BADMAN DICK GLASS

One of the most vicious outlaws who ever hung out in the Arbuckle Mountains was named Dick Glass.  He was born of Creek and Negro parents in the Creek Nation.  When Glass wasn’t hiding out in the Seminole or Creek Nation, he often took refuge in the large black community that lived on Wild Horse Creek in the area of Ft. Arbuckle.

In the biography of Buck Colbert Franklin, the first black attorney in Ardmore, I.T., there is a thrilling moment related about his encounter with the dreaded outlaw.  Franklin was a youth living with his family near Homer, which was a small black community southwest of Hennepin.  As was often the case, intenerate preachers passed through the country holding brush arbor revivals.

One has to remember that back in this time period of the 1870’s and 1880’s there was very little in the way of religious instruction in the territory.  There were practically no churches and what few preachers there were in the country were circuit riders.  There were no schools and no large towns.  About the only entertainment was to go to one of these revivals and it drew people from miles around.  Usually, people camped out near the brush arbors and services would last for several days. I guess this is the origin of the term “camp meeting”.

On September 7, 1884, such a camp meeting was being held on the banks of Wild Horse Creek near Ft. Arbuckle.  Several hundred people were camped out and they were having dinner on the grounds.  Also in attendance was the outlaw gang of Dick Glass.

A 22-year young man named Moses Clay rode his horse to the meeting.  Spotting his brothers wagon, Moses tied his horse to the wagon, got a bit of corn from the wagon and poured it into the feed box for his horse to eat.  Moses then went to the join the festivities.

Returning to the wagon later, Moses found that his horse had been removed and another horse was eating his horse’s corn.  Moses gave an oath and demanded to know who had done this act.  A man stepped forward and said he did it and if Clay didn’t like it “he could go for it”.

It was a member of Dick Glass’ gang.  The outlaw started for his gun, but Moses Clay drew his pistol in the blink of an eye.  The outlaw fired first but missed.  In the same instant, Moses fired, sending a ball through the outlaw’s heart.  No sooner had Moses fired than a third shot rang out from the crowd.  It was Dick Glass and he shot Moses Clay through the heart, killing him instantly.  Two men were dead over a handful of corn.  It didn’t take much back then to instigate a shootout.

Another incident that occurred six months later in the same area of the Arbuckle Mountains was reported in the Muskogee Indian Journal on April 9, 1885 as follows:

“Dick Glass is getting for himself a name that will soon rival Jesse James. His home is at the “Point” about seven miles north of Muskogee but circumstances have compelled him to sleep out nights and he has been roaming from this place through the Seminole, Pottawatomie and Chickasaw Nations to the Texas line. He had been mixed up with deviltries innumerable but seems to have repented for latterly a letter appeared in the Journal, from him stating that he wished to become a law-abiding citizen if the officers would not molest him. But his repentance came to late and heavy rewards aggregating over $1,000 offered for him led Sheriffs John A. Culp and Ex-Constable Rush Meadows, of Cook County, Texas, to attempt the capture.

Learning he was in hiding in the neighborhood of the Arbuckle Mountains, the officer went there to capture him. Culp ordered him to throw up his hands, when the Negro reached for his pistol. The officers opened fire and Glass fell from his horse as if badly wounded. The officers, presuming they had killed him, laid aside their arms and approached their supposed victim, when he suddenly drew his pistol and shot both officers mortally.

Information gleaned from the dying men developed the fact that Glass wore a breastplate, which successfully warded off the bullets from the officers pistols. A posse was soon organized and gave pursuit, but they did not stand much show of getting him, as he knows every inch of the country and has many friends who will hide him or fight for him as the case may require.”

Within six months Dick Glass would be dead at the hands of Sam Sixkiller.

But what starts a man on the outlaw trail?  Some sociologist might argue that it was the fact that Dick Glass was half Creek and half Negro.  Maybe he was not welcomed by the Indian, black or white community.  This can hardly be true as there were many people who were of this mixture and were solid, upstanding, hard working citizens.  Some of the finest lawmen of the era were of such ancestry. 

It is more likely that Glass took to scouting, like so many others, because it was easier to sell whisky, steal horses and cattle than it was to cultivate forty acres of corn with a Georgia stock and team of mules.  Just as with the Daltons, Doolins, and the other white outlaws, the end of the large cattle ranches in Oklahoma Territory meant they had to start farming on their own.  It was also much easier for them to steal than work.

The start of Glass’ troubles were stated in a letter to the U.S. Indian Agent in Washington stating that a group of Cherokees had come to the Creek Nation falsely stating that they were U.S. Deputy Marshals.  They “arrested” two Creek/Negroes and stated they were taking them back to stand trial in the Cherokee Nation. They didn’t make it far.  About two miles from where they were arrested, the Cherokee vigilantes lynched the two black men and riddled their bodies with bullets.   When the bodies were found, Glass and other Creek/Negroes of the area went into the Cherokee Nation and exacted vengeance against these vigilantes.  Glass asked the Agent if he could surrender and be tried anywhere but the Cherokee Nation but the agent never replied.  Dick Glass’ time had run out for all his evil misdeeds.

