Early
Law Enforcement
By Ray Haueter - former
UPOA Historian,
UPOA President 1970 - 1971, now deceased
By
popular request, we reprint Ray's stories of Early Law Enforcement for
your pleasure.
From reprint in the Utah Peace Officer Vol. 78 Issue 3
Alias Matt Warner
NOTE: Most of the following information was taken from a book entitled
"The Last of the Bandit Riders," written by Murray E. ing in the 1930s,
as was told to him by the old bandit Matt Warner himself. The story was
related to Mr. King in the year of 1935, and is probably the most factual
story available about the life of Warner. This is the second and concluding
part of a two-part series to appear in THE UTAH PEACE OFFICER, the first
half being published in Volume 59, Issue 3. Warner and his two companions
had just received word that a large posse was approaching the Chisholm
Ranch to attempt to apprehend them and knew that they had to run or fight.
ALIAS MATT WARNER
In the 1890s the West was so much different then from what we see today
that it becomes difficult for us living in the 1980s to understand the
long chases on horse-back between the outlaw and the lawman. These chases
were frequent and to follow an outlaw trail for over three hundred miles
was far from being uncommon. However an outlaw usually never thought about
venturing into a flight from the law without a pack animal, light camp
outfit, provisions and extra saddle horses. You wouldn't get far in the
wild country of the 1890s without such outfits. The outlaw would laugh
at any officer who didn't know enough to come prepared in such a manner
if he expected to be on the trail for long. Without such equipment, after
the first brief race the officer would be done and the outlaw would be
on his way.
Next to the proper outfit for a long ride was the knowledge of the
mountains and river crossings, ferries, and bridges. The valleys and deserts
were usually wide, bare and dusty with a cloud of dust that could be seen
for miles, following you and advertising your presence as long as it was
daylight.
One of the first things officers thought of when they started a pursuit
was to close the fords, ferries, bridges, mountain passes and guard all
the known water holes to turn the outlaws back and capture them. Therefore
there were many desperate horse races for a certain bridge, ferry, crossing
or mountain pass.
So it was when Matt, Tom and Josh rode out of the Chisholm Ranch. On
account of Josh's condition it was necessary to ride quite slow as they
planned the best way out of Arizona. They realized they couldn't make it
back over the Mexican border into such an unsafe rendezvous as Mexico so
they planned to ride the whole length of Arizona and hide in Robber's Roost
or some other part of Utah. The nearest safe crossing on the Colorado River
was Lees Ferry. They realized that as soon as the officers discovered they
were heading north they would think of Lees Ferry and all the other crossings
on that part of the Colorado, and the outlaws only chance to get out of
Arizona was to beat the deputies to Lees Ferry in a three hundred mile
race. Matt Warner described this race in the following words: ìIf we could
get across the desert to the first mountains to the north without them
deputies seeing us, we figured the rest would not be so hard.
ìWe hadn't got more than halfway across that ungodly sun-baked cactus
flat, when we saw a cloud of dust as horsemen rode out of the hills way
to the west. We had a pair of good field glasses and watched ëem close.
They went a little ways toward the Chisholm ranch and then turned and headed
toward our dust.
IT'S THE FEDERAL OFFICERS
"'They see us,' says Tom McCarty, 'and they are after us. It's the
Federal officers all right, and they got us outnumbered four to one. Josh,
can you stand a faster pace?' Josh answered by pushing his horse into a
canter. His face turned white, and he was gritting his teeth. "Come on,
you old woman,' he jeers, 'Are we going to let a little wound stop us?'
"When we reached the foothills and was starting up a canyon, they was
still more than Winchester rifle shot away, then all at once they gave
us the surprise of our lives. They started to shoot and the bullets hit
all around us. They had new high power rifles, and we had to run for it
a half mile before we could get under any cover. Before we got to the first
bend in the canyon they had shot down one of our extra saddle horses, and
I had to finish the poor brute with my six-shooter. After we was around
the bend we never seen hide nor hair of 'em. It was just like the earth
had swallowed 'em.
"'They're smart,í says Josh. 'They're playing some trick on us. We
better push on fast.'
"We figured they must know the country better than us and was taking
a short cut on us. We rode up that grade for all our horses were worth.
Tom and Josh had been on that mountain before and knew of the only spring
up there. We allowed they was making for that spring. If they kept us from
that water, it would be hard on our horses and would slow ëem down before
we made next water.
