The Colorado gold mining town of Yankee Hill desperately needed a new town marshal, having lost its last three in only a three-month stretch. The reason for the high turnover rate was a hard case named Barney Casewit. Fast with a gun, with no qualms about killing, he had bullied and terrorized the town for two years. The culmination of his vile reign of terror came in 1874. After he raped 15-year-old Birdie Campbell, the girl’s father, a bookkeeper at the bank, tried to avenge his daughter. Casewit shot him dead and then did the same to the marshal at the time, a man named Craig, who attempted to arrest Casewit. Ben Reed from nearby Ruby Hill replaced Marshal Craig, but Reed also was outgunned by Casewit. The next lawman the camp hired turned in his badge and shipped out of town one night after watching Casewit gun down two saddle tramps.

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Yes, Yankee Hill desperately needed a new marshal. The town councilmen, however, never expected anyone like Willie Kennard to show up in answer to the advertisement they had placed in the Rocky Mountain News. Matt Borden, owner of the Square Deal General Store and mayor of Yankee Hill, and the four other councilmen were discussing town business over their usual cups of morning coffee in Fat Sarah Palmer’s Cafe when a gangly 42-year-old black man approached them and said he had read the ad. ‘You mean you can read, boy? one of the councilmen asked. Notwithstanding the grim look on Kennard’s face, Mayor Borden decided to have some fun with this unlikely candidate for marshal. Before the councilmen could hire anyone, they had to make certain he was up to handling the job. A little test was in order. The job was his if he could arrest a notorious criminal who at that very moment was across the street playing poker in Gaylor’s Saloon. That was agreeable to Kennard, who pinned on a star and calmly headed for the saloon to make his first arrest.

One of the councilmen, lawyer Bert Corgan, later wrote in his autobiography, Mining Camp Lawyer (published in 1897 by Pruett Bros. of Los Angeles): I was perplexed by this darky. He was either, I calculated, an impetuous bunghead or as cold-blooded a gunslinger as ever I saw. With the others, I accompanied him to Gaylor’s Saloon, a rowdy place which the miscreant, Barney Casewit, frequented.

After pausing momentarily to size up his quarry, Kennard moved toward Casewit’s table. Casewit and his cronies really thought it hilarious when Kennard told him he was under arrest. I’m just supposed to come with you? Casewit asked innocently. Where are we supposed to go? When Kennard told him it was his choice, either jail or hell, Casewit knew the new lawman was not bluffing. And the way he wore his two revolvers, low and tied down, meant he probably knew how to use them. But Casewit was not about to let himself be arrested. Even if he wasn’t hanged, no one would ever respect him again if word got around that he had backed down to a black man.

Casewit got to his feet and, not heeding Kennard’s last-chance warning to give up peaceably, reached for the Colt .44s at his sides. The badman had barely gotten his hands on the butts when, according to Corgan, Kennard did something only talked about in legend but never before actually seen by anyone in Gaylor’s Saloon. Kennard drew his revolver and fired into Casewit’s still holstered Colts. The impact of the bullets knocked the butts out of Casewit’s hands. The shots almost ripped the holsters from his gunbelt and rendered his guns totally useless. Two of Casewit’s companions, Ira Goodrich and Sam Betts, decided this would be a propitious moment to make their moves on behalf of their friend. They were dead wrong. Kennard dropped them both with clean shots between the eyes as they drew, their guns barely clearing leather. Casewit’s hands instantly went straight up. He was taking no chances lest Kennard think he also might try something.

Justice was usually swift in the mining camps and towns of the Old West. The trial was held the next day, with Corgan, the only man in Yankee Hill available who had knowledge of the law, presiding. Casewit was found guilty of raping Birdie Campbell and sentenced to hang. Not wanting to waste time and money building a gallows, Corgan instructed Kennard to nail a crossbar to an old pine behind Glen Ritchey’s blacksmith shop. Casewit’s hands were tied behind his back, and a noose was looped around his neck. Kennard pulled him up about 10 feet off the ground. Casewit tried to delay his demise by wrapping his legs around the tree trunk and shinnying up it. He only succeeded in prolonging his agony. After about 20 minutes, the strength in his legs gave out. Releasing his grip, Casewit could only dangle helplessly as the rope slowly strangled him to death.

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