The Dunn Brothers were a group of brothers from
Pawnee, Oklahoma, who worked as
Old West bounty hunters. They are best known for having killed
George "Bittercreek" Newcomb and
Charley Pierce, members of the
Wild Bunch.
The brothers - Bee, Calvin, Dal, George and Bill Dunn - ran a
boarding house near
Ingalls and a meat market in Pawnee. Bill Dunn was the leader, and the oldest of the brothers. By the 1880s the Dunn brothers were working as bounty hunters, although they had been involved in
cattle rustling
Cattle raiding is the act of stealing cattle. In Australia, such stealing is often referred to as duffing, and the perpetrator as a duffer.Baker, Sidney John (1945) ''The Australian language : an examination of the English language and English ...
and
robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the perso ...
. Their teenaged sister
Rose became romantically involved with "Bittercreek" Newcomb, having met him through her brothers. On May 2, 1895, when Newcomb and Charley Pierce rode up to the Dunn house to visit with Rose, the brothers shot and killed both
outlaw
An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them ...
s as they dismounted. They then collected the bounty on both, believed to have been $5,000 each, mostly due to the notoriety of the gang by that time.
It is believed that on August 25, 1896, Bill Dunn led
Deputy US Marshal
The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforceme ...
Heck Thomas to the hideout of
Bill Doolin. Some have speculated that Dunn murdered Doolin; however, official reports from the time discount this, indicating that Thomas actually killed him. By late that year, people around Pawnee had started complaining that the Dunn brothers were involved in rustling and robbery.
Sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...
Frank Canton - a
gunman with a substantial reputation who had previously arrested Bill Dunn for rustling - began investigating the claims.
On November 6, 1896, Bill Dunn rode into Pawnee intent on killing Sheriff Canton. As Canton walked out of a restaurant after having dinner, Bill Dunn appeared in front of him and tried to draw his
revolver
A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating handgun that has at least one barrel and uses a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold up to six roun ...
, but Canton drew quicker and fired two shots, killing Dunn. The shooting was ruled
self defense. Bill Dunn's death effectively ended the bounty hunting for the Dunn brothers, as their already-questionable reputations suffered greatly.
References
Bill O'Neal, Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters, University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. pp.94-95
External links
]
Frank Canton
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110517235254/http://www.ionet.net/~okhombre/days.htm Last Days of Bill Doolin, the Dunn Brothers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunn Brothers (Bounty Hunters)
Outlaws of the American Old West
People from Pawnee, Oklahoma
Deaths by firearm in Oklahoma
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Bounty hunters
Outlaw gangs in the United States