Early Outlaw Life
Jesse J. Evans was believed to have been born in Missouri, although some historians believe he was born in Texas. He was half-Cherokee, and a graduate of Washington and Lee College in Virginia. It is unknown as to what caused Evans to go from a promising life to that of an outlaw. It is possibly due to a poor influence within his family structure, as he was arrested with both his mother and his father on June 26, 1871, in Elk City, Kansas, for passing counterfeit money. He was released shortly thereafter, and by 1872 he was in New Mexico.
He began working as a cowboy, employed by several ranches, to include that of John Chisum. After he ended his employment with Chisum, Evans ventured to both Las Cruces and La Mesilla, New Mexico, where he became associated with John Kinney. At the time, Kinney was leading one of the more well known gangs of the New Mexico Territory, called the John Kinney Gang. Evans joined the gang, and over time he and Kinney became close. On the night of December 31, 1875, Kinney, Evans, Pony Diehl, and Jim McDaniels went into Las Cruces. While there the gang members became involved in a disagreement and later a brawl with soldiers of the US Cavalry stationed at Fort Seldon. The outlaws lost the fight, and left, only to return and open fire on the saloon, killing two soldiers and one civilian, and wounding another two soldiers and one civilian.
Read more about this topic: Jesse Evans (outlaw)
Famous quotes containing the words early, outlaw and/or life:
“Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“The price on the wanted
poster was a-going down, outlaw alias copped my stance
and moody greenhorns were making me dance; while my mouth’s
shooting iron got its chambers jammed.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“By degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the permanent objects of nature, so that the world shall be to us an open book, and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)