TGIF POU!
Black Cowboy, Cattle Thief, Partner with a Mexican Bandit, Affair with a Shosone Indian woman, Play Dead to Escape Sure Death, Improbable Rescue……………………what a life!
Ned Huddleston (aka Isom Dart) was born into slavery in Arkansas in 1849. His reputation as a rider, roper and bronco-buster earned him the nicknames of the “Black Fox” and the “Calico Cowboy.” He was also a notorious Wyoming Territory outlaw.
In 1861 twelve-year-old Huddleston accompanied his owner, a Confederate officer, into Texas during the Civil War. After being freed at the end of the war Huddleston headed for the southern Texas-Mexico border region where he found work at a rodeo, became a stunt rider and honed his skills as a master horseman.
Huddleston straddled both sides of the law. For a time he and a young Mexican bandit named Terresa survived as rustlers stealing horses in Mexico and selling them in Texas.
Huddleston later joined a cattle drive heading northwest to Brown’s Hole in the Colorado-Wyoming area around 1871. The 6’2” Huddleston briefly found success mining gold and silver then claimed his partner cheated him out of his earnings.
After a tumultuous love affair with a Shoshone Indian woman in 1875, Huddleston joined the infamous Tip Gault Gang, a cattle and horse rustling outfit of southeastern Wyoming. After narrowly escaping death he went further west and started a new life as a hard-working man. He changed his name to Isom Dart and made a living as a bronco buster.
“…They were the Tip Gault Gang. Among the gang’s number were Tip Gault, Jack Leath, Joe Pease, a Mexican known only as Terresa, and an ex-slave, Ned Huddleston. Huddleston had been born in Arkansas in 1849. After the Civil War, he drifted into Mexico and Texas working as a rodeo clown and eventually arrived in Brown’s Park with a cattle drive. One evening the Gault Gang was burying a member who had been kicked to death by a horse when they were ambushed by a group of cowboys seeking revenge for earlier Gault wrong-doings. All of the gang were killed except Huddleston who jumped into the grave and played dead. Ned eventually crawled out of the grave and stole a horse from a nearby ranch to make his getaway. The rancher spotted him and managed to shoot him in the leg as he rode away. Exhausted from the loss of blood, Ned fell off of his horse and passed out on the trail. Miraculously, Ned was discovered and nursed back to health by William ‘Billy Buck’ Tittsworth who, as a youngster in Arkansas, had lived on a plantation neighboring Ned’s. The two men had been close friends in their youth and had not seen each other for years before that fateful night on the trail. Huddleston managed to get to Green River City where he caught the first train out of town. He changed his name and determined to go straight. He would eventually return to Brown’s Park as Isom Dart. …”
He even escaped both prison and death again, somehow, after being captured:
Isom Dart later returned to Brown’s Hole around 1890 and established his own ranch, but local cattlemen suspected he had built up his ranch herd from cattle he’d rustled from their ranches. The ranchers hired the notorious range detective, Tom Horn, to punish Dart. Horn ambushed and killed Isom Dart on October 3, 1900 near Brown’s Hole. Public opinion was (and continues to be) divided about Dart’s guilt. Some Brown’s Hole residents mourned his death, claiming Dart was killed by cattleman who wanted his land and cattle. They saw Dart as a good-hearted, talented horseman and a top bronc stomper. Others believed he never completely relinquished his life of cattle rustling and thus remained a menace to the community.
Isom Dart (1849-1900)
