1258) Edgar J. Watson

Edgar J. Watson (1855 - 1910). American outlaw. He had supposedly gotten into trouble in Columbia County in northern Florida, to which his parents had migrated sometime after 1870, and had then gone out to the Indian territory (later known as the Oklahoma Territory) where he allegedly killed Belle Starr, herself allegedly an outlaw. He then returned to Florida and killed a man in Arcadia, apparently in self-defense. After that Ed Watson moved to the Ten Thousand Islands area, then part of Monroe County, where he bought a claim on the Chatham Bend River and began raising vegetables.
Locals began to notice that each season, a new crop of farm workers would arrive at Watson's plantation, but then disappear, only to be replaced by different ones the following year. Maybe, some began to theorize, Watson was killing them all at the end of the season so he didn't have to pay them.
In the autumn of 1910, two men and a woman, all employees of Watson, were found murdered on his property. By this time everyone instantly knew to suspect Watson. Watson, for his part, blamed yet another local outlaw - a man named Leslie Cox - and asked the sheriff of Fort Myers to deputize him so he could hunt Cox down. The sheriff didn't believe Watson's story, and denied the request.
Watson visited Smallwood's Store and purchased ammo which he loudly admitted he planned to use to assassinate Cox. According to legend, the woman at the store deliberately sold him ammo that had been ruined by flooding during the hurricane. When Watson showed up at the boat dock, he found a posse of locals who were fed up with him. Watson, not knowing his ammunition was wet, fired into the crowd and the gun wouldn't go off. He dropped the rifle and reached for his revolver, but he was too slow. The posse immediately shot back and gunned him down on the spot.

- "He was extremely tall, red-headed, and possessing, they say, of unnaturally small hands and feet."  http://floridazone.blogspot.com/2015/03/edgar-watson.html

- "Over 6 feet, unusually tall for the time, and extremely strong, Watson’s appearance was additionally distinctive in that he had red hair and beard, and hands and feet that seemed visibly too small for a man of his size."  https://americanhandgunner.com/…/the-lessons-of-edgar-wats…/

- "He knows Watson’s great-granddaughter, Edith, he says, who lives nearby and “has a head of red hair like E. J. Watson.”  https://www.oxfordamerican.org/…/695-the-legend-of-chokolos…

- "He was a two-hundred-pound, red-headed man, with a quick and sometimes quirky temper."  https://www.coastalbreezenews.com/…/the-killing-of-mr-wats…/

- "Watson was a ruggedly good-looking man with red hair and a beard..."  https://books.google.nl/books…