DEADWOOD'S WANDERING SOUL- Part I

As a miner, he seemed to own a homing device which always found the greatest advantage, whether digging for gold, or just shaking down the miners who did. Or just meeting and befriending the most important people in his sphere. As a troubadour and businessman, he covered more of the planet than any of his peers, and with glowing reviews- but living a lifestyle best compared to a wanted fugitive. He cannot be found on a single census after his eighth year. Still, history reveals that he can be easily traced by the news headlines, some false, some scandalous, some almost worshipful, which he left in at least nine states and on three continents. Curiously, he left no record of his marriages, or any divorces. In fact he lived unencumbered by family, or a steady home, or intimate friends, and left no designated heirs... But in spite of his careful isolation, he enjoyed fraternity with many of the most famous people of his time, and not surprisingly, he died a rich man. Yet we have no idea, really, how he did it. Tongue in cheek, he always liked to say it was playing his banjo... And that is about 90% of what we really know about him. This is the story of a true mystery man... we don't even know what he looked like... but through a 1907 newspaper interview he gave us a peak into just how amazing his life was. And after you take it all in, you too will wonder: Who in the world was this guy? **************** **************************************************************************************

Deadwood's Wandering Soul ************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************************** The Mysterious, Sometimes Dangerous, Unending Saga of “Banjo Dick” Brown, once known as Deadwood Dick. ***************************************************************************************** by Russell Cushman **************************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************************** Due to Hollywood's impact on our culture, perhaps no region on earth hosts as many places with such powerful branding and mystique as the American West: Names which immediately paint visions in one's mind, like Dodge City, or Tombstone or San Francisco- or genuinely hallowed places like the Alamo or Rancho de Taos or Custer's Battlefield. And none invoke more dramatic images than Deadwood. “Dead wood” had long been a term for used or retired cards in a poker game- those cards which have been “discarded.” As dead wood, they could not be used again, but a sharp, dishonest dealer might cleverly retrieve one if it was useful in winning his hand. A fellow called “deadwood” might be the one who was thought to surreptitiously dip his hand in that forbidden till whenever he could. And there was one “Deadwood Dick” in the Old West who appears to have built a fortune under such suspicions. ******************************************************************************************

Up until recent times, “Deadwood Dick” was a household name, like Johnny Appleseed, or Jane Doe, but few of us today know why- or care. The intrepid character by that name in pulp fiction was the amalgamation of a few facts and tons of imagination in the mind of Ed Wheeler, his creator, and Wheeler had never even been to Deadwood. It was Wheeler's somewhat irresponsible knack for writing with anarchic appeal, aimed at ten-year-olds, which guarranteed his success. He gave the dashing fictional figure his courage and insolent genius, and that mysterious, ubiquitous black mask of the anonymous protagonist from the dark side, which must have inspired most of the masked anti-heroes of the 1930's, including the Green Hornet and Zorro and the Lone Ranger. **************************************************************************************** The nickname had been solidly associated with Deadwood, the Sodom of the Dakotas, in the very beginning of the town in the 1870's, and was quickly fortified by Ed Wheeler's pulp hero. And over decades it has been bantered around nostalgically to describe any notorious fellow who ever passed through Deadwood, South Dakota. Or any ten year-old who was good with his sling-shot. His name did not have to be Dick or Richard... he did not have to be a detective, or a jerk, or any of the other connotations of the name. Most of the men who semi-officially wore the name were not present during the wild old days of the West's most wide-open town. But they were once there, and were proud to play along. The town was always trying to increase tourism after the gold played out... and it always needed somebody handy to be... the “real” Deadwood Dick. ** **************************************************************************************** When lists were made by historians, of “real” Deadwood Dicks, there were always a few obvious possibilities of who made every list; men whose reputations for dark, early-day wildness and derring-do were legendary; Men who might have inspired the name, and even the super hero in all of the pulp fictions, which were printed for the next fifty years. One hundred years after those deadly days, most writers about Deadwood agreed there was one early controversial character who had to be at the top of every list- and this is an effort to track him down and see behind the mask of time...****************************** **************************************************************************************** The first mention of him, ominous and prophetic, may have been some brief articles out of Reno, Nevada, in 1868. In August Dick Brown and a fellow named Frank Henderson got into scrape over a girl in a saloon and ended up shooting at one another. After five shots were exchanged, one bullet was in Dick's ribs, and Henderson's coat was full of holes- and he was in jail. This seems to suggest that Dick was only defending himself, and Henderson was the attacker. But the Grand Jury turned the attacker loose after hearing all the details... and Dick Brown probably swore to himself that he might need a larger caliber revolver... Then a tiny article in the December 29, 1868 issue of the Virginia Enterprise (of Virginia City, Nevada) and repeated by the San Francisco Examiner, explained that a man named Brown had shot a man named Johnson on Christmas Day, and in spite of valiant efforts by a surgeon brought to the scene from Dutch Flat, the man had died. Brown, the shooter was reportedly in custody in Reno. Dick Brown was just twenty-four years old, and already he had two gunfights. The papers failed to mention that he was wounded badly in the second affair as well, but no vital organs had been damaged, and they also never reported later that this man named Brown was eventually released... with claims of self-defense, and with many lessons learned. Well, some lessons... ****** **************************************************************************************** At some point in 1870 Dick Brown meandered into Mormon country. Being a young man, raised by the wolves in the mining camps, he had no idea what ground he was trodding on... Around December a small December 29 news article announced: SHOT DEAD... and told of a fellow named Brown who had been killed in Provo. The another article cleared up the story... Brown was not dead, but he might wish that he was.

