6/8/1894 - The sixth member of the ill-fated Dalton clan (there will twelve siblings that survive childhood, three more that won't) of ex-Kentuckian fiddling gambler Lewis Dalton and Adeline Lee Younger Dalton (an aunt of the Younger brothers that will one day ride with Frank and Jesse James), Mason Frakes Dalton (also known as William Marion Dalton or simply Bill Dalton), becomes the fourth and last member of the family to die of gun violence (lawman Frank Dalton is killed by whiskey runners outside of Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1887, Grat and Bob Dalton die in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1892 trying to rob two banks at the same time) when he attempts to flee a posse lead by U.S. Marshal S. T. Lindsey near Ardmore, Oklahoma.
Bill Dalton
Born in Cass County, Missouri in 1863 as the American Civil War is being bloodily played out across the country, Bill grows up near Coffeyville, Kansas learning a wide variety of farm skills, how to handle an assortment of weapons while hunting racoons and possums with his brothers, and horsemanship. Intelligent, he also develops a talent for talking himself into and out of trouble, always seems to be carrying a pack of playing cards, and dreams of bettering himself by going west and striking it rich in the gold fields of California. At first a success story for the family, in 1884, at the age of twenty, Bill follows his brothers Charles, Henry, and Littleton out to California, making his roundabout way west gambling, working as a miner in Butte, Montana, taking construction laborer jobs when they are available, hiring on as a roving hand come harvest time, and mule skinning with his brothers on Turner Island in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Working on the ranch of Cyrus Bliven, Bill falls in love with the man's daughter, and marries Jane "Jennie" Bliven on June 15, 1885 (the pair will have two children, Charles "Chubb" Coleman Dalton and Grace "Gracie" May Dalton). A marriage that opens doors for Bill, Dalton goes into business with his brother-in-law, Clark Bliven, and in 1887, buys property on the Estrella River, thirteen miles southeast of the town of San Miguel in California's San Luis Obispo County. There he builds a farm which will feature a beautiful white two-story home surrounded by palm trees. Successful at business and farming, he is soon a well respected member of the community and begins dabbling in state politics, becoming the chairman for the Democratic central committee in Merced and political committeeman for the town of Estrada, while positioning himself for a run at a seat in the state legislature in Sacramento with rants against the Southern Pacific Railroad, and its president, United States Senator Leland Stanford. Bright future possible, everything comes apart when Grat and Bob Dalton, along with sidekick Bill McElhanie (who is thought to be Emmett Dalton) come calling in 1890 after robbing a Mexican gambling house near Silver City, New Mexico.
Bill Dalton
Already being watched as potential threats to the Southern Pacific, known to be former lawmen that have lost their badges, the threesome visiting Bill Dalton (Grat has set up shop gambling in Fresno at a den of inequity called the Grand Central Hotel), along with Bill himself are soon pegged as the robbers that attempt to raid the Southern Pacific's Atlantic Express on its regular run from San Francisco to Los Angeles on February 6, 1891 that leaves Fireman George W. Radliff gut shot dead (the robbers flee without any cash). Indicted for the robbery by a grand jury in Tulare County, Bob Dalton and McElhanie respond by cutting their vacation short and returning to Oklahoma (where McElhanie decides the outlaw life is not for him), while Bill and Grat Dalton are both arrested and put on trial for the crime. Separate trumped up trials follow with Grat being found guilty of the train robbery (though witnesses will testify to his presence at the gaming tables of Fresno on the day of the robbery) and Bill Dalton being acquitted ... acquitted but found guilty in the minds of the public for having bad men for brothers with his political career going up in smoke as Bob and Emmett begin robbing trains back in Kansas and Oklahoma (revenge in their minds for the authorities taking their badges and accusing them of being crooks) and Grat manages to escape jail and leave the state.
