Lenny Summers (May 1880- June 18, 1899) was an American outlaw of the Wild West who rode with the Van der Linde Gang.
Biography[]
Lenny Summers was born in 1880, the son of two African-American former slaves. His father was well-educated and could read and write, and he made sure to give Summers the same education, as well as giving him a pocketwatch which his former master had given to him. In 1895, Lenny's father was killed by a few drunk men, and Lenny avenged him by killing the men before being forced to flee. He joined Dutch van der Linde's gang in the Rockies in 1898, and he was devastated when his lover, the fellow outlaw Jenny Kirk, was killed in the Blackwater massacre, during which he also lost his father's pocketwatch.
He later helped Arthur Morgan rob a train belonging to Leviticus Cornwall, and he was praised by his new outlaw friends for his actions. Lenny and Arthur were later arrested at Smithfield's Saloon in Strawberry, Texas while drunk, but Summers paid both of their bail to a deputy. While in Rhodes, Louisiana, Summers learned from the local black community that a gang called the Louisiana Raiders had a store of valuable weapons, so he and Arthur assaulted their base at the Shady Belle plantation, stole the guns, and killed several of the gang's members; he also took part in the robbery of the bank of Valentine, Nebraska and in the assault on Braithwaite Manor.
Summers was killed by two Pinkerton riflemen while leading the gang's rooftop escape from a New Orleans bank robbery, and he was buried alongside his friend Hosea Matthews near the Bluewater Marsh.
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