John Edwin Bull was born in England in 1836. Beyond that, almost nothing is known about his early life, including when he first arrived in the United States. In fact, historians aren’t even certain that was his real name.
The term “John Bull” originally began as a satirical character in the early 1700s. For a long time, it was used to describe the common man in the UK. By the mid-19th century, it wasn’t unusual to hear an Englishman referred to as a John Bull, so the name may have been an alias.
Bull first appears on record in 1861, when he joined the gold rush to Elk Creek Basin in present-day Montana. He wasn’t a prospector, though. He was a gambler who extracted gold from poker tables rather than cold creeks.
He was also deadly. In August 1862, Bull gunned down a horse thief named William Arnett. Bull had tracked Arnett and two accomplices from Elk City, Idaho, to a mining camp southeast of Missoula.
Upon arrival, Bull found the thieves in a tent saloon playing monte. He ordered Arnett to surrender. Instead, Arnett went for his gun. Bull responded with a load of buckshot to the chest.
The next day, a miners’ court was convened for Arnett’s surviving companions. One of them, described by locals as quiet, reserved, and pleasant, was hanged until dead. The third man convinced the group he had only recently fallen in with the thieves and was let go with a stern warning to leave camp.
The next few years are a mystery, but by 1866 Bull was in Virginia City, Nevada. He partnered with fellow gambler Langford Peele, another Englishman by birth.
Peele was even more dangerous than Bull. He enlisted in the Army at the age of 12 and served for 10 years, seeing action as a dragoon in the Mexican-American War and in skirmishes with Native Americans.
After mustering out, Peele became a professional gambler. In 1858, he and a faro dealer named Rucker got into an argument in a Salt Lake City beer joint. Both men drew their guns and fired simultaneously.
Both were hit, but they kept firing until their revolvers were empty. Peele, suffering from three gunshot wounds, dragged himself across the floor and sank his knife into Rucker’s chest. He told witnesses he had a wife in Leavenworth and wanted her to know he fought to the last minute.
Peele didn’t die. He made a full recovery and went back to gambling. He reportedly killed six men in Nevada alone.
It was in Virginia City that Peele and Bull struck up their partnership. It’s also where Mark Twain may have given Peele the nickname “Farmer.” According to author Robert DeArment, they called the tall, dangerous fighting man “Farmer” for the same reason they called a bald-headed man “Curly.”
Twain described the group as brave, reckless men who traveled with their lives in their hands. They did their killing principally among themselves and seldom molested peaceable citizens. They killed each other on slight provocation and hoped to be killed themselves, holding it almost a shame to die with their boots off.
Interestingly, John Bull once robbed Mark Twain just outside Virginia City. Twain had played an ill-advised trick on Bull. In retaliation, Bull and his friends waylaid Twain in disguise, held him up at gunpoint, and made off with his money and a gold watch.
A few days later, Twain’s valuables were returned in grand fashion, along with the hoods used in the robbery. Twain learned the culprits were Bull and his compadres, and the robbery was their version of a joke.
Twain reportedly talked to the boys quite profanely until the stage drove off. According to Twain himself, the ordeal cured him of playing practical jokes.
After leaving Virginia City, Bull and Peele traveled together through Utah. The relationship soured, and they split up. But by the summer of 1867, they were running a crooked game together in Helena, Montana.
They butted heads once more, and things got serious fast. Both men were in a saloon when they jumped to their feet and began shouting. Peele slapped Bull across the face with his left hand while drawing a six-shooter with his right.
Bull stated he was unarmed. Peele replied that he best go heel himself, meaning come armed or don’t come at all.
Later that evening, Peele stepped out of the saloon walking arm-in-arm with his mistress. Bull emerged from the shadows and shot Peele twice, then strolled over and delivered a coup de grâce to the veteran gambler’s head.
Bull was arrested and went to trial, but the jury hung, and he was released.
Next stop was Cheyenne, a rough tent city along the Union Pacific Railroad. Due to killing Peele, Bull enjoyed celebrity status among fellow bad men.
Twain wrote that desperadoes stalked the streets with a swagger, and a nod of recognition from them was enough to make a humble admirer happy for the rest of the day. When they entered restaurants, waiters deserted other customers to overwhelm them with obsequious service.
Peele was the last man Bull ever killed, at least that we know of. But the violent escapades weren’t over.
