Constitution Club

My great great grandfather was a homesteader in Nebraska in the early 1870’s and seems to have been a fairly well known figure in the area. He rode with various posses, was present at a hanging, and was known as a crack shot. He later became the first sheriff of Rock County, NE and captured a variety of counterfeiters, horse thieves, ruffians and the like during his stint as ‘the law’.  I have several pictures of him including one of him standing in front of a large sod house he had built. The picture was taken in August of 1909. He appears in various books and in at least one was described as a ‘vigilante’ to which my grandfather took great offense . But it does seem that with or without a badge, Hank Harris was no friend to those who preyed upon their fellow citizens in those early days when there was little law to begin with.

Ever since I was quite small, my grandfather had told me stories about the ’shootout’ with horse thieves that Henry ‘Hank’ Harris had been in and how had he had been shot and managed to kill one of the outlaws. Apparently, this story had been told and retold to him since he was little, and he always grew fairly animated describing the action just as he had heard it from his grandfather when he was little so many years ago.

On Saturday I took my children to the public library so my oldest daughter could get a book for a school project. I looked around a bit and checked out the Nebraska section which consisted of about four books total. I picked one up titled Wild Towns of Nebraska, looked in the index for Harris, and lo and behold, they had a blow by blow account of this shootout. I made a copy of it and it is posted below.

It appears to be fairly accurate except that Hank Harris was actually shot twice, once in the shoulder and a second bullet grazed the side of his head. He always said that his horse saved his life; that if it hadn’t shied and reared at the first shot he would have been shot right through the head. Otherwise, I know a few other minor details from family lore, but this account also contained many details I was not aware of. I have been to his grave and am always happy when I am able to discover more information on an ancestor.

A four-man passe from Brown County, north of Custer County, tracked a pair of renegades, Bohannan and Arnold, south.  They stopped at Sargent, northeast of Broken Bow, to inquire whether they’d been seen in town. Bob McGregor, the man they asked, told them he’d seen two men go through. The posse hurried away and overtook the renegades not far from Sargent.

Bohannan and Arnold evidently were unaware their pursuers were so close, judging from their startled looks as two men from the posse charged up, one on either side, and ordered them to throw up their hands.

Bohannan apparently was unarmed but Arnold had a gun strapped around his waist and a Winchester rifle in his saddle boot. Hohannan threw up his hands but Arnold whipped up his revolver. He and Harris, one of the possemen, fired at the same time. Then Harris fired a second time. That shot knocked Arnold off his horse and the gun slipped from his fingers.

Arnold’s horse bolted and came alongside Bohannan who reached over to jerk the rifle out of his partner’s boot. Davis, the second posseman, had been firing at the outlaws, apparently with no effect. He was closest to Bohannan and saw the outlaw swinging up the rifle. He knew his number was on that bullet if Bohannan got the rifle up to his shoulder.

Spurring his horse up against Bohannan, he stuck his empty revolver in the man’s face and yelled for him to drop the rifle or he’d blow his head off. Bohannan had no idea the gun was empty so he let the rifle drop.

The other two possemen advanced then and they all rode back to Sargent with one prisoner, leaving Arnold where he had fallen. The men in Sargent weren’t sure if the Brown County men’s story was true so they called the sheriff in Broken Bow. The two who had not been involved in the shooting were allowed to go on home.

Harris, the man who had shot Arnold, was furious at the delay but Arnold had shot him in the shoulder so he allowed the doctor to take care of that wound.

Sheriff Penn arrived, an autopsy was performed on Arnold, and the decision was that Harris had shot in self-defense. It was learned that both Arnold and Bohannan were wanted in other counties for crimes. There was a hundred-dollar reward for the capture of Bohannan.