TERRE HAUTE —
In October 1892, Terre Haute police received a circular from the State of Kansas containing a description of Ellsworth Wyatt and offering a $1,200 reward for his capture.
Perceived as a former member of the notorious Dalton Gang, “Zip Wyatt was wanted for the July 4, 1891, murder of Kiowa County (Kan.) Deputy Sheriff Andrew Balfour.
At the time he was killed, Balfour was seeking two men accused of the theft of harness and horse riding accessories in the town of Greensburg. He had followed them for nearly 10 miles to Pryor’s Grove, the site of a plug-horse race.
According to a witness, Balfour walked up to one of the men and said, “Consider yourself under arrest.” The outlaw, later identified as Wyatt, pulled a pistol out of his shirt and shot Balfour at close range in the abdomen.
As he fell, Balfour shot his assailant twice, once in the arm and the other in his hand. The deputy died at the scene. The culprits hopped on horses and, before anyone realized what had happened, they were out of shooting range.
Terre Haute police knew about Wyatt. Several months earlier, they learned he had caused a major disturbance at Mulhall in the Oklahoma Territory, on June 3, 1891, seriously injuring lawman Buck Eagledow. The extent of his association with the Dalton Gang was unclear but, after Balfour’s death, he was known as a man who killed police officers.
Nelson Ellsworth Wyatt was born and raised in Sugar Ridge Township near Center Point in Clay County. His father John Tyler Wyatt served with the 85th Indiana Regiment during the Civil War. His mother was Rachel Jane Quick, a domestic servant before she married Wyatt. The couple raised eight children: seven boys and one girl.
Ellsworth and older brother Jack relocated to the Oklahoma Territory in about 1885. His parents lived in several states before settling near them on Antelope Creek, 14 miles northeast of Guthrie in the Oklahoma Territory.
Rachel Wyatt died Feb. 3, 1890, and, a few months later, Ellsworth wed Annie Bailey near Mulhall. “Six Shooter Jack” Wyatt, an expert gambler, met a violent death over a saloon gambling table in Texline, Texas, in 1891.
It did not take long for Capt. Charles Hyland of the Terre Haute police to learn that Wyatt occasionally visited Tom and Lydia McGriff of Cory. “Aunt Lydia” was part of the Wyatt family. Other relatives lived near Riley in Vigo County and in Indianapolis.
On the morning of Nov. 30, 1892, Sheriff John Hixon of Logan County, OT, arrived in Terre Haute by rail with a warrant for the arrest of the notorious Zip Wyatt.
“Wyatt may be the most dangerous criminal in the entire West,” Hixon warned. “He is an expert marksman and a great horseman but he has no value for human life. He has been captured and has escaped at least twice.
“We had him cornered at his father’s house but, somehow, he disappeared. We later learned that he was living among the Creek and Choctaw Indians. It is believed that Wyatt recently led an attack on an express train near Ganey, Kansas.”
At midnight, Hyland, Hixon, Vigo County Sheriff James Stout, Deputy U.S. Marshal Willis B. McRae and Terre Haute policeman William J. “Peggy” Smith trekked to Cory. At 5:45 a.m., the men encircled the McGriff residence. McRae and Smith approached the front door.
No one responded to knocking but the door yielded to touch so they entered. Wyatt was in the front room talking to the McGriff’s teenage son, Oscar.
Startled when he realized the visitors were police officers, Wyatt jumped to his feet and drew a pistol. Officer Smith promptly leveled a shotgun at the fugitive, demanding that he drop his gun and raise his hands. McRae also displayed a weapon. Wyatt’s Colt 48 fell to the floor and he was handcuffed.
The posse returned to Terre Haute with their prize at 9:30 a.m., Dec. 1. Wyatt was incarcerated in the Vigo County Jail.
For several days authorities in Kansas and the Oklahoma Territory discussed which jurisdiction should assume custody. If Kansas took him, it would be responsible for the $1,200 reward. If he went to Oklahoma, Wyatt could get out on $500 bond.
Meanwhile, Terre Haute attorneys George W. Faris and Samuel Hamill filed habeas corpus proceedings in Vigo County to free Wyatt. Ultimately, Zip was returned to Guthrie in the Oklahoma Territory.
On Dec. 31, 1892, Wyatt escaped by crawling through a sewer pipe in the jail. Some believe he bribed the guards. Within weeks, he associated with bandit Isaac “Ike” Black, Black’s wife Belle and two outlaws named Matt and Jenny Freeman.
For the next two years Wyatt’s gang was accused of committing nearly every crime in the Oklahoma Territory, including the Arapaho Post Office robbery in November 1893. In 1895, Wyatt and Black apparently joined forces with Bill Doolin, founder of “The Wild Bunch,” glorified for robbing banks, stagecoaches and trains. But that alliance did not last long.
On June 4, 1895, Wyatt and Black engaged in a desperate, daylong gun battle with lawmen following the robbery of the post office in Fairview, OT, but escaped, though both were seriously wounded, into the nearby hills.
Between July 26 and Aug. 4, 1895, a posse of lawmen, farmers and members of the Anti-Horse Thief Association pursued Wyatt and Black through the hills and canyons of Oklahoma, engaging in several intense gunfights.
Black was killed Aug. 1, a few miles east of the former Indian post at Cantonment. But Wyatt, injured despite wearing a metal body shield, escaped once more.
Surrounded in a cornfield and critically injured by fusillades from posses headed by Garfield County (OT) Sheriff Elzie Thralls, Wyatt was seized and imprisoned at Enid.
He had a shattered pelvis and multiple other wounds. Hundreds of spectators, including his father, came to see the famous “Cherokee Strip Outlaw.” For several days, Wyatt freely talked about his life of crime.
Wyatt’s injuries were too severe for treatment and he was given only morphine to mask the pain. He died in agony, Sept. 7, 1895, at the jail in Enid.
History
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: Notorious Western desperado Ellsworth Wyatt captured in Clay County
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