1/6/1850 - Not as well known as lawmen such as Bill Hickok or Wyatt Earp, in Oxford, Georgia, far from the wild western territories he will become famous in, Henry Andrew "Heck" Thomas is born into the well-to-do family (he will be the youngest of five children) of tavern owner Lovick Pierce Thomas and Martha Ann Thomas.
Thomas
Intended by his parents to become a Methodist minister, the Civil War turns Heck's life totally around, when as a 12-year-old he accompanies his father (who will be a captain and quartermaster) and his uncle, Edward Lloyd Thomas (who will end the war as a brigadier general), into the Confederate Army and becomes a courier for the 35th Georgia Infantry, part of the famous brigade of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (father and uncle will fight in the famous battles of the Army of Northern Virginia and both will survive the war). On 9/1/1862, after Union General Philip Kearney is killed at the Battle of Chantilly, young Heck is entrusted with the dead general's horse and equipment, and receives an order directly from commander Robert E. Lee to take the items (including the general's sword) through enemy lines under a flag of truce and return them to Kearney's widow (as his relatives are participating in the bloodiest single day in American history at the Battle of Antietam). Mission accomplished, Heck's military career ends a year later when he contracts typhoid fever and is sent back to his family in Georgia. After the war, Heck will clerk in his oldest brother Lovick's Atlanta store, before becoming an Atlanta policeman at the age of 17 (after his father becomes the city's first marshal). As an officer of the law, he courts the daughter of an Atlanta preacher and in 1871 marries Isabel Gray and starts raising a family (the couple will have five children).
Father
Uncle
The Death Of Kearny
Courtright
Sam Bass
Parker
Moving the family to Fort Smith, on his first ride for Judge Parker, Heck apprehends eight murderers, a horse thief, a bootlegger, and several other hard cases (during his seven-year tenure with the force, Thomas will bring in more Indian Territory outlaws than any other lawman). The move though will eventually cost him his wife and family. Gone from home for weeks and months, worried constantly during his absences that he will be gunned down (and rightly so, fifteen Indian Territory officers will lose their lives during this period of time), and a first-hand witness to the dangers of the area when in 1886, an outlaw interrupts the couple's picnic by trying to steal horses from the buggy the pair is using (Heck will wound, handcuff, and return the bandit to Fort Smith in the buggy), Mrs. Thomas will finally have enough and move back to Georgia with the pair's children, eventually divorcing Heck. In June of 1888, the now bachelor Thomas leads a three man posse in search of a gang of outlaws that have recently plundered a train. Locating the outlaws at an illegal still on Snake Creek, Thomas calls on the men to surrender, a request which is greeted by gunfire from the bandit's leader Al Purdy that breaks Heck's right wrist, opens an eight inch wound his left side, and pitches the lawman out of his saddle (the three deputies hole Purdy and the rest of the crooks surrender. Almost killed, recuperating from his wounds in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Heck meets a local schoolmarm and preacher's daughter named Mattie Mowbury and falls in love again, and in 1889 the couple marries at Arkansas City, Kansas (they will have one child).
Thomas
Going after the most dangerous outlaws for the highest rewards, Thomas in 1889 makes one of the authorities' many attempts to arrest Indian outlaw, Ned Christie. Leading a three man posse to a location near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Thomas and company pepper Christie's hideout with rifle fire, set the structure ablaze, and as the outlaw is escaping into the woods while the posse is treating wounded member, L. P. Isbel, Heck snaps off a round from his Winchester that shatters Christie's nose and knocks out his right eye (it will take three more tries by lawmen before the outlaw is finally killed in November of 1892). In 1890, goes after a frontier hooligan named Jim July who has jumped bail after being charged with armed robbery ... he too resists arrest, but is not as lucky as Christie and is shot to death by Heck. In 1891, takes on one of his biggest challenges and begins a pursuit of men he knows from their time as lawmen, Bob, Emmett, and Grat Dalton (he was also an associate of their dead brother, Deputy U.S. Marshal Frank Dalton). Chasing the Daltons for over a year (Emmett will call him the "nemesis" of the gang) he is only 20 miles away, at the gang's last campsite, when word reaches him of the gang's demise trying to rob two banks at the same time in their hometown of Coffeyville, Kansas (a foolish move to get adequate resources for the men to retire to Mexico brought on by Thomas' dogged pursuit of the desperadoes, shot to pieces, only Emmett survives the attempt). Riding into town shortly after the gun battle that kills eight ends, Thomas officially identifies the dead Daltons for the Wells Fargo Company.
