John Lafayette Vaughan and Belle Starr

When I first got into genealogy in middle school, the first materials I was given were about my mother's family, the Vaughans. My great aunt Dale had materials she'd gotten from her cousin Colleen, her aunt Lou, and other relatives, and she brought copies for me to a family reunion at Robber's Cave State Park near Wilburton, Oklahoma. I still have all the original copies of those papers she gave me because they started my life-long obsession with genealogy on a great footing.

One of the items she gave me was an undated photocopy of a newspaper article about my great great grandfather John Lafayette Vaughan. It was called "Death of Belle Starr" recalled. A writer for the McAlester News-Capital named Baird Martin would comb through the paper's archives every so often looking for interesting articles to reprint. One of the articles Martin found was an interview given by Vaughan to a reported named Charles H. Cowles.

Martin pulled only a handful of quotes and gave a summary of the interview, but I always wanted to find the full, original interview. I eventually found out the reprinted article was from about 1968, but he never gave the date of the original article's publication, only stating that it was published some 35 years prior to his re-hashing of the article. McAlester's newspaper was never digitized for general public consumption, so I never had a way of finding the article short of requesting all the microfilm for roughly 1932-1934 and combing it day by day.

Recently I learned that the McAlester newspapers, including the News-Capital, had in fact been digitized, but most were only available on-site at the McAlester Library. You had to be logged into their Wi-Fi to access these archives. Fortunately, one of the librarians, Christopher Elliott, was kind enough to dig around enough in the papers from the early 1930s until he found what I needed.

The article was better than I could have ever dreamed it would be. The only negative was that the writer stopped his interview halfway through and said it was "to be continued" in a later edition...but he never continued it. His next article referenced a couple more stories from Vaughan, but did not pick up where the first interview left off with Vaughan discussing Judge Parker and the trial for Belle Starr's killer. Mr. Elliott could not find that second half of the interview, and when I finally connected to the McAlester Wi-Fi myself to search day-by-day in June of 1933 for it, I also could not find it.

I even had the inkling to contact descendants of Mr. Cowles to see if by chance his notes had survived in any capacity. I found that he died in prison in Detroit in 1941, but I don't know why he was sent to prison. Besides the McAlester News-Capital, he had worked for the Detroit Free Press before coming to Oklahoma and working for various newspapers. By 1940, he is enumerated in the Census for that year in prison; I am certain it is the same person because he gives his 1935 residence as "McAlister, OK". Genealogy websites indicate he did have 4 children, but I have not yet reached a descendant to find out if notes that might contain the second half of his interview with John Lafayette Vaughan might be around. It's a ridiculously long shot, but I want to leave no stone unturned.

But given the unlikelihood that the second half will be found, I am forced to be happy with the parts I do have. And believe me, I am thrilled about finally having his full interview after around 20 years of wishing for it. It gives explicit details about his connections to Belle Starr, her husband Sam, her daughter Pearl, her father-in-law Tom, and others and confirms a lot of the family legends about his connection to the Starr family. For a full biography of his very interesting life with over a dozen pictures of him, please see my recently updated blog post here: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2012/08/john-lafayette-vaughan-belle-starr.html

Without further ado, here is my transcription of Vaughan's interviews. You'll note that the original article does not actually include his name as the source of the information, but a correction was published the next day proving he was indeed the interview's orator. I have made a handful of corrections/amendments for spelling and clarity which are indicated by brackets.

John Lafayette Vaughan as a young man in his late teens or early 20s, around the age he would have been during the events his discusses in this interview. 

McAlester News-Capital – 4 Jun 1933 – Page 8

County Pioneer Tells Interesting Story of Contacts with Territorial Days’ Outlaws

[Author not stated; should be Charles H. Cowles]

The worst desperado, the greatest man-killer that ever roamed the wilds of Oklahoma, was a giant, seven feet three inches in height, weighing 270 pounds and wearing No. 16 shoes. He could not buy shoes in the stores—had to have them made to order. This blood-thirsty fiend was Tom Starr. He never stole a horse or robbed a bank or [train]. He was a gambler and a very successful one. His home was the [Briartown] settlement where the town of Porum now stands.

