Silverpick Lodge

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Bert Wilkinson

The man who haunts the Silverpick Lodge.

 
Law enforcement in Silverton was at that time in the hands of two men. One was San Juan County sheriff George Thorniley, who had served as a deputy under John Cleghorn Jr. and was appointed to take his place in April, 1881, when Cleghorn moved on to become U.S. Land Office Register at Del Norte. The other was versatile and talented David Clayton Ogsbury, who had been appointed Silverton town marshal in May when Charles C. Clemons resigned the position. David Clayton Ogsbury was the fourth of six children of John P. and Margaret Van Volkenburgh Ogsbury, born at Guilderland, New York on October 18, 1847. He had followed a childhood dream and taken the train west to Denver in 1869, working there for a couple of years until the San Juans lured him in the early 1870's. He designed bridges, clerked in stores and
David Clayton Ogsbury
performed odd jobs, all to support his prospecting activities, which led him eventually to his most promising prospect, the Crown Jewel at Ophir. He took some gold nuggets with him on a visit home in 1877, and promised his parents their cares would be over if he succeeded as he hoped in Colorado's rugged San Juan Mountains. He felt he could pay off their mortgage and spend winters with them at Guilderland. As 1881 progressed, he became engaged to a girl back in New York, and the 33-year-old Ogsbury began to lay plans for a more comfortable future-despite the fact that the Crown Jewel was still in the development stage and he still owed J.M. Hopkins & Co. of Louisville, Kentucky, for shipments of wholesale liquor from his brief and unsuccessful 1878 venture into the saloon business.
Clayton Obsbury had been interested in law enforcement since he was a boy. He had joined the Rocky Mountain Detectives Association, was appointed a deputy by Thorniley, and was thus serving as both town marshal and a deputy county sheriff when he put in his day shift August, 24 1881. Ogsbury had already experienced a rough week. Two evenings earlier, a reckless fight found Ogsbury jailing some of the participants to break up the fracas as the San Juan Herald reported it:
…(A) large number of the festive boys got very considerably off their equilibrium, and not satisfied with having a jolly time, got to punching heads and noses… (The Marshall) caused a temporary cessation of hostilities by giving a portion of the belligerents a free lodging in the calaboose for a night or two.
That same afternoon, Jack J. Lawsha, who was one of the contractors on the Osceola Mine at Ophir, came into Silverton, proudly displayed a sizable amount of cash and was promptly and efficiently relieved of it by Bronco Lou at her Diamond Saloon. The Herald said Lawsha "was enticed by Bronco Lou, the proprietress of the Diamond Saloon or Dance hall, to enter her place of business," where he was subsequently robbed blind. Marshall Ogsbury had arrested Bronco Lou and locked her up for the night of August 22. She was to appear in the court of Justice of the Peace Charles S. York the following morning. York docked the case and the defendant probably made her initial appearance, likely seeking a continuance. For reasons which will become obvious the case entry was never completed.
Emerson W. (Charlie) Hodges, mine owner and partner in the Herr, Hodges & Herr Livery, was riding from Durango to Silverton on August 24, and it was he who reported to Thorniley and Ogsbury upon his Silverton Arrival around 6:30 p.m. that the desperados Thomas, Wilkinson and Eskridge had passed him on the trail north just below Rico House during the day, giving weight to the theory the men did not tarry in the Animas Canyon on their way to Silverton. Thorniley and Ogsbury knew the men were wanted, but when the day's mail didn't carry any warrants from La Plata County and no envoys arrived with any by sundown, the weary Silverton lawmen retired for the night as the nocturnal Thomas, Eskridge and Wilkinson were just getting into high gear at Bronco Lou's.
