William Matthew Tilghman Jr. (July 4, 1854 – November 1, 1924) was a career lawman, gunfighter, and politician in Kansas and Oklahoma during the late 19th century. Tilghman was a Dodge City city marshal in the early 1880s and played a role in the Kansas County Seat Wars. In 1889 he moved to Oklahoma where he acquired several properties during a series of land rushes. While serving as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in Oklahoma, he gained recognition for capturing the notorious outlaw Bill Doolin and helping to track and kill the other members of Doolin's gang, which made him famous as one of Oklahoma's "Three Guardsmen".
Tilghman never achieved the household-word status of his close friends Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson but nevertheless remains a well-known figure of the American Old West. His memoirs were made into a 1915 film that he directed and starred in as himself.
Tilghman died in 1924 at the age of 70 after being shot by a corrupt prohibition agent on the streets of Cromwell, Oklahoma. Much of the fame that he has since achieved has been attributed to the efforts of his second wife, who published his biography in 1949. In 1960, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Early life
William Matthew Tilghman Jr. was born on July 4, 1854, in Fort Dodge, Iowa. He was the third of six children born to William Matthew Tilghman Sr. (1820–1908) and his wife Amanda Shepherd (1830–1915).Bill Tighman's five siblings were Richard Lloyd Tilghman (1847-1900), Mary Tilghman (1851-1900), Franklin Tilghman (1856-1929), Harriet "Hattie"Tilghman (1860-1905) and Josephine "Josie" Tilghman (1861-1944).
In 1857, the Tilghman family relocated to the newly created Kansas Territory and settled on a farm near Atchison. At the age of seventeen, Bill Tilghman won a contract to supply buffalo meat to the men building the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. From September 1, 1871, to April 1, 1872, Tilghman is reputed to have killed 3,300 buffalo. He would claim this was the "all time record" in later years. According to Zoe Tilghman, his second wife, he also killed two Cheyenne braves when they confronted him, as he feared they would torture him.
Dodge City
According to his second wife, Tilghman first became a lawman in September 1874, when he signed on as a deputy under Sheriff Charles E. Bassett (1847–1896) of Ford County, Kansas.Tilghman, Zoe A. Marshal of the Last Frontier – pp. 21–23. Despite this claim, there is no record of Tilghman serving as Bassett's deputy. Sometime during the summer of 1877, the 23-year-old Tilghman marriedThe exact date is unknown, since no wedding certificate has been found. a 16-year-old widow named Flora (Kendall) Jefferson (1861–1900).Flora F. Kendall was born in Doniphan, Kansas on May 26, 1861. She married John Jefferson (1851–1877) on April 5, 1877. He died shortly after the wedding from an unknown cause. The marriage was an unhappy one almost from the start, but nonetheless produced four children: Charles,Charles Augustus Tilghman was born on November 22, 1878. He married Ione Conklin (1884–1973), with whom he had two children. He died on March 13, 1972, at the age of 93. Dorothy,Dorothy "Dot" Tilghman was born on May 22, 1881. She married Daniel J. Norton, with whom she had three children. She died on October 20, 1973, at the age of 92. William,William Tilghman was born on April 3, 1886, in Dodge City. He died on July 29, 1952, at the age of 66. and Viona.Viona "Vonie" Tilghman was born on December 14, 1890. She married Frederick Lee Sikes (1888–1967), with whom she had a daughter. She died on July 7, 1927, at the age of 36.
Early in 1877, Tilghman and Henry Garris opened the Crystal Palace Saloon in Dodge City. A local paper reported during the summer that "Garris and Tilghman's Crystal Palace is receiving a new front and an awning, which will tend to create a new attraction towards the never ceasing fountains of refreshment flowing within."Dodge City Times, July 21, 1877. Barely a year later, during the spring of 1878, Tilghman and Garris sold the Crystal Palace Saloon.Dodge City Times, May 11, 1878.
Bill Tilghman's first documented service as a lawman began on January 1, 1878, when he became a deputy under Sheriff Bat Masterson. Within a month of his appointment, Tilghman was charged with being an accessory to an attempted train robbery.Dodge City Times, February 9, 1878. On February 12, the charges against him were dropped for lack of evidence.Dodge City Times, February 16, 1878. Tilghman was again suspected of a crime two months later, on April 16, when he was arrested by Masterson on a charge of horse theft. Once again the charges were dismissed.Ford County Globe, April 23, 1878. Troubles of a different sort came up on March 8, 1879, when Masterson had to sell his deputy's Dodge City house at auction, apparently to satisfy a judgment.Dodge City Times, March 8, 1879.
City Marshal
On November 6, 1883, Patrick F. Sughrue (1844–1906) was elected sheriff of Ford County and Bill Tilghman became his deputy. During this period, Tilghman also owned a Dodge City saloon called the Oasis, which he sold to his brother Frank in early April 1884. According to a local paper, "William Tilghman, Esq, proprietor of the 'Oasis,' has sold out to his brother Frank, who will refit and fix up and make everything smooth and harmonious to the visitor."Dodge City Democrat, April 5, 1884.
