1443) Edward C. O'Kelley

Edward Capehart O'Kelley (1857 – 1904). American killer who killed Robert Ford, who had killed the famous outlaw Jesse James to receive a bounty.

On 8 June 1892, while Ford was preparing to open his saloon, O’Kelley walked into the tent with a shotgun. Ford was turned away from the front entrance. O’Kelley called out, "Hello, Bob." As Ford turned around to see who spoke, O’Kelley fired his shotgun, hitting Ford in the neck and killing him instantly.

O’Kelley never explained why he had shot Ford. According to one account, O’Kelley married a relative of the Younger Brothers Gang and became friends with Jesse James, who became a cousin by marriage. Another version contends that con man Soapy Smith assured O’Kelley he’d be famous if he killed Ford. One theory involves the accusation that O’Kelley had stolen Ford’s diamond ring, and the dispute had escalated. O’Kelley was initially imprisoned for life, though his sentence was later reduced to 18 years. In the end, O’Kelley served only around 9 years at the Colorado State Penitentiary before being released due, firstly, to a 7,000-signature petition in favour of his release, and, secondly, to a medical condition.

 

- "O'Kelley was also known as Red O'Kelley due to his bright red hair..." http://www.vlib.us/old_west/guns.html

 

- "The man who killed Ford also went by “Red” O’Kelley because of his red hair." https://tomrizzo.com/day-retribution/

 

 

1289) Susanna Cole

Susanna Cole (née Hutchinson; 1633 – 1713). Lone survivor of an American Indian attack in which many of her siblings were killed, as well as her famed mother Anne Hutchinson. She was taken captive following the attack and held for several years before her release.
Susanna Hutchinson was born in Alford, Lincolnshire, England and was less than a year old when her family sailed from England to New England in 1634. She was less than five when her family settled on Aquidneck Island (later Rhode Island) in the Narragansett Bay following her mother's banishment from Massachusetts during the Antinomian Controversy. Her father died when she was about eight years old, and she, her mother, and six of her siblings left Rhode Island to live in New Netherland. They settled in an area that became the far northeastern section of The Bronx in New York City, near the Westchester County line. The family found themselves caught in the middle of Kieft's War between the local Siwanoy Indians and the colony of New Netherland, and they were all massacred in August 1643, except for Susanna. She was taken captive by the Indians, and was traded back to the English three years later.
When Susanna was released from her Indian captivity, she was taken to Boston where her oldest brother and an older sister lived, was re-introduced into English society, and married John Cole at the age of 18, the son of Boston innkeeper Samuel Cole. They lived in Boston for a few years, but moved by 1663 to the Narragansett country of Rhode Island (later North Kingstown) to look after the lands of her oldest brother Edward Hutchinson. Here the couple remained and raised a large family.

- "According to one story, Susanna's red hair spared her from the slaughter..."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Cole

- "Many of those who have researched and told her story believe she was saved by her red hair, for, rather than killing her, the Siwanoy took Susanna captive and renamed her Autumn Leaf."  https://books.google.de/books…

- "Young Susanna Hutchinson was captured by the chief of the Siwanoy and named Fall Leaf because of her red hair, which the Siwanoy had never seen before."  https://books.google.de/books…

- "... the daughter survived because her red hair so marveled the Indians they kept her."  https://books.google.it/books…

Susanna Cole as a child with her mother, Anne Hutchinson, in a bronze memorial at the Massachusetts State House

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…

1231) William Frank "Doc" Carver

William Frank "Doc" Carver (1851 – 1927). American sharpshooter and creator of a popular diving horse attraction.
Carver was trained as a dentist and hence acquired the nickname "Doc". He migrated to the West in 1872, where he practiced dentistry at Fort McPherson and North Platte, Nebraska. He later attempted to distance himself from his early profession as a dentist, but the name "Doc" clung for life.
He migrated to California in 1876, where he honed his shooting skills.
Later, Carver went into partnership with Buffalo Bill Cody to put a Wild West show on the road. The grand opening of the "Wild West: Hon. W. F. Cody and Dr. W. F. Carver's Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition" was in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 17, 1883. The show was an immediate success, but the relationship between the two showmen, Carver and Cody, was contentious from the beginning. At the end of the season they parted ways and divided the assets by the flip of a coin. Cody then formed a partnership with the promoter and showman Nate Salsbury, and the show continued as Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
After the breakup of his show Carver put together a smaller show, which featured trained animals and shooting exhibitions. His biographer wrote that Carver added the diving horse act to the show in Kansas City, Missouri, in August 1894. Over the next few years the other acts were eliminated, and the diving horse exhibition became Carver's primary endeavor. Included in the touring company were his son, Al, who helped train and take care of the horses, and his daughter, Lorena, said to be the first rider. By the time his future daughter-in-law, Sonora Webster, joined the show in 1924, Carver had two diving teams on the road, each performing in a different city.

