The Farmer Boys
Thursday, May 29, 2025
The Best Merle Haggard Covers*
1. The Byrds – Life in Prison
2. Miranda Lambert – Misery and Gin
3. The Everly Brothers – Sing Me Back Home
4. Old ’97s – Harold’s Super Service
5. Lynyrd Skynyrd – Honky Tonk Night Time Man
6. Country Joe McDonald – Rainbow Stew
7. Will Oldham – If I Could Only Fly
8. The Fall – White Line Fever
9. Dave Alvin – Kern River
10. Shelby Lynne and Allison Moore – Silver Wings
11. The Melvins – Okie from Muskogee
12. David Allan Coe – Mama Tried
13. Keith Richards – Sing Me Back Home
14. Willie Nelson – Today I Started Loving You Again
15. Clint Black – I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am
16. Rosanne Cash – You Don’t Have Very Far to Go
Me:
The Bottle Let Me Down -- Leann Rimes
Sing Me Back Home -- Joan Baez
*A “tribute” album has been done since and I would
include Toby Keith’s doing “Carolyn” as an add-on here. I don’t know who
compiled the above list but it is interesting.
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Monday, May 26, 2025
"Dylan wasn’t trying to outsmart anyone this time. He wasn’t hiding behind poetry. These songs didn’t want to change the world. They just wanted to sound good in a kitchen with the windows open. And somehow, that kind of quiet confidence hit harder than anything else."
A favorite quote, this from Riley Johnson, May 25, 2025, in an article he wrote for Country Thang Daily about when Bob Dylan went country with his Nashville Skyline album.
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Too Typical
Caitlain's in red but it's Angel who's getting red-assed
Friday, May 16, 2025
FIRST MURDER IN GALENA
Galena Miner, Sat., June 23, 1877, Page 3
My grandfather Martin often spoke of Tiger Bill. His killers were from Granby, Mo., the town where my grandfather spent some growing up time. It was said to be the first murder in Galena.
Author/historian Larry Wood offers more:
Bob Layton
Yet another of the nest of villains inhabiting Granby, Missouri, during the latter half of the nineteenth century was Bob Layton. Bob and his family, consisting of his parents and several sisters, came to Granby from Tennessee near the start of the Civil War when he was a young boy five or six years old. Layton first etched his name in the annals of outlawry on the evening of June 16, 1877, at the fledgling mining town of Galena just across the Kansas state line. Nursing an old grudge, he and three other Granby men burst into Dykeman's Restaurant and opened fire on William St. Clair and Harry Campbell while the latter were seated at a table taking dinner. The ambush mortally wounded St. Clair and left Campbell with a flesh wound. A hastily formed posse pursued the attackers and briefly exchanged shots with them, but Layton and his cohorts made a clean escape. St. Clair was known as "Tiger Bill" because of his reputation in the area as a rough character, but it's not known what supposed wrong the Granby boys were avenging. Around this same time, Layton became a part-time sidekick of the notorious George Hudson, but it's also not known with any certainty whether Hudson came along on the Galena escapade.
What is known is that Layton and Hudson, along with Hudson's brother Jack, were passing through Batesville, Arkansas, on the evening of November 7, 1879, and tarried in town long enough to get into a barroom brawl. They conked one man over the head with a pistol and fired a shot at another one. A posse followed them to their camp outside town and captured George Hudson after an exchange of lead, but the other two men escaped. Layton came back to Batesville the next night to try to break George Hudson out of jail and was shot and killed after he was recognized and ordered to halt but went for his gun instead. Thus, was cut short the promising criminal career of Robert Layton.
What is known is that Layton and Hudson, along with Hudson's brother Jack, were passing through Batesville, Arkansas, on the evening of November 7, 1879, and tarried in town long enough to get into a barroom brawl. They conked one man over the head with a pistol and fired a shot at another one. A posse followed them to their camp outside town and captured George Hudson after an exchange of lead, but the other two men escaped. Layton came back to Batesville the next night to try to break George Hudson out of jail and was shot and killed after he was recognized and ordered to halt but went for his gun instead. Thus, was cut short the promising criminal career of Robert Layton.
...
Larry wood again, and here's where my family is connected:
Saturday, August 7, 2010
W. S. Norton-Killer of Jake Killian
The current issue of Wild West Magazine contains an article of mine about Jake Killian of Granby, Missouri, and his notorious family, and my Ozarks' Gunfights book contains a chapter about the same subject that is similar to the article. I don't have anything else to say about Jake and his family right now, but I would like to add a few words about William S. Norton, the man who ended up killing Jake in the spring of 1878 at Empire City, Kansas (now part of Galena), because Norton was something of a notorious character in his own right.
