An extract or two from the newspapers of the day will furnish
a photograph that can need no embellishment:
FATAL SHOOTING AFFRAY.—An affray occurred, last evening, in a
billiard saloon on C street, between Deputy Marshal Jack Williams
and Wm. Brown, which resulted in the immediate death of the
latter. There had been some difficulty between the parties for
several months.
An inquest was immediately held, and the following testimony
adduced:
Officer GEO. BIRDSALL, sworn, says:—I was told Wm. Brown was
drunk and was looking for Jack Williams; so soon as I heard that
I started for the parties to prevent a collision; went into the
billiard saloon; saw Billy Brown running around, saying if
anybody had anything against him to show cause; he was talking in
a boisterous manner, and officer Perry took him to the other end
of the room to talk to him; Brown came back to me; remarked to me
that he thought he was as good as anybody, and knew how to take
care of himself; he passed by me and went to the bar; don’t know
whether he drank or not; Williams was at the end of the
billiard-table, next to the stairway; Brown, after going to the
bar, came back and said he was as good as any man in the world;
he had then walked out to the end of the first billiard-table
from the bar; I moved closer to them, supposing there would be a
fight; as Brown drew his pistol I caught hold of it; he had fired
one shot at Williams; don’t know the effect of it; caught hold of
him with one hand, and took hold of the pistol and turned it up;
think he fired once after I caught hold of the pistol; I wrenched
the pistol from him; walked to the end of the billiard-table and
told a party that I had Brown’s pistol, and to stop shooting; I
think four shots were fired in all; after walking out, Mr. Foster
remarked that Brown was shot dead.
Oh, there was no excitement about it—he merely “remarked” the
small circumstance!
Four months later the following item appeared in the same
paper (the Enterprise). In this item the name of one of the city
officers above referred to (Deputy Marshal Jack Williams) occurs
again:
ROBBERY AND DESPERATE AFFRAY.—On Tuesday night, a German
named Charles Hurtzal, engineer in a mill at Silver City, came to
this place, and visited the hurdy-gurdy house on B street. The
music, dancing and Teutonic maidens awakened memories of
Faderland until our German friend was carried away with rapture.
He evidently had money, and was spending if freely. Late in the
evening Jack Williams and Andy Blessington invited him down
stairs to take a cup of coffee. Williams proposed a game of cards
and went up stairs to procure a deck, but not finding any
returned. On the stairway he met the German, and drawing his
pistol knocked him down and rifled his pockets of some seventy
dollars. Hurtzal dared give no alarm, as he was told, with a
pistol at his head, if he made any noise or exposed them, they
would blow his brains out. So effectually was he frightened that
he made no complaint, until his friends forced him. Yesterday a
warrant was issued, but the culprits had disappeared.
This efficient city officer, Jack Williams, had the common
reputation of being a burglar, a highwayman and a desperado. It
was said that he had several times drawn his revolver and levied
money contributions on citizens at dead of night in the public
streets of Virginia.
Five months after the above item appeared, Williams was
assassinated while sitting at a card table one night; a gun was
thrust through the crack of the door and Williams dropped from
his chair riddled with balls. It was said, at the time, that
Williams had been for some time aware that a party of his own
sort (desperadoes) had sworn away his life; and it was generally
believed among the people that Williams’s friends and enemies
would make the assassination memorable—and useful, too—by a
wholesale destruction of each other.
It did not so happen, but still, times were not dull during
the next twenty-four hours, for within that time a woman was
killed by a pistol shot, a man was brained with a slung shot, and
a man named Reeder was also disposed of permanently. Some matters
in the Enterprise account of the killing of Reeder are worth
nothing—especially the accommodating complaisance of a Virginia
justice of the peace. The italics in the following narrative are
mine:
MORE CUTTING AND SHOOTING.—The devil seems to have again broken loose in our town. Pistols and guns explode and knives
gleam in our streets as in early times. When there has been a
long season of quiet, people are slow to wet their hands in
blood; but once blood is spilled, cutting and shooting come easy.
Night before last Jack Williams was assassinated, and yesterday
forenoon we had more bloody work, growing out of the killing of
Williams, and on the same street in which he met his death. It
appears that Tom Reeder, a friend of Williams, and George Gumbert
were talking, at the meat market of the latter, about the killing
of Williams the previous night, when Reeder said it was a most
cowardly act to shoot a man in such a way, giving him “no show.”
