Robert Clay Allison was born 2 Sep 1841 in Waynesboro, TN to Rev. Jeremiah Scotland Allison (1811-1892) & Mariah Ruth Brown (1814-1894).
He called himself "The Shootist"
1862
Name: Robert Allison
Age: 22
Birth Date: abt 1840
Enlistment Date: 30 Sep 1862
Enlistment Place: Berkley Co, Virginia, USA
Rank: Private
Military Unit: Eighth Infantry
1870 he shot himself in the foot during a stampede of mules.
He was born with a club foot, his father died when he was 5 years old. Clay was restless since birth and as he grew older he became feared because of his mood swings. He worked the family farm until the Civil War and he joined the Confederacy. The discharge documents further suggested that the condition might have been the result of “a blow received many years ago, producing a depression of the skull”. That head injury has been the usual explanation for Allison’s psychotic behavior when drinking, perhaps explaining some of his later violent activities. On September 22, 1862, Clay reenlisted to the 9th Tennessee Cavalry and remained with them until the war’s end. Apparently, he suffered no further medical complications and became a scout and a spy for General Nathan Bedford Forrest. He began sporting the Vandyke beard he wore the rest of his life in imitation of the flamboyant cavalry commander. On May 4, 1865, Allison surrendered with his company at Gainesville, Alabama. He was held as a prisoner of war until May 10, 1865, having been convicted of spying and sentenced to be shot. But the night before he was to face the firing squad he killed the guard and escaped.
He and his brothers Monroe and John, sister Mary and her husband, Lewis Coleman then moved to the Brazos River Country in Texas. Attempting to cross a wide river along the way, Zachary Colbert, the ferryman, presented the price of the crossing. Clay accused the ferryman of overcharging and an argument ensued, whereby Colbert was left unconscious. This event may have led to the ferryman’s desperado nephew, Chunk Colbert, being killed by Allison some nine years later. On January 7, 1874, Clay killed gunman Chunk Colbert, a known gunslinger. Colbert came to the area looking for a fight with Allison. Some say that Colbert fancied that he could outdraw and outshoot anyone, including Allison. Others say that he wanted revenge for his uncle, Zachary Colbert, the ferryman that Allison had pummeled at the Brazos River nine years earlier. Reportedly, Colbert had already killed 6 men in Texas and bragged that Allison would be his seventh. Not giving away his motives, Colbert found Allison and the two spent most of the day together drinking and gambling on horse races.
That night Colbert invited Allison to dinner at the Clifton House and Allison accepted. Guessing that there might be trouble, Clay was very cautious but, the talk was friendly as they enjoyed a large meal spread out before them. When they were seated it Colbert laid his gun in his lap and Allison laid his gun on the table. After the meal was finished Colbert suddenly reached for his gun under the table and leveled it towards Allison. The perceptive Allison followed suit and when Colbert’s gun nicked the table, the shot was deflected and Allison shot him in the head. Later Allison was asked why He had accepted to have a meal with him and answered, “Because I didn’t want to send a man to hell on an empty stomach.” Colbert was buried in an unmarked grave behind the Clifton House.
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57429498/clay-allison/
1881
Clay's Siblings
Susan Elizabeth Allison
1834–1866
John T. Allison
1836–1839
Jesse Alonzo Allison
1839–1904
Robert Clay Allison
1841–1887
Jeremiah Monroe Allison
1844–1887
Mary Allison
1844–1931
Saluda Ann Mary Allison
1844–1931
Emley Isabelle Allison
1850–1933
Sarah Frances Allison
1852–1933
John William Allison
1854–1898
Bertha Rhea Allison
1883
1885
With his marriage Clay Allison had become an ideal family man and father, stopped drinking and settled down to serious cattle ranching without the violence of land wars and political assassinations that had taken up his time in New Mexico Territory. He was one of the signers of a petition to form Reeves County, Texas, and according to those who personally knew him in the late 1880s, he was a man respected by his neighbors.