La Plata County sheriff Luke Hunter, obviously taking his time arrived in Silverton sometime after 11 p.m., armed with the warrants. But instead of immediately hunting up Thorniley or Ogsbury, Hunter glad-handed a number of the many men who were still milling the streets that time of night, strategically including Dick Sims among them. Sims predictably went down to the Lower Dance Hall and informed the outlaw trio that Hunter had arrived and was looking for them. Hunter, having left the desperados one last time frame in which to escape, then addressed the formalities of his mission. He located the familiar Charlie Hodges, woke him up, and the two men went to awaken Clayton Ogsbury at his sleeping quarters in the rooms behind the Senate Saloon of John Goode. Ogsbury dressed, and suggested more men might be required if all three wanted men were to be arrested, but Hunter said that would not be necessary, and Ogsbury and Hodges deferred to his experience. The three of them walked over to Greene Street, then down the main thoroughfare the two blocks to the Diamond Saloon, the din from the place getting louder the closer they came. As the lawmen approached the dance hall on their left, Ogsbury observed a figure leaning against the outside of the saloon in the shadow. The dedicated Ogsbury was by now in the lead, and as he leaned forward to try to make out the figure in the dark, the man in the shadow fired. His bullet entered Ogsbury's body on his left side just below the level of the heart, and passed entirely through the body, severing his main artery. Ogsbury fell on his face. Hodges bent over him and asked if he had been hit, but the marshal could only utter a groan. Gunfire erupted but Hodges turned Ogsbury over on his back to attempt to scrutinize his wound. When he saw he could do his friend no good, and realizing his own life was in danger, Hodges ducked for cover. No fewer than a dozen shots were fired, and probably no more than a score. When the firing stopped, Hodges raced back to Ogsbury's body lying face up in the street, but the marshal gasped one last time and expired without being able to speak. Hodges attempted to get help in the saloon, but the firing had set off a general row in the place. One bullet had gone through the flimsy log wall of the dance hall and struck Charles Edwards in the side, and the bartender reportedly had his clothing cut in two places by the flying projectiles. Hiram Herr, one of Hodges' partners in the livery, came to Hodges' aid with one other man, and the three of them carried Ogsbury's body back up the street the two blocks to Goode's Senate Saloon.
The gunfire had ended at the Diamond Saloon when one of the desperados yelled to his partners it was time to make a move. Hodges had Ogsbury's body in the street between the dance hall and the stable housing the outlaw's horses and rifles, so the trio incredibly made their escape on foot down sparsely developed lower Greene Street toward Mineral Creek, leaving behind the bedlam of jostling men and women in the Diamond Saloon. When towns people realized what had transpired, several parties of men mounted and rode in virtually every direction in search of the men who had apparently killed the well-liked marshal. The fire bell was rung, and the telephone line to the east was used to sound the alarm to Lake City, Alamosa and ultimately Durango. That telephone line and the renegades' ties to Rico dictated a westerly route of escape, and Hiram Herr rode up Mineral Creek as far as Burro Bridge to confirm this suspicion. About three miles up the creek, with the aid of a light, he saw where the party had rushed pell-mell through mud that was almost knee-deep, which no one using that route in daylight would have done.
One haunting question-which troubled reporters of the day and bothers analysts to this day- is that of what Luke Hunter was doing all this time. Ogsbury, contrary to later embellished accounts, never uttered a word as he leaned forward to size up the situation around the dance hall. He never fired a shot, and neither did the stunned Hodges. It can thus be assumed the outlaws fired all the shots, unless Hunter discharged his pistol, in which case he probably fired into the ground. In addition to the bullet which struck Edwards, who was seated at a gambling table in the saloon, another bullet went through the lap siding and interior plaster of the new Congregational Church at 11 th and Reese. Luke Hunter, however, apparently never aimed any of his shots, never came to Ogsbury's aid and did not give pursuit to the men of foot. His hope that either his delay in getting to Silverton or his use of the unsuspecting Sims to warn the outlaws would send the fugitives over the Continental Divide on their trip to the San Luis Valley had not been realized. We need not speculate today, for the press of Silverton was hard enough on Hunter at the time, especially the San Juan Herald:

… We find that a very bad feeling prevails regarding Sheriff Luke Hunter's participation in the affair… To say the least, the actions of Hunter…are somewhat suspicious… [After Ogsbury is killed] the sheriff remains unmolested and escaped scot free without a shot being fired at him, so far as can be ascertained. More than this, instead of taking part in the fray, and doing what he could to avenge the life of a brother officer shot down by being in his company…he is conspicuous by his absence, and the desperados are allowed to escape without a shot being fired. Now, what is the inference to be drawn from all this? Was Sheriff Hunter in the gang? Was he an accessory before the fact? Was Sims his right-hand man and go-between and informer for the desperados? Is the death of our esteemed marshal due to Hunter's foolhardiness? … Another thing, when Hunter came up from Durango on horseback, he returned by the coach. Who rode his horseback to the valley? Sims! Readers of these facts have only to use their common sense…Be assured, Mr. Hunter, the matter will be thoroughly sifted and ventilated.

With at least a dozen shots fired, more than one man was shooting into the night in front of the Lower Dance Hall, but suspicion for the fatal shot-likely due in large part to Hodges' observations-fell on Bert Wilkinson, who spent the remainder of the night soaking wet in a fireless camp with Dyson Eskridge somewhere in the trees on Ophir Pass. Kid Thomas, meanwhile, was seeing his dreams of recovered stagecoach plunder fading fast. Some have theorized he was so fixated on this goal that he didn't drink all that much during the evening, and probably didn't fire any shots in the ruckus. This would be consistent with his behavior, for the Copper-Colored Kid surprisingly returned to Silverton within an hour or so of the shooting. He was to retrieve the trio's horses and study what the sentiment of Silvertonians seemed to be. It appears, however, he was probably going to desert his cohorts and continue with his personal errand, for he appeared at the back door of the Grand Central Hotel demanding admittance and offering to surrender his revolver. He was recognized, promptly arrested and taken the 50 feet down the alley to be lodged in the old log jail for the remainder of the night.
None of the riders who had been scouring the mountains around Silverton the day after the killing produced any further evidence of Wilkinson or Eskridge, and about midway through the evening of that day-August 25-a group of men acting as vigilantes stormed the log jail, overpowered the guard, and lynched Kid Thomas, bringing his personal errand to a decisive end. Accounts are sketchy and varied, but it is believed Thomas was taken out of the jail and hanged from the cross beam of a nearby shed, probably San Juan County's old coal and wood shed, which was still on the property even though the courthouse had moved to Reese Street only weeks earlier. It was county commissioner John D. Rollins who took Thomas' body down and buried it quietly in the cemetery north of town. The coroner's inquest was on the remains of a person identified only as "Black Kidd" and only two witnesses-George Tinker-and Bill Mulholland-were called. Dismayed Silvertonians were reminded of the $1,200 Texas reward which had been posted for the Kid, and witnesses surfaced who said Thomas had fired as many as four shots during the fusillade at the Diamond Saloon. Still, there was a bitter taste to the realization that a fourth man had been hanged in the Animas River country of Colorado, and that half the lynchings had been in Silverton's business district.
The town board of trustees met earlier August 25 to name George A. Tinker marshal in Ogsbury's place on a temporary basis, then met again the next day to appoint one of Ogsbrty's mining partners at Ophir, John H. Brink, as the new marshal, with Cal Shaw as the night watchman. In addition to Kid Thomas, the other immediate victim of the repercussions was the Diamond Saloon. At the August 26 meeting, the town board instructed the marshal "not to permit dancing in any house within the town limits where liquor is sold," and Brink was given specific directions to close the Lower Dance Hall completely. Bronco Lou was firmly invited to leave town and-with the Monday night larceny charge hanging over her head and many unanswered questions about the Wednesday night ruckus-she accepted the invitation and departed Friday for New Mexico. The San Juan Herald commented on the dance hall's demise:

The dance hall, by which the murder's took place, was closed the next day [sic], and will not be opened again. It was a vile den, composed of imported wickedness…

When Bert Wilkinson and Dyson Eskridge ran off into the night August 24, their first objective was to put Silverton behind them. Their second was to reach the relatively friendly confines of Rico. With daylight the following day, the pair headed for Fish Lakes [Trout Lake], skirting Ophir and staying off the main trails. They did see sheriff George Thorniley and a posse of about two dozen men at one point, but the riders did not see them. Giving second thought to the Rico objective, Wilkinson and Eskridge decided to try to reach the Castle Rock way station where Bert Wilkinson could see his sister and mother, and his companion could possibly devise a way to get word of the men's plight to either Ike Stockton or Harg Eskridge. The two fugitives apparently remained on foot for their entire journey from the Diamond Saloon to Castle Rock Springs, fearful that any attempts to steal horses would call attention to them. Wilkinson himself admitted to a reporter for the Southwest that he was lost a good deal of the time.

… We went toward the Fish Lakes, near Rico. We saw the sheriff of San Juan County and his party before we reached the lakes, but do not think they saw us…[After that] I don't know where I did go. I wandered around in the mountains, and got lost. I hardly know myself where I have been.