************************************************************************************** Unfortunately, we can never know if this was the same Dick Brown who was to storm the Salt Lake Concert Halls the next year... But there was apparently a shotgun wedding and a few years of misery for some Dick Brown, who eventually had to free himself from an unfaithful, adventuresome wife, who made his marriage affairs fodder for ye tabloids. Dick later admitted that he stayed at length with a Mormon family, long enough to prove himself, and learn the ropes into Mormon society. This frontier finishing school may have been where he gained some of his gentlemanly polish, and where he made a study of human nature, which served him well... ***************************************************************************************************** *************************************************************************************** Ira Brown learned early in his winning career that Westerners were quite patient and forgiving, and it took a lot to ruffle their feathers, if they liked you. Westerners were big on second chances and rehabilitation. Young in Brown's life he discovered something better than gold, something which represented an ocean of grace, which we call “the benefit of the doubt.” For most people gold had to be mined or earned, but using music as his entree, this fellow ingratiated himself with the most prominent citizens, and perfected the fleecing of gentlemen gamblers with impunity, in backroom games all across the continent. ******************************************************** *************************************************************************************** This Deadwood Dick was a devilishly handsome man who was raised in the gold fields of California, and was a very popular entertainer who spent his earliest years in mining towns all over the West. And he was directly associated with the first parties who scooped gold out of Deadwood's gulches (legally!). If that was not enough, he probably performed the most bizarre if not dramatic crime in Deadwood history, even eclipsing the murder of Wild Bill Hickok. But amazingly, there is no legend, no novel, not even an inaccurate TV mini-series devoted to his truly mind-boggling story. So many a mind will be boggled with this examination of Ira Harvey “Banjo Dick” Brown.**************************************************************** *************************************************************************************** As a man, his life was just a vapor. If his life story had been a toy balloon, it would have exploded and left little bits of rubber, most of them irretrievable, in every corner of the world. *************************************** *************************************************************************************** **************************************************************************************

BLAM... Blam, Blam, BLAM!! Like a cannon went the revolver from the shining frontier stage into the darkness of the audience. Big-eyed and drop-jawed, the modest but animated Deadwood crowd recoiled, unsure whether to hit the floor or to laugh uproariously as they had been. But a large man was down in the front by the piano, and someone called for the law. Somewhat blinded by the stage lights, Banjo Dick stood defiantly in a cloud of gun smoke, which now hovered motionless like an angel of death over the stage. His banjo uncharacteristically silent, he sat it on his foot, as he gradually lowered his revolver and gazed into the worst moment in his life. Having performed the ultimate, never here-to-fore seen “reality” drama in front of dozens of witnesses, Dick Brown gathered his wits and threw out a line, “He has followed me long enough!” ************************************************************************************************************** *************************************************************************************** The injured heckler moaned and begged for a doctor, with his lifeblood flowing from him until he was too weak to mumble. Nobody dared to retort to the crazed banjo man, that he need not worry about being followed anymore. ***************** ***************************************************************************************

Fannie Garretson, (above) his lady on stage, covered her face in disbelief. The dying man was Ed Shaughnessy, her former paramour, who considered them married after three years together in Cheyenne. The killer standing at her side was her brand new husband and musical partner on stage. They had just said their vows a few days before. Their duet terminally interrupted, Fannie was pretty sure her stage career was over as well. She could not wear all of the emotions swimming in her head. How does one emote shock, guilt, foreboding and deep regret all at once? Not even a good actress could interpret all of that. ** **************************************************************************************** That was the awful scene in Deadwood on November 16, just after Nine O'clock at the Bella Union variety show in 1876, when the legend of Deadwood Dick probably began. And it was there that a young banjo man learned that it was imprudent to shoot down anyone in the audience while performing. It was terrible for ticket sales. *************************************************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************************** Even the ruffians in Deadwood were skittish about lining up in rows to watch an armed actor who would not hesitate to shut you up forever. And Black Hills newspapers registered their contempt, the following article the most clever. *************************************************************************************** *************************************************************************************** The Drama At Deadwood ********************************************************************************* ************************************************************************************** "There is a small theater in the Black Hills, known as the Bella Union Varieties. The members of the company can find nothing in the range of dramatic literature that has sufficient realism to be set before an audience made up of pioneers, blackguards, gamblers and miners, to whom life is real and earnest, and not at all artificial. The actors cannot project themsleves into the tragedies of playwrights, so they set out their own tragedies in the presence of an appreciative audience. About the middle of November an ax was thrown upon the stage by the husband of one of the actresses. The stage was cleared, and the assailant assumed an attitude before the audience. Suddenly the avenger appeared at the wings- it was Dick Brown- and fired four shots at the intruder, shrieking as he threw down the revolver, 'He has followed me long enough.' The audience was wild with delight." *********************************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************** But ever resilient, Dick Brown was up to the challenge. It did not take long, and their Deadwood fans responded almost sympathetically, and Banjo Dick and Fannie Garretson were back on stage, with Brown's banjo lifting spirits and effectively neutralizing any fears, as if nothing had happened. Historians, especially those of Deadwood, later found dark humor in the incident, if not a useful branding. Early on, the boom-town was dubbed “Deadwood the Dreadful.” One Twentieth Century article claimed that early Deadwood inhabitants took shootings and killings humorously... that killings were regarded as jokes. A 1927 article in the Deadwood Pioneer-Times admitted that “Deadwood cherished and protected its killers with singular affection.” If Deadwood indulged its killers, it adored its entertainers, offering one of the largest gatherings of variety shows and opera houses in the West... ************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************** An earlier journalist went on to accuse Deadwood “Fathers” of giving killers “...royal privileges at the jail, speedy trials, and almost invariable acquittals.” At one point, during a particularly deadly spell, only one murder conviction had been achieved out of eighteen indictments. The press and the townspeople had totally succumbed to the surreal, macabre atmosphere... and after Banjo Dick, any reasonable excuse would do for acquittal, very similar to when James "Wild Bill" Hickok met his famous demise, and his killer was tolerated until vigilantes did what Deadwood justice would not do. ************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************************** “Deadwood... viewed bloodshed tolerantly, humorously, sometimes partisanly, but on the whole with a steady admiration...” *** *********************************************************************************************************** Dick and Fannie gave statements to the authorities, who in the newly-opened Dakota Territory were barely operational and ill-prepared to handle such an event. Never at a loss for words, Dick came ready to explain. It was as he carefully described, done “on the spur of the moment.” And that was good enough. It was considered by all involved to be reasonable to just let it go... after all the Black Hills needed a good banjo man... and his wife sang so pretty. *************************************************************************************************** ***********************************************************************************************************