“I lived on the place of Martin Crowder, an aged Indian, 40 miles northwest of McAlester on the Canadian river five miles from Tom Starr’s home, and this aged man became very friendly with me and told me what Tom Starr had imparted to him.

Tom Starr. Courtesy of The James Scrolls blog. 

Old Tom told him he had never killed many Choctaws, only 50, but he had killed an enormous number of Creeks, Seminoles, and other wild tribesmen. He said he never kept count of the number but that he had of the Choctaws.

I think Tom must have been born in the early ‘40’s [Note: Actually born about 1813] as he had a house full of grown boys when I first saw him.

He told my old friend, Martin Crowder, that he had been able to avoid suspicion through his ability to walk fast. He said he would go out early at night and kill someone that he did not like. Authorities would search the country for 40 miles around but by morning he was 75 or 80 miles away. He was half white and half Cherokee. I don’t know what white race he sprang from but I would venture to say he was Irish because of his great endurance. He could walk faster than a horse and was long-winded.

Tom Starr had quite a lot of land, and fine land, too. His son, Sam Starr, was the husband of the famous bandit queen, Belle Starr. His other sons were Frost, Tom, Tuxie, and Charley. Tom Stair, when I knew him, said he had never known but one honest white man. He said that man would gather corn and put it in three piles in the field and then call him and say, take your pile. He declared that was an honest man.

One time, Tom was in the heavy bottoms, playing cards, when his horse snorted. He told the 10 or 15 men with whom he was playing that the enemy was getting close and he was getting out. They made fun of him and he said: ‘All right, boys, I am going, and you can stay if you want to.’ He straddled his horse and let the steed choose the direction to go. He hadn’t gone 200 yards before officers, who were advancing, opened fire and they killed every last man except Tom Starr, who escaped.

Tom and another man became hungry one day and went to a house and asked for something to eat. Refused, Tom told his partner to watch the woman, who was alone with a baby, while he went to the kitchen. When he returned, he killed his partner, the woman, and the baby and left all the bodies on the porch. He told Martin Crowder he didn’t know what the people would think when they came home and found them all dead on the porch.

The name of Tom’s wife was Lucy. One time he was coming home and he crossed the farm of Bill Gibbens who was at work. He said: ‘Bill, I am going to see Lucy and the children and don’t you tell I am here or I will kill you, as sure as you are a white man.’ ‘I would not tell on you for anything, Uncle Tom,’ was the reply. But Tom did not tryst him. He slipped around between [Bill] and his house and waited. Not long afterward, he heard Bill coming on a little gray pony, tippity tip, tippity tap, and he stepped out, saying: ‘You know what I told you.’ Bill declared he was not going to tell, saying he had broken a singletree and was going for repairs. ‘You know what I told you,’ said Tom, and he made him get off the pony. He shot him and rolled his body off a bluff. Then he shot the pony and rolled it off the bluff, too.

For some time, Tom Starr was on the warpath, the objects of his hatred being the Cherokees. At the start, he would take a few men with him. He took a notion to kill the chief of the Cherokees. The chief was afraid of him and he took a guard of 50 men whenever he went to court. Tom Starr took his brother, Jim Starr, and a little fullblood, whose name I have forgotten, and slipped up on the court house. The little fullblood went to the door and the other two went around to a window and shot and killed the chief. The guards rushed out and began firing on the two brothers. There was a patch of two or three acres between the court house and the brush where they had hid their horses. They walked backwards, fighting all the time, towards the brush. Tom had a big shotgun and he had put a handful of blue whistlers in each barrel. One shot killed six guards. The guards poured the lead around them so that Jim Starr proposed they run and then declared he was going to run by himself. Tom told him he was saving a shot for him if he did run. They fought all the way and got to their horses and fled to safety.

