Talk:Frank Eaton

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BetacommandBot (talk) 07:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Sources cited

 * I've decided to cross-post this to the Talk:Pistol Pete (mascot) page. Cowboyorange (talk) 14:01, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose it goes without saying that everything in this article taken from Eaton or using his writings as a source should be prefaced with "Eaton claimed", "Eaton said", "Eaton alleged", etc. Eaton was known as an incorrigible yarner and almost nothing he claimed about his life outside of Perkins can be substantiated by official sources or anyone else’s firsthand accounts.

As for his claim to be the model for OSU’s “Pistol Pete”, most informed scholars believe that the real model for the character was Payne County resident William “Billy” McGinty, a very famous cowboy of the time. McGinty was a well-publicized Oklahoma pioneer cowboy, Rough Rider hero, and Wild West show rider, whose accounts appeared in various news papers and books. A famous picture of him riding a bronco for the Rough Riders, for instance, appears in a New York Time article about the Rough Riders, June 11, 1899. And it’s too much of a coincidence that in the 1920s he had a widely known cowboy band named for him (McGinty’s Oklahoma Cowboy Band) which featured a popular lead singer going by the name “Pistol Pete.” This at a time when Eaton was unknown in Oklahoma outside of his friends and neighbors in Perkins. Cowboyorange (talk) 14:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Cowboy, US Marshall??
One editor removed this assertion as unsourced -- but replaced it with another unsourced assertion! Someone needs to do the homework here.... --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:50, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Unsourced Assertion that Frank Eaton was not a Deputy US Marshal (DUSM)
Apologies for a lack of citation, but that is the crux of the issue - there are NO sources that give credence to Eaton's claim that he was a Deputy. Please check the following and advise as to what would work best:
 * No Existing Oath of Office for Eaton as a DUSM from the Western District of Arkansas for that time frame. As reference, there are c.1400 extant Oaths from the Western District of Arkansas. His is not among them.
 * No mention of him in the various Reports to the Attorney General of the United States for that period (c.1877-1885).
 * No mention of DUSM Chris Adams (the DUSM who supposedly offered him a commission) in any official documents (Oath of Office or Report to the Attorney General).
 * No mention of a Federal Judge Charles Bailey (the judge who supposedly swore him in) in the Western District of Missouri (or the Western District of Arkansas), much less the existence of a US Court ever being established in Southwest City, Missouri (at that time, part of the Western District of Missouri)
 * At the time of his claimed commissioning, 1877, Eaton also claimed to have been given the nickname of Pistol Pete by Colonel J.J. Coppinger of Fort Gibson, I.T. Coppinger, although stationed in and around Indian Territory at this time, was not promoted to Lieutenant Colonel until 1883 and was not assigned to Fort Gibson until 1886.
 * According to the Census of 1900, Eaton was born in 1868. According to the Censuses of 1910 and 1920, he was born in 1862. By these, he was either 15 or 9 years old at the time of his claimed commissioning in 1877.

Thanks for your input - Dave Kennedy Curator US Marshals Museum Fort Smith, Arkansas --Montanakennedy (talk) 22:47, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'll sort thru this and use something. But it sounds like he definitely WASN't a US Marshall! Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 04:04, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

OK, I just cited your research & position, although I'm stretching Wikipedia's rules a bit ;-]

So, it sounds like you have some doubts about the rest of our article, also largely uncited. Do you have some ideas about what part of this account is (maybe) factual? Eaton was certainly a colorful Old West character! [ = good liar?]. I grew up in Stillwater, hence my interest.

Maybe we should just add some qualifiers like, Eaton claimed blah blah blah? TIA, Pete Tillman (talk) 04:52, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I think Frank Eaton was a great spinner of yarns from his front porch in Perkins. I DO know he was a Cowboy and spent time as a ranch hand in the Cherokee Strip. He was a legitimate member of the Cherokee Strip Cow Punchers Association. In my previous job at the Oklahoma Historical Society (I was at the museum in Enid), we came across information about him in that organization, his name on a roster from a reunion of the CSCPA in the late 20s, and (my fave) his info on the side of a teepee used at a CSPCA reunion in the early teens. The problem is he could have pushed what really happened and it still would have been a great story. Montanakennedy (talk) 14:36, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

While doing additional research regarding Pete's life, I came across divorce notices for his parents dated three years after his father supposedly died. Also, related to the "killing" of his father, the Campseys and the Ferbers (really, just one Ferber made into two people) were all Northerners. The few old enough to have done so served in the Union Army. They were very definitely not members of Quantrill's Raiders. All but one of the people involved in this story lived into the 20th Century. I have an article I am working on but Pete is a third rail for us right now until the Museum opens to the public. Montanakennedy (talk) 13:43, 26 June 2019 (UTC)