Captain Bill Massie’s visits to Bismarck weren’t necessarily newsworthy events. He was a Missouri River steamboat pilot who made regular trips through Bismarck on his St. Louis to Fort Benton river runs. His face was a familiar one in Bismarck. On this day in 1885, however, his presence in Bismarck did spark more interest than usual. It had been nearly nine years since the fateful day that the Dakota Territory lost one of its Old West heroes, Wild Bill Hickok. Now Hickok was gone, but at least one relic of his murder still remained. It was Bill Massie who had that relic, and it went everywhere with him, including Bismarck.

“The ball that killed Wild Bill arrived in the city yesterday,” reported the July 15, 1885 edition of the Bismarck Daily Tribune. The ball, however, was not on exhibition, nor was it a “souvenir” of sorts from Wild Bill’s death. This ball was something that Massie was literally stuck with.

Massie took a leave of absence from piloting for the Coulson Packet Company to pursue the gold rush in the Black Hills. It was there he became engaged in the legendary poker game in the Saloon No. 10 of Deadwood. In the middle of a hand, Jack McCall entered the saloon and shot Wild Bill in the back of the head. The bullet traveled straight through Wild Bill’s head, lodging itself in the wrist of Captain Bill Massie. There it remained, a reminder of Massie’s presence and involvement in that historic event.

Following the incident, Ben Ash, Deputy U.S. Marshal of Bismarck, later subpoenaed Massie and the other four poker players to testify at McCall’s trial. Massie refused. “Why Ben, I won’t go down there to testify! Think of the disgrace it would be for my daughters to have it in all the papers that I’d been in a poker game where a man was murdered,” he said. Massie, who decided to return to the steamboats after the incident, also feared for his job. “Besides,” he told Ash, “I might lose my job if Commodore Coulson heard about.”

Ash was forced to request a bench warrant for Massie. This left Massie with no choice but to go, so he good naturedly accompanied Ash to Yankton for the trial. Massie was released and was allowed to be on his own in Yankton, so long as he promised to appear at the trial. Massie seemed to make the best of his predicament. Massie was not only a witness, but held a piece of evidence in his arm and liked to let people know it. According to the South Dakota Historical Collections, Massie “enjoyed swaggering around the town, reminding his friends that ‘the bullet that killed Wild Bill has come to town.’”

Though Massie bragged about the bullet he carried with him, the event was enough to curb his gold-digging ambitions. This “brusque and hearty man” returned to the river following the event and continued piloting until 1910. Though his presence in the Wild Bill murder might rank as one of his greatest adventures, Massie did not live a dull life by any means.

One of his experiences was recorded by another fellow river man, Frank Fiske. According to Fiske, Massie was towing a government boat near Nebraska City, Nebraska with the Rosebud when he lost his smokestacks. Instead of watching where he was going, he and his partner for the trip, Captain Wolfolk, had their attention directed elsewhere. Both men were considered “great ladies’ men,” and were waving to some pretty women amidst a large crowd that had gathered on the bank to watch the boats pass. Distracted by the young ladies, the two men failed to see a low-hanging cable that stretched across the river. The cable caught the two smokestacks, and drug them down, right before a large audience.

Another of Massie’s adventures surfaced from a rivalry with the famed pilot, Grant Marsh of the river boat “Far West.” It occurred one day in 1909 while both were running boats. Marsh climbed aboard Massie’s boat and attacked him with what was reported to be “a dangerous weapon,” though Marsh added that it was only a sugar bowl. “Of course, it was a pretty heavy bowl,” he admitted. Regardless, the incident cost Grant his pilot’s license for a short time.

Massie was known for his piloting and known for his river stories. It was his poker game with Wild Bill, however, that really gained Bismarck’s attention on this day in 1885.

by Tessa Sandstrom

Sources:
“The Ball that Killed Wild Bill,” Bismarck Daily Tribune. July 15, 1885: 3.
Fiske, Frank. “My River, The Missouri: A Memoir.” North Dakota History: Journal of the Northern Plains, 55. Ed. William E. Lemons. Spring 1988: 3-22.
South Dakota State Historical Society. South Dakota Historical Collections. State Publishing Co: Pierre, SD, 1947: 207-208.

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