The Cherokees waylaid Tom later on and fired into him, killing his horse. The animal fell on his leg, spraining Tom’s ankle. He managed to get from under. He could no run, so he crawled. Picking up a stone that weighed two or three pounds, he hurled it into the bushes with terrific power. The Indians thought it was Tom running, and went in that direction while Tom crawled farther away. Then he threw another rock or two to carry them on in another direction while he made his escape. The Indians offered to make a treaty with him but he would not quit, saying he would not trust them, but he said he would observe a treaty if it was signed by authorities of the United States government. The treaty was made and he settled down and lived peaceably.

One time after all this happened, I remember Jeff Serrett, an Indian officer in federal uniform, went to arrest Tom Starr. He told him it would be an impossibility to effect an arrest, saying he never had been arrested, and he never would be. He finally told him he would ride with him to the place where he was wanted but he would never consider himself under arrest.

When Uncle Tom was about to die, his boys gathered around his bed and he covered his face with his hands and said he did not want his boys to see him die; that he did not want them to think that a man as brave as he was had to die. I am satisfied that he was the greatest man killer Oklahoma ever had.

Belle Starr. Courtesy of Wikipedia. 

Belle Starr was born at Carthage, Mo., the daughter of a man named Shirley, a hotel man. She started out on her bandit career because federal army officers killed her twin brother, Ed Shirley. I always thought she named her son, Ed, in honor of her twin brother. She married a man named Reed, not Jim Reed, who is often referred to as her husband. Her husband was killed in Texas. Belle lay out in the woods with the body all night, and afterwards drifted to the Starr settlement and to the home of Tom Starr. After she and Sam Starr were married, they removed across the South Canadian river to Younger Bend. The only children Belle ever had were Ed Reed and Pearl Reed. At her death she did not look to be over 35. She was older than she looked. I lived there on the Crowder place and I heard the shot that killed Sam Starr. I was within a mile of the spot where he met death.

Frank West, who killed him, was a Cherokee officer. The Wests and the Starrs did not get along well together. The Wests were officers. They had a dance at Aunt Lucy Sterrett’s house, on Macharr creek, a mile west of Whitefield. [Note: John’s younger brother Stephen, who died in 1885, is buried at Whitefield.] West was living in the Briar settlement. Frank fixed up to go to the dance and his wife, a fine-looking, bright, yellow-haired Cherokee woman, said: ‘Don’t go, Frank. You know there is liable to be some shooting.’ Frank replied: ‘You don’t need to worry about me. I can shoot as fast as any man.’ He went on to the dance. There was a big fire out in the yard. Frank was standing near the fire and Sam Starr walked up, saying, ‘Frank, what did you shoot my horse for?’ At the same instant, he cut West’s [jugular] vein with a bullet. Before a person could blink an eye, West shot Sam Starr in the breast with a .45. As Frank West was falling, he saw Daniel Fulsom, a 14-year old Indian boy, running and, mistaking him for Sam Starr, put a bullet through his head. The bullet penetrated his jaw, coming out on the left cheek. Dan had been my playmate at times and I went to see him. He suffered terribly but he recovered and for four years was the best sheriff Haskell County ever had.

Sam Starr on left, John Lafayette Vaughan on right. Courtesy of Jerry White.

Frank West and Sam Starr were carried into the house and laid down together. There was a little jackleg doctor there; I forget his name. Frank West said to the doctor: ‘I am killed and Sam Starr done it.’ The doctor replied: ‘Well, Frank, you killed Sam.’ ‘How do you know?’ Frank asked. ‘He is dying now,’ said the doctor. ‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ said Frank, and he died peacefully.

