Man With Bowie Knife Kills Eight?!

In History of the Oklahoma City Police Department, by Ed Hill and Ron Owen, we read:

In 1896 the Territorial Legislature passed a law making the Chief's post an elective one. The first elected Chief was Edward F. Cochran, serving his second term. Cochran had a force of 8 men and 3 bloodhounds to maintain some semblance of order.

Probably the highlight of his term occurred within a single week in 1897. The first incident occurred at Traylor's Saloon at 16 West California. Patrolman Ike Ashburn and two other officers got in a "free-for-all shootout" with a house full of drunks, leaving 6 dead. Chief Cochran strongly defended his officers and refused to "fire" them. A few days later, a repeat performance took place at The Bucket of Blood in the 800 block of East 1st. A berserk Mexican, brandishing a Bowie knife, killed 8 razor-toting patrons before being killed by an unnamed police officer.

This is the kind of throwaway line that drives the conscientious researcher crazy. If, in fact, a berserk Mexican killed 8 razor-toting patrons of the Bucket of Blood saloon in the course of a brawl, it would be one of the most remarkable feats of personal combat on record. Even in the waning years of the Old West, this would qualify as national news. However, my research in on-line newspaper archives turned up nothing to support this story, so I can't give it much credibility.

Ron Owen, the co-author of the book, has written several excellent books on law enforcement in Oklahoma, including a biography, Legendary Lawman: The Story of Quick Draw Jelly Bryce.

Madman With a Bowie Knife

In an article on the bowie knife in the Galveston Daily News (March 21, 1920), J. O. Dyer discounted the idea that James Bowie’s knife had some special property, writing: “Given a blade sharp enough to cut; long enough to penetrate; strong enough not to break readily; given also a hand strong enough to dexterously wield such a simple weapon, and it requires no Bowie record; such a one in the hands of a madman has often wreaked terrible execution.”

To illustrate his point, we have the case of a Mr. Jenkins, of Cairo, Illinois, who “went postal” one day January 1853, demonstrating that a madman with a bowie knife in each hand is not to be taken lightly. The article, from the Dixon Telegraph (January 22, 1853) states:

Yesterday was “estimate day,” with the hands laboring on the Cairo levees—Mr. Ellis, contractor, commenced making settlements, but his office soon became so completely jammed with creditors that he found it impossible to proceed unless he could clear it. He therefore requested the crowd to leave remarking that he would call them in and settle singly. They did not go. A Mr. Jenkins now ordered them out, and not having his orders properly noticed, rushed among them with a bowie knife in each hand, cutting right and left in an earnest and indiscriminate manner. He had seriously wounded two persons, and still was at his murderous work when an axe was buried in his head up to the helve, cleaving open his brains. He died soon afterwards. It is well perhaps that Mr. Jenkins was killed so soon, for his early death, no doubt, prevented him from taking a half dozen lives, so fierce and determined was his onslaught on the crowd. One of the persons he wounded will probably die. Mr. Jenkins was in the employ of Ellis, Jenkins & Co., and professed to be a doctor.

Bowie-Knife Fighter: Byron Potter

Byron Potter, 27, had been working as a guard at the Freight Depot of the Michigan Southern Railroad for 14 months when, on April 5, 1857, he became involved in a desperate fight.
   
That evening a woman approached Potter and asked him to direct her to a respectable lodging, and he recommended the Exchange Hotel. There were a number of  “hotel runners” present, men whose job it was to persuade travelers to got to the hotel they worked for, and then take them there with their baggage. Such work was fiercely competitive, and at the time was dominated by Irish immigrants. One of the runners, Morris Geary, who worked for the Limerick House, berated Potter for presuming to direct the woman to a competing hotel, using “the most vulgar and profane language.”
   
As Geary continued his abuse, threatening to knock Potter's brains out, Potter arrested him and started to take him to the watch house. Geary resisted and struck Potter in the face, and a crowd of Irish runners came to his assistance. Jerry Shiner, keeper of the Limerick House and “a notorious rowdy,” seized Potter by the arms as the mob rescued the prisoner.
   
Potter then headed towards the freight house, but had not gotten far when Geary came up to him, grabbed him by the whiskers, and attempted to hit him in the face. At the same time, another runner, Patrick Brown, struck at Potter with a stick, and another, William Galvin, punched him above the eye. Meanwhile, a crowd of runners surrounded Potter, shouting, “Kill him! Kill him!”

The Chicago Daily Tribune reported, “Finding it impossible to beat off his assailants, the officer drew a large heavy bowie knife, and stabbed the three men who were nearest him - inflicting frightful wounds. This prompt and efficient action on the part of the officer so frightened the Irish that they fell back for a moment, enabling Potter to get so far in advance of his assailants that he reached the Exchange Hotel ahead of them. They followed after him, shouting, 'Catch him! Kill him! Cut his heart out!' etc.” 
   