Bull traveled with the Union Pacific expansion into Utah, where it linked up with the Central Pacific. There, he met his wife. He stuck her in a Chicago boarding house while he continued to gamble.
The couple had two children, but Mrs. Bull passed away a few years into the marriage. Bull placed his kids in a foster home and returned west. As far as anyone knows, he never had contact with them again.
Bull eventually settled in Omaha and worked with a gang of con artists and card sharps led by a man known as Canada Bill Jones. One of Bull’s duties was to lead unsuspecting marks to crooked games.
When a railroad employee tried to warn others about Bull’s intentions, Bull and a companion pulled out knives and cut the man up. Authorities located Bull in a saloon around 4:30 in the morning, but the inebriated Englishman wasn’t in the mood to be arrested.
He jerked out a large Navy Colt and aimed it at the marshal, saying he wouldn’t be taken until the revolver was empty. The lawman turned and headed the other direction.
Bull soon passed out drunk, and when awakened by a friend, he quietly submitted to arrest.
The stabbed railroad man had friends who formed a vigilante committee with intent to hang Bull. But the victim pulled through, and the lynching was called off. In court, the victim couldn’t make a positive identification, and Bull was a free man again.
In November 1873, Bull was involved in a controversial bare-knuckle boxing match. The fight was deemed illegal, so promoters moved it across the Missouri River to Pacific Junction, Iowa.
Bull, acting as timekeeper, had placed a lot of money on Ben Hogan. During the second round, when Hogan appeared to take a low blow, Bull jumped into the ring crying foul. The referee dismissed the call, and the bout continued.
Hogan collapsed, and the crowd went wild. The referee announced a no contest and declared all bets off. Pandemonium ensued, with fights breaking out among the crowd. Several spectators were injured, and at least one man was killed.
Bull packed up and headed to Deadwood, then Denver, where he was arrested several times over the next few years for public drunkenness, fighting, disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest.
In Denver, he teamed up with fellow gambler John Coxen, also known as Jim Moon. The pair opened a combination restaurant and gambling joint called the Oyster Ocean.
One night, Moon and Bull caused too much of a ruckus at a party. Police showed up, and Moon waded into the lawmen swinging his fists. Bull joined in, and the officers made a hasty retreat to call for backup.
When reinforcements arrived, Moon and Bull stood resolutely in the doorway with guns in hand. Cooler heads prevailed, and the two surrendered.
Jim Moon had a notable moment in October 1880 when a mob descended on Denver’s Chinatown. Rather than join the mob, Moon rushed to defend the Chinese residents, standing guard in front of a laundry with a pistol in each hand. He hid over a dozen people in the basement of a nearby gambling establishment. At least one account claims Bull was by his side.
Moon’s life ended abruptly seven months later. He thought another gambler was making eyes at his woman, attacked, and was shot twice by the man.
Bull left Denver for good in 1882, gambling back and forth from Minneapolis to Seattle. He also made a trip back to England.
Legend has it that Bull and a partner were selling fraudulent stocks and played-out silver mines. They supposedly dined with the Prince of Wales and returned to the States with a profit of $225,000, nearly $900,000 in today’s money.
Bull had a close call in Spokane, Washington. He and an ex-friend named Fisk Barnett got drunk together. For some unknown reason, Barnett extinguished his cigar directly into Bull’s eye.
Bull yelled in pain, covered his eye, and pulled his gun, firing blindly. Barnett took cover behind a nearby woman and fired back.
When the smoke cleared, all three were lying in the street in a pool of blood. Barnett had lost a finger. The woman took a round to the lungs. Bull was shot four times in the arm, groin, neck, and chin.
Both Bull and the woman survived. Barnett was fined $10 and sent on his way.
Bull had his left arm amputated. The bullet in his neck was too close to his windpipe for doctors to remove, and he carried it for two decades until a surgeon in Missouri finally fished it out.
Bull gave up the ghost in 1929. According to him, he was 93 years old.
When Bull first arrived in Montana, there was still a real threat of losing his scalp. He spent years in boom towns where the only law was what a man could enforce with his own fists, knife, or gun.
Through it all, John Bull survived. He may not have been a good man, and he lost an arm and an eye along the way. But unlike many of his contemporaries, he died an old man with his boots off.
For every Pat Garrett or Wyatt Earp, there were a dozen John Bulls, Jim Moons, or Farmer Peeles, deadly men in their own right who never had books or movies made about their exploits.