Daniel Charles Dedrick
Dan Dedrick was the oldest of the three Dedrick brothers, being born in Indiana in 1848. He was arrested in Fort Smith, Arkansas for horse stealing, but escaped from the jail there. Shortly thereafter, he, and brothers Sam and Mose traveled to New Mexico. Dan joined the Regulators late in the Lincoln County War and fought in the Ellis House during the Five-Day Battle, in which he was wounded in the arm. Towards the end of the war, Dan became good friends with Billy the Kid, and while both Billy and Doc Scurlock were under house arrest in the Juan Patron house in Lincoln throughout late March and April of 1879, Dan visited them several times. After the war, he purchased the old Chisum ranch at Bosque Grande (the first Chisum ranch site) and became a significant ally towards Billy the Kid's Rustlers (of which Dan's youngest brother, Mose, was a member), allowing them to store stolen livestock and rebrand them on his ranch. He and his brothers and William H. "Harvey" West also made counterfeit bills. Eventually, after the U. S. Treasury Department sent Special Agent Azariah Wild to New Mexico to investigate the counterfeiting, and his brother Mose was arrested and then freed, the three Dedricks fled to Soccoro County, New Mexico. There, in April 1882, Dan was arrested by Pat Garrett for stealing a $35 ox from Jim Chisum. Dan managed to post $250 bond then left New Mexico Territory altogether with both his brothers, Sam and Mose, all three settling in California. There, he became a gold miner and Sam and Mose later fled to Arizona. Dan died at Big Bear, California in 1938 at age ninety-one.
Dan Dedrick
This photo of Dan was taken sometime in the early 1880s.
Dan Dedrick
This photo of Dan was taken in the late 1880s or the early 1890s.
