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Frank C. Stilwell was an outlaw Cowboy who killed at least two men in Cochise County during 1877–82. Both killings were considered to have been self-defense. For four months he wa…
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Frank C. Stilwell (1856 – March 20, 1882) was an outlaw Cowboy who killed at least two men in Cochise County during 1877–82.
Frank C. Stilwell was an outlaw Cowboy who killed at least two men in Cochise County during 1877–82. Both killings were considered to have been self-defense. For four months he was a deputy sheriff in Tombstone, Arizona Territory for Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan. Stilwell owned interests in several mines and various businesses, including a saloon, a wholesale liquor business, a stage line, and at his death livery stables in Charleston and Bisbee. He was also a partner in a Bisbee-area saloon with ex-Texas Ranger Pete Spence.
Frank C. Stilwell (1856 – March 20, 1882) was an outlaw Cowboy who killed at least two men in Cochise County during 1877–82. Both killings were considered to have been self-defense. For four months he was a deputy sheriff in Tombstone, Arizona Territory for Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan. Stilwell owned interests in several mines and various businesses, including a saloon, a wholesale liquor business, a stage line, and at his death livery stables in Charleston and Bisbee. He was also a partner in a Bisbee-area saloon with ex-Texas Ranger Pete Spence.
He was closely involved in the events leading up to and following the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881, and was suspected in the murder of Morgan Earp on March 18, 1882. Two days after Morgan's death, Frank Stilwell was killed by Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp in a Tucson train yard. Arrest warrants were issued for Earp and four others in his gang suspected of murdering Stilwell. Murder indictments were issued at Pima County for Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Warren Earp, Sherman McMaster and John Johnson. Earp agreed to turn himself in but instead fled the Arizona Territory for Colorado. Wyatt Earp admitted late in his life to killing Stilwell at close range with a shotgun.
Frank was the son of William "Henry" Stilwell and Charlotte B. "Sarah" Winfrey. Frank was born in Iowa in 1856 (as estimated from his self-reported age of 24 in the 1880 census).
His family moved shortly afterward near Palmyra, Kansas Territory, on the Santa Fe Trail. In 1863 William and Charlotte divorced and William left with the three boys, Jack, Millard and Frank. Charlotte took the girls Elizabeth and Mary. Frank's father was a Private in the Union Army with Company B, 18th Missouri Volunteer Infantry, under General William Tecumseh Sherman and took part in Sherman's March to the Sea.
His older brother Simpson "Comanche Jack" Stilwell was an Indian fighter, scout, Deputy U.S. Marshal, police judge, and U.S. Commissioner.
Frank and his brother Simpson traveled from Anadarko, Indian Territory to Prescott, Arizona Territory in 1877.
Source: Frank Stilwell (CC BY-SA)
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While in Prescott, Frank worked at nearby Miller's Ranch. On October 18, 1877, newly hired cook Jesus Bega brought Frank tea instead of coffee, and after an argument Frank shot Bega through the lung, killing him. Frank was later acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. When Frank's brother Simpson left Arizona for Fort Davis, Texas Frank remained in Arizona. He worked as a teamster for C. H. "Ham" Light.
Frank later staked a claim and worked a mine in Pima County and on November 9, 1879, got into an argument over claim-jumping with Col. John Van Houten. Van Houten was brutally beaten in the face with a rock and died. Frank Stilwell and James Cassidy were charged with his murder but escaped a grand jury indictment for lack of evidence.
In the 1880 census he listed himself as 24 years old, and living in Charleston, occupation "keeping livery," and reported that he had been born in Texas.
Stilwell was hired as an assistant deputy sheriff by Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan in April, 1881. Four months later, in August, Behan fired him for "accounting irregularities".
On September 8, 1881, a passenger stage on the 'Sandy Bob Line' in the Tombstone area bound for Bisbee, Arizona was robbed. The masked bandits robbed all of the passengers of their valuables and the strongbox of about $2,500. During the robbery, the driver heard one of the robbers describe the money as "sugar", a phrase known to be used by Frank. Wyatt and Virgil Earp rode with the sheriff's posse attempting to track the robbers. At the scene of the holdup, Wells, Fargo & Co. undercover agent Fred Dodge discovered an unusual boot print left by someone wearing a custom-repaired boot heel. The Earps checked a shoe repair shop in Bisbee known to provide widened boot heels and were able to link the boot print to Frank Stilwell.
When Stilwell arrived in Bisbee with his livery stable partner, Pete Spence, Tombstone Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Police Officer Wyatt Earp, and Cochise County Deputy Sheriff Billy Breakenridge arrested them for the robbery. Stilwell and Spence were arraigned before Judge Wells Spicer and posted $7,000 bond, paid by C.H. "Ham" Light. At the preliminary hearing, Stilwell and Spence were able to provide several witnesses who supported their alibis. The distinctive boot print and the use of the word "sugar" to describe money was not enough to convict Stilwell, and Judge Spicer dropped the charges for insufficient evidence just as he had done for Doc Holliday earlier in the year.
On October 13, two weeks after Frank was acquitted on the state charges, Virgil in his role as Deputy U.S. Marshal filed new federal charges against Stilwell and Spence for the federal crime of interfering with a mail carrier. Virgil took Stilwell and Spence to Tucson for arraignment where they were held at the territorial jail. While Virgil was in Tucson, he deputized Wyatt to act in his place as assistant city marshal in Tombstone.
The Cowboys thought the new arrest was in regard to a separate stage robbery that had occurred five days before October 8 near Contention City, and saw the new arrest as evidence that Stilwell and Spence were being unfairly harassed and targeted by the Earps for any stage robbery. They let the Earps know they could expect retaliation.
While Wyatt and Virgil were in Tucson for the federal hearing on the charges against Stilwell and Spence, Cowboy Frank McLaury confronted Morgan Earp, Spence and Stilwell being friends of McLaury and his brother Tom. He told Morgan that the McLaurys would kill the Earps if they tried to arrest Spence, Stilwell, or the McLaurys again. The Tombstone Epitaph reported "that since the arrest of Spence and Stilwell, veiled threats [are] being made that the friends of the accused will 'get the Earps.'" The newspapers misreported that Stilwell and Spence had been arrested for the different recent October 8 stage robbery n
