BEN
CRAVENS - OUTLAW.
Added information about Ben Cravens and
others found on microfilm at the Arkansas City Public Library in April 2003.
MAW...
DYNAMITE
DICK
Killed
and Ben Cravens Wounded and Captured
SIXTEEN
MILES FROM NEWKIRK
By
Deputy Cox and Posse.—Will be Brought to Newkirk.
Arkansas City Daily Traveler, Friday, December 4, 1896.
NEWKIRK, Dec. 4.—Dynamite Dick, the
notorious territory outlaw, over whose head hangs a reward of $3,000, was shot
and killed in a fight with a number of deputy sheriffs, sixteen miles west this
morning. Ben Cravens, a member of Dick’s band, and for whose arrest $500 was
offered, was badly wounded and captured. The wounded bandit and the body of
Dick will be brought to this city today.
The gang was reported to be in this city
Wednesday last, and since then a posse of seven headed by Deputy Sheriff Cox
has been on the trail. The posse came up with the outlaws at 8 this morning,
and a fierce interchange of bullets immediately began. None of the deputies
were hurt. The remainder of the gang escaped.
BLACK
CRAIG
Instead
of Dynamite Dick That Was Killed Near Blackwell.
Cravens
Dying.
Arkansas City Daily Traveler, Saturday Evening, December 5, 1896.
KANSAS CITY, Mo., Dec. 5.—A special to
the Star from Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, says: Later identification
proves the outlaw killed near Blackwell to not be Dynamite Dick, but Black
Craig, one of the most notorious highwaymen in the west, who has operated for
years in the Indian Territory, Arkansas, New Mexico, and Colorado, having
robbed hundreds of travelers, held up dozens of trains, and killed as many men.
Ben Cravens, the other outlaw wounded in the battle, is dying.
STILL
IN DOUBT.
Was
It Dynamite Dick, Black Craig, Sam Craig, or a Stranger
Who
Was Killed by the Posse in Kay County Last Week?
Arkansas City Daily Traveler, Thursday, December 10, 1896.
The dispute is still raging as to who it
was that Cox and his posse killed near Blackwell last week. Members of the
posse and their friends insist that it was the noted outlaw Dynamite Dick, for
whom there was a reward of $4,000. Several deputy United States marshals and
others say it was not. However, they are divided upon the question. Some say
that it was Black Craig, Mosquito Dick, others a new outlaw, and still others Sam
Craig. They all agree that an outlaw was killed and buried.
The posse claim that the deputy marshals
are jealous because they did not make the capture as the reason they dispute
that it was Dynamite Dick, and the marshals laugh at the charge. The United States
jailer at Guthrie, who had charge of Dynamite Dick for several months, says the
corpse he saw is not that of the noted outlaw.
Last night Deputy Sheriff Taylor, of
Chautauqua County, was in the city. He has been down in Kay County on business.
He says he knew Dynamite Dick well, and that the man killed near Blackwell is
not the original Dynamite Dick of his acquaintance. He had a picture of the man
killed, which he showed to acquaintances in this city, and told what the
picture lacked to be that of Dick. He says the man killed was Sam Craig.
Deputy United States Marshal Joe Severn,
well known in this city, says he never saw the corpse, but from the description
given him it fits old three fingered Jack better than Dynamite Dick. He was
pretty well acquainted with both outlaws and especially three fingered Jack.
There have been several three fingered Jacks in the outlaw business, but his
reference is to the original one and the most desperate. He says that old three
fingered Jack is still alive and at last accounts he was in the Chickasaw
country. But it was possible for him to have ventured to this community. Joe
was rather in hopes it was Jack, as Jack has it in for him. Over four years ago
he threatened to kill him at the first opportunity. Friends informed Joe of the
threat, and since then he has been on the lookout for a shot from the rear.
They never met but once, and that was in Guthrie. Three fingered Jack was
blowing that he would kill Severn on sight when Joe walked onto him. He asked
Jack who it was he was going to kill and Jack without answering reached for his
gun. But the officer was too quick. He grabbed Jack around the waist, took the
gun away from him, and beat him over the head with it until he was unconscious.
He would probably have beaten him to death, but the crowd that gathered pulled
him off. That was the last time he ever saw the original three fingered Jack.
The outlaw that was killed near Blackwell
is described as having three fingers off on the left hand, leaving only the
index finger. This corresponds with Dynamite Dick. On the right hand the end of
the index finger is off and the next finger was shot off when the outlaw was
killed. The index finger on the right hand does not correspond with Dynamite
Dick.
This question is getting too deep for the
common people, therefore we would suggest that in order to settle the dispute,
if Dynamite Dick is still alive, that he so inform the public. Let him come
forth from his hiding place and make himself known in some manner.
