DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Somewhere out in Polk County, not far from where a boy named John Wesley Hardin grew up, a marker stands that tells one of the most complicated stories Texas ever produced. So pull up close, because this one deserves a slow telling.
Born in 1853, son of a Methodist minister — let that sit with you for just a moment. A preacher's boy. They named him after the founder of Methodism itself, John Wesley, which may be the greatest gap between a name and a life that this state has ever witnessed.
He went by Wes. And Wes Hardin grew up an ardent Southerner, in a time when that meant something that could get a young man killed — or get other men killed by him. When Union occupation troops moved through, Wes resisted.
The marker says that resistance made him a hero to some. It also set him on what the marker calls, plainly and without flinching, a lawless career. Over thirty men.
That's the number the marker gives. Over thirty men killed by John Wesley Hardin. He always claimed — always, right up to the end — that he shot only in self defense.
Every single time. You can make of that what you will, and plenty of people over the years have made plenty of things of it. But here's where the story lands.
El Paso, 1895. That's where Wes Hardin was killed. The preacher's son, the resistor, the outlaw, the man who said he never fired first — gone in El Paso, in 1895.
Forty-two years after he came into this world under a minister's roof. Texas has a way of holding contradictions, and John Wesley Hardin might be the sharpest one she ever kept.
What the marker says
(1853-1895) Notorious outlaw who killed over 30 men. son of a Methodist minister. "Wes" was an ardent southerner. His resistance to Union occupation troops made him a hero and set him on his lawless career. He always claimed he shot only in self defense. He was killed in El Paso, 1895.