Hank Vaughan

American outlaw and gunslinger

  • Born: April 27, 1849
  • Birthplace: Near Coburg, Oregon
  • Died: June 15, 1893
  • Place of death: Pendleton, Oregon

Major offenses: Cattle rustling, robbery, murder, and bigamy

Active: 1864-1893

Locale: Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and Washington

Early Life

Henry “Hank” Vaughan (vawn) was born April 27, 1849, in the southern Willamette Valley, Oregon. Both his parents were settlers who traveled the Oregon Trail. Hank was one of seven children and spent most of his time helping on the family farm. In 1861, the Vaughan family left the Willamette Valley, moving to The Dalles in eastern Oregon along the Columbia River. Several years later, the family moved to Canyon City, Oregon, in the hope of profiting by starting a ranch that sold horses and beef to gold miners moving into the region. Vaughan shed the innocence of youth early: By age fifteen, he was facing his first criminal charge of murder.

Criminal Career

In 1864, Vaughan had a drunken argument with a man who refused to pay fees to Vaughan for tending his horse. Vaughan pulled a revolver and shot the man through the head, killing him. Vaughan was arrested, and while out on bail he tracked down and shot the man who had filed murder charges against him. Vaughan was rearrested, but his family convinced a judge to allow him to enlist in the army rather than face trial and punishment. Vaughan was a problem recruit and dishonorably discharged after six weeks.

In early 1865, Vaughan teamed with Dick Burton and headed to the Idaho goldfields. While traveling through Umatilla County, Oregon, the two men rustled horses and were pursued by a sheriff’s posse. The posse caught the rustlers camping and a shoot-out ensued. Burton was killed, and Vaughan killed a deputy and wounded the sheriff. The sheriff was able to wound Vaughan in the arm, slowing Vaughan’s escape; he was quickly captured.

Vaughan was tried in Baker County, Oregon, on charges of murder and horse theft, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison at hard labor. A lynch mob marched on the jail, thinking Vaughan got off easy. Vaughan was immediately transported to the penitentiary in Portland and six months later moved to the penitentiary in Salem.

The Salem prison was under construction, and inmates were made to build their own facility. During his incarceration, Vaughan learned blacksmithing, carpentry, and bricklaying, as well as how to read and write. In 1870, Vaughan was pardoned for good behavior.

Cattle Rustling

Within months of his release, Vaughan established an operation near Toano, Nevada, where he made enough money, between rustling and blacksmithing, to buy land near Elko, Nevada. In 1875, he married Lois McCarty, sister of the outlaw McCarty brothers. The Vaughans had two sons, but Lois soon left Hank, taking the boys with her. Shortly after Lois left, Hank was shot in the head during a gunfight in Arizona. After this injury, Vaughan moved to Pendleton, Oregon, and married Louisa Ditty, despite not being divorced from his first wife.

Vaughan set up rustling operations on the Umatilla Indian Reservation and at nearby Spokane Falls; both locations were along cattle-drive routes. Because Vaughan was never home and was a philanderer, Louisa soon left him. In 1881, Vaughan arrived in Prineville, Oregon, a town whose history of frontier violence and lawlessness was worse than that of Dodge City, Kansas, or Tombstone, Arizona. The local Prineville cattlemen’s association established a vigilante posse to hunt down rustlers, and Vaughan wanted to see how this might affect his operations. He approached a veteran gunslinger from New Mexico, Charlie Long, who had been hired as a ranch boss and “troubleshooter” by the vigilante posse. The two men played cards until Long refused a drink bought by Vaughan. Insulting words escalated into one of the most famous gunfights in American history. Long shot Vaughan in the head and twice in the chest; Vaughan hit Long four times in the chest. Unbelievably, both men survived.

After recovering from his wounds, Vaughan met the widow Martha Robie. Robie was relatively wealthy and owned a large tract of land on the Umatilla Reservation. Vaughan married her, though at the time he was not divorced from either of his previous wives. The couple established a successful farming operation, but Vaughan continued to rustle livestock using reservation natives and his former brothers-in-law as confederates.

In 1886, Vaughan humiliated a man by shooting at his feet to make him “dance.” The man ambushed Vaughan the next day and seriously wounded him in the right arm. During his recovery, Vaughan learned to draw and shoot left-handed and spent much of his time gambling. In Centerville, Washington, Vaughan severely beat a man he accused of cheating and was arrested. Before his trial, Vaughan bribed the principal witness into not testifying. Later that year, he and Martha sold their farm for a profit and spent time traveling the country, seeking out spas and hot springs to help speed Vaughan’s recovery.

On June 2, 1893—while Vaughan was drunk and galloping his horse up and down Main Street in Pendleton, Oregon, and shooting out streetlights—his horse stumbled on a concrete sidewalk. Vaughan was thrown headfirst onto the road, fracturing his skull. He survived two weeks in a coma before dying.

Although Vaughan engaged in cattle rustling, robbery, and murder, as well as bigamy, during his storied career, he managed to avoid legal punishment with the exception of the five years he served on his life sentence for murder.

Impact

Hank Vaughan was a man whose quick temper and antisocial attitudes typify legendary desperadoes of the Old West. Vaughan seemed to take everything in life as a personal challenge: He had a disregard for any law he found personally troublesome—whether it involved marriage, rustling, or murder—and seemed to see no difference between his legitimate and illegal operations. Vaughan took pride in aggressively taking advantage of the lawless period of the early Pacific Northwest. However, stories abound that, when not drunk, Vaughan was a friendly, outgoing man who willingly helped neighbors and local law enforcement. Tales of Vaughan riding horses into saloons and shooting up towns, his unmatched quick-draw speed, his rustling activities, and his survival of thirteen bullet wounds made him a mythic figure in the Pacific Northwest.

Bibliography

Ontko, Gale. Thunder over the Ochoco: And, The Juniper Trees Bore Fruit. Bend, Oreg.: Maverick, 1999. The fifth volume in a series documenting the history and settlement of Oregon, with one of the best accounts of the criminal activities of Vaughan.

Skovlin, Jon M. Hank Vaughan, 1849-1893: A Hell-Raising Horse Trader of Bunchgrass Territory. Cove, Oreg.: Reflections, 1996. Well-documented and illustrated biography of Vaughan, albeit slightly romanticized.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. In Pursuit of the McCartys. Cove, Oreg.: Reflections, 2001. A historical biography of the McCartys, a family that produced three outlaw sons and were allies and in-laws of Hank Vaughan during the period of his criminal activities.