Tilghman gained his first important position as a lawman on April 10, 1884, when he was appointed city marshal of Dodge City.Dodge City Times, April 17, 1884. On May 2, 1884, the citizens of Dodge presented Tilghman with a solid gold badge.Ford County Globe, May 6, 1884. In her biography of her husband, Tilghman's widow wrote that Tilghman and Assistant Marshal Ben Daniels ran "Mysterious" Dave Mather out of Dodge during late July 1885.Tilghman, Zoe A. Marshal of the Last Frontier pp. 163–165. Mather's 1992 biographer said the story does not add up for many reasons. The most obvious is that Mather was scheduled to stand trial for murder at the time, which raises the question of why Dodge City's marshal and assistant marshal would run out an indicted man rather than confine him.DeMattos, Jack. Mysterious Gunfighter: The Story of Dave Mather. College Station, TX: Creative Publishing Company, 1992 pp. 156–157. On March 9, 1886, Tilghman resigned as city marshal to tend to his ranch. The great blizzard of 1886 wiped out the livestock on many ranches in the area, including a ranch that Tilghman owned.
Even after resigning as city marshal, Tilghman still held a commission as a Ford County deputy sheriff. Law enforcement duties brought him to Farmer City, Kansas on his thirty-fourth birthday – July 4, 1888 – where he shot and killed a man named Ed Prather. The local paper reported that Prather "made frequent threats against Wm. Tilghman, the deputy sheriff, who took all the abuse from the excited man without offering any retaliation ... in conversation with Mr. Tilghman, he became very abusive and threatened to put an end to him right there, and suiting action to his words, he threw his hand upon his revolver; but Mr. Tilghman was too quick for him and held a revolver in his face. Mr. T. ordered him three times to take his hand off his gun, and would have disarmed him if he had been near enough; but Prather sought a better position, but Tilghman pulled the trigger and Prather was a dead man. A coroner's jury ... after a thorough examination of the circumstances, returned a verdict of justifiable killing."Farmer City Western Farmer, July 5, 1888.
Gray County War
In January 1889, Bill Tilghman was one of several Dodge City gunfighters involved in the Gray County War, a county seat war fought between the rival Kansas towns of Ingalls and Cimarron. During a pitched battle between the two factions, one man was killed and five were wounded. Tilghman escaped with nothing more serious than a sprained ankle.
Oklahoma
On April 22, 1889, the first of the celebrated Oklahoma land rushes took place. The city of Guthrie, which had not existed the day before, had an instant population of 15,000. One member of that population was Bill Tilghman, who built a commercial structure on his Oklahoma Avenue lot and used the rent from it to help re-establish himself as a rancher. For the remaining thirty-five years of his life, Tilghman was an Oklahoman. Another land rush was held on September 22, 1891, and Tilghman established a ranch. During this period, Oklahoma was suffering from the depredations of numerous outlaws, most notably Bill Doolin and his gang, the Wild Bunch. In May 1892, Tilghman was appointed a Deputy U.S. Marshal in Oklahoma. He joined forces with fellow deputy marshals such as Heck Thomas, Chris Madsen, Frank Canton, and Bud Ledbetter to wage total war on the outlaws active in the territory.
In the Cherokee Strip land rush of September 16, 1893, the new town of Perry, Oklahoma was created, and Bill Tilghman was appointed city marshal of Perry on October 21. Heck Thomas was hired as assistant marshal. Both Tilghman and Thomas retained their commissions as deputy U.S. marshals. Once law and order was established in Perry, Tilghman went back on the trail of the Doolin gang.
A famous but completely fictitious story tells of how Tilghman entered a "dugout" on January 8, 1895. Tilghman supposedly detected the tips of several rifles pointed at him from hidden positions in the dugout. According to this story, one of the hidden outlaws attempted to shoot Tilghman in the back, but was prevented from doing so by Bill Doolin himself, who stated: "Bill Tilghman is too good a man to shoot in the back." This much-repeated tale has its origin in a 1915 pamphlet which was sold in conjunction with Tilghman's motion picture The Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws. In 1937, Chris Madsen, Tilghman's fellow marshal, commented on the yarn as follows: "I like Bill Tilghman ... but Bill, when he got into the moving picture business, had to make a record whether it was right or not ... Bill was a little inclined to be romantic."
Slowly but surely, the Doolin gang was all but exterminated. Chris Madsen's posse killed "Tulsa Jack" Blake on April 4, 1895; George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb and Charley Pierce were killed on May 2. Then on September 6, 1895, Tilghman and two other deputy marshals tracked down William F. "Little Bill" Raidler. After being ordered to surrender, Raidler opened fire and was brought down by a blast from Tilghman's shotgun. The outlaw survived his wounds and was sentenced to ten years.
Capture of Bill Doolin
The high point of Tilghman's career came on January 15, 1896, when he single-handedly captured Bill Doolin, the putative leader of the Wild Bunch. Tilghman trailed Doolin to the health resort in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Entering a bathhouse, he spotted Doolin seated in the lobby, though Doolin failed to recognize Tilghman, who suddenly began wrestling with the outlaw. After a brief struggle, Tilghman subdued Doolin without a shot being fired. Once Doolin was in custody, Tilghman wired U.S. Marshal Evett Dumas Nix in Guthrie, Oklahoma: "I have him. We will be there tomorrow. Tilghman." The following day, some 2,000 people jammed the Guthrie railroad station to see Tilghman bring in Doolin.
The remainder of the Doolin gang was soon killed or captured. A posse killed George "Red Buck" Waightman on March 4, 1896, and "Dynamite Dick" Clifton was rounded up shortly afterward. Tilghman's glory for capturing Bill Doolin quickly evaporated when Doolin escaped from jail on July 5, less than six months after his capture. Doolin was finally tracked down by Heck Thomas and his posse and was shot to death on August 24, 1896. Tilghman never received the reward money for Doolin's capture, which the state of Oklahoma refused to pay after Doolin escaped.