Highwayman Strikes Fear at Coyote
As if duplicating the final days of his outlaw hero Harry Tracy,
a wild scene staged by George Tann on the old Monterey Road
terrified Coyote residents on Aug. 9, 1902.
As if duplicating the final days of his outlaw hero Harry Tracy, a wild scene staged by George Tann on the old Monterey Road terrified Coyote residents on Aug. 9, 1902.
He and his partner, Fred Williams, had driven a buggy up to Heple’s store, marched inside and demanded the owner hand over a supply of ammunition. The ensuing events moved like lightening, even though the crime spree didn’t spread any farther than the 15-Mile House,
After procuring the ammunition from Mr. Heple, the two men walked outside the store, where they commanded A.J. Bardness and G.H. Williams to throw up their hands. Bardness was relieved of $30, and Williams was forced to part with $4.50. After the victims protested they really needed the money, one of the robbers took pity and handed them a portion of the proceeds. When Mr. Heple was spied observing the larceny, he, too, was forced to hand over a fiver.
The highwaymen took off, heading south. Along the road they met up with W.M. McKee and J.E. Rollins, traveling agents for a sewing machine company, who produced $1.50. Alarmed, McKee whipped up his horse to get away, causing Tann to fire a parting shot. The bullet hit Rollins in the thigh, a wound that later required surgery at the San Jose hospital. The bandits hastened away, reaching Stevens’ store. Once inside, they attempted to rob Stevens, who protested he had no money. At this, a customer named Tom Fisher came up and donated $1 to the bandit’s growing fund, which by this time totaled $18. The men divided the loot between them and left.
Meantime, the earlier victims, Bardness and Williams, along with a local rancher named Henry Johnson, had secured a team of horses and some guns from Mr. Heple and started off in hot pursuit of the fugitives. When they reached the Dougherty-Randoll tract, Tann discovered he and his partner were being pursued and they quickly turned their horses toward the foothills. But the animals were tiring, and the men were forced to abandon their mounts. They raced on foot through nearby orchards and fields as Bardness and his companions gained on them, opening fire. Frantically, the fleeing men sought cover. Williams scurried to crouch in some tangled undergrowth. Tann, who was carrying both weapons, dashed over a field toward a barn. Bardness, in hot pursuit, followed with a rifle. Desperately, Tann headed for a small straw stack while turning to fire with his out-of-range pistol. Bardness returned fire twice, commanding Tann to throw down his weapon and raise his hands.
“I will not throw up my hands for anyone,” Tann declared, cursing loudly.
At this defiance, Bardness fired again, the shot appearing to hit Tann. The renegade fell down from the bullet’s force, and, just as suddenly, arose again. Uttering a last, loud curse, Tann placed the barrel of his pistol into his mouth, pulled the trigger and fell to the ground dead.
Seeing this, Williams emerged from the thicket and gave himself up.
Tann’s body bore only one mark – the gruesome, self-inflicted blast from his own pistol. The single bullet had shot upwards through the roof of his mouth and lodged in his brain, just below the skull. The bullets previously fired from Bardness’s rifle had grazed only his clothing, cutting through to the undershirt over his abdomen.
When Williams was taken into custody and questioned, he said Tann had first suggested the holdup idea, only then informing him that he was an ex-convict. Williams added Tann was a great admirer of the outlaw Tracy, and that his mind had become inflamed by reading of the outlaw’s exploits, causing him to emulate the criminal’s actions. Tann had declared he didn’t care, under pursuit, what happened to him.
Harry Tracy, who once ran with Butch Cassidy, had killed a posse and in 1899 was sent to the Oregon State Penitentiary. On June 9, 1902, he escaped, leading 250 militiamen, law officers and bloodhounds on a manhunt lasting 58 days. Finally ambushed in Creston, Wash., he put a bullet through his right eye and died on Aug. 5, 1902 only four days before George Tann followed suit in the Coyote countryside.
Williams claimed he was forced to rob because Tann threatened to otherwise shoot him. But it was later noted that Williams, not Tann, had stolen the horse and rig from his employer’s San Jose ranch, using it to drive to the Heple Store holdup in Coyote.
Preliminary examination of Williams took place before Justice Reed of Madrone, with District Attorney Campbell conducting the prosecution. Williams, penniless, served as his own attorney. Several witnesses recounted the event, and Sheriff Langford testified regarding Williams admitting the division of stolen money with Tann. In the end, the prisoner pleaded guilty and was bound over to Superior Court for trial. With bail set at an unattainable sum of $5,000, the dejected Williams was taken off to county jail.
In the meantime, Tann’s body was put on public display in Madrone and viewed by hundreds of people, who turned out to glimpse the grisly scene. The corpse was later brought to Gilroy for viewing, drawing more curious onlookers. Although Tann’s mother, brother and sister arrived from Felton to see the remains, no one claimed the body or attended the funeral.
Meantime up in Oregon, Harry Tracy’s body was lying on a mortuary slab, reportedly on public display for 5 cents per viewer. Souvenir hunters passing by were cutting and tearing off bits of his funeral suit and tearing out hairs from his scalp for a keepsake of the Northwest’s greatest fugitive. The remains of Tracy’s cadaver was finally delivered back to the Oregon State Penitentiary for burial. Officials, fearing more fans would seek memorabilia from the body, covered it with hydrochloric acid and quick lime before interment in an unmarked grave.
Down in Gilroy, as if in last gesture to his hero, Tann’s body was taken to potter’s field, where it was unceremoniously buried, adding further ignominy to what had begun as the South County’s wildest crime fling.
Folks in Salem, Ore., say the old prison cemetery has been obliterated, and that no one has ever located Tracy’s grave. Gilroy’s old potter’s field followed the same fate, and today no one knows just where George Tann’s body lies.
