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Henry Andrew "Heck" Thomas (January 3, 1850 – August 14, 1912) was a lawman on the American frontier, most notably in Oklahoma. ==Biography== Thomas was born in 1850 in Oxford, Georgia, the youngest of five children of Martha Ann Fullwood (''née'' Bedell) and Lovick Pierce Thomas, I. At the beginning of the American Civil War, Thomas, at the age of twelve, accompanied as a courier his uncle, Edward Lloyd Thomas, and his father, who were officers in the 35th Georgia Infantry, to the battlefields in Virginia. On September 1, 1862, Union General Philip Kearny was killed at the Battle of Chantilly, Young "Heck" was entrusted with the general's horse and equipment and was ordered by Confederate General Robert E. Lee to take them through the lines to General Kearny's widow. He recounted this in a letter to his brother Lovick Pierce Thomas, II: In 1863, Thomas contracted typhoid fever and returned to his family in Athens. As a young man, he clerked in the store in Atlanta of his brother, Lovick Pierce Thomas, II, and then worked as an Atlanta policeman. In 1871, he married Isabel Gray. He and his family migrated to Texas in 1875 and, with the help of his cousin, Jim Thomas, obtained a job with the railroad as a guard. Thomas became a railroad detective and later went to work for the Fort Worth Detective Association. He was appointed U.S. Deputy Marshal out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, working under U.S. District Judge Isaac C. Parker. By 1889, Thomas teamed with two other deputy U.S. marshals, Chris Madsen and Bill Tilghman. They became known as the Three Guardsmen and were credited with bringing law and order to the Indian Territory, in the state that would become Oklahoma in 1907. The Three Guardsmen were credited with the apprehension of more than three hundred outlaws over the next decade, killing several. They were credited with the ultimate demise of the Wild Bunch or Doolin Gang. Thomas was specifically mentioned by Emmett Dalton, years after his release from prison, as one of the main reasons that the Dalton Gang chose to commit two simultaneous bank robberies in Coffeyville in southeastern Kansas, the gang stating that Thomas was relentless in his pursuit. It decided to make one big score and leave the territory for a time. Instead, the gang was wiped out in the Coffeyville robberies, with Emmett Dalton being the only survivor. In August 1896, Thomas led a posse that tracked down and killed outlaw Bill Doolin, who had previously been captured by Tilghman, only to escape from prison, on July 5, 1896. By 1902, much of Oklahoma had been settled. Thomas was sent to Lawton, where he was elected as the first police chief in the town. He served in that position for seven years until his health began to fail. Showing his lighter side, he assembled a posse and chased and captured bank robbers in the 1908 film ''The Bank Robbery''. The outlaws were led by Al Jennings while the one-reel movie was directed by Bill Tilghman, James Bennie Kent was the cinema-photographer, and it was produced by the Oklahoma Natural Mutoscene Company. The film was shot in Cache, Oklahoma, and at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, with Quanah Parker having a bit part. A bystander thought that the bank was really being robbed and jumped out a window to run for the police. Thomas died in Lawton, Oklahoma on August 14, 1912 of Bright's disease.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Heck Thomas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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