- "The six foot four inch Carver weighed some 200 pounds and long red hair fell in well combed ringlets over massive shoulders. Historians often referred to him as the most handsome man who ever held a gun."  https://www.plantanswers.com/topperweins_fabulous.htm

- "His auburn hair was a flowing, wavy mane, and his ruddy face was splashed with a vivid red mustache."  https://www.americanheritage.com/they-were-all-sure-shots

- "A study in thigh-high boots and shoulder-length red hair..."  https://books.google.it/

- "At six foot four, with flowing red hair and a prominent jaw, he was an imposing figure and natural star..."  https://books.google.it

1136) William Ward

William Ward (1752 – 1822). Founder of Urbana, Ohio, and one of the original settlers in Kentucky's Mason County and Ohio's Mad River Valley.
He started exploring the area of the Mad River Valley of Ohio in 1788, together with his friend and business associate Simon Kenton.
In 1805 Ward appeared at the General Assembly in Chillicothe and successfully lobbied for the establishment of a new county to be made up of portions of Greene and Franklin Counties. Champaign County was formed on February 20, 1805 and extended on the north to Lake Erie and included all of present Clark County on the south.
Ward had the business sense and foresight to purchase 160 acres which he considered the logical and most acceptable site for Champaign's county seat. He approached the county commissioners with a proposition to locate the seat of the new county on this tract. Ward suggested that site to divided into 212 lots and 22 out-lots, half of which, selected alternately, were to be given to the county and while Ward would retain the remainder. Ward also offered two lots for a cemetery and a tract for the public square. The county commissioners approved the proposal, and Ward, with Joseph C. Vance, entered into a written agreement on October 11, 1805. Ward named the new county seat, Urbana.
Two of his grandsons were John Quincy Adams Ward and Edgar Melville Ward.

- "He was "tall and broad-shouldered, with high cheek bones, keen eyes and dark auburn hair tied with a black ribbon in a long queue, erect in person and very neat in dress."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ward_(frontiersman)

1135) Simon Kenton

Simon Kenton (1755 – 1836). United States frontiersman and soldier in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. He was a friend of Daniel Boone, Simon Girty, Spencer Records, Thomas S. Hinde, Thomas Hinde, and Isaac Shelby. He served the United States in the Revolution, the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812. Surviving the gauntlet and ritual torture, in 1778 he was adopted into the Shawnee people. He married twice and had a total of ten children.
He was a friend and business associate of William Ward. 

- "Over six feet tall, with long red hair, Kenton was a scout and woodsman as well as the settlers' friend."  https://www.nytimes.com/…/10/05/tra…/old-kentucky-towns.html

- "Simon Kenton was more than six feet tall and had long red hair, a massive man with an oversized personality."  https://books.google.it/books…

1114) Virginia Dox

Virginia Dox (1851–1941). American missionary, educator and explorer in the Intermountain West, and later a noted public speaker and fundraising agent for educational causes including Whitman College and Berea College. Under the auspices of the New West Education Commission, she founded schools in Idaho and New Mexico. She was the first white woman to explore the Grand Canyon, and also the first white woman to visit the Havasupai. Her vivid depictions of Western life for Eastern audiences earned her the nickname of "the female Bret Harte".
In the course of her travels, Dox lived among 23 Indian tribes and was an adopted member of nine: the Old Town Penobscot, Delaware, and Osage, and the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora. She was likewise adopted into the faculty of Whitman College, in recognition of her fundraising work, but was prevented from taking the position by a sudden decline in health.

