Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
2010
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly 30:1 (Winter 2010)
Abstract
Freight teamster and wagon master along the Overland Trail, stagecoach driver in Texas, as well as stagecoach division superintendent along the Central Overland route, Joseph Alfred "Jack" Slade (1831-1864) is remembered for having helped launch and operate the Pony Express in 1860-61. He is also remembered as a gunfighter and the "Law West of Kearney." The legends about him (including those in Mark Twain's Roughing It and Prentiss Ingraham's dime novels about Buffalo Bill) are largely false, but the truth has been difficult to establish.
Dan Rottenberg was faced with three challenges in writing this book, the first to deal so extensively with Jack Slade: a lack of reliable documentary evidence; an abundance of fictitious material; and the complexity of the character of his subject. By all accounts, Slade gave the appearance of an educated, soft-spoken, generous, and kind individual when he was sober. After one of his drunken rampages his recognition of the damage he had inflicted on others horrified him. There is little in his story that is not in dispute to some degree, including the killings of Andrew Ferrin and Jules Beni and the background of his wife Maria Virginia Slade. His career came to a sudden and dramatic end on March 10, 1864, when he was hanged in Virginia City, Montana, on a charge of disturbing the peace. Until now his story has been left largely ro the folklorists.
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