John "Jack" Marston, Jr. (born 1895) was an American gunslinger during the last years of the "Wild West". Marston, the son of the famous outlaw John Marston, avenged his father by killing FBI agent Edgar Ross in a duel in 1914.
Biography[]
Jack Marston was born in 1895, the son of John Marston and Abigail Marston. His paternal grandfather was an immigrant from Scotland, while his grandmother was a prostitute who died in childbirth; Jack Marston's mother was also a prostitute. Marston was raised on his family's ranch in Great Plains, West Elizabeth and he took up a keen interest in reading adventure books. Marston had a strained relationship with his father, who was usually out with fellow outlaws or, in 1911, hunting them down. Jack and his mother were kept in captivity as John Marston hunted down his former friends, and Jack was kept oblivious of this. When John Marston returned home, family life resumed, and he taught Jack Marston how to hunt and how to sell pelts. This short period of bonding ended when the US Army arrived at the ranch at Beecher's Hope to betray and kill John Marston; John, Jack, and the ranch hand "Uncle" fought against the soldiers until Uncle was killed. John hid Jack and Abigail Marston as they escaped on horseback, and John was killed in the standoff with the army. Jack and Abigail would return to the ranch to find the body of John Marston, burying him and living on the farm by themselves. Abigail died in 1914 of unknown causes, leaving the nineteen-year-old Jack as the only man on the ranch.
Jack Marston took after his father, becoming a gunslinger. He gained fame by taking down outlaws, helping out people in trouble, and by killing the FBI agent responsible for his father's death, Edgar Ross. Marston tracked him down by communicating with an FBI agent in Blackwater, claiming that he had a letter for him; the agent told him where he lived, and Marston found out from Ross' wife that he was hunting game on the other side of the Rio Grande in Mexico. Marston fought Edgar Ross in a short duel, gunning him down and avenging his father. What happened to Jack Marston is unknown, with evidence suggesting that he became either a U.S. Marshall full time (which he was known to have served as in 1914), or a Bounty Hunter, but what is known, is that at some point Jack became a celebrated author on the history of the Wild West era.