Dead Ned
Dead Bob & Grat Dalton
Perry, Oklahoma
Madsen
Yantis
Raidler
The biggest catch of Thomas' career comes on August 25, 1896, outside of Lawson, Oklahoma ... gang leader Bill Doolin. Naked and without a gun (it is hanging from a nearby post) when he is finally caught while nursing an old foot wound in one of the the Sulphur springs bathhouses of Eureka Springs, Arkansas by Tilghman (pointing a .45 caliber revolver at the outlaw's heart from four feet away), Doolin is jailed in Guthrie, Oklahoma, but not for long. Accompanied by fellow captive and gang member, Dan "Dynamite Dick" Clifton (and twelve other crooks), Doolin breaks out of the jail on the evening of Sunday, July 5, 1896 and makes plans to flee into New Mexico with his wife and start a new life. Pursuit of the desperado immediate, Thomas uses his knowledge of the outlaw to stake out the home of Doolin's father-in-law (with a posse that includes members of the murderous Dunn Family ... a group of former outlaw "friends" that have recently murdered "Bittercreek" George Newcomb and Charley Pierce for the reward money while the pair are visiting Newcomb's amour, the "Rose of Cimarron," Rose Elizabeth Dunn), where the outlaw's bride is residing. Posse set up on both sides of a road leading to the farm, when Doolin shows up on the evening of the 25th, carrying a rifle and leading his horse up the farmhouse, a familiar pattern of surrender asked and refused with gunfire is played out again ... and once more an outlaw is sent to Boot Hill wearing his boots. Whipping up his rifle, Doolin fires into the night and has his rifle knocked out of his hands, but then foolishly continues his fight by pulling a Colt .45 and getting off two rounds before Thomas puts a slug in the outlaw's chest as Bill Dunn hits him with a full blast of shotgun buckshot.
Tilghman
Dynamite Dick
The End Of Doolin - True West Magazine
Adios Bill
Wild Bunch leader gone, there is one more gunfight with the gang Thomas participates in. Later in 1896, with his son Albert from Georgia participating, along with two of the Dunn brothers, Thomas tracks down "Dynamite Dick" and a couple of other thieves to a wilderness camp twenty miles west of Sapulpa, Oklahoma and a pitched battle breaks out. Sadly, despite all the lead sent the outlaws' way, no deaths or arrests result from the encounter. Slowed by injuries (he will be wounded six times during his career in law enforcement) and age, in 1902 Thomas is posted to Lawton, Oklahoma where, when he resigns as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, is elected the growing town's first chief of police, a job he will hold for seven years. And during his time as Lawton's head cop, Thomas will also briefly flirt with the world of entertainment, organizing a fake posse that chases after a group of outlaws (led by reformed real bandit, Al Jennings) in a 1908 silent one-reeler called "The Bank Robbery," produced by the Oklahoma Natural Mutoscene Company and directed by Heck's former comrade, Bill Tilghman (former Comanche leader, Quanah Parker and lawman Frank Canton also briefly appear in the movie). Still in Lawton, the wild life of Thomas finally ends on August 14, 1912, when the legendary lawman dies of Bright's disease (a kidney ailment associated with high blood pressure and heart problems) at the age of 62.
Early Lawton
Scene From "The Bank Robbery"
Old Heck
"Heck" Thomas
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Great story
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