Ned Christie: Cherokee Outlaw

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The moon had set and all was quiet in the hour before dawn on November 3, 1892, in the Cherokee Nation. The posse, 25 men strong, lay in wait outside Ned Christie’s fortified house. Gus York and U.S. Deputy Marshal Gideon S. ‘Cap White, the posse leaders, gave their final orders. Christie must be kept from escaping, they said, and Christie’s supporters must be prevented from coming to his aid.

At sunrise, the door slowly opened and Arch Wolf, Christie’s nephew and a member of his gang, stepped out. When Wolf started for the nearby spring, Cap White shouted for him to surrender. Wolf replied with gunfire. Return fire from the deputies struck him in the leg and arm. As Wolf staggered toward the cabin, another bullet grazed his head, but he made it inside. Christie whooped as he always did when a fight began. A hail of bullets blazed from the portholes he had cut into the upper portion of his home. The final battle to capture Ned Christie was on.

Christie was reportedly one of the most vicious men to ever raise a gun in Indian Territory. He was reputed to be a born killer, cold-blooded and ruthless. Dime novels of the time said he walked the isolated paths of the Cherokee Nation, relentless in his maniacal hatred of the white man. He was rumored to have murdered 11 or more people, though officially he was charged with only one, U.S. Deputy Marshal Daniel Maples. For five years Christie, who maintained his innocence, had evaded the lawmen attempting to bring him in to stand trial for that murder. When his trouble with the law began, Christie was a well-respected member of the Cherokee National Council, one of three legislators in the Executive Council, which acted as an advisory committee to the principal chief. A tall and handsome man, Christie could speak English fluently. Three-fourths Cherokee, Edward (Ned) Christie was born on December 14, 1852, in the Rabbit Trap community of the Cherokee Nation. He grew up around his father’s blacksmith shop and became a skilled blacksmith and gunsmith. By age 10, he was said to be one of the best marksmen in the Cherokee Nation.

In the blacksmith shop, Ned and his brothers heard much about the forced removal of the Cherokees from the East to Indian Territory in 1838. Thousands had died upon the Trail of Tears, including Christie’s grandmother, an Irish woman who had given the Christie family its last name. During the Civil War, Christie’s father, Watt, and his uncles sided with the Union. Watt Christie, who had been forced out of North Carolina in 1838, said he would not be driven from his home a second time. Young Ned remained behind to help defend the rest of the family.

Following the war, several of Ned’s brothers and his father served in the Cherokee legislature from the Going Snake District. In 1885, Ned Christie, following in their footsteps, was elected to his first term in the National Council. He became known for his hot-tempered speeches on the legislative floor in defense of Cherokee sovereignty, as movement was underway to open to white settlement a 2-million acre tract, known as the Unassigned Lands, in the heart of Indian Territory. The Indians were being pressured to take their lands in individual allotments, thus eliminating the tribes as separate nations. Christie knew that once this happened, the white man would soon be in charge of those allotments, legally or otherwise. In the meantime, intruders and illegal whiskey were plaguing the Cherokee Nation.

On Easter morning, April 10, 1887, the Cherokee Female Seminary burned. The Executive Council, including Christie, was called into special session in Tahlequah, the Cherokee Nation’s capital, to see what could be done about rebuilding the seminary.

Christie lived in the Rabbit Trap community with his third wife, Nancy, and a son from a previous marriage, 13-year-old James. When the Executive Council was in session, Christie customarily stayed in town at the home of Senator Ned Grease, a relative of Nancy’s. At the end of a busy day, he liked to go downtown after supper to find a drink of whiskey. Like many of his friends, he sometimes drank too much. On December 24, 1884, he had been accused of killing a young Cherokee man, William Palone, in a liquor-related incident. Christie had been brought to trial but was declared not guilty.

On the night of May 5, 1887, in downtown Tahlequah, Christie met John Parris. A half blood, Parris had been in trouble with the court in Fort Smith for years for introducing and selling whiskey. Parris always knew where to find a drink of whiskey. He and Christie moseyed toward Dog Town on the northern edge of Tahlequah. They crossed the bridge over Spring Branch and passed Big Spring, where a team and wagon were camped. The past three days had been cold and rainy, but this evening was clear and pleasant.

At the home of Nancy Old Lady Shell, they found Thomas Bub Trainor, Jr., eating supper, all decked out in a white shirt, ready to attend a local dance. Trainor was one of Tahlequah’s Saturday Night Outlaws. His family was well-respected, but Bub was wild and reckless. Christie and Parris bought a bottle of whiskey from Nancy. Not having a cork for the bottle, she tore a strip from her apron to use as a stopper. Christie and Parris left Nancy and Bub behind and made their way back to Spring Branch. They came across three other acquaintances, and soon all five men were drinking.

Meanwhile, U.S. Deputy Marshal Dan Maples and posseman George Jefferson were at work in Big Spring. John C. Carroll, the Western District of Arkansas marshal at Fort Smith, had sent them to investigate the growing illegal whiskey operations in the Tahlequah area. Maples inquired unobtrusively about the matter. His chief suspects were Bub Trainor and John Parris, and he had warrants for each of them.

Maples soon learned that Trainor was the most persistent supplier of whiskey in Dog Town and a frequent visitor to Old Lady Shell, among others. Satisfied with what he had learned, Maples used storekeeper James S. Stapler’s phone to notify Carroll. One of Trainor’s associates, standing unnoticed by an open window, heard everything.

After making the call, Maples walked with Jefferson back toward their wagon camp. The moon shone brightly. As they approached a footlog across Spring Branch, Jefferson saw the muzzle of a revolver resting against the side of a tree on the opposite side of the branch. Don’t shoot! he shouted.

But the assassin fired. The ball struck Maples in the chest. He fell but was able to draw his revolver and fire at the man. Jefferson fired, too. None of their shots found their mark. A few hours later, shortly after midnight, Maples died of internal hemorrhage.

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