The original story that RKW printed up
relative to Ben Cravens appears below.
BEN
CRAVENS, OUTLAW.
The outlaw Ben Cravens was one of the
suspects in the murder of George Montgomery, at Winfield, in 1901. He was never
arrested for this murder; however, his story needs to be told as he did operate
in Cowley County.
Ben Cravens began his criminal career as
a bootlegger along the southern border of Kansas, including Cowley County, but
was finally arrested in the Osage country by Frank M. Canton for cattle
stealing. Canton took his prisoner to Perry where he placed him in jail. In
less than a week Cravens broke jail and escaped, at the same time freeing
several other prisoners.
He then started on a career of robbing
banks, post offices, and country stores. He was considered one of the most
reckless outlaws of the Territory and for several years was hunted like a wild
animal. If cornered, his usual tactics were to make his escape in a running
fight, and he was handy with a Winchester rifle even when running. His plan of
operation was usually to have with him some young fellow with little experience,
but ample nerve. Such he could ordinarily get rid of after having used him and
appropriated the major part of loot to himself.
Cravens picked up a young fellow, Dick
Ainsley, near the Sac and Fox Agency, and with him planned to rob a bank in
Blackwell. The two outlaws went to Blackwell, examined the surroundings and the
location of the bank which they intended to rob the following day. They then
bought some supplies and went to a cabin in the woods nearby and made camp. But
the officers in Blackwell had observed the suspicious looking characters, and
after the outlaws had left town they organized a posse, and after dark followed
them into the woods where they surrounded the cabin and secured positions where
they could easily watch the door and window. They planned to make an attack at
daylight.
The outlaws, somehow, learned that they
were surrounded by armed men and determined to escape in a running fight.
Filling their cartridge belts, they sprang out, firing as they ran. Cravens was
shot down within a few yards while Ainsley traveled about forty yards before he
was shot dead. Two bullets passed entirely through Cravens’ body, making ugly
wounds which were then thought to be fatal.
The dead body of Ainsley and the wounded
Cravens were taken to Blackwell where Cravens refused to talk about the dead
man except to say that they called him Dick. From this the officers thought
they had killed the notorious bandit, Dynamite Dick, who had some time before
escaped from the Guthrie jail and who was still at large.
United States Marshal Pat Nagle of
Kingfisher, Charley Colcord of Oklahoma City, and Frank M. Canton went to
Blackwell, where they examined the body and recognized it as that of Dick Ainsley.
The three then entered an adjoining room where the wounded Cravens was lying on
a bed. Looking at Canton, the outlaw at once recognized him and said, “I know
you, Frank Canton. You are the d d
officer that put a bullet through the cantle of my saddle one night in the Otoe
country.” Then he began to cough and bleed at the mouth. Canton gave him a
drink of water and asked if there was anything he could do for him to relieve
his suffering. “No,” Cravens replied, “I guess they got me this time.” It was
not believed that the outlaw could live more than a few hours at most, but to
the surprise of everybody he recovered. He was taken to Kansas where he was
tried and convicted for highway robbery and sentenced to fifteen years in the
state penitentiary at Lansing, where he was taken January 18, 1897.
After serving for a time, Cravens was
placed with the coal mining gang with whom he worked several hundred feet below
the surface. In the same gang was a notorious robber, one Joe Ezell, and the
two planned their escape. With prison tools obtained in some manner, they
fashioned two long-barreled wooden make-believe revolvers around which they
neatly wrapped tinfoil. In the dim light of the coal shaft these appeared as
murderous weapons. With these pieces of wood on November 16, 1900, they held up
the guard stationed at the bottom of the shaft and disarmed him. After securing
his arms and ammunition they forced him to give the signal for the hoist.
Reaching the top of the shaft they made a break for liberty, and though guards
shot at them from every direction, both escaped. Once out of prison, Cravens
stole a horse and was soon back in the Osage country. Ezell was left to shift
for himself.
Officer Canton learned of the prison
break about the time Cravens crossed the southern line of Kansas and trailed
him to his old haunts in the Otoe country and there lost the trail. He ran
across a cowboy whom he knew, wrote a telegram and asked him to take it to the
nearest telegraph station. This message notified the officers of the country
that Cravens was again at large in the Territory.
Cravens had, in the meantime, gone into
the vicinity of Kingfisher where he had induced a young farmer, Bert Welty, to
go with him to rob a store and post office at Red Rock in the Otoe country. To
avoid suspicion Cravens disguised himself as a farmer and Welty put on a
woman’s dress and sunbonnet. In a light wagon which they had rigged up with a
plow tied on behind, they drove across the country toward Red Rock, using their
saddle horses for their team.
