The WANDERER

JAMES BUTLER HICKOK and the AMERICAN WEST

Biography by author Craig Crease

Excerpts

With few notable exceptions, most of the men who gained fame in the post-civil war American West, once stripped of the fanciful myths that made up their public persona, have little left to justify that fame and regard. James Butler Hickok was one of the notable exceptions. He excelled in almost everything he did, and his precocious proclivities were evident very early. He fell in love with a half-Indian girl, was a bodyguard for a U.S. Senator, took part in two battles in the border war skirmishes leading up to the Civil War, rode in the saddle day and night as a scout and spy in the border war in Missouri and Kansas, and worked his first assignment as a frontier lawman… all before his 21st birthday. He was not even known yet as Wild Bill! After stripping away the myths and legends, the reader of this book will see that the real life of James Butler Hickok, aka Wild Bill Hickok was every bit as exciting and unique, compelling and dramatic as any myth or legend. It’s no wonder that his real life was such fertile ground for the mythmakers. His real life spoke of infinite possibilities, and the mythmakers seized upon that in describing the exploits and life of Wild Bill Hickok.

Epigram

I am a pilgrim and a stranger and I am going to wonder* till I am twenty-one and then I will tarry a while…

James Butler Hickok
Nineteen Years Old
Monticello, Kansas
November 24, 1856              *[wander]

He was a good boy

My dear Mr. Edwards 

I thank you for your favor of the 9yh inst….The mother of the wife of Dr. Lindsay, an old physician here, knew Bill [James] as a boy when he first came to Kansas, and I  have secured a good       statement from her. He worked for her father at Monticello, in Johnson County.  

She says he was a good boy

Mr. J.B. Edwards
Abilene, Kansas
January 11, 1926

Eyewitness to Hickok’s Skill

On the single occasion which the writer was privileged to witness the methods of Mr. Hickok in handling his six shooters, I was deeply impressed with his exasperating deliberation. No matter how elusive the target, even while shooting at objects tossed in the air, he never seemed hurried…. I am prepared to believe any story of his skill or prowess that does not conflict with the laws of gravitation or physics.  text here…

Robert Kane, Gun Expert

Pluck Superior to Pistols

The Kansas City Fair….Wild Bill and the Texans….Pluck Superior to Pistols
There were 30,000 people on the fairgrounds yesterday, and to-day the crowd was not lessened. Wild Bill made a big point at the fairgrounds. A number of Texans prevailed upon the band to play Dixie, and then the Texans made demonstrations with the flourishing of  pistols. Wild Bill stepped forward and stopped the music, and more than fifty pistols were aimed at William’s head, but he came away unscathed. 

Special Dispatch to the Commonwealth
Kansas City Fairgrounds
September 1872

Dexter Fellows Recalls

Hickok would stand for all kinds of abuse from men whose courage was fired by drink, but let a chap strike town preceded by an announcement that he was coming to get Bill, and Hickok would live up to his reputation of always being the first on the draw. Many persons are of the belief that Wild Bill was helpless without a six-shooter, but Victor Murdock of the Wichita Eagle has told me a story of one of Bill’s fights while he was Marshal in Abilene, Kansas that disproves this. Bill, it seems, was standing at the bar of a saloon when a strapping young man lurched up to him and said; I know I’m not a match for you, Bill, with guns, but if you’ll throw them aside I’ll whale the lights out of you.” Hickok calmly put his pistols on the bar, seized a smoked buffalo tongue from on the free-lunch counter, and gave the boastful wight an unmerciful beating.

Book Jacket Cover

The cover photo is in the authors large collection of Hickok photos. What makes this evocative formal photograph of thirty-two year old James Butler Hickok important is both the haunting beauty of the image but also the family story behind it. 
James Butler Hickok visited his mother and family for the first time in seven years in Illinois in March and April 1869. Polly Hickok, James’ mother, later wrote to James’ brother Lorenzo and told of their meeting at the Mendota train station: “When I stepped down I turned round my back to the crowd on the platform to take my basket and the first knew he had me in his arms, he says Mammy have y come? James fetcht me a nice large Fotograph in one of those large oval frames.” The cover photo is the “nice large Fotograph” that James gave to his mother Polly. The original photograph was auctioned to renowned western photograph collector Robert McCubbin in 2003 In turn McCubbin auctioned it to an unknown buyer in 2019.

About the Author

Craig Crease is an investigative historian and award-winning writer on the historic frontier trails and the American West.

CRAIG CREASE

His historical research and articles have appeared in many publications including the Kansas City Star, The Kansas Anthropologist, Wagon Tracks, and the Overland Journal. His research has appeared in several books on the American West. A popular speaker, Crease has appeared many times giving presentations on frontier America. For over thirty years he was an independent historical consultant for the National Park Service. A native Kansan who spent his adult life and career as an insurance agent in the Kansas City metropolitan area, today Craig Crease lives retired in coastal South Carolina.

Author Craig Crease

Book Signing and Presentations

  • 2.22.2025 – Spill the Tea Book Fair, Chapin Library, Myrtle Beach, SC
  • 9.7.2024 – Chapin Library, Myrtle Beach, SC
  • 8.15.2024 – Atlas Tap House, Myrtle Beach, SC
  • 7.13.2024 – National Book Launch – Signature Author Series, Helzberg Auditorium, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, MO
  • 7.9.2024 – Meeting – Westerners, Kansas City, MO

Audio of Author’s Book Presentation

The Life and Times of “Wild Bill” Hickok in the Kansas City Area Presented by Craig Crease

“A seminal and ground-breaking biography of one of the most iconic figures of the American West”

James A. Cox

Library Bookwatch, Editor-in-Chief Midwest Book Review Critique, August 2024

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