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1.

Sam Bass came from Indiana, but died in Texas from bullet wounds received while trying to escape from the Texas Rangers, something not unusual in the 1870`s, as there were similar incidents all over Texas of bad men being hunted by Rangers. This incident however, ended a series of Train robberies and a trail of crimes that reached from Nebraska to Texas.

Sam was born near Mitchell, Indiana on July 21st 1851. His parents died while he was young and was brought up by an uncle. He left home at the age of 18, and after spending a year in Rosedale Mississippi where he became proficient playing cards and handling guns, he ended up in Denton Texas at the end of 1870. There he worked for Sheriff W.F. Eagan as a farmhand and teamster until 1874 when he acquired a little sorrel mare, called the Denton mare, which was a good racehorse and earnt him money enough to stop working for the Sheriff in March 1875, and to go racing against the Indian ponies at Ft. Sill , Indian Territory. From there he went to San Antonio in December 1875.

He stayed in the area until August 1876 when he joined up with a Joel Collins to drive a herd of cattle to the northern markets. They drove the cattle to Kansas, where they shipped them to Sidney Nebraska. From there they drove them into the Black Hills, to the gold town of Deadwood. The money they made from the cattle they invested into horses and wagons and freighted goods between there and Dodge City. When the weather made freighting impossible they invested in a "Pleasure Resort" offering Cards, Liquor, and Women. Whilst in the "Pleasure" business, they invested in a mine which made them broke, so in order to recoup their losses, they went into the Stagecoach business,- robbing seven of them,- joined by two more men, Jack Davis and a man called Nixon, believed to be a Canadian. Jack Davis came from California and brought news of gold being shipped over the Union Pacific to the east, but robbing trains meant they needed more men, so Bill Heffridge and James Berry were brought into the gang. They selected a water station at Big Spring Nebraska and on September 19th at 10 o/clock they robbed the train of three thousand $20 gold pieces marked with the date 1877. The sextet split into pairs and scattered to the four winds to make their escape. On September 26th a Sheriff Bardsley and ten U.S. Troops killed Joel Collins and Bill Heffridge and recovered $25,000. James Berry was shot and captured near his home near Mexico Missouri. They found $2840 on him, and under questioning he gave the names of the others involved in the robbery. His partner Nixon had gone to Chicago, and it was presumed he continued onto Canada, for he was never found. Sam Bass and Jack Davis headed south, hiding their identity by travelling in a hack they had purchased and hiding the gold under the small amount of luggage they had. They even travelled a part of the route south with some troops out looking for them.

 

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