"On top there was lots of pine timber. We watched close for their tracks
before we got to the spring, but didn't see any. When we got near the spring,
we stopped in a thick grove of timber to plan the next move. We needed
water bad but couldn't afford to run into an ambush. So we left Josh hid
in the timber with the horses, and Tom and I slipped out afoot to scout
around and find out if the deputies was ahead of us. We sneaked and crawled
through the timber like Indians. All at once we smelt tobacco smoke coming
from behind a pine tree. In a few seconds I was on the opposite side the
tree from that smoking deputy. He lay there on one elbow as I reached around
the tree and hit him over the ear with my six-shooter. He dropped like
a beef ó without a sound. We took his hat, badge, and gun and slipped back
to where Josh and the horses was. We made a wide detour around that ambush
and traveled for miles that night without water, and hit for Lees Ferry
as fast as our horses could stand it. We rode like hell in short runs with
short rests between, night and day. As we drew near the ferry we felt sure
no outfit of officers would go through the hell we had gone through or
would know horses as well as us and would know how to get the most out
of ëem. We was certain we had beat everybody to the ferry and would get
over safe and sound.
"Imagine our surprise as we rode down the canyon leading to the ferry
when we saw a bunch of deputies riding in the canyon behind us. We took
that last couple of miles on the dead run and almost prayed as we run that
we would find the ferryboat all ready on our side of the river.î
THE HIGH RIDING THREE
The three outlaws managed to get across the river after pulling guns
on the Ferryman Johnson. They held him hostage on one side of the river
while the posse was stuck on the other side. In Matt's words, "We was six
hours across the river from them deputies while we had a big feed and fed
and rested our horses at Johnson's expense. When we was ready to leave
we took the hat, star, and gun I took from the deputy, fastened 'em to
a stake and left a note with ëem that said: 'Maybe your wooden deputy will
need these before you ketch us,' We signed it 'The High Riding Three.'
"We then took Johnson with us a long ways out from the ferry and then
turned him loose, calculating that by the time he was back and let the
officers across the river, we would be clear out of that section, and the
chase would be over as far as that pose was concerned"
Josh was in bad shape after the long ride. He was left just outside
of Kanab so he could ride in and find a doctor, as he was well acquainted
there. He regained his health and quit the outlaw life.
Matt and Tom continued on to Frisco, a mining camp fifteen miles west
of Milford, Utah, where they ventured into town. They left their horses
in a livery stable there and went into a restaurant. While they were eating
a cowboy came in, looked around, spotted them and came over to their table.
"Don't go back to the livery stable," he warned them. "Bally Sackett, the
marshal, has grabbed your outfits and is waiting down there to take you."
Tom McCarty jumped up and yelled, "What for?" and began calling the officer
a lot of uncomplimentary names. "Someone's been killing cattle around here
and selling the meat to the butcher shops," the cowboy whispered, "and
the marshal suspects you because you are strangers and look tough. You
better move on fast."
WE OUTSMARTED THE SLICKEST DEPUTIES IN THE U.S. AND THEN . . .
In Matt's words, "Here we was, after outsmarting the slickest deputies
in the United States and going through hell for something we did do and
making a clean getaway, about to be taken in by a two-by-four officer in
a jerkwater town for something we never did do, and we couldn't make him
eat his words or do a thing about it for fear that what we had done would
come out on us. It was plumb aggravating."
Matt and Tom left town on foot with nothing but their riding clothes,
chaps, and six-guns. They had heard of a ranch called Ketchum's in Snake
Valley across the line in Nevada on the other side of seventy miles of
godforsaken desert and so they started across the desert. They arrived
at the ranch at about 2:00 P.M. the next day in pretty bad condition. Ketchum
believed they were a couple of tramp cowhands and gave them a job.
The two outlaws had only been at Ketchum's ranch a few days when they
heard a cowboy say: "There comes Bally Sacket and a deputy. Wonder who
they can be after." Matt and Tom walked into the cook shack, later, where
Sacket and his deputy were eating, and covered the officers with their
guns. As Matt says: ìTom disarms the officers and backs 'em out of the
door. I hold my gun on the rest of the crowd. "This ain't a stick-up,'
says I. 'Me and my partner is just settling a little affair with these
officers.'