Belle Starr, after this, fell in with another long-haired Cherokee Indian whose real name was Bill July but he called himself John Starr. I lived close by where they were living. Belle was a fine looking woman. There were no charges against her in the courts at that time. I went to her place lots of times and carried her and her daughter, Pearl, to dance. I carried Pearl to a good many. At one time, Belle made a contract with a man on my side of the river to come over there and clear some land and live on her place. They had some differences. Belle had such a bad name and Young Bend was a place to be shunned, so hardly anyone dared go in there. They asked for someone to go in and see her and try to effect a compromise. They wanted me to go and I said I would not care to go in by myself in a case like that but if Lige Fain would go with me, I would undertake it. Fain and I went and fixed u the trouble without any difficulty. Belle invited us to come back and go with her New Year’s night to Briartown and take in the Cherokee dance. That suited me all right, I did not want any trouble but was out just for fun. My partner, Fain, had a wife and could not go. I ran my saddle across the river in a skiff and walked about two miles up to Belle’s. Pearl and I caught a couple of horses and put them in a corral. When we went to get them, it was pretty dark—only starlight, and the horses were shy. John Starr (Bill July) roped five head and never missed a throw. Although it was night, he never failed to catch each one by the left front foot. Some roping, I say. Five of us—Lula Cobb, John Starr, Belle Starr, Charles Acton, and I—went to the dance. Pearl did not go.

Pearl Starr. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

When we were riding seven miles through the mountains, Belle said to me, knowing I was young and unsophisticated: ‘No man ever rides this trail but once.’ I think she just wanted to scare me. I replied, ‘Well, this trail doesn’t look very bad to me.’ It was fashionable then for everybody to wear a gun that wanted to. There was no law against it. A gun was nice and handy. There was lots of game. I liked to carry one. Belle said: ‘Let’s slip up on the porch, knock the door open and all go in at one time.’ We did. They looked pretty wild and shy when they saw who was in the party. I took the girl I had carried there and John Starr took Belle out on the floor and want to dancing. Later, when Belle was dancing with Ike Reynolds, a brown curly-headed fellow with a six-shooter, my partner and I walked out and the floor was full. Belle said to me: ‘Fate, you take this fellow’s place.’ My name is Lafayette and she called me Fate. I was afraid that would stir up trouble. I did not approve of it but they gave back and gave us the floor. The man that Belle pushed back, however, sat in the corner and kept growling, saying something about it might be all right one time, etc. I was told he had killed seven men. Belle dashed up to him and gave him a round of good cussing and said she did not mean to take his place—that he could dance with us. I looked for a shooting every minute but I had some with her and I had to stand hitched. John Starr presented himself with a fun mighty quick and it sure looked dangerous.

Belle Starr. Courtesy of Biography.com.

Someone stole give red double blankets, that cost $5 apiece, from our saddles. Charles Acton started a search and found them 200 yards from the house in a crack in the fence, brought them back and put them under our saddles. When we started home the second time, they were gone again and we had to ride without them. John Starr took a six-shooter and went in the house and told them he knew who stole the blankets and cussed around. They said if they ever did catch one of us to ourselves they’d sure wait on us. Belle told me like this: ‘I have quit all my meanness and I don’t intend to do any more dirt if I am left alone, but the old lion is still there, asleep.’ Things went on very peacefully, until Edgar Watson came into the picture. He was an out-law and his wife told the wife of Jack Roe, who lived two miles from Belle’s house, that he had killed seven men with the gun he had then. She said he would go and plot and leave the team in the field and kill someone he was mad at and return to his plowing, with never a suspicion.

Some horses were stolen somewhere by Edgar Watson, John Starr and Belle’s son, Edgar Reed. Officers crowded them and [John] Starr held them back with a large rifle while Edgar Watson and Ed Reed pushed the horses on. They got separated and Ed Reed wrote a letter to Watson. Jack Roe got the letter and Watson, being on his place, he carried it to the house and put it in a crack on the porch. Belle Starr came along, recognized the handwriting as that of her son and took the letter to the fire and opened it with a pencil, read it and sealed it and put it back. She said she did not want her boy stealing horses and that she was going to prosecute Watson for getting her boy into it. Jack Roe told Edgar Watson what Belle said and he exclaimed with an oath: ‘I’ll kill her!’

