THE DALTONS RIDE AGAIN

I must admit that I am always intrigued with the saga of the Mac Donald Brothers and their involvement with the Dalton Gang. Maybe it is because I haven't found any royalty in our past and a few good bad guys can possibly take their place. I even recently paid a lady to copy for me the transcripts of the Will Dalton trial in Visalia in which Laughlin was a key witness for the defense. I also found a Dalton Gang Web Page and some portraits which I could share with you.
Then I thought, I ran this story in the Newsletter in the past and perhaps I shouldn't publish it again, but soon, I realized that was back in 1988 and most of you weren't subascribers at that time so I decided to go ahead with the old article, but to add some new information I had garnered. I hope you like this.

"One evening Father came in from the field and told us that a family had moved in across the river. We were all excited with the welcome news.I do hope they will be neighborly, my mother said.It would be so nice to run over for a starter of yeast and sit down and chat a bit." This is how my late Aunt Tessie described the arrival of Will Dalton and his family on the Estrella Plain. Another aunt told how my grandmother, Molly McDonald, used to exchange pies with Mrs. Dalton, the former Jane Blevin of Livingston. Uncle Allen recalled Will Dalton always wearing long white chaps. Once Will scared Allen, who was only six at the time, by unhitching the youngster's mare colt and pretending to ride off with it. Allen chuckled when he told the story. He said he cried plenty when Will would tease him. Neighbors of my grandfather, Lockie McDonald, shared his attraction to Will Dalton. Most of the people on the Estrella Plain stood up for him and even willingly appeared as witnesses for the defense in Tulare County when he was tried in 1891 for the Alila (Earlimart) train robbery. Will had been active in county politics and in 1890 served with my grandfather's brother, Murdock, as an Estrella delegate to the County Populist Convention.

Eventually, when things got too hot for them in the Oklahoma Territory, Grat, Emmett, and Bob joined their brother at the Cotton Ranch, which Will had rented from a San Francisco judge by that name. The brothers rather quickly became assimilated into the not too frequent recreational activities of the day. Aunt Tessie related: "On Saturday nights all the neighbors would gather for a dance and box supper at the Keyes Canyon schoolhouse. We usually danced waltzes to the strains of music from a tinny old piano. At one of the socials young Emmett Dalton asked me to dance with him. He was a handsome man, very polite, and I was delighted to be his partner." Not all of the Estrellians shared my aunt's enthusiasm for the newly arrived Dalton brothers. Folk were nervous because the boys always wore their guns--even while farming. After a hard day's work in the fields they would engage in target practice.Uncle Allen told me that their neighbors would hang a small piece of buckhide to a tree and then ride in circles shooting at this small target. At one time, Allen counted more than a hundred slugs in that old oak tree, which still stands on the bank of the Estrella River.My relatives became very nervous when they would see the Daltons riding back from Paso Robles with large amounts of cartridges.During their prolonged visit to brother Will's place, Emmett, Bob and Grat would drive mules for Will's other neighbor and brother-in-law, Bill Blevin, but only for a few days at a time. The rest of the time they spent drinking and brawling in San Miguel, Paso Robles, and San Luis Obispo's various watering spots.Will Dalton and another brother, Littleton, worked on Emmett, Bob, and Grat and tried for months to get them to settle down and go to work but to no avail.

Late on the afternoon of January 28, 1891, Will and his brothers borrowed Frank Halter's saddle, as well as some money from my grandmother, and headed east.Will explained that he was taking his kin to Salinas where he had gotten them a job. No one stopped to remind him that Sallnas was north, not east! Some probably said "Good riddance."
Nine days later a Southern Pacific train robbery was committed in Tulare County. The cry went out immediately, "The Daltons did it!" The search for the outlaws was on and eventually wound its way across the Coast Range to Estrella where the boys were holed up with their brother Will. Some of the neighbors saw Sheriff O'Nelll and Bill Smith, an Express Company detective, coming up the trail heading for Will's ranch house. My grandfather rushed over to his neighbor's porch and alerted the boys and they scrambled into the house and up into the attic where they laid low all night until the law was gone.

Lucky for Smith and O'Neill they didn't hear the boys up in the attic, for years later Emmett told how they were waiting with their sidearms cocked and ready to blast the law officers.