So the Territorial authorities agreed to put all the unfortunate ugliness behind them, as long as Banjo Dick agreed to stick around until an official hearing could be assembled. His word was his bond. So it was back to the Bella Union, good times, and a string of still-unexplained but widely believed Black Hills rumors: Fannie supposedly got jealous for some reason, and committed suicide. Or, according to a different report, she at least tried to slit her own throat, with a straight razor, and almost succeeded in bleeding to death. Newspapers lamented her death for years... In those wild days, bloody hearsay was far more useful to editors than facts. Everybody wanted to be Mark Twain. ** ***********************************************************************************************************

Showing a particular knack for public relations, Fannie began to act as a frontier press agent, writing public statements to be published in Black Hills newspapers. She admitted that her lifestyle was a bit edgy, actually "notorious," and might draw criticism, but defended her husband, who had been trying to do things properly, and insisted that she was never married to Ed Shaughnessy, but had been awfully abused by him, and there was nothing improper about her and Brown going to Deadwood and getting married. And after Shaughnessy's recent drunken threats, they felt unsafe wherever they went, and were living in fear. In other words, Shaughnessy was a human powder keg, and something bad was destined to happen. And she and her man were innocent... more or less, at least by frontier standards. *********************************** *********************************************************************************************************** The news of scandal and the barroom gossip continued, even suggesting that Deadwood authorities had covered up the scandals of bigamy and murder. And whatever guilt Fannie felt, or had done or had tried to do, she had to have been suffering depression after witnessing the killing of love-crazed Shaughnessy, a man in love with her enough to trail her the fifty miles to Laramie, and then nearly three hundred miles through Sioux territory to Deadwood. The newspaper story of the suicide attempt may have had some basis in fact... but may have been something much more ominous, another cover-up of a bitter marital rift. Wife-beating was too common, and especially on the frontier, but the supposed bloodshed reported may have been evidence of an angry tantrum by a proud man who had been very careful about his cleverly crafted public image... the kind essential to any “confidence man.” Fannie had drawn too much critical attention to them, and may have caused the showdown with Shaughnessy, by not ditching him more effectively in Cheyenne, and there may have been much more at stake than the murder charges. ********************************** ************************************************************************************************************ Always ready to party, Deadwoodians threw together a benefit concert for poor fannie, to cheer the popular couple up, and help the newlyweds defray her medical expenses. And Banjo Dick soon entered a partnership with one of the West's favorite showmen, Billy Nuttall, who planned to leave soon to recruit a team of star performers. Deadwood would soon enjoy the grandest show in the territory. It was clear that no one blamed the couple for what happened, and the future was bright. ************************************************************************************* ************************************************************************************************************ Months later in July of 1877 a Territorial hearing finally exonerated Brown. It was a no-brainer: A drunk, boorish man who had made previous public death threats threw a scary object onto the stage, and Brown reacted like any self-respecting Deadwoodian. It was self-defense. A split citizenry retired to their corners, and celebrations and sinister schemes ensued. Midst all the chaos, the jaded couple made a quiet exit, and Banjo Dick committed himself to a gradual disappearance into the plains and history... and “Deadwood Dick” soon became, among other things, a prepossessing phantom who would shoot you dead, with no apologies. ************************************************************ ************************************************************************************************************ While Dick and Fannie headed south, all the way to Galveston, Their bizarre reputation grew. From Montana to Vermont, Americans read the exciting story of the valiant Deadwood actor protecting his wife from an attacker, as the legend grew wings and covered the country like a Canadian cold front. Even a Pennsylvania paper back home ran the proud tale of Dick Brown, a hometown boy, kin to many prominent local residents, making a name for himself. Most stories carried the initial fallacies, that the wild, drunken attacker had thrown a hatchet at his unfaithful, if not bigamous wife. The unwitting new husband had reacted like any man in his situation. He could not have known that the projectile was merely a bundle of love letters, sent from Fannie, declaring her devotion. *************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************************** It is not hard to imagine Banjo Dick Brown, a respected showman suddenly accused of murder, and with a multitude of witnesses, later privately (and understandably) threatening his wife- but something deeper might well have prompted his use of a straight razor, dangerously close to her jugular, warning her to never embarrass or implicate him again in such a mess as this. Dick was as tough as they come, but prison was not on his bucket list. ***************************************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************************** Simultaneously, inexplicably, someone from Deadwood sent out a curious press statement, which threw cold water on the grass fire. It reported that Dick Brown had been hung by a vigilance committee for killing Shaughnessy. Within months, newspapers all over the west, in places where Brown and his lady had performed, from San Francisco to Virginia City, had picked up and printed this story as well. And for many of their fans, these were the last words they ever read or heard about Banjo Dick. It is possible that cunning Dick somehow spread the rumor himself, but all we can assume from the news coverage is that when he became cognizant about the common belief of his reported vigilante trial and execution, “Deadwood Dick,” apparently decided to... let it be. At the time, it seemed like the wisest course, for Shaughnessy's many friends would no longer be out to kill him. And, it would also cease any investigations of him for other possible crimes. ******************************************* ********************************************************************************************************** Unaware that he was conversing with a dead man, the Los Angeles reporter must have been quite pleased with himself in 1907 after he interviewed the old gentleman who claimed to be, among other things, the “Deadwood Dick” of Dakota gold rush fame. Every writer knows that all that separates him from a lasting legacy is just one really well-told (and published) story. And here it was... or here it could be. But then he still could not refrain from warning his readers- this inflated story read more like fiction than the truth. But since this challenge has never intimidated journalists before, he eagerly continued. Some stories drive themselves. ***************************************** **********************************************************************************************************