The two outlaws took the officers' saddles from their buckboard and
put them on the officers' horses. Matt said, "We climb on the officers'
horses, which we figure are ours now, and heard the officers afoot ahead
of us handcuffed together toward the desert. Seeing them two officers yoked
together like sick oxen, herded across the country by two men on horseback
looks so funny to the cowpunchers some of 'em nearly had a fit. We herd
'em five miles out on the desert and head them towards Frisco, tell 'em
if they try to come back this ain't a patching to what they will get. We
then took the handcuffs off 'em and turned them loose. The outfit we took
from them wasn't near as good as the one they stole from us, but I reckon
we got enough fun and satisfaction out of the affair to make up the difference."
At Deseret, Utah, Tom and Matt parted company. Matt headed back to
Diamond Mountain and Tom went on a horse stealing trip he had planned.
Soon after that he got into a horse-stealing scrape somewhere south of
Richfield, Utah, and beat it into Colorado as fast as a good horse could
carry him.
In the meantime, Matt settled down on his ranch on Diamond Mountain,
having made up his mind to quit the outlaw trail and become a cattle rancher.
His prospects looked good. Moroni Hendrickson and Joe Brooks had taken
good care of his horse herd and cattle and had even done a little faithful
rustling for Matt. Matt figured he had around 250 head of horses and that
he should be worth about $100,000 in ten to twenty years. But this whole
prospect changed one day when Joe Brooks rode back from a trip to Rock
Springs, Wyoming and told Matt that he better get the hell out of Utah
quick. "What the hell for?" shouted Matt. "The Sheriff at Rock Springs,"
says Joe, "is getting out requisition papers to get you here and take you
into Wyoming." "What have I done?" yells Matt. "They suspect you was with
Cherokee Gangs on that cattle raid," says Joe. Matt started thinking about
that raid in his mind. "Can you beat it? Here I am about to be chased off
my ranch and forced to abandon a $100,000 prospect for a measly little
old $800 I stole a long time before that. It just goes to show how plumb
unsafe the outlaw life is," Matt mused. "For every dollar you steal you
smash prospects, maybe, of making hundreds of dollars, and when you get
into that kind of life, it's almost impossible to get out again."
In Matt's words: "When I saw everything I had been building there
on the ranch for years falling down on top of me that-a-way, it made me
plumb wild, but there wasn't any help for it. I had to take my medicine
and hit the trail again as a fugitive from the law. We rounded up my horse
herd quick, packed
the valuable things we needed and could move handy, and rode off and
abandoned everything else. We swum Green River with our whole herd, our
saddle and pack horses with the packs on without losing an animal, and
we headed for the White River country, an almost unsettled section of Colorado.
Joe Brooks, Moroni Hendrickson and Johnny Nicholson, a young jockey, was
with me.
100 HORSES FOR $10,000
"I sold a hundred of my best horses to an English stock buyer and delivered
them to Roaring Forks. He paid me $10,000 in the shape of a hundred one-hundred-dollar
bills. I tucked ëem away in my money belt, which I wore under my clothes
next to my skin, and intended to ride early next day to Aspen, Colorado,
and put ëem in the bank there. That evening I saw a man by the name of
Cap Davis chinning with a couple of tough-looking customers . . . a one-eyed
criminal-looking young feller and a tough-looking nut with stubby black
whiskers.
"Next morning as I am riding alone to Aspen I see these same mugs riding
towards me. I put a lot of things together in a second. Cap Davis knows
I have the $10,000. That's why he was talking to these thieves. He has
sent them to rob me.
"Acting as innocent as a lost sheepherder, I ride nearly up to ëem
watching their eyes to see they don't get the draw on me. Then I whip out
my gun and cover them. I never saw such surprised and startled bandits
in my life. 'Stick ëem up,' says I. Their hands go right up in the air.
'It's a fine bunch of stick-up men Cap Davis picked to hold me up,' says
I. 'Own up to it, or this gun will start to talk.' 'Don't shoot!' the one-eyed
man whines. 'You got the right dope, partner. That's what he
done. He offered to give us half the take and pertect us from the law.'
"'Take your hands down,' says I. 'Yeller coyotes like you wouldn't
shoot nobody. If you need money so bad, I'll give you a job about your
size. Go back at Davis' place tonight and throw everything in his barn
into the Roaring Forks River. Report to me in the hotel in the morning
and get your money.'
