, that the Nez Perce were coming to finish what they had started with George. But eight miles later, Texas Jack caught up with them. He had fired at the Nez Perce, hitting their ponies and stopping the pursuit. They had returned fire, and Jack showed the frightened tourists a fresh wound where a ball had pierced his left hand. As they left the park, Frank Carpenter wrote in his diary that Yellowstone was a wild and rugged place, just suited for an ambuscade for the Indians.

a wild and rugged place, just suited for an ambuscade for the Indians. We feared trouble here, but Texas Jack went in advance scouting for us, and about midnight, we emerged at the Bottler Brothers Ranch. Jack hadn't run when there was trouble. He had doubled back and rescued Frank Carpenter, his terrified 14-year-old sister Ida, and Emma Cowan. He had also collected George Cowan, who had survived his wounds and crawled for four miles. Texas Jack reunited George and Emma 21 days after they all thought George was gone. While Jack was rescuing tourists in Yellowstone Park, his show was set to premiere in Chicago on September 10th.

The actors were assembled, advertisements were printed, and the theater was packed. But there was no Texas Jack. The manager assumed the lead role on opening night, using a wig and a fake mustache to convince the audience that he was the genuine hero. Jack's train arrived before the next performance, and while Lord Birmingham was accusing him of cowardice in Sioux City, Jack was once again receiving rave reviews. The tour proceeded east through Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Boston before returning to New York City. The day Jack walked into the office of the New York Sun to set the record straight about his summer adventures, he opened at the Bowery Theater. The next day, the Sun printed Jack's full account verbatim,

and Jack could return to the stage with peace of mind. In that fall, he did double duty at the Bowery Theater. For the first time, Texas Jack stretched his dramatic muscles beyond his Wild West play. One of Jessapina's most successful and in-demand performances was a play called The French Spy. The New York Times reported that, The Bowery Theater was the scene of a remarkable dramatic event last evening, Mr. Texas Jack making his first appearance as Muhammad. The play gave this imminent tragedy in full scope for the play of his wonderful powers.

His striking attitude, statuesque positions, graceful motions, and deep, intoned voice combined to make the play one of surpassing interest, full of surprises from beginning to end. Five years earlier, the best compliment he could receive from the critics was that he wasn't quite as ridiculous as Buffalo Bill. Now, the New York Times was praising Texas Jack as a master of his craft. Now, the New York Times was praising Texas Jack as a master of his craft. But the tour wasn't a success. When the show stopped in Cincinnati, the production manager failed to pay the hotel manager. A warrant was sworn out against the entire company, and police seized the show's assets.

Without costumes, props, and scenery, Texas Jack was forced to cancel shows. And on top of all of it was the drinking. Jack was a drinker for most of his life. One reporter on his first tour said, Texas Jack prefers whiskey to any other known liquid. The Earl of Dunraven wrote, Jack, like most prairie men, invariably introduces himself to the sun god with a copious libation of whiskey. Now, a reporter said, Jack is one of the best shots in America, is the best scout on the western plains, not accepting Buffalo Bill, and can throw a lasso

with all the accuracy of the historic South American on his nature pampas. But he don't know much about business. He finds himself after several years of bloodthirsty theatricals without a dollar. This continuous downhill travel has brought to Jack a habit of drinking to excess. In his sober moments, he expressed himself as willing to do anything in his power to straighten up the matter, but he was absolutely without money. It is hoped that whiskey may not get the advantage of one of nature's noblemen. Jack turned to the bottle to drown his despair at losing his fortune the previous year in the Philadelphia fire, and to alleviate the physical pain brought on by tuberculosis. The same disease that took his mother was taking its toll on Texas Jack.

As the tour continued, things only got worse. Packed houses and full coffers turned into poorly advertised one-night stands and modest receipts. advertised one-night stands and modest receipts. In March of 1878, a pair of police officers confronted Texas Jack about the show's unpaid bills. When they threatened to seize Jack's property, he replied, You can seize all the property you find belonging to me. I wish you could show me where I could find any property belonging to myself. All I have is a $16 suit of clothes. He told the officers that the stage property and everything else belonged to the show's manager. He'd lost $6,000 and was trying to make it back any way he could. He had resorted to selling his clothes to pay his bills. Still, he sank deeper. The tour dragged on. The manager disappeared with the cash box and

the door receipts. By the time the tour ended, Jack found himself, for the first time in a long time, with no money and without a dramatic tour or wilderness trek to occupy his time. It was just then that his old friend, Ina Palmer, walked back into his life. It was just then that his old friend Ina Palmer walked back into his life. Ina Palmer was an attractive Southern belle whose family had moved from Georgia to Nebraska in the early 1870s. Jack and Ina had informally courted, but then Jack left to perform with Buffalo Bill and Ned Buntline for the first time, and he ended up marrying Jessupina Morlocki. When Jack left to begin his acting career, a new suitor tried to win Ina's affections. He was a dentist named William Carver, whom everyone called Doc Carver. Doc had watched with a mixture of admiration and jealousy as Jack rose from notable local to national celebrity.