The reporter had the advantage of being there, seeing something we can't, looking into the eyes of history, and they were hypnotic. This old man was a real find, because he not only had a great story, he was a good story-teller. Feeling every Media reporter's daily pressure to get a story, the writer at some point had to suspend his disbelief and go with it. My initial reaction when reading it was, walk away, it was pure hot air, told by a nobody. From what I could tell about the subject early on, his most charitable biography would be most aptly named ”Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire,” or “Without a Trace.” But I was wrong. ****************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** There was something seductive about Ira Brown, who eventually drew me in, and seems to have seduced glamorous women, spendthrift gamblers, and large audiences all of his life. The L. A. newspaperman was easy prey with his saga full of mystery, and so many miles covered by one life, so many hats worn, so many enterprises, so many relocations... and the intriguing but missing reasons behind them. Mystery is the writer's crack, and this reporter was tripping. ******************************************************************************************** **********************************************************************************************************

The elderly gentleman's given name was Ira Harvey Brown. The reporter was spellbound, as Brown's claims and observations rolled out like decorated cakes on an assembly line. So many specific details, ranging all around the globe, so many legendary personalities along the way. They were some of the most famous and influencial people in the nation... all supposedly intimate friends of "Banjo Dick," himself a celebrated musician; Mark Twain. Brigham Young. Captain Jack Crawford. And there were nationally famous entertianers, and even European Royalty. It was unlikely. Or was it?********************************************************************************************************** **********************************************************************************************************