He married and had the following daughter's
Spouse & Children
America Medora McCullough
1862–1926
Patti Dora Allison
1885–1971
Clay Pearl Allison
1888–1962
The girl's death certificates
Clay Pearl dies in car accident
1886
Clay Allison_Handbook of Texas
Posted 13 Feb 2010 by LloydParker1941
ALLISON, ROBERT CLAY (1841–1887). Clay Allison, gunfighter, the fourth of nine children of Jeremiah Scotland and Mariah R. (Brown) Allison, was born on a farm in Wayne County, Tennessee, on September 2, 1841. His father was a row crop farmer. When the Civil War broke out, Allison joined Phillips' Tennessee Light Artillery Company in the Confederate Army. On January 15, 1862, he received a medical discharge for emotional instability resulting from a head injury as a child, but in September he re enlisted as a cavalryman with Company F, Col. Jacob B. Biffle's Nineteenth Tennessee Cavalry. The regiment was with Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in the fall of 1864 through the spring of 1865 and surrendered at the war's end with Forrest's Cavalry Corps. He was a prisoner of war in Alabama from May 4 to 10, 1865.
After the war Allison moved to the Brazos River country in Texas. Allison soon signed on as a cowhand with Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight and may have been among the eighteen herders on the 1866 drive that blazed the Goodnight-Loving Trail. He was in Colfax County, New Mexico, by the spring of 1871 when he accidentally shot himself in the foot while he and some companions stampeded a herd of Gen. Gordon Granger's army mules as a prank. In 1872 Allison's future brother-in-law L. G. Coleman and ranching partner I. W. Lacy moved to a spread in Colfax County, New Mexico. Allison drove their herd to the new ranch for a payment of 300 cattle, with which he started his own ranch near Cimarron. Eventually he built it into a lucrative operation.
Allison was a heavy drinker and became involved in several brawls and shooting sprees. On October 30, 1875, he may have been in a mob that seized and lynched Cruz Vega, who was suspected of murdering a Methodist circuit rider. Two days later Allison killed gunman Pancho Griego, a friend of Vega, in a confrontation at the St. James Hotel in Cimarron. In January 1876 a drunken Allison wrecked the office of the Cimarron News & Press because of a scathing editorial. He allegedly later returned to the newspaper office and paid $200 for damages. In December of that year Clay and his brother John were involved in a dance-hall gunfight at Las Animas, Colorado, in which a deputy sheriff was killed. For this Allison was arrested and charged with manslaughter, but the charges were later dismissed on grounds of self-defense. Allison was arrested as an accessory to the murder of three black soldiers the following spring, but evidence was sketchy and he was soon acquitted. In 1878 he sold his New Mexico ranch to his brother John for $700 and moved to Hemphill County, Texas, on land located at the junction of Gageby Creek and the Washita River.
By 1880 Clay and his brothers, Jeremiah Monroe Allison and John Allison, had settled on the Gageby Creek land next door to their sister Saluda Ann and her husband Louis G. Coleman and fellow Tennesseans, the J. C. Hoggett family. Clay registered an ACE brand for his cattle. On February 15, 1881, he married Dora McCullough in Mobeetie, Wheeler County, Texas. The couple had two daughters. Though Allison served as a juror in Mobeetie, and though age and marriage had slowed him down some, his reputation as the "Wolf of the Washita" was kept alive by reports of his unusual antics. Once he was said to have ridden nude through the streets of Mobeetie.
In 1883 he bought a ranch located on the Texas-New Mexico border northwest of Pecos and became involved in area politics. On July 3, 1887, while hauling supplies to his ranch from Pecos he was thrown from his heavily loaded wagon and fatally injured when run over by its rear wheel. He was buried in the Pecos Cemetery the next day. On August 28, 1975, in a special ceremony, his remains were interred in Pecos Park, just west of the Pecos Museum.
1887
Clay's Death
What a way for a gunman to die.
Here's a good read for you on Amazon
Here's a great video of Clay's life
Hi Gwen, My step-son-in-law John Paul Allison mentioned he had a grandfather who was an outlaw. I told him I would check it out. Your site was extremely helpful with my research and I thank you for your work.
ReplyDeleteRespectfully, Russ Carey. Eugene, Oregon
II am glad you found this and feel free to use anything I have...You are very welcome..
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