?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(CRIME.) Notebook kept by a Wild West-era bounty hunter. 28 pages of printed forms completed in manuscript, 15 pages with a clipping on each page, 5 pages of manuscript with a photograph laid down on each, and 7 additional pages of manuscript. Oblong 8vo, 4 x 6½ inches, original cloth, worn; moderate wear to contents; at least two leaves torn out. No place, circa 1888-1891
This notebook was printed for the use of bounty hunters, with a form on each page for recording a suspect's physical description, crime, and most importantly the reward offered. This volume has been heavily used for its intended purpose. For example, the first page is filled in with details of William B. Tascott, wanted for the February 1888 murder of A.J. Snell, with a $10,000 reward offered by Mrs. Snell. T.C. Kyle, wanted in Harrison County, Nebraska, "stuters, has practicd medison, has peculir walk." John B. Lehman was sought for a July 1889 murder in Custer County, Dakota Territory, with a $500 reward. Dan Hawkins was sought in Chadron County, Nebraska for the rape of a "girl 9 years old." Perhaps the most famous outlaws in the book are brothers Fletcher Franklin and Coon/Conn/Conrad Franklin, described in some newspaper accounts as former members of the Jesse James gang. Fletcher is here wanted for murder and horse stealing, with a $1600 reward posted in Atchison County, Missouri.
Perhaps the most interesting are the 5 fugitives for whom our bounty hunter has found albumen photographs; they are mounted in the rear of the notebook with manuscript descriptions. We have found two of them listed in the 1 December 1890 issue of Detective World with similar descriptions: a murderer named Harry W. Hall who had escaped from Nebraska Penitentiary, and Irish-born A.P. Crilley, on the lam from Allentown, PA after procuring a fatal abortion.
The notebook has a printed "Copyrighted May 17, 1887" label with an inked "J.A. Ellis, Norton, Kans." stamp. J.A. Ellis shows up in the Norton, KS newspaper during this period as a stonemason; but we have found nothing about his sideline of printing up bounty hunter notebooks. Nor can we determine the enterprising crimefighter who used this notebook, although the entries are mostly for the midwest and southwest, and Kansas seems like a good possibility.