Potter went directly through the hotel and out the back door, and then went to the First District Station House for assistance. The rioters cursed and yelled in front of the hotel for a while, but finding that Potter was gone, they went back to the Limerick House. Accompanied by four or five policemen, Potter went up to the Limerick House to learn the condition of the wounded men and arrest some of the rioters, but the crowd would permit no arrests to be made, and again tried to kill Potter. It was with difficulty that the officers protected him from the crowd.
   
The wounds Potter had inflicted were reported as follows: “Patrick Brown received a stab upon the right side of his body, about three inches in length and two and a half to three inches in depth. This wound was between the false and true ribs, just below the breast bone, the knife wounding the lower lobe of the lung and liver. He died in about three minutes after reaching the house, some five or six minutes after receiving the wound. . . Morris Geary, who commenced the fracas, received a terrible gash just below and a little to the left of the navel, through which his intestines protruded, and also a severe cut upon the wrist which severed the arteries. It is probable he will die. . . . William Galvin is wounded in the right side between the fifth and sixth ribs, the cut being an inch and a half wide by two inches deep. He will probably recover.”  
   
As it happened, Geary as well as Galvin recovered from his wounds. Potter was not charged with Brown's death, as it was determined that he had acted entirely in self-defense.

Driven from New Orleans at the Point of a Bowie Knife

In 1837, British boxing champion James “Deaf” Burke was literally run out of New Orleans by a mob waving cudgels, pistols, and bowie knives after he defeated the local favorite.
  
Burke had come to the United States in 1834, no longer able to find an opponent in Britain after he killed the Irish champion, Simon Byrne, in a bare-knuckle fight that lasted three hours and 16 minutes. He fought a few bouts in the North, and then arranged to fight the new Irish champion, Sam O'Rourke, in New Orleans on May 6, 1837, outside the city. Each fighter had an army of supporters, most of them armed with pistols and bowie knives. The following is from Fred Henning, Fights for the Championship: The Men and Their Times, vol. 2 (London: "Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette" Office, 1903), pp. 232-33:

There were only three rounds fought. In the second Mickey Carson, who was seconding O'Rourke, slipped behind the Deaf 'Un whilst he was fighting and pushed him into the arms of his opponent, who threw him. The Deaf 'Un was indignant, and swore that if he did it again he'd knock him down. At this, Mickey, producing a bowie knife from his belt, declared with an oath that if Burke came near to him he'd rip him up from his navel to his chin.
  
In the third round the Deaf 'Un caught O'Rourke one or two smashing blows in the mouth, and there is little doubt that he would have very soon knocked the great, blustering, half-trained bully out had not Mickey Carson again got in the way. Jim could keep his temper no longer, with a straight hit with the left he caught the second full on the nose, and down he went like a ninepin. Then the fat was in the fire. The wild Irish mob cut the ropes in a dozen places and entered the ring. The Deaf 'Un stood his ground for a minute, knocking over two or three, including O'Rourke's other second, MacSweeney, when Jim Phelan cried, “Run, Burke, run; they mean to have your life.”   

A friend put a bowie knife into Burke's hand and he cut his way through the crowd until he got to his horse. After riding back to town, he hid out in a police station for three days until he could be smuggled aboard a Mississippi steamboat heading north.
  
The riot must have appalled Burke. In England, using a knife in a fight was despised as cowardly, villainous, and revoltingly Italian. “The ruffian's clenched fist is undoubtedly a lesser evil than the assassin's drawn knife,” editorialized the London Times.  A proper Englishman fought fairly, with his fists, or if dealing with ruffians from whom fair play could not be expected, he might thrash them with a stout walking stick.
  
Upon his return home, Burke delivered speeches in which he held up a bowie knife and declared he would rather be hanged in this world and go to hell in the next than see such a weapon in the hands of an Englishman.
  
In 1841, during a campaign against prizefighting, Burke was summoned to appear in court. He defended pugilism to the magistrates [“beaks”] with a lengthy poem which argued that without training in the manly art of self-defense, men will stoop to fighting with knives, inflicting ghastly wounds rather than lumps and bruises. It concluded with the following verses:

I love fair English boxing as my life,
But dread the Arkansas blade and bowie-knife;
Those weapons deadly, cowardly, and keen,
Which in a Briton's hand should ne'er be seen,
But which if beaks conspire the ring to crush
Will make the blood of many a Briton gush,
And driving manly fair play from our Isle,
Stamp us a nation of assassins vile!