The afternoon she was killed, February 3, 1890, the folks where I lived heard the shot. I was in Brooken, eight miles away. She was killed about 2 o’clock. When I reached home, I heard about it, grabbed a bit to eat and got to the scene just after the crowd there had lifted her body into a wagon. It was getting dark. Pearl, her daughter, and Mr. and Mrs. Newt Pearson, neighbors, had stayed with the body all afternoon. They were just ready to drive away when I arrived. I saw her body washed and laid out. She had fallen into a mudhole when she was shot. She had as beautiful a smile as I ever saw her wear when she was alive. She looked natural as life. I was staying with Turner G. England at the time and he and Jack Roe followed the tracks from where she was killed to the fence, as I did afterward.

Belle sitting side-saddle on her horse. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Belle’s horse was hitched to Roe’s fence a short time before the murder and Roe’s folks saw Edgar Watson ride up close enough to see the horse and recognize it. Then he wheeled about and went back toward his farm. Everyone in that country heard the report of the fun. They said it was the most alarming gun ever heard in that bottom. He had a double-barreled muzzle loading shotgun. The road there comes up through the timber from the bottom. There was brush along the fence for quite a ways and there was an open place in the rail fence. Where the brush stopped there was a small walnut tree on the inside of the fence. That is where Watson hid. He let her pass him and then fired on her. I could see the place where she was shot as the horse stove his feet into the ground there. Three buckshot ranged from her shoulder to her heart. She stuck to the horse about 30 or 40 feet. Then there were the tracks. I could see where he had jumped the fence. She rode sideways all the time. I never saw her without a nice dress. She fell on her right shoulder and arm. There were the tracks where he ran up and shot her in the side of the face with a load of fine shot. She was not dead then, for she had raised her hand to protect her face. He shot the ring from her left ear and we never could find it.

We sat up with the body that night. In the morning, when it was good and light, I looked over the ground. There was shotgun paper all over the tracks of the horse where they stove in.

Bill July, Belle’s husband, was in Fort Smith that night and we sent to Eufaula and telegraphed. The Fort Smith elevator people said he left Fort Smith at daybreak, crossing Poteau river on a little brown horse, and had a quart of whiskey, headed for Younger Bend and swearing vengeance. I was there at his place and at 2 o’clock he rode up on a lope. He had covered the distance, at least 78 miles, between dawn and 2 p.m., and the horse didn’t weigh over 850 pounds. This was a wonderful horse. It belonged to Morris Craft and he got it from Mark [Kuykendall].

Judge Isaac Parker. Courtesy of https://sites.rootsweb.com/~oktttp/IT/history/parker/index.html

Belle’s mother came from Texas. She was a fine, intelligent appearing woman. Another man and I dug the grave, three feet, and then others came and helped finish it. She was buried in a nice wooden coffin and a walnut box to set it in. The lumber was taken from the house in which I lived. Edgar Watson had the nerve to attend the funeral and help throw dirt on the coffin. He went in the house and came out with a coat and I thought he had an ashen color to his face. I saw the arrest of Edgar Watson after the funeral. I thought they were going to shoot him. Judge Parker asked T. G. England why he didn’t track Edgar Watson to his house and his reply was a question: ‘If you tracked a lion to his den, would you go in on him?’ His opinion was that Watson was a dangerous man and he did not care to risk his life.

Cole Younger. Courtesy of True West Magazine.

Judge Parker telegraphed Cole Younger, who was serving time in the Minnesota penitentiary, and he declared she wasn’t his wife and that he had never been married. He said he might have seen Belle Starr but had no recollection of it. He was sure that he would have known of it if she had married his brother, Bruce Younger.”

