Bat Masterson 1853–1921

Also known as William Barclay Masterson, Bartholomew Masterson

William Barclay Masterson, known as Bat Masterson, was an army scout, lawman, gambler, and journalist. He was born at Henryville, Quebec, on 26 November 1853 and died on 25 October 1921. The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains says he was christened Bartholomew, called Bart or Bat by his family, and chose the name William Barclay Masterson. The English Wikipedia lead spells one form of the given name Bartholemew. He grew up on farms in New York, Illinois, and Kansas, and in 1871 he left his father's farm in Sedgwick County, Kansas, to hunt buffalo. In June 1874 he was among the buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls, Texas. He then scouted in the Red River War of 1874-75. He served as a policeman in Dodge City and was elected sheriff of Ford County, Kansas, before he was twenty-four. By the early twentieth century he was in New York, writing on boxing and other subjects for the Morning Telegraph. The portrait is a black-and-white copy of an 1879 photograph. The photographer is unknown, and Wikimedia Commons places the file in the public domain as an unpublished United States work.

Existence span 1853–1921