Bill Dalton's California Home
Enraged that he is now suspected of every new train robbery that takes place in California, And he becomes even more angry when, after months of plundering the region, word reaches Bill in October of 1892 that two of his brothers have been killed trying to rob two Coffeyville banks (Grat and Bob) and a third sibling is captured and not expected to live (though Emmett does). Leaving his family behind, something snaps in Bill when he visits Coffeyville and sees how its citizens have treated his brother's corpses and taken possession of personal items, along with seeing how shot up Emmett is (the only reason he wasn't lynched after the failed robbery is because everyone in town, including his doctor, believe Emmett won't survive his wounds. Ruined in California, now ruined in Oklahoma and Kansas by his brothers' antics, Bill decides to become an outlaw himself and is soon riding with outlaw Bill Doolin (who escapes being killed at Coffeyville himself when his horse fortuitously goes lame as the bandit is riding into town with the rest of the Dalton Gang) as second-in-command of a group of desperadoes that will come to be known as The Wild Bunch, The Oklahombres, the Oklahoma Long Riders, or simply, the Doolin-Dalton Gang (members varying with different jobs, the core outlaws of the group are Bill Doolin, Bill Dalton, George "Bittercreek" Newcomb, Charley Pierce, Oliver "'Ol" Yantis, William "Tulsa Jack" Blake, Dan "Dynamite Dick" Clifton, Roy "Arkansas Tom Jones" Daugherty, George "Red Buck" Waightman, Richard "Little Dick" West, and William F. "Little Bill" Raidler (expecting to lead the group, Dalton receives only one vote in favor of him commanding the outlaws ... his own).
After Coffeyville - Bill Powers, Bob Dalton, Grat Dalton
& Dick Broadwell
Wounded Emmett
Doolin
Five feet and eight and a half inches tall with dark hair, a moustache, and blue eyes, as a member of the Oklahombres, Bill Dalton participates with Doolin, Yantis, and Newcomb in robbing the Missouri Pacific Railroad near the small town of Caney, Kansas (10/14/1892 ... with Dalton uncoupling the express car from the rest of the train, being one of the outlaws that wounds the express messenger in the arm with a Winchester round, and then plunders the car), rides with Dolin, Arkansas Tom, Newcomb, and Tulsa Jack when the group hits the westbound California Express near the town of Cimarron (June 19, 1893 ... with Doolin, Bill covers the locomotive's engineer and fireman, supplies some of the bullets that wound the express car's messenger in the left side, helps Doolin plunder the car, and assists the gang with his rifle in their escape from a posse led by Deputy U.S. Marshal Chris Madsen in which Doolin is shot in the foot), And of course, Dalton is one of the men that engages in a shootout with a posse of fourteen U.S. marshals and deputy marshals in the town of Ingalls on September 1, 1893.
Wanted Poster
Playing poker all night with Bill Doolin, Tulsa Jack, Dynamite Dick and Red Buck Weightman (not feeling well, Arkansas Tom checks into the town's O.K. Hotel, while Bittercreek stands guard, watching the friendly game from a spot near the bar, the lazy morning of the Bill Dalton comes to abruptly violent end when a bored Bittercreek decides to make an early morning visit to a lady friend's home, and is fired upon and wounded outside Ransom's Saloon by U.S. Deputy Marshal Dick Speed. Grabbing his rifle, in the melee that follows, Dalton engages the lawmen with his Winchester, puts down covering fire for Doolin, Tulsa Jack, and Dynamite Dick as those men run to their mounts stabled next to the saloon, holds off the marshals again as Doolin and Dynamite Dick make a mad dash out of the back of the barn, has his horse shot out from under him leaving the barn by its front entrance
(a favorite mount of Dalton's, his Cleveland Bay is hit in the jaw and leg), returns to the downed horse for a pair of wire cutters when the gang finds themselves trapped from escape by a wire fence (putting his horse out of its miseries at the same time), shoots already wounded 49-year-old U.S. Deputy Marshal Lafeyette "Lafe" Shadley when the lawman exposes himself at the home of George Ransom, runs back to the fence and cuts a hole in the obstruction, mounts up behind Doolin, and rides out of town (pausing only to send another salvo of bullets at anyone attempting to stop their flight, action that wounds 14-year-old bystander Frank Briggs in the shoulder). Dalton unscathed in the gun battle that claims three lawmen's lives, causes two civilian deaths, and sees three other individuals wounded (firing from the hotel, Arkansas Tom will surrender when U.S. Deputy Marshal James "Jim" Masterson threatens to blow up the building with two sticks of dynamite) will hide out with friends and family around Kingfisher, Oklahoma before adding to his criminal resume again in March of 1894.
