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About Grat Dalton.

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Grat Dalton about 24-25 years of age.

Gratton Dalton, sometimes spelled in different publications and newspaper clippings as Grattan, was born near Lawrence, Kansas on March 30th, 1861. Being often described, in many books and DVD’s, that I have read and watched over the years, as a bully, pugnacious, sensitive to challenge or fancied insults, stupid, idiot, heavy drinker, additive gambler, having the heft of a bull calf and the disposition of a baby rattlesnake and slow minded is not the best of words for the description of a person. Reading these types of descriptions made me curious to know more about this particular member of the Dalton gang. After researching him more, off the beaten path, I found that Gratton as well as the other Dalton boys in general over the years have been given more of a black eye, by historians, than should be just because of the Coffeyville raid. The Dalton’s where effective lawmen and didn’t get paid what they were due most of the time, condemned for working both sides of the law when many of the other marshals probably was doing some of this same stuff but many just didn’t get caught, ridiculed for just being related to the Youngers of the James/Younger gang, and falsely accused of criminal activity that they didn’t have anything to do with like the Alila train robbery. After reading some of this stuff in documents, books, and DVD’s I could certainly see why they turned to the lawless side of life!

You can get a good mential picture of him and what he must have been like but you will need to read many books to obtain this image. His physical features were well described by one person that knew him, "He was about five feet nine or ten inches tall and very strong. He was not fat, but was heavy limbed. His shoulders were rounded and carried slightly forward and his arms hung forward of his body in an aggressive position. He also had an unmistakable gruff voice."

Emmett Dalton, Grat’s brother, described him in his book “When The Daltons Rode” wrote in 1930 on page 142 in more personal detail as well, “Always a little puzzling to the rest of us, somehow beyond our reach, as we groped our way through adolescence. Aimless, discontented, troubled. Peculiarly alone, even though he was by nature decidedly social. Stormy as a threshing sea; the Irish blood in him seething with cross-rip and undertow. Incalculable. Trying to justify and establish himself in pugnacious aggressions, yet finding little satisfaction even in successful battle.

Sad it is when brothers feel that remoteness which no physical nearness nor any bridge out of boyhood may connect-the sense of something once familiar now irrevocably lost in the diverging paths of manhood. A little like death. Thus I looked at Grat, after he had made a flying visit to Mother. And thus he looked at me. I tried to fathom the secret thing that lurked in his eyes.

To ride fifteen weeks as Grat did, with a constant eye for pursuit or ambush; to march only with one’s phantom shadow day to day across interminable plains and heedless hills; to dwell aloof night by night beside tiny chip fires, with saddle for pillow and rifle for bedfellow; to look askance at every chance wayfarer-all this compels a man’s mind inward to take profound stock of himself. Perhaps Grat understood himself at last. The bitter sap, at any rate, was rising in him to deadly fruitage. Paradoxically he was to become the laughing member of our reunited clan. It was as if he had suddenly caught the point of some Gargantuan jest.”

The Pinkerton Detective Agency described him as follows, "Gratton Dalton, Nativity Johnson County, Kansas. Inveterate tobacco chewer, card player and prided himself on being the best cribbage player in the county. Passionately fond of whiskey. Brags of his detective ability. When embarrassed picks his teeth and cleans his finger nails. Is left handed and generally shoots from the left shoulder although he can shoot equally well from the right."

Grat's appearance was something that I noticed changed in the few photos that he had made throughout the years of his life. He was described as sandy blond with blue eyes. On inspection of the photos of Coffeyville raid he looked to me as black headed. When reading through, the newspaper clippings, again from California when he was on trial, I discovered that he dyed his moustache black! This was something that I never knew he did! Grat to me looks totally different in each one of the three photos that he had taken in life. He may have learned to change his appearance and to do this often seeing that he did have trouble with the law many times in his life time.

Grat's drinking and violent temper was a very "big" problem for him thoughout his life. At the age of sixteen it was stated that he was as big as his daddy, could drink more whiskey than Quantrill, had whipped every boy around Belton, and would take on men even bigger in combat! In California he was well-known to be a drinker, brawler and gambler in most of the saloons and bordellos in the San Joaquin Valley. What these "brawls" were over is not always clear whether it was over money lost in poker games or over other matters is vague to me. It was written that a Marshal Yoes, who was a marshal in Fort Smith and who was a friend to all of the Dalton boys when they were officers, try to be patient with Grat when he got too intoxicated at a Frank Barland's Saloon. This incident shows that there were people around him trying to be understanding of him and his problems. This was good seeing that I think that he needed someone to be caring and understanding of him and didn't always get that kind of treatment.

