John Daly

John Daly (1839 – February 1864) was an American Old West outlaw and leader of the "Daly Gang". Daly and his gang were known for terrorizing townspeople with the violent treatment of those who resisted their thievery. A citizen posse would catch and hang Daly near Aurora, Nevada after a brutal murder. Outlaw life, hanging John Daly, by most accounts, was born in New York and wound up in California by way of Canada. He was said by the Esmerelda Star to be a handsome man. In late 1862, at around 23 years of age, with a string of dead men reportedly in his past (a rumored four to ten in Sacramento, California, alone), Daly rode into Aurora, Nevada, to make his living off of the gold rush. The Pond Mining Company hired him and associates John McDowell, alias Three-Fingered Jack, Italian Jim, William Buckley, Jim Sears, and many others to protect its interests. The Pond was fighting with the Real Del Monte Mining Company over claims to Last Chance Hill. Both companies hired gunmen to intimidate the other side and to keep witnesses from testifying against their companies in court. Within three years some twenty-seven of citizens had met their death by violence. Then, in fall 1863, Daly and several of his men became deputy city marshals of Aurora and took to shaking down honest merchants. "No sooner had the Marshal been sworn in," the Star said the next year, "than the worst villains that ever infested a civilized community were appointed policemen, and with but few exceptions they were composed of as hard a set [of] criminals [as] ever went unhung." In April, 1863, Daly Gang member Jim Sears stole a horse tied near Hoy's Station, on the banks of the West Walker River, and rode away. The owner, Louis Wedertz, much distressed by the loss, went down the road to Jack Wright's Station, now Wellington, and asked assistance of W. R. Johnson, who was keeping the place. Johnson directed John A. Rogers, one of his men, to pursue the robber and fetch the horse back. At Sweetwater Rogers overtook Sears, who, being called upon three times to stop and refusing to comply, was shot dead. The horse was returned to Wedertz, and Johnson and Rogers were commended. The gang, determined to kill Johnson for his actions, induced him to go to Adobe Meadows and keep a station there, intending to kill him without witnesses.