Wilkinson was trying to avoid implicating his sister or mother, but the men doubtless underwent and ordeal, probably finally working their way down either the Cascade Creek or Hermosa Creek drainage to the Castle Rock station, where Flora and Orville Pyle and Ellen Louise and Simeon Hendrickson fed the men, gave them a sage night's rest in the woods behind the way station, and agreed to keep them stocked with provisions wherever they chose to hide. They also provided the men with the horses which would give them greater range in attempting to elude their pursuers. Somewhere along the way, Dyson Eskridge did manage to get a note to his brother Harg at Animas City, thanks to a solitary mining acquaintance who was heading that way. Wilkinson and Eskridge told the Pyle's and the Hendrickson's where they planned to be, and took off with several days' provisions.
Back in Silverton-amid frustration that two men on foot had still not been apprehended-funeral services were conducted for the highly regarded David Clayton Ogsbury on Saturday, August 27. His body had been lying in state at the San Juan County Courthouse on Reese Street, and the remains were moved to the Congregational Church and placed in a casket covered with black velvet. An estimated 480-500 people crowded in and around the church to pay their last respects to their murdered friend and hear Rev. Harlan P. Roberts perform the funeral service. The subsequent procession to the cemetery was led by 18 mounted horsemen, 15 double teams and about 150 people on foot. A bell was solemnly tapped during the procession. Every business house in Silverton was closed, and all flags were at half-mast. Tragedy had touched more people in the community than any other to date. Ogsbury's remains were interred, but a telegram was received from the family in New York asking that his body be sent there for burial, so on Monday, August 29, the body was disinterred and embalmed by George Swan and Emile Homan. Rev. Roberts took the corpse in charge, accompanying it to the Knowersville, New York, depot, where there were more than 100 people on the platform when the train pulled in. Roberts co-officiated at the New York funeral service for his dear friend, and coincidentally attended a second funeral while back east, as the only Silvertonian at the last rites for President James A. Garfield, who finally died September 19 from the effected of an assassin's bullet.
Indignation prevailed in Silverton. Most realized it was not Kid Thomas who had killed Ogsbury, and rewards were offered by the two governmental entities for the capture and delivery of Bert Wilkinson and Dyson Eskridge. Various amounts were bandied about, but the general perception was that $2,500 was being offered-$1,500 from San Juan County along with $1,000 from the town of Silverton, which had just appointed Ogsbury street supervisor on August 10 to supplement his marshal's duties and pay. The tempting reward money resulted in what Dolores News editor Charles A. Jones called "the strangest thing in criminology, so far as my personal knowledge goes." Jones had befriended many members of the Stockton-Eskridge gang because of their affinity for Rico and their relatively clean record there, and he actually spent most of a couple of days searching for the two fugitives with provisions he had put together for them- sheepishly attempting to disguise his mission when he himself ran into Thorniley and the sheriff's posse near Trout Lake. Jones was one of the last allies Isaac Stockton and his friends had among the reputable men of the San Juan country, but even his view would be changed by what was about to transpire. Black Kidd, Kid Thomas
While Clayt Ogsbury was lying in state at the courthouse in Silverton, Ike Stockton talked La Plata County sheriff Luke Hunter into appointing him as deputy along with Bud Gilbreth, alias M.C. Cook. Hunter was subdued after his embarrassing performance in Silverton, and was more than happy to turn the pursuit of Wilkinson and Eskridge over to the two men. The pair left Durango on Saturday, August 27, as Ogsbury's funeral was taking place as Silverton, and went to the Castle Rock way station on a hunch. San Juan County Sheriff George Thorniley earlier had the same hunch, but the Hendrickson's and Pyle's were hiding the two fugitives in the timber near the station at the time and did not give away their whereabouts. Stockton had something going for him that Thorniley didn't, however. He told Flora Pyle he was looking for her brother and his cohort to give them assistance and help them get away, and after some convincing, she revealed where Wilkinson and Eskridge had gone.
There were some contradictory geographic references at the time, but it appears Wilkinson and Eskridge sought to hide out on the elevated terraces northeast of Pinkerton Hot Springs-the area know in the 20 th century as Missionary Ridge. This land was not being prospected or used for grazing to any great extent, and was not traversed by any major trails. Stockton and Gilbreth tracked their two friends and finally caught up with them in an austere camp on Monday afternoon, August 29. There were possibly other men in the Stockton party: one account names Jack Wilson as being present, but Harg Eskridge definitely was not. The men nervously visited for a time, and Stockton convinced Dyson Eskridge he should ride to George Morrison's ranch on the Los Pinos to obtain some fresh horses so the two fugitives could escape to Old Mexico. After Eskridge had departed, Stockton and Gilbreth got the drop on Bert Wilkinson, handcuffing the dumbfounded young man and taking him by horseback to another hiding place in the timber closer to Animas City, where the men and their prisoner spent that night. Stockton correctly assumed that Harg Eskridge would have killed him had he turned Dyson Eskridge over to the authorities, by the acknowledged leader of the gang betrayed his protégé - the hapless Wilkinson - for the money offered by the Silverton officials.
Stockton kept his prisoner hidden as he ventured into Animas City the following day to inform Luke Hunter that Wilkinson had been captured. Shock and disbelief spread through the region as the news circulated. The Eskridge brothers, obviously, distanced themselves from the Animas River country for a time. The La Plata County authorities concluded to bring Wilkinson into Animas City and house him in Keith's City Hotel the night of August 30. It was at this establishment about 100 yards east of the Animas River that Wilkinson-a cartridge belt around his waist and his bare feet showing through holes in his shoes-was interviewed in depth by a scribe from the Southwest newspaper that evening.
Smoking a meerschaum pipe and feigning interest in a newspaper, Wilkinson told the reporter he was worried about obtaining a fair trial.

