Volume 18 , Issue 2

NW Okie's Journey

We are continuing our research of outlaws of the territories in the late 1800s. We went searching for the Christian Brothers' gang of outlaws that supposedly frequented Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma & Indian Territory.

According to Last of the "Old-Time Outlaws: George West Musgrave Story" by Karen Holiday Tanner, John D. Tanner, we found some information concerning the Christian brothers's gang of outlaws.

The Northwest Texas frontier bred some hard characters, and the tough sons of William Mark Christian were no exception. It was in the 1860s, Kentucky born Christian and settled on a site in the Southeast corner of Baylor county. Comanche raiding parties still harassed the county in 1868 when Sarah "Sallie" Christian (nee Duff) gave birth to their first child, a son, Bob. Three years later, brother Will arrived. It was in 1874, at the advent of the region's buffalo hunting heyday, their small settlement on the Brazos River took the name Round Timber. The Christian boys witnessed the opening of the Western Cattle Trail in 1876, which launched the area's cattle drive epoch.

The Christian brothers father was a tall, lank, dark complexioned Indian-like man, and a very hard looking customer.

Sallie Christian, born about 1854 in Texas, was slim, blue-eyed, with blond hair. William and Sallie Christian were known to be more refined in their life and lived more godly and righteously than anyone.

The family left Round Timber about 1883 and moved northwest into the Texas Panhandle. Their next move was into the Indian Territory in the late 1880s, by 1889, when William Mark Christian's name first graced the pages of the U. S. District Court records.

The family's prairie home was just above the forks of a creek, within the borders of the Creek (Muskogee) Nation, six miles southeast of Wewoka, near the boundaries of the Seminole and Choctaw Nations. For a brief time in mid 1895, the Christians shifted their residence to a nearby rental home, a short distance from William H. "Bill" Carr's store-saloon and cotton gin at Violet Springs.

Young Bob Christian earned a reputation for being bold and reckless by boxing, jumping and breaking fractious horses, beginning his outlaw career bootlegging Bill Carr's shaky in the Seminole and Creek Nations. Soon the Seminole, Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations issued warrants for Bob, though there were no records of any liquor charges being brought against Bob Christian at Fort Smith at this time. Fearing conviction Bob Christian went into hiding in the forest along Little River.

William Christian was portrayed as the bravest of the brothers, doing the head work. Robbery was a Christian family tradition. They would run clear out of groceries, but the next morning, there would be all kinds of stuff.

We find that Bill Dalton, the last of the Dalton gang to be enjoying both life and liberty, had quit Bill Doolan's gang late in March 1894 and hid out, probably at the Christian compound, notwithstanding "Old Man" Christian's later denial.

Rumors persisted among the neighbors that Old Man Christian harbored Bill Dalton. Isaac Trett, a young employee of Christian's, sat for hours on the ranch house roof with Christian's daughter and some other women, as if watching the countryside for approaching posses. After Dalton's death on June 8 at Elk (near Ardmore), Oklahoma, deputy marshals from Paris, Texas, continued to keep the Christian home under surveillance. They observed that no one ever went to work in the fields. The deputies did count fifteen to twenty horses regularly corralled at the house and noticed that men, heavily armed with Winchesters and revolvers, came and went in the night, brining in new horses and leaving with others.

Following the three weeks of observation, officers arrested Old Man Christian, Jim Castleberry and Trett on charges of horse theft and brought them to Paris, Texas, seat of the Eastern Texas District Court.

On December 26, Bob Christian and his associates, including West Love and John Champion, robbed Lewis Rockett's general store and post office at Wilburton in the Choctaw Nation of $21.50, a gold watch, and some pocketknives. Two weeks later, Christian, Love and Champion, joined by Joe Criner and a fifth man, appeared in Wilburton at the GR Bar Ranch of George W. Riddle, a prominent Choctaw.

Good Night! Good Luck!
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