Carver hired Ina Palmer as his assistant in his dentist's office, and she had received compliments from both Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill about her ability to shoot. Doc Carver became obsessed with becoming the best marksman of his generation. While Jack performed on stages in the East and led hunting trips through the wilds of the West, Carver practiced relentlessly. Carver also asked Ina to marry him, but she said no. He moved to California and earned a reputation as one of the state's best shooters. As his reputation grew, so did his stories and his lies. Not content at being the better rifleman, Doc claimed that he was a better pistolier than Bill Hickok,

a better buffalo hunter than Bill Cody, and a better Indian fighter than Texas Jack. Doc Carver was six years younger than Jack, but he added a decade to his age to account for all his lies. One of the most fanciful was that he now claimed he was called Doc because the Sioux were in awe of his medicine and had dubbed him the evil spirit of the plains. Carver traveled east to display his talents to eager spectators.

Just as Texas Jack wrapped up his failed dramatic tour in Boston, Doc was looking for a place to stage an exhibition. The two ran into each other by chance, and each saw an opportunity. Carver staged a shooting exhibition in Boston on July 1st, with another scheduled for Brooklyn on the 4th. Doc was grateful when the newspapermen who covered Texas Jack's dramatic endeavors and wilderness expeditions showed up at his shooting exhibitions. He was less happy when those reporters heaped praise on Jack in what was supposed to be Doc's triumphant moment. But Doc Carver couldn't deny that the name Texas Jack

drew more spectators than he otherwise expected. Carver asked Jack to join him for a series of shoots at fairgrounds throughout the South. Jack agreed and promised to meet Doc in Philadelphia in October. There were two months left in the hunting season, and Jack headed west for what would be his last adventure. would be his last adventure. At the end of July 1878, every hotel and boarding house in Rollins was booked. Rooms that normally held a single guest were double booked, and the town teemed with the country's best minds and greatest scientists. They had come west to view a total solar eclipse, and Rollins was directly in the path of the event. One of those scientists was an inventor from New York named Thomas Edison.

He was already famous, with the nickname the Wizard of Menlo Park. Edison had come to Rollins to test an invention that was designed to measure temperature changes in the sun's corona. This is Thomas Edison's description of his first night in Rollins. The hotel was very small, and by doubling up we were barely accommodated. My roommate was a correspondent for the New York Herald. After we retired and were asleep, a thundering knock on the door awakened us. After we retired and were asleep, a thundering knock on the door awakened us. Upon opening the door, a tall, handsome man with flowing hair, dressed in Western style, entered our room.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he was somewhat inebriated. He introduced himself as Texas Jack Omohundro, and he said he wanted to see Edison, as he had read about me in the newspapers. Edison continued, We were scared and didn't know what was to be the result of the interview. The landlord requested him not to make so much noise and was thrown out into the hall. Jack explained that he felt fine. He said he was the boss pistol shot of the West, the man who taught the celebrated Dr. Carver how to shoot. Then, suddenly pointing to a weather vane on the freight depot, he pulled out a Colt revolver and fired through the window, hitting the vane.

The shot awakened all the people, and they rushed to see who was killed. It was only after I told him I was tired and would see him in the morning that he left. We didn't sleep any that night. We were told in the morning that Jack was a pretty good fellow and not one of the bad men of whom they had a good supply. Edison asked around, hoping to talk with Texas Jack under better circumstances, only to find that Jack had already set off on a hunt. Jack's guests on that trip were a German aristocrat, Count Otto Frank von Lichtenstein and Dr. Amandus Ferber of New York. The first four weeks of the trip were great.

They were full of hunting, fishing, and sightseeing along the Colorado-Wyoming border that proved to be world-class for Jack's guests. But in the final two weeks, the German count received the scare of his life. They had traveled north as far as the Bighorn Basin before heading back south toward Rollins. That was when an early winter snowstorm hit. Frank went out to hunt by himself and became lost in the storm. He grew worried that he wouldn't survive the evening and wrote later, I had just drank the last of my whiskey and water

when I heard the faint report of a gun. I fired, and after 15 to 20 minutes of anxious listening and waiting, I heard the clatter of horses' hooves. Looming up through the darkness came a man on horseback with another saddle horse beside, on a dead run towards me. In a moment, he was beside me. This gave me new life, and he rode behind me as I made a beeline for the ranch, as fast as my lively pony could run. Texas Jack had rescued another person during a trip, and had finished his time as the premier hunting guide of the West on a high note.

Jack returned to the East and joined Doc Carver at a dozen or so shooting exhibitions that stretched through the end of December 1878. Carver, again, was not thrilled about the attention the newspapers gave to Jack, nor was he thrilled by the attention that his new wife paid to his competitor. Doc Carver took off for Europe to showcase his shooting abilities far from Texas Jack in the American press. Jessupina Morlocki was scheduled for a series of appearances at theaters in major cities, and Jack offered to accompany her. He was tired of acting, but it remained the best way to try to assure his

financial future. The Chicago Tribune reported, the stage is going to lose its Texas Jack. He will shortly play a session of farewell engagements, and then he and his wife, farewell engagements, and then he and his wife, Mademoiselle Morlocki, will retire. Jack and Jessopina prepared to say goodbye to the stage, but within a year, Jessopina would also say goodbye to Texas Jack. Next time on Legends of the Old West, it's the final chapter of the saga of Texas Jack Omohundro. He and Jessapina finish their final tour in the East and then move to a mining town in Colorado. Jack has one last hurrah as an action hero

before he's honored as a legend of the American West. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Matthew Kearns, the author of Texas Jack, America's First Cowboy Star. Original music by Rob Valliere. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, for more details, and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on

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