He did not, as some newspapers of the time reported, shoot down Phin Clanton, “the last of that notorious family,” in 1891 – but Pollard Pearson did meet with several outlaws, both as an Arizona Ranger and in an extensive law enforcement career.

Those encounters alone could fill pages, but Pearson’s story doesn’t end there. He was also a rancher and a train engineer, pursued an interest in mining and briefly worked on a small project called the Panama Canal.

Joining the Rangers

Reporting on Pearson’s death in August 1939, the Arizona Republic said he “came to Arizona as a cowboy with one of the great cattle drives of pioneer days,” dating his arrival at 1885. His first home here was Apache County, where he settled in Nutrioso. In 1888, Pearson was a constable for Lake Erin (in Apache County, near the Arizona-New Mexico border).

Eight years later Pearson and a Nutrioso neighbor, William T. Maxwell, joined a local rancher to pursue some thieves. Finding them at a ranch house, the three went to Springerville to swear out a complaint. Along with the ranch house’s owner, former Apache County Sheriff St. George Creaghe, they then returned to arrest the bandits. A later pursuit would end badly for Maxwell; in October 1901 he was killed in a shootout with the notorious Bill Smith gang.

In late March 1900 a posse was tracking five reported cattle rustlers north of St. Johns. The posse included a group of four, two of whom decided to stop for the night. The others, Andrew Gibbons and Frank LeSueur, kept up the chase and were gunned down from  ambush. According to the St. Johns Herald, there was “not much doubt” that the killers included a man known as Tod Carver. Gibbons’ uncle, Richard “Dick” Gibbons, was leading the posse and discovered the bodies. Campaigning on the need to form a territorial ranger force, Dick Gibbons was elected to the Arizona legislature in the fall of 1900. The Arizona Rangers were created the following March.

Pollard Pearson enlisted with the Rangers, where he would earn $55 a month as a private, on Feb. 10, 1902.

Alias Carver and Bass

The summer before enlisting, Pearson helped bring in an infamous murder suspect – none other than Tod Carver.

Carver, whose real name was Tom Hilliard, was said to be part of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch. Wanted for the Gibbons-LeSueur killings, he was also suspected of shooting lawman George Scarborough in 1900. Whether he was actually involved in those incidents is uncertain; by some accounts, the Bill Smith gang was responsible.

After tracking Carver for several months, peace officers Ed Scarborough (George Scarborough’s son) and Ed Halverson caught up with him in southwest New Mexico in late June 1901. As the St. Johns Herald told it, Scarborough ordered Carver to raise his hands two or three times before he complied. A second man, whose hands went up quicker, was let go. With help from Pollard Pearson, they brought their man to the county jail in St. Johns. (Scarborough himself became a Ranger that year; according to the Tucson Citizen, he enlisted in the fall.)

On July 3, 1901 Carver was bound over to an Apache County grand jury, but he would never be tried in Arizona. That August he was extradited to Utah to face charges in yet another 1900 shooting. The victims were Grand County Sheriff Jesse Tyler and a deputy, killed by members of the Wild Bunch. Utah authorities were convinced of Carver’s involvement. Tyler’s successor, who came to Arizona to bring the desperado back, said Carver would “hang there as sure as fate.” But that was not to be, either; in January 1902 Carver was released for lack of evidence. What became of him afterward is unclear. He was initially connected to a failed New Mexico train robbery in 1904, but it soon proved to a case of mistaken identity.

Pollard Pearson was not in on Carver’s capture, but within his first two months as a Ranger he helped catch several men wanted in New Mexico – including “Sam Bass.”

J.W. Smith, who took the name of famed Texas outlaw Sam Bass for an alias, was with a gang who robbed a store and post office at Fort Sumner in late January 1902. Near the end of March, Ranger Pearson and a Graham County deputy, John Parks, captured Smith at a ranch on the Blue River, north of Clifton. Apprehending Smith without a fight, they escorted him to the Solomonville jail. In August 1902 he was taken back to New Mexico, where he pleaded guilty, testified against fellow gang members and received a five-year sentence.

This story will continue in next week’s Silver Belt.