The Unsolved Murder of
Ben Thompson
Pistoleer Extraordinary
Ben Thompson was only thirteen when he deliberately shot
and wounded his playmate, Joe Brown. Thereafter until
his own melodramatic end by lead-poisoning on the night of
March 11, 1884, Ben Thompson of Austin dispatched an un-
counted but startling number of victims of his fatal marks-
manship.
Of the more notorious gunmen of the western and south-
western frontier, Thompson was the most interesting, colorful,
and dangerous. As to his prowess with a revolver, let us hear
from a contemporary expert. "Bat" Masterson, a famous pistoleer
himself and marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, in its tumultuous
days during the great cattle drives, wrote the following tribute
to Ben:
It is doubtful if in his time there was another man living who equalled
him with a pistol in a life-and-death struggle. Thompson, in the first place,
possessed a much higher order of intelligence than the average man-killer
of his time. He was absolutely without fear and his nerves were those
of the finest metal. He shot at an adversary with the same precision and
deliberation that he shot at a target. A past-master in the use of the
pistol, his aim was as true as his nerves were strong and steady.
Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Billy Tilghman, Charley Bassett, Luke
Short, Clay Allison, and Jim Curry were all men who . . . played their
part on the lurid edge of our western frontier at the same time Ben was
playing his, and it is safe to assume that not one of them would have de-
clined the gage of battle had he flung it down. However, I am constrained
to say that little doubt exists in my mind that Thompson would have been
the winner.
Ben Thompson's biography appeared as long ago as 1884.
The book, entitled Life
and
Adventures
of
Ben
Thompson,
the
Famous
Texan,
was written by W. M. Walton of Austin, better
known as Major Buck Walton, a leading criminal lawyer and
once attorney general of Texas. He died in Austin in 1914.
The book is a rare item of Texana, available today only in cheap
reprints.
In 1909 and 1910 Major Walton talked frequently with John
Wheeler, now a lawyer in San Antonio, about his personal ex-
periences with Thompson. He said he had defended Thompson
at least fifteen times for homicide and had gained a state-wide
reputation as a criminal lawyer for getting him acquitted each
time. He explained that, though often the aggressor, Thompson
was careful to make sure each time that his adversary made
the first move, sometimes letting him draw first. Thompson
was familiar with the vital spots in the human body and was
a deadly shot under the most difficult circumstances. He was
never known to lose his nerve. So observed Major Walton.
Thompson was born of English parents in Nova Scotia in
1843. The family moved to Austin when he was a child. The
father, a seafaring man, left home, presumably to go to sea,
and was never heard of again.
Still a youngster, Ben started work in Austin as a printer.
After a while he went to New Orleans, where he got a job on
the Picayune.
While riding an omnibus one day, he noticed the
unwelcome attentions a young Frenchman was bestowing upon
an unescorted young woman. Ben interfered. Promptly there
was a fight, in which the Frenchman, bearing the romantic
name of Emile de Tour, was disabled by Ben's flashing knife.
Ben escaped from the omnibus but a few days later was traced
to the Picayune
office, where he received a challenge from the
Frenchman to fight a duel.
As the challenged party, Ben had the choice of weapons. He
proposed that the duelists enter a darkened room and fight
with knives until one was killed. De Tour objected but at length
was prevailed upon to accept in order to uphold his honor. Thus,
in the gray and eerie dawn the duelists were conducted by their
friends to an abandoned icehouse. They entered blindfolded,
each carrying a bowie knife. The door was closed and locked
from the outside. After a few minutes there was a knock on
the inside of the door. It was opened, and Ben emerged, leaving
the Frenchman bloody and lifeless within. Ben was spirited
away by his fellow-printers, hidden in the Italian quarter, and
finally assisted out of New Orleans in darkness.
he found fascinating in contrast to the prosaic trade of printer.
Soon after the outbreak of the War between the States, Ben
enlisted as a Confederate soldier. While at Fort Clark, he
shot a sergeant and a lieutenant as the result of being charged
with a trivial offense. He escaped from his captors, rejoined
the Texas Confederates elsewhere, and was soon involved in
other scrapes. He was sent to another border point, where
he found gambling a profitable pastime. Since trouble and Ben
Thompson, however, were never long separated, he was headed
for another difficulty. A quarrel flared between him and a
group of Mexicans in Laredo, with whom he was gambling.
Ben killed two of them and hastily departed. Though hotly
pursued, he managed to escape again and at length found his
way back to Austin.
In Austin he shot and killed a man named John Coombs. He
escaped from the Austin jail and hurried to Mexico to join
the forces of General Mejia, one of Maximilian's officers. He
had many adventures until the Maximilian cause was lost, after
which he again returned to Austin. The War between the States
was over. Thompson was rearrested and tried for the Coombs
killing. He was convicted and served two years in prison.
