Joseph Isaac "Ike" Clanton (1847-1 June 1887) was a member of the Cochise County Cowboys outlaw gang of the Wild West. While he survived the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881, he was tracked down and killed by lawmen in 1887 for his cattle rustling.
Biography[]
Joseph Isaac Clanton was born in Callaway County, Missouri in 1847, a son of Newman Haynes Clanton and the brother of Phineas and Billy Clanton. His family moved from Dallas, Texas to Tombstone, Arizona in 1877, and they owned a ranch near Charleston. The Clantons and their ranch hands became associates of the Cochise County Cowboys gang, and the Clantons became rivals of the Earp brothers due to a dispute over a horse. The Clanton ranch became a successful enterprise, but, in August 1881, Newman H. Clanton was killed by the Mexican law in Guadalupe Canyon. Ike Clanton attempted to frame the Earps and Doc Holliday for a stagecoach rivalry to have his vengeance against them, and Ike escaped the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral between the Earps and the Cowboys, although his brother Billy was killed. Clanton filed murder charges against the Earps and Holliday, but they were found not guilty, as they had acted within the law. Clanton went on to form his own gang based at Springerville, and on Christmas Day of 1886, he shot a Mormon to see if a bullet would go through him. On 31 May 1887, the law tracked down Ike - who was wanted for rustling - and he was shot in the left side during the ensuing gunfight at Wilson's Ranch in Springerville, killing him before he even hit the dirt. Mormon ranchers buried him near Eagar.