Thanks to the help of Laughlin and Micheal, the Daltons were able to hide out in a draw for a few days (A place called Dalton Canyon today). Then when the "heat" was off, they rode out to Bitter Creek where my granduncle, Frank McAdam, boarded them for a couple of days and gave them fresh mounts, which eventually took them out of the state. All but Emmett were killed at the scene of their crimes in the Midwest and Oklahoma Territory. Emmett was captured in Coffeyville, Kansas, and given a penitentiary term.

Click here to read about the Coffeyville Shootout.
He was later pardoned and returned to Southern California where he became a successful, but boastful citizen.
In later years, Emmett sought out his good friend, Laughlin, who was living in Oakland at the time. They broke bread and reminisced about their early days on the Estrella Plain. Emmett was married by this time as was my Aunt Tessle, who had learned the two-step from him to the accompaniment of a rinky-dink piano. He remembered her and signed his autograph in a copy of a book he had written about his family's exploits.

One must wonder what might have happened to the other Dalton boys had they listened to Will, who tried to convert them to a more peace-loving life style in San Luis Obispo County.

GOOD NEIGHBORS

No one could ever accuse the Mc Donalds of not being good neighbors to the Daltons. From the time that Molly first borrowed yeast from Will's wife to Laughlin's appearance as a witness for Will over in the Tulare Courtroom, they were always there for their neighbors.
Mary gave the boys money at the time of theit departure and her brother John, along with another neighbor, put up $500 in bail money for Will's trial, an event in which Will jumped bail and John lost his contribution.
Undoubtably, the most authentic book on the Daltons was written by Frank Latta and was entitled, "Dalton Gang Days". I corresponded with Frank before his death and he told me about some of his research methods. He actually attended Will's trial and also went to Estrella in order to interviw many of the Dalton's neighbors including Michael's sons Ron and Jim. Here are some direct quotes out of Latta's book.
“At Grat’s trial I had a long talk with Loftis [sic] (Laughlin) Mc Donald, one of the witnesses. Mc Donald was Bill Dalton’s nearest neighbor. He told me about the boys wearing six-shooters all the time and also told me in the night he could hear them banging away in target practice with both six shooters and winchester rifles. There were five gallon oil cans all about the place, shot full of holes in night practice. It didn’t look good to Mc Donald and he told me he was glad when Bob and Emmett were gone.”
Dalton Gang Days
“It was sometime before Bob and Emmett could make a getaway from brother Bill's house. They hid out in the mountains near Bill’s for at least two weeks (I heard at one time that they were hidden in a cave on the Estrella river by one of the Mc Donalds.) Bill was afraid to go near them. He put supplies out for them and several times they came to his house in the night.

Bill got the loan of some horses that were on pasture at Frank Mc Adam’s (grandma’s brother) place in Bitterwater Valley, almost on the line between San Luis Obispo and Kern Counties. He hitched his driving mare to the buggy and took Bob with him, starting shortly after dark. Emmet accompanied them on a mule. They cut through the hills over a back road and reached Mc Adam’s place before morning, bedding themselves down in the barn.

Bill and Bob told the man in charge of the stock that they were going to the Carrizo Plain to look for farming land and wanted to borrow saddles and horses. Their story satisfied the man so he let them have the horses and a saddle which belonged to Frank Mc Adam.”
Dalton Gang Days
So as you can see, Mary and her two bros as well as Lauchlin and Michael did all they could do to be neighborly. Today what they did might be called aiding and abbeting!

A SECOND CAREER

After serving a term in the federal penitentiary Emmett Dalton returned to California where he started a second career. He was first a successful developer, later an author of books about his outlaw days, and then a movie producer. He traveled throughout the State plugging his flick ss can be seen here with a playbill announcing his film in one of his old outposts, Paso Robles.

SHOW TIME

If you attended the T & D Jr. Theater back in 1913 when they were featuring Emmett Dalton and his silent movie it would have been a totally different experience than today's modern multiplex showhouse as you will see if you click on this link. The Norin Multiplex contains five theaters and three of them contain pictures from my Mc Donald/ Gillis Collection. I hope to change these in for your enjoyment with each issue. You might wish to skip the other two unless you are interested in my dog's canine friends and/or my grandchildren.