They reached Red Rock about dark, left
their horses in the timber nearby and walked several hundred yards carrying
their Winchesters. When they entered the store they found several people
standing around. These the robbers quickly held up and robbed. Alva Bateman,
the assistant postmaster, was standing in the rear of the store and while the
hold-up was in progress, picked up a revolver and fired at one of the robbers
but missed. The outlaws then opened fire on Bateman, killing him instantly. They
then robbed the post office of several hundred dollars and made a break for
their horses. A heavy storm had come on and the rain was pouring down in
torrents accompanied by terrific thunder and lightning. The out-laws, under
these conditions, experienced considerable difficulty in finding their outfit;
but once found, the bandits drove at their utmost speed eastward. In the darkness
they ran into a gulch and broke their wagon. They then jerked the harness from
their horses, and saddled them. Welty had the loot in a sack. Cravens, now
having no further use for Welty, pulled a shotgun from the wagon and fired
point-blank into Welty’s face, who instantly dropped to the ground. Cravens,
being unable to see distinctly in the darkness, but believing that he had
killed Welty, secured all the money, mounted one of the horses, and leading the
other, disappeared alone in the darkness. The darkness saved Welty’s life. When
Cravens fired, the shot struck the side of Welty’s face, making a dangerous,
but not necessarily fatal wound. Welty lay unconscious for several hours in the
rain and then walked about ten miles to Black Bear Creek, where he entered the
home of one Hetherington whose place had been one of Cravens’s hide-outs. This
farmer summoned a doctor and cared for Welty until he was out of danger. Perry
officers arrested Welty at Hetherington’s place. He was convicted of killing
Bateman, and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.
The officers at Perry had been
immediately notified after the murder and robbery at Red Rock and some of them
had reached the place that same night. Early the following morning Jean
Branson, a Perry deputy sheriff, struck the bandits’ trail which, in the mud,
was easily followed. The tracks of the two horses led eastward toward Pawnee.
Branson followed the trail to where they led up to the house of a farmer named
Cunningham. He observed two horses in Cunningham’s corral which had the appearance
of having been hard ridden. Keeping himself under cover, the officer rode to
Pawnee where he got the sheriff and a posse. They returned to Cunningham’s,
surrounded the house, called Cunningham out, and asked him if Cravens was in
the house. He denied that he was. Tom Johnson, a deputy from Pawnee, had taken
a position in the open about ten feet from the door. With the muzzle of his
high-powered rifle, Cravens pushed open the door, and quick as a flash, shot
Johnson down with a mortal wound. He then jumped out, ran eighty yards across
an open field of plowed ground, jumped over a bluff into a ravine and escaped.
As Cravens ran across the plowed ground, Sheriff John Chrisman and deputy Joe
Weariman, both good rifle shots, stood in the open and emptied their magazines,
but the outlaw got away without a scratch.
For four of five years after this escapade,
practically every officer in the Territory was on the alert for Ben Cravens.
Heavy rewards were offered and he was the most talked-of outlaw in the country.
He was accused of nearly every murder and hold-up where the criminals were not
killed or captured. He was reported to have been seen in Texas, Old Mexico,
Arizona, and New Mexico. But he had disappeared, apparently, completely.
What Cravens actually did after the
killing of Tom Johnson near Pawnee was to go to Missouri and hire out as a farm
hand under the name of Charley Maust. Here, he was considered a hard-working,
honest sort of fellow. Evidently he had decided to “quit the road” and reform.
He married there under the name of Maust
and his wife worked with him on the farm. But at last his old propensities
broke loose. He stole a horse and was sentenced to a term of four years in the
Missouri penitentiary at Jefferson City in November, 1908.
One day, while in the Missouri
penitentiary, a barber who had been in the Lansing prison with Cravens, recognized
him and notified the officers that the prisoner, Charley Maust, was none other
than the notorious and long-looked-for Ben Cravens. The Bertillon (fingerprint)
record of Cravens was then procured from Lansing, which on comparison with that
of Charley Maust at Jefferson City, agreed in every particular. The Oklahoma
authorities were then notified that the Oklahoma outlaw, Ben Cravens, wanted
for murder, was in the Missouri penitentiary. Cravens was brought to Guthrie in
November, 1911, where he was tried in the United States district court for the
murder of assistant postmaster Alva Bateman, of Red Rock. Witnesses were
subpoenaed to identify Cravens and Bert Welty was brought from the penitentiary
to testify. Welty made a full confession, and though Cravens pleaded not guilty
the evidence was complete and he was found guilty and given a life sentence in
the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, January 29, 1912. He continued
to maintain that he was Charles Maust and not Ben Cravens until his death in
the penitentiary.
[The
above story about Ben Cravens was compiled by George Rainey.]