… I would like to go to trial, but if I do not, I guess I can stand it. The country is old enough now to be governed by law and order.

Wilkinson was asked if he had any statement to make that might clear up the facts of the matter.

I don't believe it would do any good, to tell the truth. I do not think that the people are prepared to hear it. They are for strangling… I will tell you what I would like to say, in regard to the Kid being hanged up there [in Silverton]. It was a murder when they hung him, and a foul murder, too…

Wilkinson was kept under heavy guard that night, then taken back into hiding in the woods by Stockton the next day, for fear his tainted compensation would evaporate if Wilkinson was lynched by angry Durango and Animas City residents. Stockton's waning popularity meant the timber was not a bad place for him to spend the day as well. With Hunter's approval, Stockton had sent Frank Williams to Silverton that day to verify Wilkinson was in custody and –more importantly-to make certain the reward money was still in the bank. Williams quickly accomplished his mission, but a point of disagreement arose: Stockton wanted Thorniley to come to Animas City after Wilkinson, and Thorniley insisted Stockton bring the wanted man to Silverton to collect the reward. The 50-odd miles between the two settlements posed too great a risk that Wilkinson would be lynched in transit or that Stockton and his sidekicks would attempt to free Wilkinson en route, and the San Juan County sheriff eventually prevailed. Meanwhile, Wilkinson was brought back to Animas City to spend the evening of August 31 under even heavier guard, which included pioneer prospector George Enslow and Animas City mayor E.E. Fox, and to meet his sister, mother and stepfather, who implored officials to see the lad received a fair trial.
Stockton kept Wilkinson hidden in a camp the nights of September 1 and 2 as Hunter, Stockton and Thorniley jockeyed for position, and unrest grew for resolution of the matter. On Saturday, a compromise was put in effect in which Thorniley and a single deputy went south to meet Stockton and the party bringing Wilkinson north. Stockton was accompanied by E.E. Fox, Bud Gilbreth [M.C. Cook] and a man named Hull. The men met at Levi Carson's ranch, soon to become better known as Rockwood, and Thorniley immediately sent his deputy back to Silverton to alert a waiting posse of a dozen men, who met the party near Ten Mile and assisted Thorniley and Stockton and his cadre in bringing Wilkinson on into Silverton. The prisoner was technically to remain in Stockton's custody as La Plata County deputy sheriff until the outfit reached Silverton. The group arrived in Silverton at about 6 p.m. the evening of September 3, and before a more than curious crowd of Silvertonians massed in front of the San Juan County Bank. Stockton formally turned Wilkinson over to Thorniley. Cook and Stockton told the crowd they had not seen Dyson Eskridge and did not know where he was. Ike Stockton was armed to the teeth. Silverton officials allowed him to keep his weapons, and they accompanied him in the side door of the bank on 13 th Street to facilitate payment of the reward. The La Plata County delegates spent an uneasy night at the Walker House, two blocks off Silverton's main street, and departed for Animas City at 7:30 in the morning, what there was of the reward in hand. Dispute over the absence of Dyson Eskridge and manipulations of governmental scrip by the town and county meant Stockton probably left town with only $1,421.43.
Wilkinson was housed in the log jail behind the former county building the night of September 3 under heavy guard. Seeing the dawn was something of a surprise to the young gunslinger, who seemingly had already resigned himself to lynching. Flora and Orville Pyle spent a portion of the day, which was Sunday, attempting to extract a promise from Silverton officials that Wilkinson would receive a fair trial, but met only the frustrating response that the prisoner had to remain incarcerated and that all reasonable efforts would be made to safeguard his life. The discouraged couple ultimately returned to the Castle Rock way station that day, where the desperado's mother had become ill over Wilkinson's plight. The young prisoner spent a remarkably relaxed day in his half of the cramped jail, and at noon posed for a photograph while smoking a cigar, regarding the bulky camera with