Norton and Killian were members of the same unit during the Civil War, and the two men got into a violent argument over a card game during the latter part of the war. They grappled over Norton's gun, but Norton managed to turn the gun toward Killian and shot him in the face, blinding him in one eye. Killian swore revenge, a mistake that eventually cost him his life.
After the war, Norton lived in Dallas County, Missouri, awhile but came to Joplin soon after lead was discovered and the town was established in the early 1870s. He served briefly as a constable or deputy constable and became embroiled in an 1874 dispute in Joplin when he was appointed city marshal after the sitting marshal was ousted by the city council. The two men feuded awhile before the incumbent went to court and regained his office. Norton hung around Joplin a few more years and was reported to have killed at least one or two men in cases that were ruled self-defense.
Shortly after lead was discovered on Short Creek in southeast Kansas in 1877, Norton moved to the booming new lead town of Empire City. He killed Killian in March of 1878 when the latter came looking for him. Although this killing, like the previous ones, was ruled self-defense (primarily because Killian had a notorious reputation and had stalked Norton), it was actually a clear case of murder. Killian was not even armed at the time Norton gunned him down.
Norton later ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Cherokee County. Maybe the good folks of southeast Kansas wanted someone for their chief law enforcement officer who was a little more deliberate in the use of firearms than Bill Norton.
Norton and Killian were members of the same unit during the Civil War, and the two men got into a violent argument over a card game during the latter part of the war. They grappled over Norton's gun, but Norton managed to turn the gun toward Killian and shot him in the face, blinding him in one eye. Killian swore revenge, a mistake that eventually cost him his life.
After the war, Norton lived in Dallas County, Missouri, awhile but came to Joplin soon after lead was discovered and the town was established in the early 1870s. He served briefly as a constable or deputy constable and became embroiled in an 1874 dispute in Joplin when he was appointed city marshal after the sitting marshal was ousted by the city council. The two men feuded awhile before the incumbent went to court and regained his office. Norton hung around Joplin a few more years and was reported to have killed at least one or two men in cases that were ruled self-defense.
Shortly after lead was discovered on Short Creek in southeast Kansas in 1877, Norton moved to the booming new lead town of Empire City. He killed Killian in March of 1878 when the latter came looking for him. Although this killing, like the previous ones, was ruled self-defense (primarily because Killian had a notorious reputation and had stalked Norton), it was actually a clear case of murder. Killian was not even armed at the time Norton gunned him down.
Norton later ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Cherokee County. Maybe the good folks of southeast Kansas wanted someone for their chief law enforcement officer who was a little more deliberate in the use of firearms than Bill Norton.
...
Here is the full article Wood wrote for Wild West magazine:
The Hotheaded Killin’ Killians Settled Most Disputes, for Better or Worse, with Firearms
‘Old Man’ Cy Killian and sons were cut from the same cloth.
A long-running feud between William Norton and Jake Killian ended at Empire City (now part of Galena), Kansas, on March 28, 1878, when the former gunned down the latter. The shooting also ended what the Joplin (Missouri) Daily Herald called “the remarkable history of a remarkable family.” In the annals of southwest Missouri, the Killians, wrote the Herald, had authored “a chapter of crimes and historical events” stretching back before the Civil War. Yes, the Killians had done their share of killing and being killed.
The notorious clan first came to public notice in the 1850s lead-mining town of Granby, Mo. Patriarch Cy Killian, 45, reportedly spent most of his time in the mining camp gin mills and earned a reputation as a dangerous and quarrelsome man. The mines considered Cy too old to hire, but he found employment for his three oldest sons—Benjamin, in his early 20s; Martin, about 19; and Jacob, about 17. But the sons, like their father, proved to have “quarrelsome dispositions,” and their employers soon discharged them.
On August 10, 1858, “Old Man” Killian and drinking buddy William Collins argued outside a grocery store until Collins picked up a handy whiffletree and beat Cy to death. The law never did anything about it, and neither did the Old Man’s boys, as Collins soon left Granby and was not heard from again.
The boys could find their own trouble, in any case. Not long after his father’s murder, Martin “Mart” Killian left Granby for parts unknown.When he returned, he was missing one of his arms, which he claimed had been shot off while he was crossing the western Plains. The disability didn’t keep him from joining the Union Army. At the height of the Civil War, Mart temporarily left his unit and went into Lamar, Mo., where he reportedly ravished a saloonkeeper’s wife. After Killian caught up with his unit at Carthage, authorities arrested him—not for rape but for robbing a man named Scruggs. Found guilty by a drumhead court-martial, the panel sentenced Killian to 30 days in jail. In the meantime, his unit left Carthage. Soon after, a party of bushwhackers rode down from Lamar, seized Killian from his cell, dragged him to nearby Spring River and hanged him from a tree.
