A desperate gun battle southeast of the present city of Ardmore in May 1885, cost the lives of four men early one morning and subsequently, others joined the cavalcade of death as the result of the rashness of a deputy marshal who led the ill advised onslaught on a band of barricaded killers.
United States deputy marshal Jim Guy, brother of Governor Guy of the Chickasaw nation, had a warrant for the arrest of Jim and Pink Lee, also for Dallas Humby, an Indian negro charged with killing his wife. The Lees, together with Frank Pierce, were wanted for stealing stock from small ranchers in the vicinity of Delaware Bend and running them to the Lee ranch on Cool Branch near Ardmore.
(Note: Where is Delaware Bend?)
Pierce was shot and killed a few days before the fight at the Lee ranch as he was attempting to flee across Red river. Andy Roff, one of the victims of the Lee ranch shooting, advised against the expedition, knowing that the Lee's would be strongly fortified and not inclined to submit peaceably. Finally Roff was persuaded to join the posse which was composed of Jim Guy, deputy marshal; andy and Jim Roff, Billy Kirksley, "Windy" Johnson, and Emerson Folsom, a full blood Choctaw.
On the morning of the first of May, 1885, Guy marshalled his forces at Henderson's store on the Washita, ten miles from the Lee ranch. There were about a dozen men in the posse at this time, including Bob Scivally, who was a young rancher near the present town of Springer.
They arrived at the Lee ranch at sunrise. The ranch house was a two room log structure with a small window on the north side of the east room. The house had been skillfully arranged to resist attack with port holes through which to shoot. A short distance east of the house was a boggy branch and when Guy's forces arrived they found they could not pass, only Jim Roff's horse reaching the opposite bank.
They agreed to leave their horses in care of Johnson and Sewally (could this be the above Scivally) and walk to the house. Guy told his men if the Lee boys refused to surrender, he would withdraw his forces. When the posse neared the northeast corner of the house, Ed Steine, brother-in-law of the Lee's, opened the shutter of the window and asked them what they wanted. Guy told him he had a warrant for Jim and Pink Lee and for Dallas Humby, also a warrant from Governor Wolfe to cut their fence that was thrown around the ranch illegally and advised those in the house to come out and surrender.
Steine told them to come to the front of the house and they would talk it over. Guy and Folsom walked to the front near a large oak tree and Guy set his gun down. A moment later, a shot was fired from the building, killing him instantly; the shot was supposed to have been fired by Humby. A few moments later, from the end of the house, was heard a volley of shots into the group of men outside.
Andy and Jim Roff, and Billy Kirksley, were shot down at the first volley. Jim Roff and Kirksley were killed instantly and Andy Roff, though badly wounded, managed to get some distance from the house. Other members of the party fled from the scene of danger, some of them reaching the shelter of a gulch and others running and hiding from tree to tree as they fired back. They all eventually made their escape.
Andy Roff was shot to death while sitting beneath a tree.
The gang at
that time consisted of Jim, Pink and Tom Lee, Ed Steine, Tom Cole, Jim
Copeland, Dallas Humby and the Dyer brothers.
After the killing of the sheriff in Lamar County, Texas, a mob took the Dyer brothers and Dallas Humby and hanged them. A posse burned the Lee ranch buildings and rewards were offered for the capture of the gang.
Ed Steine and Jim Lee surrendered. Steine was tried and acquitted. He died a few years later. Tom Lee was arrested for larceny. Jim and Pink Lee remained at large. They were heavily armed and defied arrest.
They were located near Delaware Bend on Red River. A posse surrounded the house in which they were hiding. Pink Lee was killed instantly. Jim Lee was mortally wounded and died the next day.
Jim Copeland was killed in the Indian Territory. Tom Cole was killed in the Chickasaw Nation. The old Lee ranch was burned by a posse.