Brown bragged that he had known and even performed with several of the most celebrated female performers of his day. Western history, backed by newspaper headlines, testifies that Ira Brown was a devoted gold hunter, with a nasty temper, as he strummed his banjo throughout the Rockies and Great Plains to the delight of many; that he was the companion of beautiful, famous singers and actresses, and by his own account, he walked among generals and kings and the noted wordsmiths of his day. Banjo Dick was either one of the most interesting and well-traveled showmen in the world (besides Buffalo Bill), or the biggest shameless liar west of the Mississippi. ************************************************ ********************************************************************************************************** As the history buff reads the following account today, it has the mild but sick-sweet aroma of fantasy... fun to read, but easy to forget as total humbug. I had already been following this slippery character in my research, and so I had to study the yarn in detail. In fact, I had to disprove it. I was already convinced that Ira H. Brown was no good, a typical womanizer and fast-talking sharpie, who could not be trusted. It did not help that Internet searches brought up over a half-dozen Ira Browns and Dick Browns of his era, including a Chicago Real Estate shyster, an adulterous Utah senator, a cantankerous Kansas farmer, a robber, a killer, and a rapist. And nothing I had found so far on this Dick Brown had indicated much better. He was however, not known as one of these things, and by most accounts, was remembered as excellent camp-company- and a damn good banjo player. That gave him a slim thread of credibility, but this story of his life- it was over the top.********** ********************************************************************************************************** So we will revisit the impressions made on the trusting Los Angeles reporter, that were thus relayed somewhat discombobulated to his readers, who were at least a generation younger and a little bit too trusting. Line by line. Then we will apply some long needed fact-checking. ********************************************************************************************************** So “Banjo Dick,” prepare to be finally revealed! ******************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** The Los Angeles Herald, Jan. 16, 1907 ******************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** ORIGINAL DEADWOOD DICK TELLS WONDROUS TALES OF ADVENTURE ************************************************************* "No Nook or Corner of Most Out-of-the-Way Parts Of the Globe Are But as Open Books to the Miner/ Actor/ Musician, Who Typifies the Fast Disappearing Frontiersman. ************************************************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** DEADWOOD, S. D., that one time mysterious city of mines, gambling dens, saloons and gunfighters, has boasted in its time of having been the meeting place of many interesting and peculiar men, but probably it can claim the reputation better through its founder, Ira H. Brown, miner, actor, banjoist, singer, world traveler, and speculator, than through any other agency. ************************************ ********************************************************************************************************** [There's nothing like a big lie right up front to get your antennae to stand up... so I was compelled to do much more investigation about the most horrible place in the American West, Deadwood, than I ever desired... The television series by that name ended my curiosity years ago. There were more than a dozen men who were recognized at the time and celebrated since as “founders” of Deadwood, South Dakota. Ira Brown was not one of them, according to most painfully empirical, modern sources. But when this article was originally printed in 1907, one Deadwood paper proudly reprinted it and had no problem with that claim. ******************************************************************* ********************************************************************************************************** Given our democratic American paradigm, “founder” in rhetorical use could be anyone who helped the beginnings of something. They need not be the scribe who penned the charter, or the elected officials who passed the ordinances, or the surveyor who measured the bounds... a town founder might be the town drunk who watched it all and nodded approvingly. And Banjo Dick was something far more important, and would qualify easily as the village musician or jester. *********************************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** There were half a dozen men who somewhat legitimately claimed that they were the original “Deadwood Dick.” And yes, Ira Brown was certainly one of them. One of the Deadwood papers did take issue with this claim, probably trying to head off a local controversy. But another paper actually defended the claim, and if you consider anybody who was there, digging around among the rocks and gravel in the many gulches around Deadwood in 1876, then at a minimum, Ira Brown might be called a real-life participant. And he was one of the men who first hacked his way through all of the dead wood in those gulches, which supposedly obscured the untold wealth underneath- and inspired the name of the nearby town, where Brown claimed and then sold lots. Not only that, he helped to build and resided in one of its first log cabins. So the L. A. reporter was stretching it very little. And, surprisingly, Ira Brown wore all the hats the article claimed, maybe more, at one time.*********************** ********************************************************************************************************* ********************************************************************************************************* " Mr. Brown is at present in Los Angeles, the guest of Alexander B. Downe, 525 West Thirty-third street, and the story of his life reads more like fiction than truth. ********************************************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** This white-haired man was in Custer City, S.D. in 1876 “waiting for something to turn up.” One day a miner, Thomas Mallory approached him and asked him for a private interview. That night the two talked together in a far off corner of a gambling saloon and a contract was made." ********************************************************************************************************** [Alexander Downe was a very successful British mining engineer, who developed mines in Africa, Australia, and the U.S. before retiring in California. He quite likely was who set up the interview with Brown. Yes it sounds like fiction, but Thomas Mallory was a real person, in fact one of the first “finders” of the rich gold fields in and around Deadwood. Ira Brown, if nothing else, is a well-informed name-dropper!] ********************************************************************************************************** " The next night Mr. Brown with three companions, Charley Brown, Ike Lee, and Williams, set out at midnight. They traveled until the next day, carrying their baggage on the backs of mules. They picked their way carefully. The Indians were near and were not to be trusted." ********************************************************************************************************** [Here, our hero seems to have gotten his names twisted up some, but these names indicate he at least knew the names of some of the early players in Deadwood, and we have to remember, he was almost sixty, and it had been almost thirty years, and two trips around the planet since then. My knee-jerk skepticism was beginning to melt...] ******************************************************************************* ********************************************************************************************************** How Deadwood Won Its Name. ******************************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** "When they arrived at a gulch which emptied into the Whitewood River they unpacked their animals and camped. Great quantities of dead timber was laying about and from that they named the place Deadwood." ******************************************************************* ********************************************************************************************************** [ “Deadwood” was not only a slang word used in gambling, it also became an old-time mining expression that meant “a sure thing,” referring to the name of a mining boom-town in the gold fields of California in the 1850's, where Brown spent his youth. Deadwood came to connote a hidden, unsuspected gold field, one passed over by others; fast money hiding in plain sight. Brown would have known both possible meanings. A former saloon owner and faro dealer, Banjo Dick seems to have been feigning ignorance about the probable slang interpretations of "deadwood," perhaps unwilling to reveal this seedy part of his resume.] ************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** " The four sat down on a log and wrote numbers upon slips of paper. These represented the town lots. They placed them in Mr. Browns hat and each drew out a certain number of slips." ***************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************************** [We do not know which Mr. Brown offered his hat... but according to The Pioneer, the town of Deadwood was “laid out” on April 26th, 1876 by Craven Lee, Isaac Brown, J.J. Williams and “others.” So men with the last names of Brown, Williams and Lee actually laid out the footprint of Deadwood, South Dakota, just as Brown remembered. Banjo Dick may well have been one of the “others.” This is important, because his being there made him elligible for ownership of prime Deadwood Real Estate.] ************************************************************* *********************************************************************************************************** "At the time the lots were not worth a great deal, for when one of the party drew lot No. 23 he declared it was too far out of town and he would not have it. Mr. Brown offered him $5 and a padlock for the lot and the man closed the deal. Mr. Brown built a cabin on one of his lots and that started the town. Shacks sprung up in a night and the lots went like magic. Mr. Brown sold his last piece of ground to Mann & Manning for a gambling saloon and left with a clean surplus of $650,000 in his pocket." *************************************************** *********************************************************************************************************** [Today Deadwood visitors can still enter Mann's saloon (BELOW), later known as Nuttall & Mann's, where "Wild Bill" Hickok was assassinated. Brown may have left Deadwood in the summer to go back to his old haunts to piece together a burlesque show, and bring it to the miners in the Black Hills. He passed through Cheyenne, sold eight pounds of gold that he found in Palmer's Gulch, advertising the wealth available in Deadwood, and told Fanny Garretson about his plan. Then he went all the way to San Francisco, probably to purchase basic entertainment supplies, music instruments etc.. This may be when Fannie left Shaughnessy the first time, because she too went to San Francisco about that time, but then made up with the trusting oaf when she returned... only to leave him for good a few weeks later. They were in Deadwood by the autumn.]* ************************************************************************************************************

