Person:James Reed (38)

Belle had previously been married to James C. Reed, and their son James Edwin "Eddie" Reed was born on February 22, 1871. At the age of 18, Eddie Reed was sentenced to a term in prison by Judge Issac Parker. Reed was granted a pardon and released in 1893. In a curious turn of events, in 1894 Reed was hired by the Katy Railroad as a guard to protect trains between Wagoner and McAlester. The U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Arkansas, George Crump, appointed Reed a deputy marshal. Eddie's shooting ability was well known, and he also became known as a good officer of the law. Eddie married a Cherokee schoolteacher from Claremore named Jennie Cochran in 1895. They settled down in Wagoner. Jennie's father was Alec Cochran. (An "Alex" Cochran is listed in some documents as a deputy U.S. marshal in the Cherokee Nation. It is unknown if Alec is the same as Alex Cochran.) ED REED KILLED Deputy U.S. marshal Ed Reed, living in Wagoner, was called on to deal with with two drunks who were shooting up the town on October 24th (or 25th), 1895. The two law-breakers were Dick and his brother Zeke Crittenden, former lawmen and survivors of the shootout at Fourteen Mile Creek in 1894. The two brothers had wounded a Wagoner resident named Burns in their drunken shooting spree.

One version of the story describes Reed encountering Zeke Crittenden on the street and telling him to surrender his gun. Zeke fired at Reed and was killed with return gunshots from Reed. Dick, at the other end of town, learned of his brothers death and rode to the scene of the shooting. Upon seeing Ed Reed, Dick opened fire. Reed returned fire, mortally wounding Dick Crittenden, who died the next morning. The brothers were buried under one headstone in a small cemetery near Hulbert, only a short distance from the site of the Half-way House on Fourteen Mile Creek.

Ed Reed died on about December 14th, 1896 while attempting to "arrest" Joe Gibbs and J. N. Clark in Claremore, Oklahoma. Newspapers reported that Reed was attempting to arrest them for selling whiskey. Other sources tell a story about Reed's father-in-law, Alec Cochran, dying as a result of bad liquor from Gibbs. Reed intended to shut down the Gibbs "saloon", but when he entered the Gibbs store he was cut down by two shotgun blasts from close range.

Ed was buried in his wife's "Cochran" family cemetery near Tiawah, south of Claremore. His wife, Jennie, had lost her father and her lawman husband in 1896, and her outlaw brother, Jess Cochran, in 1895. It is not known if Ed and Jennie Cochran had any children.