The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime by Peter Edwards

Author:Peter Edwards [Edwards, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55199-688-2
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2012-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

Masterson, Bat: Limping Legend – The legendary Wild West lawman was born November 26, 1853, in St. Georges of Henryville parish, Iberville County, Quebec, and christened Bertolomiew. He was the second of seven children.

A popular story had it that he became known as “Bat” while an army scout in Sweetwater, Texas, after he was shot in the leg in a dancehall brawl. The shooter was killed, but Masterson was left with a limp, so he started using a cane. Years later, when he was a peace officer, the cane was useful as a club to use on recalcitrant cowboy heads.

In fact, Masterson was called “Bat” back in his Quebec days, long before he was limping, for Bat and Bart are accepted diminutive forms of Bertolomiew.

Not long after his birth, his family moved to New York, Illinois, and eventually Sedgwick County, Kansas, around 1871.

Masterson began his legal career as Wyatt Earp’s deputy in Dodge City, when cowboys off the trail, professional gamblers, and footloose killers offered a career challenge.

Masterson missed out on the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral in the silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona, on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, when three of Earp’s enemies were shot dead.

At that time, Masterson was in Dodge City, drawn by a frantic wired message from his brother Jim, who co-owned a saloon there. Jim Masterson told him that his partner in the saloon wanted to kill him. Masterson shot Jim’s business partner and one of his associates, but didn’t kill them. For this he was fined $8 for firing a pistol on a city street.

His final years were spent as a sportswriter on the New York Morning Telegraph, and he was a familiar figure at top boxing matches. He died at his desk on October 25, 1921, in New York at the age of sixty-seven.

See also: Dutch Henry, Sam Kelly, Outlaw Trail, Sundance Kid.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.