[The 650K which Brown left with is a stunning amount, for those times... A Deadwood paper ran this article, but corrected the number- to 50K... STILL STUNNING! These immense profits suggest to me that Ira Brown used the land transactions to launder other, less admirable revenues... but Mann and John J. Manning, (another real person, in fact was elected repeatedly as sheriff in Deadwood) surely did not pay THAT for just one lot. The story no doubt has some important pieces missing, but between the gold recovered, mining interests sold, and land sales, Brown was claiming that he basically made a fortune. We will learn later on that he was a very "lucky" gambler... and may have dabbled in other heretofore unknown sources of income. There is no known cabin surviving today, supposedly built by “Mr Brown”... but the Deadwood papers accepted the article's claim about his log cabin being the first house in the town...It was basically a tent city then, anything made of wood would have qualified as a house. But given the other facts established, we have to give Banjo Dick (cough/cringe, here we go...) the benefit of the doubt. And there is literary evidence that somebody built a cabin... from a song written and preserved by Captain Jack Crawford, the famous army scout and Wild West show personality, and one of Ira Brown's loyal friends and mining associates. He published it and claimed that he wrote it for “Dick Brown, the banjo player while in Custer City, South Dakota,” to be performed by the two of them for their mining cohorts...in the spring of 1876... From the lyrics, we can deduce that there was indeed a cabin, and these men, as much as could be in those Victorian times, were IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER!] ****************************************************************************************************************

********************************************************************************************************* My Little New Log Cabin In The Hills ************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************* A Parody ********************************************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************* In my little new log cabin home my heart is light and free, ******************************************** While the boys around me gather every day, ************************************************************************ And the sweetest hours I ever knew are those I'm passing now, ***************************************************** While the banjo makes sweet music to my lay. ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************* Chorus:*********************************************************************************************************************** The scenes are changing every day, the snow is nearly gone,****************************************************************** And there's music in the laughter of the rills;****************************************************************************** But the dearest spot of all the rest is where I love to dwell,*************************************************************** In my new little log cabin in the hills.************************************************************************************* ********************************************************************************************************** ********************************************************************************************************** While the birds are sweetly singing to the coming of the spring, ************************************************************* And the flow'rets peep their heads from out the sod, ************************************************************************* We feel as gay and happy as the songsters on the wing ************************************************************************ Who are sending up sweet anthems to their God... ***************************************************************************** (Chorus) ********************************************************************************************************************* *********************************************************************************************************** [The reporter never got to hear or read the words to that little classic, but he continues... but begins to get things out of order. The following incident probably happened when Dick was in Nevada... around 1873-74] ******************************************************* *********************************************************************************************************** " He has many hair raising experiences to tell of his life in these mining camps. ******************************************** He earned $20 to $50 per night playing his banjo in the gambling saloons and like the rest of the men, he rented his gambling table by the month and then used it for a bed at night... ******************************************************************************