notable nonchalance. The press was allowed access to the prisoner; and it was during these September 4 interviews Wilkinson admitted he had been trying to kill someone that fatal night, but that it was Luke Hunter. Wilkinson did not know Ogsbury, Wilkinson said he and Dyson Eskridge fired several shots simultaneously and he didn't see how everyone had decided he alone was responsible for Ogsbury' death. He said he didn't have any particular contempt for Eskridge, but was vehement that he would like to be alone with Ike Stockton for just a few minutes. At one point, Wilkinson said he would consent to lynching-and even "die singing"-if he would be allowed to shoot Stockton and give his captors some viable reason to hang him.
The day was a gray one in many respects, filled with intermittent drizzles and apprehension that Bert Wilkinson would never know what Monday's weather would be like. Between 9 and 10 p.m. Sunday night, when the streets of Silverton were uncharacteristically quiet, a group of masked men stormed the jail, immobilized the guards and informed Wilkinson his time had come. A rope was strung over a roof beam in the jail, and the resigned Wilkinson made things disconcertingly easy for the vigilantes by climbing up on a chair and helping adjust he noose himself. Asked if he had anything further to say, Wilkinson reportedly replied, "Nothing, gentlemen. Adios!" Some embellishedaccounts say Wilkinson kicked the chair from under his own feet, but within a matter of minutes, he was dead and the vigilantes left him hanging in the jail until his planned discovery the following morning. Bert Wilkinson
Wilkinson's body was taken down, and after a cursory coroner's inquest, was loaded in a wagon and taken by George Thorniley to Castle Rock Springs and turned over to the Pyles and Hendricksons. Flora and Orville Pyle took the corpse some distance into the trees north of the way station buildings and buried it. Bert Wilkinson, is believed to be interred on the aspen-covered terrace just south or west of what is today identified as the Silver Pick Resort, several hundred yards north of the buildings on the Hotter Ranch.
The supposedly civilized community of Silverton had hanged its third man. Although the act was to bring a festering six-year outlaw feud to an end, the deed left a bitter taste in most Silvertonian's mouths, and the rope was never again used to mete out justice in San Juan County. An unwritten pact preserved the anonymity of the vigilantes at the time, but the subsequent recollections of a contemporary, Charles L. Valiton, present the intriguing probability that the driving force behind the vigilante group was Patrick (Cap.) Stanley, the gruff Silverton brick mason, who was a veteran of the storming of Chapultapec in the Mexican War and the ill-fated conquest of Nicaragua. Stanley was 57 years old in 1881, but Valiton specifically credits him with organizing the men who hung Henry Moorman, Kid Thomas and Bert Wilkinson on three eventful nights that year, and implies Stanley may have also supervised the lynching of Henry Cleary in Silverton during 1879 and may have at least been present when Jack Roberts, the killer of Tom Greatorex of Silverton, was strung up in Wildcat Canyon earlier in 1881.
While Ike Stockton-and lots of other men-were quite obviously attracted by the Silverton reward money, Stockton may have had another motive in mine in the capture of his former friend Wilkinson. He may have felt by bringing the alleded killer of the popular Ogsbury to justice he would realize a net gain in favor among the Coloradoans along the Animas River, as he had by participating bravely in the Indian confrontation in the La Sal Mountains in June. Such was not the case, however, and his treachery divorced him from many of his cotemporaries, setting the stage for the final chapter of the long-running hostilities, which took place at Durango on September 26, 1881.