Grat may have been looking for a deeper bonding with his father than he got. There are signs that show this in his life. He almost mimicked James Lewis Dalton, his daddy, in his life and the way that he lived being a gambler, as well as his shiftless lifestyle moving from place to place. It is thought that James was the one that introduced the boys to the life style of gambling, and the rough crowd that come with it, by taking them to the race tracks and he was thought to be the one that kept “glamorizing” their famous relatives the Youngers from the Jessie James/Younger gang. It has been said that he would read the children the famous “dime novels” that was so popular in those days and tell them that they were related to the Youngers through their mother’s side of the family. These glamorous images that were given to the boys at an early age would impact them for the rest of their lives. It is said that the Coffeyville raid was not only to get back at the town of Coffeyville for their ugly treatment of them and their family but to out do the James/Youngers and make them more famous than them.

I know that there has been some fun poked at this situation of Grat and his missing bond for his dad discussed in an article one time that I read. There is an article that was written in a 1973 issue of “Best of the West Yearbook 1973 “magazine entitled “Grat Dalton’s Fatal Looking Glass”. It discusses that many of the old timers that knew the Daltons in the day seen Grat and this mirror who evidently spent hours looking at himself with it. It wasn’t clear why he spent hours looking at himself with this mirror down by a creek or just by himself but speculation is thought that it was to check himself out after one of his many famous fights that he was reported to have had. Also, in this article, weather it was true or not, talks about how Grat’s daddy gave him this mirror when he was a boy and that he took it everywhere with him only taking it out of his pocket to give to someone, like Emmett, in the case of one of those many fights. It was also reported that he lost this mirror on the mountain in California were he was hiding out from the law for the Alila train robbery. The story of the law catching them looking for this mirror that was lost was told by law officers, that were assigned to hunt for Grat and Riley Dean his cell mate, a little differently. The officers said that it was pigs to have for their Christmas dinner that they were looking for and there was no mention of a mirror what so ever in their story. This is just one of many stories about the Daltons that are lost in time and probably is not true like many others about them.

Of course Coffeyville back in those days, when the boys were growing up, was not a tame town to raise children in from what is read. Coffeyville back then had a notorious street called “Red Hot Street” that gambling, murder, and prostitution went on at and that it was more of a cattle town than the farming community that it developed into being later. I would think that this street would have had an impact on them tremendously growing up and witnessing some of the wild and wicked things that went on there. As much as their mother probably tried to shelter them from it and raise her children right in the Methodist religion life style it still would have been hard to keep them from seeing the activity that went on in these locations if nothing else keep them from hearing about it. And my I add here that their mother was considered to be a fine, christian person in the community and I would certainly think that she did her best to raise her children well with the circumstance that she was under.

Bob Dalton had a very big impact on Grat and the way he acted throughout his life as well. In newspaper clippings that I have read, when he was involved in the Alila train robbery trial he, Grat, often called Bob as "Bobby". In one book it is stated that Gratton was a good person but entirely under the influence of Bob his brother the writer felt like. This "influence" that Bob had on him as would ultimately help to end his life in Coffeyville, KS by coming up with the raid. In the end I think that Bob tried to get him to lead on his own by letting him take the Condon bank with Power and Broadwell but, it just was not in his "cards" for it to go off successfully and ended very tragically not just for Grat but all of the rest of them as well. If you read carefully through the many newspaper articles, that I have posted here throughout the web site, you will see that Grat and Emmett both were heavily influenced by Bob's electric personality that he was suppose to have had. Bob's personality must have been mesmerizing and strong to influence Gratton see that he was much, much younger than he was. It has often been said that Emmett tried to emulate Bob even in his older years and long after the Coffeyville affair.

I think that it is important to add here with many of Grat's short comings there were some very good points about him as well. It has been often mentioned in many publications that he was brave when he was a law officer and he was definitely strong in his phyical being to make it out of California after suffering from a serious illness, pneumonia, and then making the very long trip back to Oklahoma to be with his brothers! It has been mentioned as well that he loved his mother very much and it was by her request that he made the trip to California to see after his brothers, Bob and Emmett, when the Alila incident took place. In some books/DVD's it states that the brothers came to California together back then to start a fresh new life after troubles in Indian Territory.

All in all Grat Dalton’s life was filled with many terrible things other than just the Coffeyville affair. I hope to show in the next following pages Grat’s life that some out there may have not considered and to justify some of his actions in life.

Next Page: Grat Dalton As A Marshal In Fort Smith