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Hunt, Marshal

Federal[1] deputy marshal in Deadwood, Dakota Territory,[3] in 1877. (January 19, 1805 – January 11, 1890)[1]

Appointed to the Dakota Territory in 1876 by President Ulysses S. Grant to assist Federal Marshal James H. Burdick in controlling the trepassing of white fortune-seekers into the Great Sioux Reservation after the 1874 discovery of gold in the Black Hills.[1]

On March 17, 1877, Seth Bullock was appointed as Sheriff of Lawrence County by Dakota Territorial Governor John L. Pennington, giving him jurisdiction over the town of Deadwood.[2] In Bullock's early efforts to establish law and order in the lawless mining community, along with appointing several local deputies, he enlisted the aid of Marshal Hunt.[1]

In Deadwood that May,[1] Madame Pompey and her girls placed a $10,000 bet on her Mystery Man, Noah Perkins, in an arranged boxing match against Tony Cadiz's Battling Kreuger at the Golden Nugget Saloon at two-to-one odds. Cadiz put up $20,000 to cover the bet, but Pompey did not trust the saloon to hold that much money honestly, so requested that Hunt and a deputy lock the money up Deadwood's jail for safe keeping. On the night of the fight, Dandy Jim Buckley disappeared from the boxing match and was discovered attempting to blow the wall of the jail down with blasting powder to steal the money. The deputy caught Buckley before he was able to detonate the powder and locked him up in jail. Hunt sentenced Buckley to sixty days in jail for attempted robbery with the use of blasting powder.[3]

See: Stampede