Bat Masterson

Bartholomew Masterson was born in Henryville, Quebec, in 1853 and raised on a succession of farms in Canada and the northern United States until in 1870. He and his family then moved to Kansas and settled. He later changed his name to William Barkley Masterson, and was nicknamed "Bat" most of his life.

Bat Masterson was a buffalo hunter, gambler, lawman and gunfighter. In 1872, at the age of nineteen, he first met Wyatt Earp while both men were hunting buffalo on the Salt Fork of the Arkansas. They soon parted, not meeting up again until 1876.

On the morning of October 25, 1921, Bat Masterson sat behind his newspaper desk, picked up his ink pen and wrote these words, "There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this dump of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear that I can't see it that way..." These would be the last words he wrote. He died of a heart attack at his desk.

Television

Bat Masterson was a Western television series which showed a fictionalized account of the life of real-life man. The title character was played by Gene Barry and the half-hour black and white shows ran on NBC from 1958 to 1961.

Back when the west was very young, 
There lived a man named Masterson. 
He wore a cane and derby hat, 
They called him Bat, Bat Masterson. 

The trail that he blazed is still there. 
No one has come since, to replace his name. 
And those with too ready a trigger, 
Forgot to figure on his lightning cane. 

Now in the legend of the west, 
One name stands out of all the rest. 
The man who had the fastest gun, 
His name was Bat, Bat Masterson.