Wild Bill Hickok

Lore & Background

Hickok was born and raised on a farm in Northern Illinois. He headed west at age 18, working as a stagecoach driver and later as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He served as a civilian scout for the Union army during the American Civil War and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler. He was involved in several notable shootouts during the course of his life. In 1876, Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory by Jack McCall, an unsuccessful gambler. The hand of cards that he supposedly held at the time of his death has become known as the dead man's hand: two pairs; black aces and eights, and another unknown card, therefore having five cards in his hand at his death.

Reader's Guide

Hickok was born May 27, 1837, in Homer, Illinois, to William Alonzo Hickok, a farmer and abolitionist, and his wife, Pamelia Hickok. He was of English ancestry. James was the fourth of six children. His father was said to have used the family house as a station on the Underground Railroad.

William Hickok died in 1852, when James was 15. In 1855, at age 18, James Hickok fled Illinois following a fight with Charles Hudson, during which both fell into a canal; each thought, mistakenly, that he had killed the other. Hickok moved to Leavenworth in the Kansas Territory, where he joined Jim Lane's Free State Army, an antislavery vigilante group active during the Bleeding Kansas era. While there he met 12-year-old William Cody (later known as "Buffalo Bill").

On July 12, 1861, David McCanles went to the Rock Creek Station office to demand an overdue property payment. McCanles reportedly threatened the station manager, and either the manager or Hickok, who was hiding behind a curtain, killed McCanles. Two men with McCanles were also killed. Hickok, the manager, and another employee were tried for killing McCanles, but were found to have acted in self-defense.

Did You Know?

• Hickok used his late father's name, William Hickok, from 1858, and the name William Haycock during the American Civil War.
• While in Nebraska, Hickok was derisively referred to by one man as 'Duck Bill' for his long nose and protruding lips.
• In 1860, Hickok was badly injured by a cinnamon bear while driving a freight team; he killed the bear by slashing its throat with his knife.
• Hickok claimed to have shot numerous gunmen in his lifetime, and he killed six or seven, all between 1861 and 1871 according to Joseph G. Rosa, Hickok's biographer.
• Hickok visited McCanles' widow after the shooting, apologized for the killing, and offered her $35 in restitution, all the money he had with him at the time.