"Next morning I knew they had cleaned it out as slick as a whistle
when Davis woke me up howling about thieves that had broke into his storehouse
and took everything. I went down into the office and the mugs was there
grinning and winking at each other and waiting for their money. I paid
'em and went out to interview Davis. He was in the storehouse, leaning
against a wall, and wailing like a whipped hound. 'What's wrong?' says
I. 'Wrong!' he yells. 'Look around you. Thieves! They cleaned me out! If
I knew who it was I'd fill 'em full of lead!'
"YOU'RE LOOKING AT THE THIEF RIGHT NOW"
"'Start to shooting,' says I, pushing my face close to his. 'You're
looking at the thief right now. Your goods is floating down the creek.
That's what you get for hiring a couple of bums to hold me up. Do you want
to do anything about it?' He wilted and slunk away like a whipped cur.
But that underhanded dog was the cause of me being driven out of that part
of the country some time after that. Somehow he got hold of rumors of my
past record in Utah and Wyoming and wasn't slow to circulate 'em. It finally
got so hot for me I had to pack up in a hurry and pull out with my horse
herd. I traded off the ranch, cabin, corrals, and a lot of stuff for five
horses, a buckboard, and provisions for the flight. Moroni Hendrickson
and Joe Brooks left me and I took with me Johnny Nicholson, Neils Olson,
my foreman, and George Brown."
This time Matt and his crew picked one of the most out-of-the-way place
in the United States to hide from the law. The LaSal Mountains was in the
biggest Indian country and unsettled wilderness then in the United States.
To the south was the country of the Five Indian Nations. Some distance
to the northwest was Robber's Roost. The mountain range was like a great
green and blue island in the middle of the fiercest red, white, yellow,
pink, orange and brown rock and sand desert. The LaSal Mountains were a
section of lush grass and timber, with lakes and meadows covered with grass,
flowers and wild strawberries. The nearest whites were at Moab, thirty
miles away, northwest of their camp. It was during this time that he became
acquainted with a young man from Circleville, Utah named Roy Parker (Butch
Cassidy) and later they became good friends, pulling a number of armed
robberies together. Being footloose and free, it wasn't long until Matt
was again on the outlaw trail, this time with Butch Cassidy, Tom McCarty
and others he met along the trail. Matt, Butch and Tom McCarty robbed the
Telluride Bank of $31,000. When divided three ways each got a little over
$10,000 apiece. Matt had to give up his horses, worth over $20,000, before
he hit the trail and in his words, "Crime has always brought me bigger
losses than gains. I know I am safe in saying that every dollar I have
stole has gyped me out of more than two dollars I otherwise would have
made.
The future was full of many chases from posses, gun fights, robberies,
cattle and horse stealing, with many narrow escapes from the law. As Matt
said, "It wasn't long before we realized that the whole West had changed,
and the days of long flights on horseback was just about over. Every direction
we turned we was headed off. All the bridges, fords, ferries, and mountain
passes was held against us. Descriptions of us and offers of reward was
posted everywhere and printed in the papers. The officers in every community
was watching for us. After several wild weeks of chasing and dodging, twisting
and turning and hiding, we realized we was bottled up in Wyoming and the
state was alive with posses looking for us. It was hard for us to understand
this change that had come over the Old West and build up a new system of
tricks and dodges to meet the new conditions. For a time we couldn't see
that what was behind it was that more railroads, telegraph lines, wagon
roads, bridges, farms, cities and settlements was blocking all the old
long trails, filling up the old hiding places and making it easier for
the law to spread a dragnet over the whole country. That made it tougher
each year for the horseman outlaw."
THE EXPLOITS ARE TOO MANY TO LIST
The exploits of Matt Warner and his partners are far too many to list
in this story. It is enough to say that Matt followed the outlaw trail
from the time he was fourteen years old until he walked out of the door
of the Utah State Prison on January 21, 1900. He had served three years
and four months for voluntary manslaughter. He was thirty-six years of
age at the time of his release. With the help of Warden Dow and other prison
officials, Matt appeared before Governor Heber M. Wells who gave him a
complete pardon for any crimes he had committed against the commonwealth
of Utah in the past.
Matt Warner settled down in Carbon County, Utah. He had followed the
outlaw trail from 1878 to 1906. In 1935 he was described as one of the
greatest horse-riding gun fighters the West ever produced. By 1935 most
of the widely known outlaws were reported to be dead except Warner and
EIza Lay, who were probably the sole survivors of that turbulent era of
the horseman outlaw. Lay died in 1937 and Warner died on December 21, 1938.
