In the Old West there were good men and bad men, and then there were lawmen. Unfortunately, most lawmen were a bit of both, and few of those who wore a badge could claim to have walked the straight and narrow for the entire course of their lives, most having become lawmen after failing in farming, ranching or other activities; some had even been or would become outlaws. One of the rare exceptions was that represented by Henry Andrew “Heck” Thomas, who was a lawman literally all his adult life.
Born in 1850, Heck Thomas grew up in a family of military officers and frontier lawmen; his father, a Colonel during the War of Secession, would become the first City Marshal of Atlanta, Georgia, soon after the war ended.
In 1862, with the war between the North and South entering its second year of fighting, Colonel Thomas when he returned to the 35th Georgia Volunteer Regiment, in Thomas Brigade, A.P. Hill Division, Stonewall Jackson Corps took his 12-year-old son with him. Heck became a courier for his father and uncle, Brig. Gen. Edward Lloyd Thomas in Virginia. The day after his arrival, Heck witnessed the second battle of Manassas. His first assignment as a courier was to personally take care of Union Major General Phil Kearney’s horse, saddle and equipment and bring them back crossing enemy lines under a flag of truce to Kearney’s widow. It would have been a challenging task for any soldier, let alone a 12-year-old boy. At the time, Heck considered it the proudest moment of his entire life.
Two years after the war ended, at the age of 17, Heck became an Operations Officer in the Atlanta police force. Although younger than any other officer he demonstrated the discretion and sense of judgment of a lawman far beyond his age.
At the age of 21 he married Isabelle Gray, daughter of Reverend Albert Gray of Atlanta. By 1875 they had two children, Belle and Henry. That same year Heck decided to leave the Police Department and follow his cousin Jim to Texas, where they were hired by the Texas Express Company, which had its headquarters in Dallas.
It was here that Heck Thomas would first make a name for himself. Once he moved, he had his wife and children move to Galvestone, and he began working as a railroad express courier responsible for controlling the Houston and Texas Central Railroad that ran between Denison and Galveston, a route along which attempted train robberies were rampant. In March, outlaw Sam Bass and his gang attempted a heist near Hutchins Station, 12 miles southwest of Dallas. Thomas initially refused to let go of the contents of the mailbox he was guarding, but his was a ruse.
Eventually, Bass and his men escaped without being able to take anything. As soon as the robbery began Heck moved the contents of the safe, about $22,000 in banknotes and silver coins, to an unlit stove in the mail car.
He then filled the money bags with $89 in silver coins to add some weight and make them make a nice noise when they hit the ground, and the rest with paper he had cut to the size of the dollars before taking the train! The shooting that followed-started when the brake attendant and the driver opened fire with a shotgun-accelerated the robber’s escape, and by the time he discovered the switch, the train was far beyond the horizon. Upon his return to the office in Denison, Thomas was able to describe most of the brigands he had encountered and discovered that the ringleader was none other than Sam Bass. Thomas’s deception earned him a promotion to Forth Worth as a detective, and for 1879 he received assignment as Chief of Constables.
In the 1870s when Heck arrived, the Texas Express Company had no competitors, but by the 1880s it was already being driven out of business by larger firms such as Wells Fargo & Co and Pacific Express. Heck realized it was time to move on; he was 35 years old and had four children. In 1885 he left the railroad and decided to run for the office of Sheriff of Fort Worth. He lost the election by a difference of only 22 votes, but his years of experience made him an ideal candidate for another position that came his way, as an officer of the Fort Worth Detective Association. Working in the field with an old friend, U.S. Deputy U.S. Marshal Jim Taylor, who was operating out of the Fort Smith (Arkansas) court.
Heck once again distinguished himself by helping to track and then capture Jim and Pink Lee. When they ran into the two lawmen, the Lees ignored Thomas’ warning, “Hands up, we are Officers.” The brothers quickly fell under Thomas and Taylor’s Winchesters. Heck’s role of tracking and capturing two of the most wanted outlaws in Texas earned him an offer to join the Texas Rangers, but Thomas already had his U.S. Marshal badge aimed at him.
For the mid-1880s, honest men with law enforcement experience were hard to find, and it was around this time that Thomas applied to become a U.S. Marshal’s Operating Officer. With a good word from Taylor and passing the interview, Heck got the job and moved with his family to Fort Smith, Arkansas. For the next 11 years he would earn a reputation for being one of the most efficient lawmen working in the wilderness.
The area included the old Indian Territory and parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma, which had become a haven for some of the most notorious outlaws of the 1880s and 1890s. U.S. marshals had to deal with thieves on trains, cattle rustlers, bank robbers, violent men, murderers, whiskey peddlers, and scoundrels of all kinds. Thomas walked around with little more than a Colt revolver, a Winchester rifle, and the quick wits to use them. Together with his friends, U.S. Marshal Operational Agents William Tilghman and Chris Madsen, the trio led an assault to clear the territory of outlaws. Together, they became known as “The Three Guardians of Oklahoma.”
Continue reading the story of Henry Andrew “Heck” Thomas in the next article!
