CHAPTER LIX.
ED. M’GRAND, A TEXAS DESPERADO, SHOOTS AN INOFFENSIVE BOY NAMED JOHN WRIGHT, ON THE NORTH PLATTE—THE MURDERER GETS AWAY AND IS THOUGHT TO HAVE DISAPPEARED FOR GOOD—ACCIDENTALLY COME UPON BY DETECTIVE CARR, AT CHEYENNE—A LITTLE STRATEGY AND A BIG CAPTURE.
Some time in the spring of 1878, Ed. McGrand, the murderer, and the subject of this sketch, came up over the trail from Texas as a herder or employé of Bosler Brothers, of Sidney, Neb. (who for several years had the contract of supplying several Indian agencies, from Red Cloud agency, near Sidney, to the agencies up the Missouri river, with beef cattle). They were driving a herd of cattle to some of the Indian agencies on the upper Missouri, and McGrand had just returned from the trip and was at or around Bosler Brothers’ range, near Sidney bridge, across the North Platte river, about fifty miles north of Sidney.
One D. J. McCann also had a cattle range near there, and it seems McGrand had some ill-feeling or prejudice toward McCann, Bruce Powers, and the outfit in general, over some trivial matter.
On June 25, 1878, McGrand came to McCann’s camp, near Platte bridge, feeling very hostile, and with the intention of killing McCann and probably some of his men, being well armed and under the influence of “bug juice.” He attempted to shoot and kill McCann, and would have done so but for the intervention of McCann’s men and friends. Among the friends of McCann who had interceded for him, to prevent McGrand’s murdering him without cause, and had spoken in favor of McCann, was the victim, John Wright, a young man of twenty or twenty-one years of age, though a mere boy in stature and looks—a quiet, inoffensive cowboy, who had done nothing more than any one naturally would do to persuade McGrand not to insist on murdering McCann and others.
As soon as the row had apparently quieted down, this boy mounted his pony and rode away, crossing to the other side of the river unarmed, and with no weapons of any kind about him, doubtless not dreaming of danger. But he was followed by McGrand still with murder in his heart. McGrand was mounted on a good horse, which did not belong to him and which he stole to escape on, and armed with a Sharp’s carbine and two Colt’s large size army revolvers. Thus prepared he followed Wright and overtook him soon after he had crossed the river, and shot him two or three times in the head, killing him instantly, and undoubtedly without any cause, only that he was a friend of McCann’s outfit.
After murdering the boy, McGrand immediately disappeared, going up the North Platte river, and was not heard of until his arrest on June 30, 1878, at a freighter’s camp, at Sloan’s lake, near Cheyenne, Wyo., by T. Jeff Carr, agent of the Rocky Mountain Detective Association at Cheyenne.
Immediately after the murder the authorities at Sidney offered a reward for the arrest of the murderer, and also sent out descriptions all over the country, but through some oversight had failed to notify Carr of the murder, and it was by accident and a streak of luck that he heard of the murder in time to head off the murderer, who was making south and was ready to start. In a few hours he would have been out of reach and danger, when arrested.
It was about June 29, 1878, when a teamster, driving a team in a mule freight train coming from Fort Laramie to Cheyenne, which had gone into camp near Cheyenne, on the banks of Sloan’s lake, came to Carr and stated “that a suspicious acting, bad looking man on horseback, well armed with gun and revolvers, had joined their outfit near Fort Laramie, on the North Platte, and had traveled and camped with them all the way; that the man acted as though he had committed some serious crime and was afraid of capture. He kept out of the way quietly when strangers came around, always keeping his horse, gun and arms alongside of him; slept with gun and revolvers at his head, and would awake at night and grab them.” He described the man as tall, with the left eye out, and when in camp near town he would be, the teamster said, always at camp “on guard” apparently, and had said to him that if any one came to take him, “he would not be taken, as he would be hung.”
Carr did not know of such a man’s being wanted, but thought something was wrong or he would not act so, and at once set to work to find out if a crime had been committed lately by a man answering this description, and on Sunday, June 30, 1878, he met a cattleman from Sidney, on arrival of the train from the east, and asked him if he knew of a tall, one-eyed man being wanted at Sidney, or around his part of the country. The cattleman replied that such a looking man, named Ed. McGrand, had murdered a boy at Platte bridge some two weeks before, and a reward was offered for him, and was surprised that Carr had not been notified. He said, also, that McGrand was a desperate man, and advised Carr to go well prepared, and be careful about taking him, as he was a dangerous man to fool with, “and would surely show fight.” Carr immediately telegraphed to Sidney, asking the sheriff for particulars, and at once received answer that Ed. McGrand, a tall, one-eyed man, was “badly wanted for murder, and if around Cheyenne, to get him at all hazards.”
Carr at once called to his aid Deputies W. C. Lykins and E. H. Ingalls. He detailed Lykins on horseback with a rifle to approach the camp on the lake from the northeast, while he and Ingalls in a buggy would approach the lake from southwest, as though all were out for a “Sunday ride,” and carelessly approach McGrand’s camp and take him unawares. On arriving near the lake and camp, they saw our “solitary guard” standing alone near his horse, against a wagon tongue, his gun leaned against the wagon wheel and his revolvers in his belt around him. They gradually and in an apparently careless manner rode nearer the camp, not apparently noticing him or the camp, until they were in speaking distance. Carr then carelessly engaged McGrand in conversation about the teams, expressing a desire to buy some of them and to know where the boss was, etc., still driving nearer until close to McGrand, when Carr jumped out of his buggy, grasping the murderer’s two hands or wrists, immediately followed by Deputy Ingalls, who took his revolvers out of his belt, Deputy Lykins all the time covering him with his gun.
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Arrest of Ed. McGrand, near Cheyenne.
Thus McGrand was taken completely by surprise by means of the strategy used, and no one hurt. Otherwise, he would undoubtedly have given the officers a warm reception. After he was taken he gritted his teeth and cursed himself for being such a fool as never to suspect they were officers, and told them if he had suspected they were after him, they could not have taken him, as he could have and would have killed all of them and got away on his horse. “He was the maddest and worst fooled man you ever saw,” says Carr. He said he killed the boy, “but whisky done it,” and “he knew he would be hung,” etc.
McGrand was then taken by Sheriff Carr and placed in the county jail at Cheyenne, until the next day, July 1, when he was taken to Sidney, and on December 16, 1878, he was indicted by the grand jury for murder in the first degree, and on the 17th he was arraigned and placed on trial at Sidney for his life, and through some technicality of law, he saved his neck and was allowed to plead guilty of murder in the second degree, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life in the state penitentiary at Lincoln, Neb., and is now serving out his time.
McGrand’s history is not known any more than that general report says he had to skip from Texas for murder committed there, and that he was a murderous and desperate man, and thought nothing of killing. He was then about forty or forty-five years of age; six feet tall; slender build; blind in the left eye; spare, thin, long face, high cheek bones, and a very muscular man; a typical Texas cowboy, with white slouch hat, etc.
A RACE FOR LIFE.