By this time a mechanized civilization had abolished the horseman outlaw,
his horse and six-shooter and had been replaced by the city gangster with
his auto, airplane, machine gun and bomb.
Matt lived as a law-abiding citizen from 1900, the year he left prison,
to 1938, the year of his death. During that period of time he served his
community as a plain citizen, deputy sheriff, justice of the peace, detective,
and night policeman. He lived happily with his wife of a second marriage,
a son and two daughters who had reached maturity in 1938.
A MAN AFTER OUR LIKING
Citizens of Price would roar with delight as they recounted his doings
as an officer of the law. While he was a deputy his reputation as a former
bandit carried so much terror with it that absolute quiet and order would
prevail in the vicinity wherever Matt happened to be. He was assigned the
task of collecting back taxes from chronic tax dodgers. He made a thorough
job of it and was as successful in filling the Carbon County treasury with
his collections as he had been in filling his secret caches with robbery
loot. It is said that never in one of these collections did he resort to
open force of any kind or display his gun. He did not have to. All that
was necessary were a few mild hints or wisecracks from Matt Warner.
While he was justice of the peace, his court sessions drew enormous
crowds and were the talk of the town. Totally ignoring the law, legal practices,
and lawyers, he usually took the cases over himself, did the final questioning
and cross-questioning, and decided the case solely on the facts he drew
out of the witnesses and defendant and upon his own primitive idea of justice
and humanity.
A typical case was that of a peddler who clearly had violated the law
requiring the purchase of a license, and, according to the law, should
have been fined. But before making a decision, Matt resorted to his usual
procedure of questioning the defendant in order to ascertain the facts.
He ascertained that the peddler had a wife and seven children in extreme
poverty with peddling the only thing that stood between them and starvation.
The peddler stated he had not bought a license because he was entirely
without the means to do so.
"This man is acquitted," Warner shouted with his usual impulsive generosity.
"But what about the law?" protested the prosecuting attorney. "The law
was never intended for a man in this condition," was Matt's reply. "The
right to eat existed before there was any law. It is the first and last
law and the one that will be followed by this court. The law was made to
help people in this man's condition, not to prosecute them and starve their
wives and children"
Warner got away with these raw violations of legal practice and established
law because the people of Carbon County ardently believed his decisions
were just, and they backed him with a very vocal public opinion. The attorneys
were afraid of Matt.
AND EVEN AT AGE 73 HE HAD IT IN HIM
Matt's last public position of trust was that of night policeman for
Price, Utah. While serving in this capacity in 1937, a year before his
death, he fully demonstrated, at the age of seventy-three, that he was
still the remarkable gun fighter he was in his younger days.
As night policeman, Matt had been instructed to pick up a certain Negro
"floater" and reputed bad man who had returned to Price against police
orders. Matt encountered him one night in an alley just off Main Street.
"I want you," Matt said in his quiet way. "No dirty flatfoot is goin'
to take me in," the Negro replied and leveled an automatic pistol at Warner.
Before the gunman could fire, Matt drew his own gun and fired. The bullet
struck the gun in the hand of the Negro, knocking it from his hand and
knocking him to the ground where he lay waving his hands in terror. "Where
you shot?" Warner asked. The Negro felt his body and legs. "I dunno. I
guess I got hit in the head," he replied. "Get up. You're not shot. You're
going with me." "Yes Sir, I'm goin' with you all right."
At the trial the Negro was still unable to account for Matt's gun,
which had appeared suddenly and mysteriously as though out of the thin
air. "I had my gun in my hand already," he explained, "but I don't know
where he got his gun from." Later he complained, "They got $6,000 for shootin'
John Dillinger, but I gets six months for trying to shoot Matt Warner."
Matt briefly entered politics when he ran for Sheriff of Carbon County.
His popularity was so great it was believed he would win in a landslide.
However, instead of using the name Matt Warner, he used his own name of
Willard Erastus Christianson and no one knew him by that name. As a result
he lost the election to his opponent. He never became involved in politics
again, but remained a solid citizen to the day of his death, which was
the passing of the last of the western outlaws and gunmen, Willard Erastus
Christianson, alias Matt Warner.