Free again, Ben decided to seek greener fields. He went to
Abilene, Kansas, and opened the Bull's Head Saloon, with his
fellow-Texan, Phil Coe, as his partner. He had a run-in with
Wild Bill Hickok in which the accounts give Wild Bill the de-
cision, though no shooting took place. Later Phil Coe was
killed by Wild Bill, the casus
belli
being Coe's sweetheart, whom
Wild Bill desired for himself. Billy Thompson, Ben's brother,
killed Sheriff Whitney in Ellsworth, Kansas. It was time for
Ben to move on.
We next find him in Colorado, employed by the Atchison,
Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to do strong-arm work for the
company in its struggle with its aggressive rival, the Denver
and Rio Grande. His fee was $5,000. Contemporary news-
paper accounts of the troubles that followed, in which Ben's
desperate courage stood off a mob, appeared to justify the
company's judgment in hiring him.
He returned to Austin to resume his vocation as a gambler.
Somebody suggested he would make a fine city marshal. The
idea appealed to him, and he entered the race with the endorse-
ment of several newspapers and many prominent citizens, but his
first political contest ended in failure.
It is well at this point to pause a moment for a comment on
Ben's character and personality. He was by no means all bad.
He was warmhearted, kind in many ways, and extremely
loyal to his friends. He seems to have been the victim of a dual
personality. When sober, he was soft-spoken and courteous. He
usually dressed well, sometimes fastidiously. But liquor trans-
formed him. Intoxicated, he was often overbearing and ar-
rogant. He was ready to fight against any odds. The greater
the danger, the cooler and more deadly he became. Most of the
killers of his time were outlaws. Ben was a professional gambler.
Undaunted by his first defeat, he entered the race for city
marshal a second time. He made a better campaign and was
elected. There is no doubt that, while he served as marshal of
Austin, he was outstandingly successful in at least one respect.
The denizens of the local underworld had too much concern
for his shooting ability to risk his anger. Major crime dropped
to an all-time low.
Sometime before his election as marshal, Ben had an adventure
in San Antonio that became the first link in a chain of circum-
stances leading to the climax of his career. Destiny was getting
ready to call her loan.
Ben went to Jack Harris's gambling establishment near the
northeast corner of Main Plaza. It was the most notorious of
the many flaming night-spots of the San Antonio of that period.
On the site now occupied by the thirteen-story National Bank
of Commerce Building, about twenty-five feet west of Soledad
Street, stood a two-story structure, containing a saloon in front
on the ground floor, the stage of the Vaudeville Theatre in the
rear, and theatre stalls on the second floor. The gambling hall
was on the second floor of the adjoining corner building.
Ben tried his luck at cards. At first he lost heavily, and then
he won. The game was finally being settled when an argument
arose as to the amount due the bank. Thompson backed out of
the gambling hall with his revolver drawn on Joe Foster, the
dealer.
Sometime later when Ben was again in San Antonio, he was
told he was no longer welcome at the Harris establishment
and that Harris had threatened to shoot him on sight.
On July 11, 1882, Ben took his small son and daughter to San
Antonio to let them visit friends there. He was perhaps a little
fatigued from performing his duties as marshal and felt the
need of relaxation. To him relaxation meant gambling, and
Harris, upon learning that Ben was in town again and would
probably visit his place, prepared himself with a double-barrel
shotgun. It was deepening twilight when Thompson approached
the saloon under the gambling hall. A screen stood between the
entrance and the interior of the saloon, in the rear of which
Harris waited with the barrel of his shotgun hooked over the
stump of his left arm. The band of the Vaudeville Theatre was
blaring on the balcony outside. People were gathering on the
sidewalk. Thompson looked through the Venetian blind and
saw the half-hidden Harris. There was an interchange of
profanity, and Thompson drew and fired through the screen.
The bullet struck the wall, ricocheted, and then entered the
body of Harris. Ben fired twice more. Harris had no time to
shoot. He was carried home, where he died within a short time.
Ben went to the Menger Hotel, remaining there until the next
day when he surrendered and was placed in the Bexar County
jail. He was not tried until January, 1883. An impressive group
of prominent lawyers was employed by the prosecution to op-
pose an equally prominent group, engaged by the defense.
The proceedings of the trial provoked the most intense interest
throughout Texas. The jury finally received the case, retired, ate
their supper, and went to bed. At eight o'clock the next morning
they brought in a verdict of not guilty.
Ben's return to Austin was like the home-coming of a hero
from the wars. A crowd greeted him with cheers at the railroad
station. When he stepped into a waiting carriage, a number of
excited admirers rushed forward, unharnessed the horses, and
personally drew the carriage up Congress Avenue. Ben was
home again but no longer marshal.