Jake Killian also joined the Army, but he too lacked the discipline to avoid trouble. Toward the end of the war, he and fellow soldier William Norton got into a quarrel over a card game. When Killian disputed the outcome of a hand Norton had apparently won, both men jumped up and drew revolvers. In the struggle that followed, Killian got Norton in a bear hug, pinning down his arms, but Norton turned his revolver around and fired over his right shoulder. The ball struck Killian in the face, destroying the sight in one eye. The war ended before Jake could exact revenge.
Back in Granby on the evening of August 21, 1869, Killian dropped by Bill Lake’s traveling Hippo-Olympiad and Mammoth Circus. After the main show, when ushers began collecting tickets for the minstrel show to follow, Killian refused to pay or leave. Lake told his men to put Killian out, and they did so after wresting away his revolver. Bystanders overheard Jake threaten to kill Lake as soon as he could get another gun.
Killian returned minutes later, saying he was not a quarrelsome man, and stood in line to pay for the minstrel show. Lake soon appeared, engaging in conversation with a deputy marshal and a man named Thompson. Killian slipped up behind them, extended a revolver over Thompson’s shoulder and shot Lake in the chest. As the gunman fled, he tripped over a guy rope and fell, accidentally discharging his revolver, then jumped to his feet to make his escape. Meanwhile, Lake staggered a few yards and collapsed.Taken to his nearby hotel room, the showman died on arrival.
Lake’s widow, Agnes (who later married Wild Bill Hickok), offered a reward of $1,000 for Killian’s capture. The man who eventually brought him in reportedly struck a bargain with the fugitive, promising him a share of the reward money. At Killian’s first trial, the jury failed to reach a verdict. In February 1874, after two changes of venue, a jury finally convicted Jake, sentencing him to four years in the penitentiary.
While the courts were settling Jake Killian’s case, eldest brother Ben found his own trouble under the big top. On the evening of August 15, 1873, Ben and a sidekick named Hale got liquored up and went to Hamilton, Blanchard & Co.’s Indian Show, which was playing on the same grounds where his younger brother had earlier killed Lake. The pair quarreled with a black man named Charley Thomas, and when both sides fired their revolvers, bystander Mathias Schmidt was killed in the crossfire. The law took the seriously wounded Thomas into custody, while Killian and Hale swaggered about town, “blustering and flourishing their pistols.” Only after the pals left town did townsmen organize a posse. Hale got away, but the posse returned Ben to Newton County.
Even though a doctor had recovered a large-caliber ball from Schmidt’s body, and Ben Killian was reportedly the only shooter with a large-chambered pistol, and even though Thomas had had his back to spectator Schmidt, a jury tried Thomas for firing the fatal shot. Found guilty, he was sent to prison for 20 years. Ben Killian was ultimately acquitted.
Perhaps predictably, a fourth Killian brother also got into hot water. On August 25, 1875, 18-year-old Thomas Killian teamed up with two other young men and killed John Anderson, the Granby resident who had served as foreman of the grand jury that had indicted Ben. When authorities arrested Tom in Arkansas two months later, he claimed his partners had done the shooting. Ignoring the plea, a court tried, convicted and sentenced Killian to 99 years.
In early 1877, jailers released Jake Killian, citing his failing health after three years in prison. Jake returned to Newton County, but soon began stalking nemesis William Norton in Jasper County. Norton was not a man to be trifled with. After blinding Killian in one eye during the Civil War, Norton had killed one or two other men in self-defense.
When lead was discovered on Short Creek in southeast Kansas in the spring of 1877, Norton moved to Empire City, where he opened a grocery store and worked in the mines. On March 26, 1878, Killian showed up, saying he intended to kill Norton. About 3 p.m. on March 28, Norton left his diggings and retrieved a revolver and double-barrel shotgun. He had just stepped back into the street when Killian appeared. Norton fired both barrels into the chest of the unarmed Killian. Norton then pointed his revolver at his fallen foe. “Damn you, are you dead yet?!” he exclaimed, as he fired a shot into the back of Killian’s head.
Townspeople supported Norton, especially after a man who testified on Norton’s behalf at the coroner’s inquest was found dead at the bottom of a mineshaft 10 days later, reportedly killed by Killian’s friends. At his trial in early May, the jury deliberated barely 30 minutes before returning a verdict of not guilty, thus bringing to a close the saga of Jake Killian and his remarkable family— “remarkable,” that is, when it came to killing and being killed.
Read more in Larry Wood’s Ozarks Gunfights and Other Notorious Incidents (2010).
Originally published in the October 2010 issue of Wild West.
