Over 140 years removed from the deaths of Fayetteville city marshal William Delano Patton and Washington County Deputy sheriff John Isham Mount at Fayetteville on the night of July 3, 1881 in an assassination ambush on the city square, the case is officially one of the oldest cold cases in the state.
While many of the circumstances of the shooting and the events leading up the deadly affray that left both lawman dead in the aftermath are known no one was ever arrested much less tried for the crime.
Research indicates that the issues leading up to the event had lingered over that part of western Arkansas for over a decade and a half.
Former Yankee soldier John Reed lived on lived on a homestead on the White River two or
miles from Fayetteville. Following cessation of the Civil War, Reed had returned to his Arkansas home and began a systematic and thorough terrorism of citizens and lawmen from Fayetteville all the way down the mountains into the villages of Alma and Van Buren.
Proclaimed to be a "desperado and a ruffian" by newspapers of that era, Reed was the head of a loosely knit band of former Union soldiers and former cow punchers that had somehow found themselves in Northwest Arkansas. It seems, from newspaper reports at the time, Reed and his henchmen had a proclivity to ride into town with guns blazing and pretty much take or do anything they wanted. There was strength in numbers, and the terrorized citizens could only recoil from the gangs "ruthless cruelty beyond parallel".
In the May of 1880 at a shooting carnival in Fayetteville, Deputy Sheriff's Jackson and Sorrel got the drop on Reed and were able to take him to jail after nearly fifteen years of his lawlessness. Reed refused to make bond and while in the outer room of the jailhouse he became desperate and began "fighting like a madman".
He managed to secure a heavy, thick bottle and threw it at the jailer, knocking him down and wounding him seriously. During the ensuing melee all the lamps in the room were overturned and extinguished and in the darkness several shots rang out. When the lanterns were secured and relit, Reed was found lying dead on the floor.
He had been shot through the heart by one of the officers, but no one could be sure who fired the fatal shot.
When word of John Reed's death at the courthouse reached the members of his gang, a second phase of the senseless feud began. George Reed, who was just about equally as notorious as his now dead brother, swore to avenge the death by killing any deputy that may have been responsible in the "lights out" shooting.
George Reed formed one plot after another in an attempt to get his revenge and none of them were successful.
On the evening of June 6, 1881 George made the short ride to Fayetteville where he got into an altercation with city marshal. Patton. Patton was in the process of arresting Reed and when Reed attempted to draw a pistol, the county deputy was just a little bit faster on the draw.
George Reed tumbled from his horse and died a short time later. This tragedy shook the county to its bones and a few days later the courts delivered a verdict of justifiable homicide in favor of Marshal Patton.
There was another Reed brother by the name of James and he took up the quarrel "after the curtain had dropped on the second act". Other members of the gang openly boasted that they would kill any man responsible for the death of John and George and they particularly targeted Marshall Patton in their threats for vengeance.
Newspaper reports from the time say that Marshall Patton "lived in continual fear of assassination and had taken every precaution to guard against such a doom.
But fate was against the marshal. On Saturday, June 10 at about 10:00 p.m. Patton was standing on the square in Fayetteville, conversing with Deputy sheriff John Mount. Shots rang out from "parties lurking in the shadows of adjacent buildings" and when the smoke cleared, both officers were found to be dead. Patton been hit three times and the gang had ended the life of Mount with one shot to the head and another to his stomach.
Both men died almost instantly and the assassin's fled, escaping in the semi-darkness. The citizens of Fayetteville clamored for the law to seize the gang members and crush the vendetta even if it took arresting all of the family members and supporters of the Reeds' living on the White River.
Investigators and officers, hearing rumors of the rushing of the jail and vigilante style justice if any of the offenders were to be arrested, took every precaution. Instead of rounding up the entire community, the lawman interviewed the usual suspects one at a time on the outskirts of the White River community.
Law enforcement officials, including US Deputy Marshals assigned to help with the case out of Fort smith, spent months interviewing suspects, but to no avail.
The Arkansas governor's office even offered a $500 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the killers of the two officers.
Having no definitive proof of who the killers may have been, justice was denied to the families of the two slain lawmen. No one was ever formally charged in the outright assassination.
However, they are stories to this day that a few of the remaining members of the Reed gang may have met justice at the end of a rope tied to a high limb of a sturdy oak tree in rural Washington County.
Patton, 32, was survived by a wife, Sarah Irene "Jimmie" and five children. He was laid to rest at the Evergreen Cemetary in Fayetteville
Mount, 37, was mourned by his wife of eleven years, Catherine E. "Kate" and four children. His final resting place is in the Mount Comfort Cemetary, also in Fayetteville.
