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William Bartholomew “Bat” Masterson (1853- or 1856-1921)
was a lawman, soldier, gambler and writer, a man belonging solidly
in both the Old West and the modern East Coast. At a young age
Masterson, like so many others of his time, left home to hunt
buffalo on the grassy plains of the West. On June 27, 1874, he
took place in what would become the Second Battle of Adobe Walls
at Adobe Walls, Texas. The Southern Plains tribes of the area
surrounded the three adobe buildings at the center of town and,
at dawn, they attacked. Masterson and 28 other settlers barricaded
themselves in and fought through windows and cracks in the walls.
Miraculously, when the dust settled the next day, the Indians
had given up the fight and the settlers had won.
In his later years, Masterson became interested in boxing
and athletics and began to write a sports column for the Denver
paper George’s Weekly. When President Roosevelt appointed
him U.S. Marshal for the southern district of New York, Masterson
took his writing with him and began a column for the New York
Morning Telegraph. He died in his office at the Telegraph of
a heart attack in 1921, his last column still unfinished on the
typewriter. |