John Wesley Hardin ( – ) was an American Old West outlaw, gunfighter, lawyer and controversial folk icon. Hardin often got into trouble with the law from an early age. He killed his first man at the age of 15, claiming he did so in self-defense. Pursued by lawmen for most of his life, in 1877, at the age of 23, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison for murder. At ...
John Wesley Hardin was born in Bonham, Texas in 1853. His father, Reverend John Gibson Hardin, and mother, Mary Elizabeth Dixon, had high hopes for their second son, whom they named after John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist branch of Protestantism.
John Wesley Hardin was the most notorious killer and quick-draw gunman of the Texas frontier. He killed at least 21 men in gun duels and ambushes in the period 1868–77. Reaching adolescence as the defeated South entered the Reconstruction period, Hardin was virulently antiblack and anti-Yankee and,
John Wesley Hardin | Biography, Wild West & Quick-Draw Gunman - Britannica
John Wesley Hardin, one of the bloodiest killers of the Old West, is murdered by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.
For all his many confrontations, practiced enemies, and capable adversaries, John Wesley Hardin never faced a greater opponent or more serious threat than his formidable self. While claiming his every violent act was out of the “first law of nature: self-preservation,” again and again, he made choices more likely to jeopardize than secure his fiery mortal spark. And contemporary historians ...
Hardin, John Wesley (1853–1895). John Wesley (Wes) Hardin, outlaw, son of James G. and Elizabeth Hardin, was born in Bonham, Texas, on . His father was a Methodist preacher, circuit rider, schoolteacher, and lawyer. Hardin's violent career started in 1867 with a schoolyard squabble in which he stabbed another youth.