(To Be Continued)

McAlester News-Capital – 5 Jun 1933 – Page 6

Name Omitted By Error

The pioneer, who was quoted in the News-Capital Sunday in regard to Tom Starr, the giant outlaw of half a century ago, and his daughter-in-law, the famous bandit queen, Belle Starr, is J. L. Vaughan of Ulan, who has lived in these parts 52 years. His name was inadvertently omitted.

John Lafayette Vaughan in his middle age.

John Lafayette Vaughan in the late 30s or early 40s. 

McAlester News-Capital – 15 Jun 1933 – Page 6

Today and Yesterday

By C. H. C. [Charles H. Cowles]

“Here you are, now make the best of it.” This is the way J. L. Vaughan of Ulan says he was turned loose in Indian Territory in 1881 at the age of 15. “I could be a good boy. I could steal. I could kill. I had no school; no education. Instead of trying to study mathematics and penmanship, I studied horsemanship and gunmanship. But I always managed to keep the good will of the good people. I was born in National park in the Ozark Mountains July 19, 1866. My father was a soldier four years in the Union army and my uncle, Capt. [Napier], also. After the Civil War, my uncle was killed from the brush by a mob while he was sheriff. My father was dead. I was brought here by my widowed mother and older brothers. I rode horseback quite a bit and I practiced shooting and got to be pretty good at it. I have killed many a deer, turkey, and squirrel with a six-shooter.

-----*-----

One time, when I was riding around in this thinly settled country, I came onto a dead Indian on the edge of a prairie. My horse was afraid and I was proud that I had a steed that could make fast time in going away from there. When I hit the Big San Bois bottoms at the north end of Cougar Mountain, near where Blaine is now, I heard the most terrible moaning and groaning any man ever listened to. It came from under some heavy underbrush and some large trees. That made me saddle a little faster. After I crossed the creek, I ran onto about 10 armed me, huddled together in the road. I did not know if they were going to do to me what they had done to the others or not. But I gamed up and rode right up to them and spoke as I passed. Some of them just grunted as I went by. A day or so later I heard they had killed a lot of horse thieves in there that day. I was told they killed 10 about two miles from Hoyt.

-----*-----

The Indians didn’t think they could have a good ball game without killing someone. I didn’t go to these games on that account. Just previous to one game, Sheriff Lucas had given his deputy a bat in the head during some trouble. It was a day or two before the game. He was still sore. He walked up to the sheriff and severed his jugular vein with a piece of hot lead. Sheriff Lucas leaped on his horse and the deputy jumped on his to follow the sheriff. But a half Choctaw and half negro shot the deputy off his horse with a Winchester. The half-breed jumped on a horse to leave when the son of the deputy, Nicholas Willards, picked up a gun and shot him down.

-----*-----

Near where Stigler now stands, there was a nine mile stretch in the ‘80’s on which a man named Sweden lived in the only house. Sweden claimed to be a deputy United States marshal. A man by the name of Willard married his niece and they were living here with Sweden and his wife. One day Willard and Sweden’s niece got into a quarrel. Mrs. Sweden went to the field saying she would send her husband, Louis, to settle the trouble. Willard procured Sweden’s rifle. Sweden was a powerful man and Willard knew he would be nothing in his hands. Sweden rushed into the yard. Willard stepped to the door and shot him through, just below the arms. I saw his body. Willard started to the friend where John Sweden, a son, was working, and gave him a chase. He shot at him but the young man got away. Then Willard hunted the woman. She knew what would happen and ran. He fired on her, shooting her through the back, the bullet coming out at the left breast. I saw the bodies of these people.

-----*-----

Jim Reed. Courtesy of Wikipedia. 