A long series of adventures, some desperate, some dramatic,
and some comical, now followed. Ben developed a taste for
shooting up Austin. He disapproved of a certain gambling
house--the cynical said it was a successful rival; so he shot
up the keno game and everything else in sight. One evening
he strolled through the restricted district and shot out every
conspicuous light. The policemen of Austin, convinced that dis-
cretion was indeed the better part of valor, were careful invari-
ably to seek Ben, when on his sprees, at places where they knew
he would not be. When he rampaged through the less reputable
districts, they sought him industriously behind the capitol.
drama was in full swing, he struck a theatrical attitude, un-
limbered his revolver, and began firing. The audience, not
realizing the cartridges were blanks, emptied the theatre in
a twinkling. Ben was overcome with laughter.
On another occasion he decided to break up the annual ban-
quet of the Cattlemen's Convention. He suddenly entered the
banquet hall and created a commotion, flourishing his revolver.
Most of the guests departed promptly, some even going through
the windows. It was reported that Shanghai Pierce carried
the window sash with him.
On March 10, 1884, Ben renewed acquaintance with a fellow
man-killer, King Fisher. He and Fisher had been on unfriendly
terms, but the difficulty was supposed to have been patched up
by their friends. Fisher, then deputy sheriff of Uvalde County,
was in Austin on business. His work completed, he joined
Thompson to visit the local bars and to sample their wares.
King Fisher had earned his reputation as a killer along or
near the Rio Grande. He had been the head of a band of outlaws
who operated in Dimmit and Maverick counties. Where a
certain road forked, one branch bore the sign: "This is King
Fisher's road. Take the other." Prudent people took "the other."
After Fisher had killed many men, most of them Mexicans, he
had married, presumably reformed, and had been elected deputy
sheriff of Uvalde County. He was tall, well proportioned, hand-
some, dashing. Frank M. Edwards of Kerr County, who saw
Fisher frequently, said he dressed like a modern movie cowboy.
When N. A. Jennings saw him, he was wearing an ornamented
Mexican sombrero, a black Mexican jacket embroidered with
gold, a crimson sash, and boots. Swinging from his belt were
two silver-plated, ivory-handled revolvers. After his alleged
reform, he dressed more moderately.
He was an intimate friend of Joe Foster's. Foster had been
an associate of Jack Harris's when Harris was killed by Thomp-
son. It was Ben's quarrel with Foster when gambling with him
that had led to the killing. When King Fisher had once spent
a period languishing in the Bexa'r County jail, Foster had sent
him his meals and had shown him many attentions. Fisher
must have been familiar with the enmity between Foster and
Thompson. As for Fisher's attitude toward Thompson, a cor-
respondent for the Galveston News
wrote that it was known
that Fisher always had contempt for Ben.
After making the rounds in Austin with Ben, Fisher urged
him to go on to San Antonio on the way to Fisher's home in
Uvalde. At length Ben agreed to go a part of the way. Once
on the train, however, he consented to go on to San Antonio
to spend a convivial evening there with Fisher. Both men had
been drinking for hours, and Thompson was in an obstreperous
mood. He insulted a German passenger and struck the colored
porter. Fisher told him to let the porter alone or either he
or Thompson would die. This threat succeeded in quieting Ben.
It is significant as an indication of Fisher's real feeling toward
his companion, whom he was supposed to befriend.
They reached San Antonio about 8 P.M., had several drinks
together, and then repaired to Turner Hall, at Houston and
St. Mary's Streets, to see a performance of East
Lynne.
During intermissions they visited the bar in the building for
more alcoholic reinforcements. Major Walton writes that be-
fore the last act of the play, Ben was "over-persuaded" to go
with Fisher to Harris's Vaudeville Theatre, then operated by
Joe Foster and Billy Simms.
News of their coming to the Vaudeville Theatre undoubtedly
preceded them. In fact, according to John R. Lunsford (at the
time a reporter for the San Antonio Light),
word that Thomp-
son had boarded the train for San Antonio was quickly wired
from Austin to the proprietors of the theatre, who in turn
promptly notified the San Antonio police, and preparations were
made for a possible tragedy.
Billy Simms had been a boyhood playmate of Ben's in Austin.
They had attended Professor Swancoat's private school there
and had often bathed together in the Colorado River. Ben
had staked Simms to his first bank-roll as a professional gambler
but had later fallen out with him and had forced him to leave
Austin.
Thompson and Fisher were greeted by Simms when they
entered the theatre; and the three, joined by a policeman, Jacob
S. Coy, seated themselves at a table upstairs and began drinking.
After a few minutes Ben expressed a wish to talk with Joe
Foster. Foster came forward but calmly declined to drink
with Ben or even to shake hands with him. Angered by Foster's
unfriendly response, Ben slapped him with his left hand and
drew his revolver with his right. Coy immediately grabbed his
right arm, preventing him from raising his pistol, which Ben
fired repeatedly.