Luke Hunter, who had been conspicously absent from the gaurding or transport of Bert Wilkinson, resigned as the La Plata County sheriff the first week of September, amid spectacular that his deputy, Stockton, would take his place. His choice, however, was Barney Watson who, like many law enforcers of the day, had done a little of everything, including bending the law once and awhile himself. Watson reasoned that both his position and Durango's peaceful growth would be jeopardized by the continuing freedom of Ike Stockton and the man most knew as M.C. Cook, and he set about ending that freedom. He obtained a requistion from New Mexico authorities for the arrest of Stockton for the murder of Aaron N. Barker in March. Cook, th alias of Bud Gilbreth, had been wanted all this time for a series of crimes in Bosque County, Texas. He had been among a party who six years earlier had terrorized a Swedish settlement there, throwing an elderly widow down a well to her death then ravishing her three daughters; after his capture, he feigned injury and ultimately shot and kiled a deputy sheriff with his own weapon. there was reportedly a $1,700 reward on his head for this escapde, and watson obtained the paperwork to former La Plata County deputy sheriffs, Watson enlisted the assistance of James J. Sullivan who had been Durango's first marshal, qualified for the position by an equally shady background. Sullivan was the man who refused to arrest Bert Wilkinson fo rthe murder of Samuel (Comanche Bill) Swinford in Durango the previous Christmas Eve, but Watson deputized him for the task at hand. Sullivan had been a close friend of Ike Stockton's, but was so revulsed by the betrayal of Bert Wilkinson he told his boss he was anxious to get on with the job.
It all seemed liek pots and kettles, but Watson and Sullivan were the men wearing the badges around noon that September day when the unsuspecting stockton and Gilbreth rode a wagon down fron Animas City and pulled up in front of a building that was under sonstruction at Fist (Main) and H (10th) Streets. Stockton went into the building, and Watson and Sullivan waked up to either side fo the agon and arrested Gilbreth without incident, leaving him in the custody of jack Wilson to go after Stockton. Having finished his business, Stockton started out of the building, but spotted the two lawmen and ducked back into a doorway, attempting to draw his pistol in the process. Watson and Sullivan fired almost simultaneously before Stockton got a shot off. There is conflicting information on how many bullets hit their target, but the ball that did the damage entered Stockton's right leg just below the hip, breaking the femur and svering an artery.
Because of the high profile of the prisoners and Stockton's condition, Watson passed over the crude wooden Durango jail and transported the two cpatives across the Animas River to the unfinished office building of the New York & San Juan Smelter, which was then under construction. Gilbreth remained relatively cooperative. Stockton was in agony. Doctors were summoned, and by nightfall, there were seven of them on hand, all adivising amputation as the only means of saving Stockton's life. As the men gathered outside the smelter buildings, at one point chantig, "Go to hell to face Bert Wilkinson!" Dr. henry Ashland Vlay performed the amputation with his colleagues assisting, truncation the right thigh at the break in the femur, but it was a futile exercise, and Isaac Stockton died at 2:45 the following morning in the room designed to be the smelter office.
There was at least one totally disinterested Durango businessman who thought perhaps, Stockton had already been visited by the phost of Bert Wilkinson. Reserved J.K. Mills had been walking along H street the previous morning when he greeted Stockton and another man walking with him just as Stockton came out of the building. The second man was a stranger to Mills, who knew nothing of the impending arrest but was close enough to witness the shooting. Mills noted the second man had vanished, but gave the matter no more thought until he was coincidentally shown a photograph of Wilkinson during a converstaion about a month later. To his astonishment, Mills recognized Wilkinson as the man he had seen walking with Stockton that morning. The corner's jury reached a quick verdict that Stockton had been killed by an unnamed member of the sheriff's department, whom he was resisting at the time, although most people felt Sullivan intended to shoot at Stockton's mid-section as an act of vengeance. Parson C.M. Hoge conducted a touching funeral service for Stockton, who left widow Ellen Stockton and their two children, Delilah and Guy. The remains fo the complex and troubled young man were laid to rest in the Animas City Cemetery at 2 p.m. on September 28. J.R. Shoemaker engraved a silver plate, placed on the top of the casket, which said simply, "Isaac T. Stockton, Aged 29 Years."