John Ringo
1844 - 1882



For John did come from people who originally hailed from
Kentucky, although he was born in Texas. His family was not proud
of the Younger cousins who had been train and bank robbers under Jesse
James, and it was seldom they mentioned the background of Grandpapa,
Colonel Coleman Younger, who lived in San Jose, California, with John's
three pretty sisters.
John
wandered from home while still a young man and learned that he had a
definite talent for gunslinging. He told his family he thought
he'd go into the cattle business out west somewhere. He stopped
off at Dodge City, and became known as a good-looking gunslinger, six
feet two, and just as dangerous as he was big. An utterly
fearless man to keep an eye on.
He drank heavily, and quoted long passages from the best in
literature. His coat pockets often sagged with the weight of a
book. He would recite poetry if liquored up properly, and there
wasn't a man in Dodge who had the courage to laugh at him, to take the
risk of having him unlimber matched ivory-handled Colts, which always
spelled death.
Ringo finally went on to Tombstone where he made the acquaintance of
the Earp brothers and renewed his hatred for Doc Holliday, whom he had
known in Dodge. He joined up with the Clanton faction of cattle
rustlers and stagecoach robbers, and, to show his loyalty, picked a
quarrel with Wyatt and offered him a handkerchief duel, which did not
come off because Mayor Thomas, even after Doc got mixed up in it,
stopped it. But Ringo caught the Earps and Doc when they tried to
cross the San Pedro Bridge to hunt down killer Curly Bill
Brocius. Ringo stood there and reinforced his clipped speech with
a shotgun, telling them to come on if they wanted to feel the bite of
it. The Earps and Holliday were forced to turn and eat Jim Crow,
as they knew John was no bluff.
Billy Claibourne, one of the Clanton faction and Ringo went on a
two-week drinking bout with Buckskin Frank Leslie, and they saddle-sang
and whooped it up all over southern Arizona, stopping at every
farmhouse for a few more rounds. They finally split up, and the
next time Ringo was seen he was lying beneath an oak tree in Sulphur
Springs Valley, near Turkey Creek Canyon, with one side of his head
blown off. His coat had been torn from him, and strips of cloth
from his shirt bound his feet and hands. His horse was found far
up the canyon, and his boots were tied across the saddle.
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday
protested that they had nothing whatever to do with it, but admitted
they would have liked to have gunned him down. Then when
Claibourne pointed a long bony finger at Buckskin Frank Leslie, this
killer whipped out a .45 Colt and cut Claibourne to pieces.
The
matter was finally solved when John O'Rourke, or "Johnny-Behind-the
Deuce", admitted to the killing. He found Ringo drunk and passed
out under the oak tree and shot him with ease. Ringo was 38 years
of age, 1882. O'Rourke could never have matched up to him while
sober.
Calamity Jane | Clay Allison | Curly Bill | Dave Mather
Doc Holliday | Jesse James | Jim Courtright | Joaquin Murrietta
John Ringo | John Wesley Hardin | King Fisher | Luke Short
Old Man Clanton | Pat Garrett | Wild Bill Hickok | Wyatt Earp
OK Corral | Artist - Lea Franklin McCarty