One bullet struck Foster in the leg. As the group struggled,
Fisher, Thompson, and Coy were close together, Coy hanging
desperately to Ben's pistol arm. Within a few seconds after
the trouble started, there was a sudden volley of shots. Thompson
and Fisher fell to the floor, Thompson dragging Coy down
with him. Coy rose unharmed, but both Thompson and Fisher
lay dead, riddled with bullets. One report said there were nine
wounds in Thompson and thirteen in Fisher.
A great deal of conflicting testimony was given by the wit-
nesses to the coroner's jury. After considering this testimony
for fifteen minutes, the jury returned with the following verdict:
"That Ben Thompson and J. K. Fisher both came to their deaths
on the 11th day of March, A. D. 1884, while at the Vaudeville
Theatre in San Antonio, Texas, from the effects of pistol shot
wounds from pistols held and fired from the hands of J. C. Foster
and Jacob S. Coy, and we further find that the said killing was
justifiable and done in self-defense in the immediate danger
of life."
This double killing stirred Texas as no other affair of the
kind ever had before or has since. The state's leading news-
papers were filled with lengthy reports and bitter editorials,
the Austin papers charging foul murder. Many writers thought
there was something implausible about the verdict of the coroner's
jury because it seemed clearly impossible for Coy and Foster
to have shot the two men so many times.
The mystery was partly cleared by the publication in 1934
of a book entitled Glamorous
Days
by Frank H. Bushick of
San Antonio. Mr. Bushick, until a few years ago, was tax com-
missioner of the city of San Antonio and was once editor of the
San Antonio Express.
He was well acquainted with the city's
affairs in the early eighties. In the chapter, "Who Killed Ben
Thompson?" he explained that Thompson and Fisher were
assassinated by men concealed in a theatre box above them.
The killers were three "hangers-on" at the theatre, a bartender
named McLaughlin, a gambler called Canada Bill, and a variety
theatre performer, Harry Tremaine. They had been stationed
in the box, ready to fire in case of trouble. In the excitement
immediately following the killing, they slipped away from
the building unnoticed and left for parts unknown. Mr. Bushick
Remarked that for political reasons the city officers were
friendly to the local gamblers and that the coroner's inquest
was perfunctory. A careful study of all the testimony in the
case suggests that this account may likely be the true one.
The part of the mystery still unexplained concerns King
Fisher's role. Was Fisher, acting the part of Ben's friend,
actually luring him into a trap? It is certainly true that against
his better judgment, Ben was persuaded to visit San Antonio
and was later talked into going to the Vaudeville Theatre. It
is significant also that when drinking with Simms, Coy, and
Thompson, Fisher had remarked impatiently to Ben: "I thought
we were going to have some fun, but don't talk about the
past times." This remark was obviously intended to goad Thomp-
son into action.
If King Fisher acted as a decoy, it is puzzling that he himself
was murdered and received thirteen wounds, whereas Ben had
nine. It is hardly logical to say that Fisher was killed because
of his proximity to Thompson when Coy, who was struggling
with Thompson, was not hurt by the assassins. These facts
hint that Fisher, possibly a double-crosser in the transaction,
was himself double-crossed. But speculation, however interesting,
is inconclusive. Now, more than sixty years after San Antonio's
most sensational double murder, the question: "Why was King
Fisher killed?" will probably remain forever unanswered.
Bushick, Frank H., Glamorous
Days.
Cunningham, Eugene, Triggernometry.
Raine, William MacLeod, Guns of the Frontier.
Sabin, Edwin L., Wild Men of the Wild West.
Walton, W. M., Life and Adventures of Ben Thompson, the Famous Texan
(Austin, 1884). First edition.
White. Owen P., Lead and Likker.
Williams, Harry, Legends of the Great Southwest.
Articles
"Ben Thompson, Slain Fifty Years Ago, Still Talked About," in the San
Antonio Express.
Reprinted in Frontier
Times,
September, 1934.
Gillett, J. B., "Ben Thompson and Billy Sims," Frontier
Times,
October
1934.
Hunter, J. Marvin, "Ben Thompson: Killer of Men," Frontier
Times
May, 1939.
Lunsford, John R., "How Ben Thompson Died with His Boots On," in the
San Antonio Express.
Reprinted in Frontier
Times,
November, 1931.
Court records in the trial of Ben Thompson for the killing of Jack Harris.
Personal interviews with J. K. Beretta and John Wheeler of San Antonio,
and Frank M. Edwards of Pleasure Hill, Kerr County, Texas.
How to cite:
Paul Adams, "Unsolved Murder of Ben Thompson", Volume 48, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v048/n3/contrib_DIVL5492.html
[Accessed Tue Dec 2 13:51:12 CST 2008]