- "The "Dox Castle" outcropping and the related bright red Dox Sandstone formation are named for her, supposedly in tribute to her bright red hair."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Dox

- " By the way, back in 1914 Levi Noble named this formation for the voluptuous, red-haired Virginia Dox of Cincinnati, Ohio... I guess Dr. Noble thought the color of the Dox Sandstone reminded him of the color of her hair."  http://kaibab.org/kaibab.org/bg02/bg0214.htm

- "It is also said that Levi, in naming the Dox sandstone, visualized its red color as matching the flaming red hair of Miss Dox."  https://shimercollege.fandom.com/wiki/Virginia_Dox

931) Perry Owens

Commodore Perry Owens (1852 – 1919). American-born lawman and gunfighter of the Old West. One of his many exploits was the Owens-Blevins Shootout in Arizona Territory during the Pleasant Valley War.

- "Owens had red hair and dressed as a typical cowboy, as seen in his photo taken in New Mexico."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Owens

- "But his reputation began to grow as one who had red hair, a fiery temper and a fast draw."  http://www.therealwildwest.com/Stories/commodore-perry-owens

- "He always possessed striking looks, tall, with red hair, he was a popular with the ladies in his youth."  https://www.1911addicts.com/th…/commodore-perry-owens.38932/

- "... red-haired gunfighter Commodore Perry Owens."  https://books.google.it/books…

930) Chris Madsen

Chris Madsen (1851 – 1944). Lawman of the Old West who is best known as being one of The Three Guardsmen, the name given to Madsen and two other Deputy US Marshals who were responsible for the apprehension and/or killing of several outlaws of that era. The Three Guardsmen consisted of Madsen, Bill Tilghman, and Heck Thomas.
He was born Christen Madsen Rørmose in Denmark. After his graduation from Kauslunde Agricultural School, Madsen started a criminal career, resulting in several convictions for fraud and forgery. Upon emigrating to the United States in 1876, he dropped the last name, Rørmose.
In 1891, he became a deputy U.S. marshal under Marshal William Grimes in Oklahoma Territory. Over 300 outlaws were either apprehended or killed by Madsen, Thomas and Tilghman, thus leading to their nickname, The Three Guardsmen. The three lawmen were largely responsible for bringing down outlaw Bill Doolin and his Doolin Dalton gang. Madsen was personally responsible for the killings of Doolin gang members Dan "Dynamite Dick" Clifton, George "Red Buck" Waightman, and Richard "Little Dick" West.

- "A red-haired Dane who had fought with the Italian rebel Garibaldi and served in the French Foreign Legion named Chris MAdsen also joined the team."  https://books.google.it/books…

929) Erastus "Red" Yeager

Erastus "Red" Yeager (also spelt Yager, 1831-1864). American outlaw and messenger for Sheriff Henry Plummer’s gang, the Innocents, he would reveal the identities of Plummer and his gang. He was hunged in January 1864 by Montana Vigilantes.
However, various versions of his life are in conflict, with some having him participating in road agent activities long before he ever arrived in Montana and others stating he was an innocent man. In fact, Granville Stuart, Montana Cattle Baron and leader of a later vigilante group called, Stuart’s Stranglers, would adamantly dispute any involvement in the gang. 

- "Even his executioners admitted the small, red-headed man had come to a hard end."  https://truewestmagazine.com/a-rope-for-a-rat/

- "Attending this school was a red-headed boy about ten or eleven years old who was a bright intelligent lad, named Erastus Yeager..."  https://books.google.it/books…

- "... the scouts met Erastus Yager, who from the redness of his hair and whiskers was familiarly called Red."  https://books.google.it/books…

- "Red... was a light and wiry built man, about five feet five inches high, with red hair and red whiskers."  https://books.google.it/books…

- "... Erastus Yager (know as Red for his hair and beard)..." https://books.google.it/books…

Yeager and George Brown, another target of the Montana vigilantes

928) Bill Doolin

William "Bill" Doolin (1858 – 1896). American bandit outlaw and founder of the Wild Bunch, a gang that specialized in robbing banks, trains, and stagecoaches in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas during the 1890s.