One evening large stakes had been won and lost and the loser vowed vengeance on the winner. The men slowly dropped away from the tables and every one in the place had fallen asleep... ******************************************************************************************* ************************************************************************************************************ ************************************************************************************************************ Murder where he slept! ********************************************************************************************* ************************************************************************************************************ [As wholesome and fun as the preceeding song may have been, the following incident demarks a suspicious series of unexpained deaths in Brown's wake...] ***************************************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************ "An hour later a loud noise of shooting woke Mr. Brown. He slid quickly from his table and struck a light. On the next table to him lay one of the players, his blood forming a pool under him and his head almost shot off. The loser had taken his vengeance. He was never caught. ******************* [REMEMBER THIS LATER....] ***************************************************************************** [This incident is actually very similar to one described in Roughing It, by Mark Twain, another of Brown's claimed associates. In fact there are a couple vignettes in the blockbuster book about a young impoverished rascal, last name of Brown, whom Sam Clemens took under his wing... and kept alive. But this proves nothing... We need to establish who exactly this rascal was. We return to the article for some answers...] ************************************************************************************************************* " Mr. Brown was born in Lock Haven, Pa., in 1847, and had one brother. His parents were filled with the spirit of unrest which drew men to the frontier in those times and when Ira was still a child they left for St. Joseph, Mo. From there with along train of covered wagons they started for California. Oxen drew the wagons and it took six months to get to their destination.**************************** ************************************************************************************************************** [Years later, in 1887 Brown's friends gave him a widely advertised birthday party in Decatur, Illinois, celebrating his 43rd birthday, which would have established his birth four years earlier than was later inscribed in granite, and three years earlier than he told the Los Angeles reporter. Perhaps he had lied to his present wife, who may have been much younger, but being a musician and faro dealer, numbers were Banjo Dick's stock and trade. He was not likely to get them wrong. There was six years difference between the birth date on the 1850 census report and the one chiseled on the tombstone resting over him today. This tiny fact is small but compelling evidence that "Banjo Dick" did not care, or at least forgot what he had been telling people... or he was getting caught up in some kind of deception... and this inconsistency could be important... creating a curious gap in his childhood. And it probes us further to wonder, why all the confusion? Might "Brown" have been assuming the name of a person by that name, as an alias... even assuming his birthday, hometown & family legacy? It may explain why, long before Deadwood, this man went by the nickname "Banjo Dick," when his name was Ira... Perhaps early in his life Richard Somebody changed his "given" name after committing a few crimes, and took on the name of a family he heard about who had not survived their relocation to California... As time went on, and his Brown ineritance was no longer at stake, he relaxed his duplicity. But the story was always useful to hide his true origins. And there are interesting clues about that! ] ******************************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************ Fight Indians. ****************************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************ "Along the way the Indians were on the alert and there were many skirmishes between the redskins and the travelers. Twice Mr. Brown was nearly captured when he wandered too far behind the wagons. The Indians would come up slyly and make a sudden swoop. Each time, however, someone rescued him in the nick of time. ******************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************ At night these brave travelers formed a stockade with their wagons and with sentries every twenty feet sleep soundly around the campfire in the center. During the trip there were several buffalo killed as they passed by in great herds. ********************************* ************************************************************************************************************ They pitched their camp at Weaver Creek, Cal., and Mr. Brown, who was at that time 10 or 11 years old, was hired out with the Mexicans to help herd horses. The lad was cuffed and kicked around by these rough and terrible men of the desert, but he earned his living and he learned the Spanish language. *********************************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************ California was at that time in the hands of the forty-niners and the only way to reach the little mining camps was by wagon. In 1854 the family moved again and the town that sprang up around them was named Elizabethtown, in honor of his mother, Elizabeth Brown, who was the first white woman to go through that wilderness. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************************************************ [Here is a lie... well at least an honest one. Elizabethtown, California was begun during the California Gold Rush around 1850, four years before the Browns are said to have arrived. Its name was purportedly derived from a miner's wife, Elizabeth Stark Blakesley. Of course, the origin of the name of the town may have been a family joke... but nobody was laughing... and just a boy, Ira Brown took the story seriously.] ************************************************************************************************************** " The surrounding country was thickly populated with “Digger Indians,” who had the greatest curiosity about Mr. Brown's mother, as they had never before seen a white woman. These Indians lived in huts, sixty feet in diameter, made on the stockade order, and in those days the Indian's fandangoes or war dances were of constant occurrence. Mr. Brown can speak the Digger language fluently."********************** ************************************************************************************************************** [“Digger” was a local pejorative- several tribes were called “diggers” including the Maidu. The natives were abused and enslaved, and treated terribly. When the rapacious miners ran out of Native “diggers” the term was used to describe any unskilled labor hired in the mining operation. But we can't blame Brown for any of that...] ********************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************** Settle[s] In California.*************************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************** "The gold fever kept the Browns moving and it was not many months before they were established at Iowa Hill, Placer County, Cal., where Mrs. Brown became a part owner of the famous Jinasons mines, deep diggings worked by hydraulic processes." ******************************** **************************************************************************************************************

[There is nothing "famous" today in California's mining history about the name Jinason, and there is no easily retrieved mine on record by the name of “Jinason,” but there was a mining operation near Iowa Hill at Johnson's Ranch. Continuing the suspension of our disbelief by benefit of the doubt, and assuming (for the moment) that little Ira was actually the grown up one, perhaps Ira Brown grew up hearing a distortion of the mine's name, or the reporter misunderstood it. But I am almost convinced that like Elizabethtown, this name was another family euphemism, created by his father (Daniel Brown), and what he was actually saying, and misunderstood by the boy, was “gin and sin” mines, which would explain what happened to his mother, and the couple's marriage troubles. In those days brewing and drinking gin was becoming a fad, and saloons were sometimes called “gin mills.” Gin was soon known country-wide as the “Mother's Ruin” by many people who observed its attraction as a gateway to addiction, and for some women, prostitution. Perhaps the couple split up when Elizabeth took her inheritance and invested it in a "gin mill," to serve the large mining community in Iowa Hill.]