The Ransom Saloon & Livery
Ingalls Getaway
Shadley
Obtaining information on money a U.S. Army paymaster is moving, on March 13, 1894, Doolin and Bill Dalton pay a visit to the railroad hotel of Woodward, Oklahoma, where they kidnap station agent George W. Rourke from his room, walk him downstairs and over to the train depot, have the man open the station's safe, and take the $6,540 inside meant for the soldiers of nearby Fort Supply. Then, on April 1, 1894, Dalton and Bittercreek invade the Catholic Mission settlement of Sacred Heart (on the edge of the Seminole Nation portion of the Indian Territory). Attempting to rob the settlement's general store, Dalton is recognized by the store's owner, former lawman T. H. Carr ... in the gunplay that follows, the former marshal, Bittercreek, and a teenager with a shotgun named Lee Hardwick are all wounded and the outlaw duo is forced to flee on horseback without any booty. Most of the gang back in action again, on the afternoon of May 10, 1894, Doolin, Bittercreek, Pierce, Dick West, Raidler, Dynamite Dick, and Dalton hit the Southwest City Bank of Southwest City, Missouri (located in the southwest corner of Missouri, with the Arkansas state line and the Indian Territory that will become the Oklahoma state line forming the city's western limits). Part of the crew that goes into the bank, Doolin, Bittercreek, and Dalton rob the establishment of over $7,000 in assets, but emerge on to the town's Main Street and find themselves in another gun battle in which over a hundred bullets will fly up and down Southwest City ... fleeing town Little Dick West wounds Oscar Seaborn and kills his bother, J.C. Seaborn as the two men stand on a sidewalk as the outlaws pass by, Doolin is wounded in the head by a shotgun blast of buckshot that also wounds his favorite horse, Old Dick, two other bandit mounts are wounded, a civilian, M. V. Hembre, is hit in the foot will imbibing at the town's Baker Saloon and loses the appendage, and U.S. Deputy Marshal Simpson Melton is wounded in the leg. It will be Dalton's last criminal endeavor with Bill Doolin. Remembering his brothers demise and drunkenly arguing with Doolin over the raid, Dalton decides it is time he left the Oklahombres and started a gang of his own (tired over constantly arguing with Dalton over targets and plans for the gang, Doolin is happy to see Bill go).
Bill Dalton
Not the quality of gunmen and riders that compose the Oklahombres, Dalton's new gang consists of a womanizing cowboy named George Bennett, a miscreant from the Ardmore area around the Texas-Oklahoma border named Jim Wallace, and a sawmill worker named Bill Jones. Deciding that there are too many lawmen in Kansas and Oklahoma, the gang's first and only job takes place in Texas, at the town of Longview on May 23, 1894, just a short ride from the Lone Star State's border with Louisiana. An over 200 bullet battle between outlaws and citizens and a debacle of the first order, the gang's raid on the town's First National Bank results in Bennett being shot and killed by Deputy City Marshal Will Stevens, City Marshal Muckelroy is shot in the bowels and dies, outlaw Bill Jones kills Longview citizen George Buckingham, and saloonkeeper J. W. McQueen and bystander citizen Charles S. Leonard are both hit by wild shots, with Leonard dying two days later. ... all for a measly take of $2,000 in ten and twenty dollar bills. Fleeing for their lives west towards the town of Paris then into the Indian Territory, the men hide in a canebrake from a posse chasing them, divvy up the Longview proceeds, then ride of in different directions. Dalton makes his way to the Ardmore area where his wife and family, not knowing the man of the family is a bandit (or so they will claim later), are staying on the farm of Houston Wallace, the brother of Longview outlaw Jim Wallace. Seeking a scent of it's lost prey, in the town of Duncan lawmen discover a new wagon has been bought in town using currency stolen during the Longview job, find the new buckboard is being used to convey victuals, ammunition, and nine quarts of illegal whiskey, and learn that the man driving the wagon is the brother of the outlaw killed in Longview. Luck run dry just as it had for his dead brothers Frank, Grat, and Bob, U.S. Deputy Marshal Seldon T. Lindsay, located in nearby Ardmore, decides to put a nine-man posse together and search the Wallace farm.
Inside The Longview Bank Afterwards
Lindsay
Dalton Death Mask
The News
Dead Bill
Dead Bill
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