- "At six feet two inches tall and a mere 150 pounds, outlaw Bill Doolin was a stringbean cowboy with auburn hair, blue eyes and reportedly wore a “ragged brindled” mustache."  https://truewestmagazine.com/kill-bill/

- "The son of a Johnson County, Arkansas, farmer, Doolin was six feet, two inches tall, weighted 150 pounds, had auburn hair, blue eyes, a hooked nose and wore a ragged mustache."  https://www.nps.gov/fo…/learn/historyculture/bill-doolin.htm

- "Here Emmett became the saddle companion of slender, six-foot-two, auburn-haired, drooping-moustached, gander-blue-eyed Bill Doolin."  https://books.google.it/books…

926) William C. Quantrill

William Clarke Quantrill (1837 – 1865). Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War.
After becoming a schoolteacher, Quantrill joined a group of bandits who roamed the Missouri and Kansas countryside apprehending escaped slaves. Later on this group became Confederate soldiers, who were referred to as "Quantrill's Raiders". This group was a pro-Confederate partisan ranger outfit best known for their often brutal guerrilla tactics, which made use of effective Native American field skills. Also notable, William's group included the infamous young Jesse James and his older brother Frank James. Quantrill is often noted as influential in the minds of many bandits, outlaws and hired guns of the Old West as it was being settled. In May 1865, Quantrill was mortally wounded by Union troops in Central Kentucky, in one of the last engagements of the Civil War.

- "... hair, a rich auburn, and his eyes - who can describe them?"  https://books.google.it/books…

- "Standing 5 feet 9 inches tall, young Quantrill had a slight frame, reddish hair and cold, steel-blue eyes."  https://www.historynet.com/americas-civil-war-guerrilla-lea…

- "... the 5'9", slightly built, red haired, blue-eyed, 19-year-old moves to the perfect locale for a budding sociopath ..."  http://homebrewedmojo.blogspot.com/…/quantrills-kentucky-en…

925) Cole Younger

Thomas Coleman Younger (1844 – 1916). American Confederate guerrilla during the American Civil War and later an outlaw leader with the James–Younger Gang. He was the eldest brother of Jim, John and Bob Younger, who were also members of the gang.

- "Cole stood almost six feet tall and dressed well. He had curly, light auburn hair and freckles."  https://truewestmagazine.com/cole-younger/

- "Where he got his fiery red hair, no-one really knew. Cole had green eyes and a red stubble for a goatee."  https://books.google.it/books…

- "... but Cole was a red-haired beef of a man with sideburns..."  https://books.google.it/books…

923) Sam Brown

Sam Brown (1831 - 1861). Alabama-born outlaw, active during the California and Nevada Gold Rushes. He and his boys robbed gold and payrolls in both locations.
On July 6th, 1861, in Genoa, Nevada, he harassed German innkeeper Henry Van Sickle, pulling a pistol and chasing him through his own establishment in front of over two dozen guests. July 7th saw the rematch, as Van Sickle engaged Brown in a running gunfight and eventually shot him to death. Accounts claim Brown had killed between 15-20 men.
Henry Van Sickle went on to be a major figure in Nevada politics. The man’s clash with Long-Haired Sam Brown and subsequent career was, by some accounts, the inspiration for the fictional short story by Dorothy M. Johnson The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

- "He stood 6 foot tall, weighed 200 lbs. and had long flaming red hair and whiskers."  https://visitcarsonvalley.org/demise-bad-man-sam-brown/

- "His face had a florid complexion, topped by coarse red hair and long whiskers."  https://thetahoeweekly.com/2018/06/sam-brown-sierra-bad-man/

- "... Long-Haired Sam Brown had a beard and long red hair..."  https://glitternight.com/…/gunmen-of-mystery-from-the-old-…/

- "It was Stewart, red-haired like the loutish Brown, but a bigger man..."  https://truewestmagazine.com/justice-comes-to-nevada/

Van Sickle station in Genoa, Nevada

919) Califrnia Joe Milner

Moses Embree Milner (1829 – 1876) also known as "California Joe". American miner and frontier scout.
In 1846 during the Mexican–American War he began working as a scout for General Stephen W. Kearny and Colonel Alexander W. Doniphan. Following the war he married Nancy Watts and moved to California where he became a gold prospector and was then known as "California Joe".
In 1866, California Joe was a scout based in Kansas at Fort Riley and later out of Fort Harker. Then in 1868, Milner was named Chief of Scouts for George Armstrong Custer in Fort Hays where he became acquainted with Wild Bill Hickock and Texas Jack Omohundro.
In October 1876, while at Fort Robinson, Nebraska he was shot in the back by Thomas Newcomb, whom he had publicly accused of killing his friend Wild Bill Hickok three months earlier.