[We will never know, but whatever happened, the Browns are not found in the 1860 California census, or any others later on. All but Ira were reported dead by 1875.*********************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************** Right about here is where Brown's story gets very murky. The problem with this family pit stop in Iowa Hill is the crunch in timing, as the gold rush was in 1853-4, about the time that the Browns were supposedly founding Elizabethtown. The Browns moved around a great deal, and it is surprising that all of this instability was more than a blur for the youngster. These distinct memories support an earlier birth, making Ira around 11 or 12 when they came to Iowa Hill. More strange, about this time, around 1857, the town was totally burned to its foundations, but Brown makes no mention of it. And what happened to the Browns? Did they perish in the fire?]************************************ *************************************************************************************************************** "Mr. Brown learned his banjo playing from a Charley Rhodes, whom he met there in a saloon.********************************* *************************************************************************************************************** [A bit unusual, but not absurd, in this case an 11 or 12 yr-old boy taking banjo lessons in a western saloon. And it might have happened if his mother was the owner of the saloon. Charley Rhodes was in fact, a popular early banjoist in the West....] ***************** ***************************************************************************************************************

" Children in those days had a singular way of getting money- to go to any wandering circus or show that came to town. Instead of helping to water the horses or feed the elephants... they would take a gold pan and pan out a couple of pans and have the dust cashed. Nearly everything in those days was paid for with the raw material, gold dust. ************************************************************************* **************************************************************************************************************** His mother and father separated here and Mr. Brown went with his father to Petaluma, Cal., where he spent a year or so in school. He helped his father with the fruit shipping business in San Francisco. About this time gold was found in Canyon City, Ore., and Mr. Brown [Ira] wanted to go. He did not have the money and his father forbade him going." *************************************************** **************************************************************************************************************** [ There were too many Daniel Browns in Petaluma at that time to isolate which might be Ira's father. It could be the one who had a thriving liquor distributorship there for years, or more likely, the one stabbed in the back in a Petaluma saloon in February of 1860, and not expected to survive...] ****************************************************************************************************************** **************************************************************************************************************** "He stowed himself away under the tarpaulin on the forward deck of a ship going north. The sailors walked all over him until he could bear it no longer, and he cried out in pain. They dragged him forth then and made him work for his passage. ****************************** ***************************************************************************************************************** When the boat reached the wharf at Portland he had not a cent. A young man, noticing his predicament, took him to the Union hotel and found him a job as a waiter."************************************************************************************************************* ***************************************************************************************************************** Earns Money With Banjo.************************************************************************************************ ***************************************************************************************************************** "His banjo playing attracted William Nickson, proprietor of the Essex saloon of Dallas, Ore. he offered him $25 a night to play in the saloon. Harry Knox, afterward hanged in Florence, Idaho, for the murder of Magruder, engaged him after this at $50 a night to play in Canyon City.”************************************************************************************************************************ *************************************************************************************************************** [ I could find no Harry Knox, anywhere in any paper of that time, and the men accused and hung for killing Magruder in 1864 were named Romain, Renton & Lower. But it is possible that one of them was using Knox as an alias. Still, the bigger crime seems to have been the overpaying of a 19 year-old vagabond with such crazy wages! ] ************************************************************************************ *************************************************************************************************************** " He had no way to get to Canyon City but to walk. He put his provisions inside the drum hoop of his banjo and started without blanket or matches. Fortunately for him a cavalcade met him a short way from town and let him ride the bell horse to Canyon City. Julia Deane Hayne (BELOW), the greatest actress California knew in those days, picked him up after he had been in Canyon City awhile and took him to Idaho City." ****************************************************************************************************************

[Ira is a young troubadour about 20, she a national star in her mid-thirties, enduring an unhappy marriage. Here begins Ira Brown's incredible luck with female celebrities... and a lackluster, decade-long acting career. And here is where he probably dropped his given name “Ira” for something more flashy. Perhaps it was his new lady friend who helped to dub him “Banjo Dick.” And apparently Banjo Dick Brown must have been quite charming, winning influential friends across the west, and eventually being romantically involved with two, perhaps three starlets, Victorian “Madonnas” of his day. His knack for placing himself in their life-paths was uncanny, although his luck with most of them will never be known. In this situation, he climbed into a traveling show wagon and rode triumphantly into Idaho City with a banjo on his knee...] ****** ************************************************************************************************************** He was playing the grave digger in Hamlet there one night when the alarm of fire was given...************************************ ************************************************************************************************************** FIRE DESTROYS TOWN ****************************************************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************** [In the second devastating town fire in this young man's life...]**************************************************************** ************************************************************************************************************** "The cabins were all built of rough pitch pine lumber. In half an hour the town was reduced to ashes and all Mr. Brown had saved was the clothes he wore and his banjo. ********************************************************************************************************** **************************************************************************************************************

"His next theatrical venture was at San Francisco, where he played on Gilbert Street. This was then the business portion of the city. Among his associates were Jeff DeAngello's father, Lottie Crabtree (ABOVE) and Joe Murphy, who have all since become famous in the theatrical world."*************************************************************************************************************************** *************************************************************************************************************** [All possible, and Lotta Crabtree would have been another big catch, if she ever gave him a second look. But here is why I first became suspicious of Banjo Dick, because he left out Fannie Garretson, whom he had to have met in San Francisco, as they both supposedly performed there for more than a year (1868), and more importantly, he later scooped her up in Cheyenne and then married her in Deadwood. Even more peculiar, he never mentions her anywhere in the article... which in itself demonstrates that after 25 years, Ira Brown was still carefully separating himself from Fannie Garretson. Both of them had avoided scrutiny concerning their marriage and separation, and the trail of scandal and unsolved crimes they left behind. ]************************************************************************************************************ **************************************************************************************************************** NEXT BLOG- Part II: Ira Brown's bizarre Wild West Adventures, after Dodge City.