Emmett Dalton

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A startled and teary-eyed Emmett protested that it was an unjust sentence, but the wheels of the Montgomery County legal locomotive were picking up steam. The Star and Kansan article continued: ‘…Taking the prisoner back to the jail Sheriff Callahan lost no time in making preparations for getting rid of his notorious guest. A bus was summoned and, with Emmett handcuffed to Wm. E. Smith, who has been acting as guard at the jail for several weeks past, and Marshal Griffey, the sheriff started on the journey to Leavenworth [destination: State Penitentiary, Lansing, Kan.], a journey which might have been a more dangerous one had it been longer premeditated. It was not more than thirty minutes from the time that Emmett was brought into the court room until he started over the road; and within an hour the party were moving away on the train. Justice certainly didn’t move with leaden feet in this case, and the annals of our county will be searched in vain for an example of more rapid work….’

Within the bureaucracies of the district court and county jail, there would not have been any time to process the release papers, clear Emmett’s personal property and arrange transportation to the state penitentiary unless the court and jail actions had been orchestrated before the trial. What justice may have lacked in fairness, it made up for in swiftness. Emmett’s trial, sentencing and transfer were ones for the record books. The sheriff’s party reached the penitentiary around 7 p.m., and Sheriff Callahan turned Emmett over to the warden. In the process, Callahan commended Emmett for his good behavior to the warden.

The story does not end here. Emmett continued his model behavior, and after serving 14 1/2 years he was unconditionally pardoned by Kansas Governor E.W. Hoch on November 2, 1907. Contrary to the 1893 newspaper reports of the outlaw’s fast recovery from his Coffeyville wounds, his shoulder never healed properly. Four months prior to the governor’s unconditional pardon, Emmett had approached the Kansas Penitentiary Parole Board for permission to go to a hospital in Kansas City for an operation to save his right arm from amputation. The board, in turn, beseeched the governor to issue a temporary pardon so that Emmett could get immediate surgery for necrosis of the periosteum (pathologic death of the bone’s fibrous membrane). During this period of surgery and recovery, the governor was impressed with Emmett’s exemplary behavior and the recommendation of the parole board to grant an unconditional pardon to the reformed outlaw.

The story of Emmett’s release was covered as a leading feature of the November 3, 1907, Sunday edition of The Topeka Daily Capital. Governor Hoch is quoted to have said: ‘Believing that Emmett Dalton’s youthfulness is an extenuation of his great offense, and believing that he has thoroughly repented of it and given evidence of this repentance in every possible way, and believing that a government without mercy is not strong but weak, and believing that Emmett Dalton will make a good citizen and live a good, clean, useful life, I have concluded to give him the opportunity.’ As he gave the pardon to Emmett, the governor told him, ‘I do not believe that good government will suffer because of the fact that you are a free man.’

The newspaper article also mentioned that affidavits had been produced showing Emmett had not fired any shots during the fight as he had originally claimed. With Governor Hoch’s pardon, Judge McCue’s sentence of Emmett to ‘life at hard labor’ ironically ended within the span of what Emmett had hoped for when he pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree — 10 to 15 years.

Emmett did live up to the governor’s expectations. He married and lived the life of a decent, law-abiding citizen while residing mostly in Hollywood, Calif. On September 1, 1908, Emmett married Julia Johnson Gilstrap Lewis in Bartlesville, Okla. He wrote two books, Beyond the Law and When the Daltons Rode, and became involved in the movie business. In May 1931, Emmett revisited Coffeyville, where he placed a tombstone over the common graves of Bob, Grat, and Bill Power in the town’s Elmwood Cemetery. Until that time, the graves had been marked only by a partially buried iron hitching rail that had been removed from Death Alley. In July 1937, 66-year-old Emmett died in Hollywood and rejoined his brothers and long-rider companions.

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