Who Was Deadwood Dick?

The Black Hills of South Dakota have hosted their share of legendary characters. Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock, and Potato Creek Johnny are names well known to anyone with even a passing familiarity with the area. There is, however, another name that exists in the mists of Black Hills lore;  that of  the masked, black buckskin-clad outlaw Deadwood Dick.

So who was this mysterious gunfighter and highwayman?  Deadwood Dick was the fictional creation of Edward Lytton Wheeler, a self-described sensational novelist who wrote the first installment of this series in 1877. 

Very little is known of the life of Edward Wheeler. He was born in Avoca, New York in 1854 or 1855 and moved to Pennsylvania in the 1870s.  He started writing short newspaper sketches in the mid-1870s and published his first novelette "Hurricane Nell, the Girl Dead-Shot; or The Queen of the Saddle and Lasso" in May of 1877.  Deadwood Dick appeared in print in October of that same year.  Wheeler wrote approximately 33 more Deadwood Dick stories until 1885. All available evidence indicates Wheeler died in 1885 at the age of 30 or 31.  However, there were 97 more Deadwood Dick stories published between 1885-1897 by various ghost-writers using the Wheeler by-line.  Because of  Edward Wheeler's success and the prolific output of the later ghost writers, Deadwood Dick lived on and became much more famous than his creator.

The novellette "Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road; or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills" is a great example of Edward Wheeler's craft.  Published in 1877 by Beadle's Half Dime Library, this story has all the elements of Western storytelling told by a man who had never been west of Philadelphia.  Wheeler probably got his background information on early Deadwood from sensationalistic newspaper and magazine accounts and added his own peculiar twist.  It is interesting to note that Edward Wheeler was writing these stories only a year after Deadwood came into existence. Therefore, while the real legends of Deadwood were being formed, Edward Wheeler was creating a sort of alternate Deadwood reality for his readers in the East.

In the next post we will learn of the exploits of Deadwood Dick, Fearless Frank, and sweet sad-faced Anita,
as they play out "Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road; or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills."