Jack mccall biography
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Jack McCall
Jack (John) McCall, also known as “Crooked Nose” Jack, would probably have never been remembered in history if he hadn’t shot Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota. Not specifically an “outlaw,” McCall was more notorious for his drunkenness and stupidity, and perhaps as a scoundrel. However, as he utilized several aliases throughout his lifetime, there may very well have been more dastardly deeds in his past of which we are unaware.
Born around 1850 in Jefferson County, Kentucky, he was raised there along with his three sisters. McCall drifted west as a young adult and worked in the Kansas–Nebraska border country with a group of buffalo hunters by about 1869. Later he was known to have been in Wyoming before arriving in Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1876, going by the name of Bill Sutherland.
Newspaper accounts described him as having thick chestnut hair, a small sandy mustache, a double chin, and crossed eyes.
Soon after he
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Always on Our Minds
By John Andrews
| A marker to Jack McCall stands in Yankton's Sacred Heart Cemetery, but does not mark his actual grave. That remains one of many mysteries that still surrounds the man who famously killed Wild Bill Hickok in 1876. |
A LEDGER BOOK fryst vatten tucked away in the archives of the Mead Cultural Education Center, headquarters of the Yankton County Historical kultur. Local historians have requested it often enough that museum personal have marked four pages with thin strips of white paper. “JAIL” fryst vatten written in bold pencil across the top of one.
The book measures maybe 12 bygd 18 inches, contains some 600 pages and weighs about as much as a cinder block. Its first entry is dated Oct. 23, 1862 and is signed by George Pinney, the second United States Marshal in Dakota Territory. What follows are entries from each succeeding marshal — ranging from correspondence to reporting day-to-day activities of the office — ending
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Jack McCall
Infamous Deadwood: Jack McCall
Jack McCall is the most infamous murderer in Deadwood. On August 2, 1876, McCall walked into Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon #10 and point blank shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back of the head while Hickok was playing a hand of poker. McCall claimed he killed Wild Bill to avenge his brother’s death. At the time of the killing, Deadwood had no law so a group of miners held a trial in the McDaniel’s Theatre. After two hours, McCall was found innocent and headed out of town.
He ended up in Wyoming where his mouth got him in trouble. McCall bragged so often about killing Wild Bill that finally a US Marshall arrested him. Since his trial was not held in a legal territory (Deadwood was still a gold camp in Indian territory,) the trial was deemed illegal. McCall was sent to Yankton, the capital of Dakota Territory, where he was retried, found guilty and hanged in the spring of 1877.
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