I remember well the outlaw, Jim Reed. He was not Belle Starr’s husband although many say he was. They just get confused. He was a fine marksman. He could hit a man’s hand with a six-shooter at 100 yards. He was always keeping a lookout for U. S. Marshal [Bass] Reeves. One day Jim Reed came to the Canadian Rive at Whitefield with a man named Spooney. He told Spooney he would not go to the store as there might be some laws there. Spooney heard a shot and looked back and saw Reed throw up his hands. Then he heard another shotgun crack and Reed crumpled to the ground. I saw him after he was killed. It was supposed Sam Starr shot him with a shotgun. At one time, [Bass] Reeves killed a cook and Judge Parker let him go on account of his great usefulness as a marshal. Reeves promised the judge he would go anywhere he wanted papers served. A story is told about Reeves and a posse being after a terrible man who was roaming among the Indians. These marshals gathered up posses and arrested bad characters and hauled them to Fort Smith. In this instance, [Bass] Reeves sneaked around after this awful bad fellow, suspecting he was asleep. And he was. He handcuffed him without firing a gun.

-----*-----

Bass Reeves. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

A couple Seminole Indians took [Bass] Reeves as a prisoner. They did not relieve him of his guns. They started to take him to a heavy bottom trail. [Bass] thought, ‘Now is the time.’ There was a big Indian ahead and a small one behind. [Bass] thought that was the last chance. He whipped out his six-shooter and shot the Indian behind and, in a split second, threw it on the Indian ahead and he went down. On one occasion, [Bass] Reeves, Tine Hughes, and Charles Barnhill and others, all United States officers, went out for a very bad Creek Indian. He killed everyone who attempted to arrest him. They established a camp close to his place. [Bass] told them he was going to [indecipherable] man and they all told him he would be shot. He unbuckled his six-shooter and laid it down and they were all saying: ‘Yes, we know what you’ll get.’ [Bass] went to the Indian’s house and called him out and looked into a double-barreled shotgun. ‘You would not shoot a man without arms, said [Bass], in his nicest way. ‘I am not after you. I want you to help me. I am after a man on your place.’ [Bass] kept getting closer despite warnings to keep back. All the time looking through his writs, he kept edging up. ‘Don’t come any closer’ was a warning which the Indian kept repeating. But [Bass] got up close just the same and he made a leap under the fun and caught the Indian. They scuffled for some time and [Bass] said afterward that he began to think he would be out-muscled and outwinded, but he finally overpowered him and handcuffed him and led him to his astonished officer.”

-----*-----

Mrs. [Vaughan] says she was happier in those old days than she is now. Although most everyone carried guns, they would hang them up like they do their hats nowadays. She is afraid of the automobiles today and says there is more drunkenness than there was then. She cannot forget the kindly spirit with which neighbors treated each other in the old days. They would pitch in and help those who suffered from storm or sickness and she spoke of what they called “log rollings” when the women would prepare a meal for the workers.

-----*-----

John and Florence Vaughan in the 1930s. 

Cowles’s interviews with the Vaughans end here. He does make an additional note on Jim Reed, stating that “he was not killed in Texas, as has been stated, but was drowned in the Poteau river at Page’s ferry, six miles east of Spiro in 1883, according to Dr. G. L. Hartshorne.

According to modern sources online, Reed was supposedly killed in Texas by a member of his own gang, but in 1874. John would have only been 8 years old and living in Arkansas in 1874. So either John was telling a tall tale or confusing individuals. Since Belle and Sam Starr apparently never legally married, it is plausible but unlikely that if Reed was killed a few years later than believed (but still earlier than Hartshorne’s report stating 1883), John could have been around for some of these events.

It’s more likely that John was stretching the truth or perhaps confusing Reed with another of Belle Starr’s lovers before she paired with Sam Starr; that list is said to include Cole Younger, who steadfastly denied this claim.

I really wish the second half of John's interview about Belle Starr, Judge Parker, and Edgar Watson had been published, but for whatever reason it never was. Still, having this biographical information on John in his own words is nothing short of incredible. I also think is insight into some of these events should be helpful to historians of early Oklahoma and its outlaws, especially Belle Starr.