- "The adventurous young man was described as a colorful character who was large in stature, with unkempt long-hair and a heavy red beard..."  https://www.legendsofamerica.com/california-joe/

- "California Joe of the ragged red hair and beard, and the rope-tied old coat..."  https://books.google.it/books…

- "And at the last sauntered in a big-nosed, bluish-eyed man, with much brick-red hair and whiskers mingling, whose title was California Joe."  https://books.google.it/books…

918) James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok

James Butler Hickok (1837 – 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok. Folk hero of the American Old West known for his work across the frontier as a drover, wagon master, soldier, spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor.
Hickok was born and raised on a farm in northern Illinois at a time when lawlessness and vigilante activity were occurring because of the influence of the "Banditti of the Prairie". Hickok was drawn to this ruffian lifestyle and headed west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, working as a stagecoach driver and later as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought and spied for the Union Army during the American Civil War and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler.
In 1876, Hickok was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota) by Jack McCall, an unsuccessful gambler. The hand of cards which he supposedly held at the time of his death has become known as the dead man's hand: two pairs, aces and eights.
While Hickok claimed to have killed numerous named and unnamed gunmen in his lifetime, according to Joseph G. Rosa, Hickok's biographer and the foremost authority on Wild Bill, Hickok killed only six or seven men in gunfights.

- "Photographs of Hickok appear to depict dark hair, but all contemporaneous descriptions affirm that it was red."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickok

- "Over six feet tall, blue-eyed, long-nosed and mustachioed, he is as lithe as a tiger, and blessed with wavy auburn hair that he wears shoulder-length, like a rock star."  https://www.realclearbooks.com/…/how_wild_was_wild_bill_hic…

- "James Butler Hickok, a former wagon boss, civilian army scout and Union spy, was distinguished by his long auburn hair and drooping straw-colored mustache."  http://texastrailoffame.org/…/james-butler-wild-bill-hickok/

- "Charismatic and Cavalier-like, he wore his auburn hair shoulder lenght and sported a straw-colored mustache."  https://books.google.it/books…

- "He was a 6ft 3in tall, wide shouldered, handsome man with auburn hair worn long and down to his shoulders in the fashion of a Plainsman and contemporaries speak of his clear grey eyes that "could see right through you".  https://www.thehistoryherald.com/…/Civil-W…/wild-bill-hickok

- "But a Kansas editor who noted his 'fine auburn hair' and a writer of the St. Louis Republic who wrote that 'his hair was auburn in hue...' were closest to the color the family remembers. There also exist a lock of his hair... which is 'judged to be auburn'."  https://books.google.it/books…

913) Robert Benge

Robert "Bob" Benge (c. 1762–1794), called Captain Benge (or "The Bench" to frontiersmen). One of the most feared Cherokee leaders on the frontier during the Cherokee–American wars (1783-1794) in the area of present-day Southwest Virginia.
He was the son son of a Cherokee woman, Wurteh Watts, and a Scots-Irish trader named John Benge, who lived full-time among the Cherokee.

- "Robert grew up as a Cherokee, but with his red hair, European look, and his good command of English, he could also pass as a pure Euro-American."  http://www.luftex.com/benge-bob.html

- "Also known as the Bench, he was a red-headed Chickamauga War Cherokee Chief, half-brother of Sequoyah and son of John Benge and Red Paint Clan Mother, Wurteh Watts."  https://www.claycountykentucky.org/history/indians/

- "Robert Benge lived at Wills Town and was a quarter-blood, red-headed Chickamauga Warrior."  http://rickeybutchwalker.blogspot.com/…/wills-town-and-will…