Gumbert said that Williams had “as good a show as he gave Billy
Brown,” meaning the man killed by Williams last March. Reeder
said it was a d—-d lie, that Williams had no show at all. At
this, Gumbert drew a knife and stabbed Reeder, cutting him in two
places in the back. One stroke of the knife cut into the sleeve
of Reeder’s coat and passed downward in a slanting direction
through his clothing, and entered his body at the small of the
back; another blow struck more squarely, and made a much more
dangerous wound. Gumbert gave himself up to the officers of
justice, and was shortly after discharged by Justice Atwill, on
his own recognizance, to appear for trial at six o’clock in the
evening. In the meantime Reeder had been taken into the office of
Dr. Owens, where his wounds were properly dressed. One of his
wounds was considered quite dangerous, and it was thought by many
that it would prove fatal. But being considerably under the
influence of liquor, Reeder did not feel his wounds as he
otherwise would, and he got up and went into the street. He went
to the meat market and renewed his quarrel with Gumbert,
threatening his life. Friends tried to interfere to put a stop to
the quarrel and get the parties away from each other. In the
Fashion Saloon Reeder made threats against the life of Gumbert,
saying he would kill him, and it is said that he requested the
officers not to arrest Gumbert, as he intended to kill him. After
these threats Gumbert went off and procured a double-barreled
shot gun, loaded with buck-shot or revolver balls, and went after
Reeder. Two or three persons were assisting him along the street,
trying to get him home, and had him just in front of the store of
Klopstock & Harris, when Gumbert came across toward him from the
opposite side of the street with his gun. He came up within about
ten or fifteen feet of Reeder, and called out to those with him
to “look out! get out of the way!” and they had only time to heed
the warning, when he fired. Reeder was at the time attempting to
screen himself behind a large cask, which stood against the
awning post of Klopstock & Harris’s store, but some of the balls
took effect in the lower part of his breast, and he reeled around
forward and fell in front of the cask. Gumbert then raised his
gun and fired the second barrel, which missed Reeder and entered
the ground. At the time that this occurred, there were a great
many persons on the street in the vicinity, and a number of them
called out to Gumbert, when they saw him raise his gun, to “hold
on,” and “don’t shoot!” The cutting took place about ten o’clock
and the shooting about twelve. After the shooting the street was
instantly crowded with the inhabitants of that part of the town,
some appearing much excited and laughing—declaring that it
looked like the “good old times of '60.” Marshal Perry and
officer Birdsall were near when the shooting occurred, and
Gumbert was immediately arrested and his gun taken from him, when
he was marched off to jail. Many persons who were attracted to
the spot where this bloody work had just taken place, looked
bewildered and seemed to be asking themselves what was to happen
next, appearing in doubt as to whether the killing mania had
reached its climax, or whether we were to turn in and have a
grand killing spell, shooting whoever might have given us
offence. It was whispered around that it was not all over
yet—five or six more were to be killed before night. Reeder was taken
to the Virginia City Hotel, and doctors called in to examine his
wounds. They found that two or three balls had entered his right
side; one of them appeared to have passed through the substance
of the lungs, while another passed into the liver. Two balls were
also found to have struck one of his legs. As some of the balls
struck the cask, the wounds in Reeder’s leg were probably from
these, glancing downwards, though they might have been caused by
the second shot fired. After being shot, Reeder said when he got
on his feet—smiling as he spoke—"It will take better shooting
than that to kill me.” The doctors consider it almost impossible
for him to recover, but as he has an excellent constitution he
may survive, notwithstanding the number and dangerous character
of the wounds he has received. The town appears to be perfectly
quiet at present, as though the late stormy times had cleared our
moral atmosphere; but who can tell in what quarter clouds are
lowering or plots ripening?
Reeder—or at least what was left of him—survived his wounds
two days! Nothing was ever done with Gumbert.
Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know
what a palladium is, having never seen a palladium, but it is a
good thing no doubt at any rate. Not less than a hundred men have
been murdered in Nevada—perhaps I would be within bounds if I
said three hundred—and as far as I can learn, only two persons
have suffered the death penalty there. However, four or five who
had no money and no political influence have been punished by
imprisonment—one languished in prison as much as eight months, I
think. However, I do not desire to be extravagant—it may have
been less.
However, one prophecy was verified, at any rate. It was
asserted by the desperadoes that one of their brethren (Joe
McGee, a special policeman) was known to be the conspirator
chosen by lot to assassinate Williams; and they also asserted
that doom had been pronounced against McGee, and that he would be
assassinated in exactly the same manner that had been adopted for
the destruction of Williams—a prophecy which came true a year
later. After twelve months of distress (for McGee saw a fancied
assassin in every man that approached him), he made the last of
many efforts to get out of the country unwatched. He went to
Carson and sat down in a saloon to wait for the stage—it would
leave at four in the morning. But as the night waned and the
crowd thinned, he grew uneasy, and told the bar-keeper that
assassins were on his track. The bar-keeper told him to stay in
the middle of the room, then, and not go near the door, or the
window by the stove. But a fatal fascination seduced him to the
neighborhood of the stove every now and then, and repeatedly the
bar-keeper brought him back to the middle of the room and warned
him to remain there. But he could not. At three in the morning he
again returned to the stove and sat down by a stranger. Before
the bar-keeper could get to him with another warning whisper,
some one outside fired through the window and riddled McGee’s
breast with slugs, killing him almost instantly. By the same
discharge the stranger at McGee’s side also received attentions
which proved fatal in the course of two or three days.
