COMANCHE JACK – Balladeer’s Blog presents another seasonal post for the upcoming Frontierado Holiday, observed Friday August 4th this year. Frontierado celebrates the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality.

Comanche Jack – real name Simpson Everett Stilwell – was born on August 18th, 1850, possibly in Tennessee. At some point in the 1850s his family moved to Kansas, and in 1862 or 1863 his mother and father got one of the time period’s rare divorces.

The mother kept the future Comanche Jack’s sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, while his father left with him and his brothers, Millard and Frank. They settled elsewhere in Kansas but the young man was struck with wanderlust and ran away from home at some point in 1863.

Once he reached Kansas City, Missouri, Stilwell took work on a wagon train headed for Santa Fe, New Mexico. The young man grew up quickly traveling…