Until 1880, there were legal jurisdictions in Indian Territory just as the states have today.  A Cherokee light horseman could not go into the Creek Nation to make an arrest of a man wanted in the Cherokee Nation.  Each nation was autonomous and the outlaws had to be extradited.  It was often nearly impossible to do.

In July of 1882, the Creek Lighthorsemen lead by Captain Sam Scott and Deputy Joe Barnett went to a ranch near Wetumka to arrest a “notorious character” who was affiliated with the 400-member band of Loyal Creeks or “Sands” men supported by Dick Glass.  These Creeks started the Green Peach War.

The Creek Lighthorsemen held up at the Barnett place until reinforcements could arrive.  The Sands men attacked and overpowered the policemen.  Captain Scott was taken outside and a man held each hand while the rest of the gang riddled his body with bullets.  Officer Joe Barnett was killed when he tried to come to the aid of his captain.

To get around the jurisdictional problems, Indian Agent Col. John Q. Tufts organized the first United States Indian Police in February of 1880 at the Union Agency at Muskogee, I.T.  These Indian Policemen were authorized to cross any nation’s borders to pursue any Indian criminal.  These policemen were recruited from the ranks of the Lighthorsemen of the various tribes.

In a letter to Cherokee Governor Dennis Bushyhead dated July 29, 1884, a Creek citizen begged for the aid of “one or two good men who could stand fire” in the Creek and Seminole Nations.  Governor Bushyhead had previously placed a $500 reward on Glass, the maximum allowed by Cherokee law.

One of the most legendary United States Indian Policemen was the Cherokee Sam Sixkiller.  He was as fearless as any of the U. S. Marshals.  Sixkiller also held a U.S. Deputy Marshals commission that allowed him to pursue these outlaws out of Indian Territory into Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas.  On February 12, 1880, Sixkiller became the first captain of the United States Indian Police headquartered at Muskogee with forty men under his command.  Sixkiller was also a Special Agent of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, which gave him access to any railroad property in pursuit of any bandit.

During this time he also patrolled the city of Muskogee, one of the most dangerous cities in Indian Territory. There were more lawmen killed near Muskogee than anywhere west of the Mississippi River during the frontier era.

In early June of 1885, Captain Sam Sixkiller, Captain Charles LeFlore of the Choctaw Lighthorsemen, along with Deputies Gooden and Murray and a Cherokee rancher named C. M. McClelland formed a posse and went to the Creek and Seminole Nations to arrest Glass.

Here they obtained information that Glass and some of his gang had gone to Dennison, Texas to get a load of whiskey.  The posse headed south to Colbert’s Landing on the Red River to wait on Glass.

In the Indian Pioneer Paper of Lem Blevins, he states that he had met the famous black U.S. deputy Marshal Bass Reeves many times.  Blevins related that he had heard Bass Reeves say he had taken his marshal’s commission just to get to kill Dick Glass and George Mack, both Creek/Negroes and gang members. But Reeves would miss his chance this day.

A Troublesome Band of Negro Desperadoes in the Indian Territory Exterminated.

Colbert, I.T., June 11, 1885- Yesterday morning at Post Oak Grove, thirty miles west of this place (Emit), Captain Sam Sixkiller, with Policemen LaFlore, Murray and Gooden, and C. M. McClellan, a prominent stockman of the Cherokee Nation, were in pursuit of a band of Negroes, headed by the notorious desperado, Dick Glass, who had been to Denison for a wagon load of whiskey and were on their way back to the Seminole Nation. The officers had with them a colored spy, to locate them. (One account said they were carrying 40 kegs of whiskey.)

After this was done, the officers left the main road and got around ahead of them and selected a place near the roadside to await their approach. About 7 o'clock the Negroes came along, one driving the wagon and Glass and two others following close behind. When within ten feet Captain Sixkiller stepped out into the road and commanded them to surrender. Instead of doing so they started to run. After Dick ran a few steps he succeeded in getting his pistol out, and he turned and fired on part of them . Dick Glass and Jim Johnson were killed (by a double load of buck shot). Some of the officers shot the driver, slightly wounding him. The officers thinking him dead pursued the remaining one and succeeded in capturing him after a race of a half a mile.

After returning to the place where the shooting began, they found the driver and the horse gone, the wagon having broken down. Two of the police started in pursuit of driver and horse, and after a race of six miles Policeman LaFlore overtook him in the prairie (Twelve Mile Prairie). The Negro, seeing that he was about to be captured, made for a tree a short distance from the road, but the policeman was too quick for him and cut him off from the tree, and ordered him to surrender and throw down his gun. He saw the game was up and threw up his hands.

After returning with the prisoner to the scene of the first encounter, the bodies of Glass and Johnson and the two prisoners were put into a wagon and brought to Colbert, where Glass, was fully identified by a number of parties.”

And so, we come to the end of another Oklahoma badman.  His reign of terror lasted only five years but during this time he was the most feared outlaw in the territory.  There would be many more to take his place.

© - Contributed by Dennis Muncrief - December, 2003.

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