SOME HANGINGS COMMUTED

Mason Holcomb was scheduled to hang on the gallows at Fort Smith on April 17, 1885. A native of Kentucky, he had migrated to Missouri after being mustered out of the Union Army. He married a woman known only as Miss Bridgeman, and took her to Arkansas where they lived for a while near Jasper in Newton County. From there he moved to Franklin County near Ozark, then migrated into Indian Territory. For seven months prior to the killing that would hand him a hanging sentence, he lived on the Canadian River near McAlester.

Later, folks claimed it was the devil in whiskey that brought about the killing, and it would seem so. For Mason and his friend Siegel Fisher were working in the hay fields and on July 23, the two became intoxicated. Late one evening they started home and on the way Mason killed Fisher. Who knows why? He claimed it was a fight Fisher started that escalated into the killing.There was no witness to the deed, and leaving the body out in the open, Mason fled to his native state of Kentucky. In 1884 he was arrested by a brother of the man he had murdered and taken to Fort Smith for trial. We have no idea what happened to his wife, or if they had children together.

He pled not guilty, saying that Fisher had a pistol and he pulled it, so the killing was in self defense. The trial lasted over a week. Because Fisher was shot in the back and there was no evidence of a struggle in the grassy area where the body was found, the jury returned with a guilty verdict.

Several outlaws received "guilty" verdicts, over a period of those few days prior to April 17, 1885, and they were commuted to life. Among them was a white man who lived under the name of Blue Duck.

I can see Larry McMurtry, paging through those old records and running across that fascinating name, filing it away somewhere in his writer's mind and pulling it out when he began to create his characters for Lonesome Dove. Until running across this information myself, I never imagined that McMurtry might have used an actual name, yet it's something all we writers do. 

                                                   Gallows at Fort Smith, busy as usual

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