Jesse Evans, Part 2

Jesse Evans: A Texas Hide-Burner

By Ed Bartholomew (1955)

Only 500 copies of this book were printed, so it was not easy for me to find one. I would like to thank The State Historical Society of Wisconsin for making this book available, and the Milwaukee County Federated Library System for providing the interlibrary loan services that were required for me to borrow the book.

This is a very interesting book. It reminds me in some ways of Mark Twain’s tale of Grandfather’s Old Ram. The difference is that the author does occasionally return to the topic of Jesse Evans after rambling rather far.

Jesse Evans is not one of the most famous of the gunfighters of the Old Wild West. He rode out of nowhere, terrorized people for about five years, and then vanished without a trace.

The author points out that many of the popular stories about Jesse Evans are fiction created by dime novelists. For example, there is no evidence that Jesse Evans and Billy the Kid were boyhood chums.

Since so little is known of the life of Jesse Evans, the author spends a lot of the book talking about other notable personalities of the time, such as John Chisum, Pat Garrett, and Billy the Kid.

The author suggests that the Evans gang operated as independent rustlers during the Lincoln County War.

Bartholomew also says that the widely reported Evans connection with the Chapman murder is wrong. It was a man named Campbell who shot Chapman, was indicted, and escaped.

In 1880, Texas Ranger Captain D.W. Roberts described the Evans gang as “the most noted band of outlaws that ever infested any state or county.”

Evans was convicted of second-degree murder for the killing of Texas Ranger George Bingham and sentenced to 10 years at Huntsville. He escaped a few months later and vanished without a trace.

The author points out that Billy the Kid was virtually unknown before the dime novelists latched onto his story, and that if they had chosen Jesse Evans instead, then we would all remember that chapter of American history differently.