Mannie
Clements
Keeping
with the Family Tradition – Gunfighting
He was usually called Mannie Clements to distinguish him from one of the men whose shadow he grew up in, namely his father, known as Mannen. They were both born Emmanuel Jr. and Sr., respectively. Mannen was first cousin to John Wesley Hardin, the deadliest gunfighter of all time, and that served as another shadow that loomed large throughout the youth of the young man known as Mannie.
Being
involved in arguments in which firearms figured conspicuously seemed to be
something of a family trait. Mannen has been quoted as making remarks to the
effect of “I’d cut anyone in half with a sawed-off shotgun for $300”.
Charming.
Ultimately,
Mannen was gunned down in a saloon – something that also seems to have been a
family trait.
Mannie
was born January 16, 1868, the same year that his then-15-year-old cousin John
Wesley Hardin began his deadly career. Some of the youth’s earliest memories
must have been tales of his infamous relation. Hardin was many things, but the
world’s best role model he wasn’t.
When
Mannie was 19, his father, Mannen, ran afoul of Ballinger, Texas City Marshal
Joe Townsend. In a saloon brawl, Townsend dropped the elder Clements with a
single bullet through the heart. There is no record of Mannie’s feelings on
the matter, but it’s a good bet that he approved when his uncle-by-marriage,
Jim Miller, in an attempt to assassinate Townsend, succeeded only in blowing the
Marshal’s arm off.
Oh
yes, Jim Miller. We can’t forget
him. “Deacon” Jim, Or “Killin’” Jim was the Old West’s most
notorious assassin-for-hire. Before he was finally lynched in Ada Oklahoma on
April 19, 1909, Miller may have murdered as many as 50 me. No one will ever know
for sure.
Mannie
had quite an interesting family.
In
1889, 21-year-old Mannie accompanied Miller to Pecos, Texas. According to the
reminiscences of those present, Mannie was determined to make a name for himself
as a killer.
This
isn’t exactly a surprise when you think about the atmosphere in which he grew
up. He wasn’t too successful, though. At one time he hired himself out as a
gun-for-hire to the citizens of Alpine, Texas, who wanted to rid the town of
someone they considered to be detriment to the community – which is to say, a
troublemaker. Mannie lost out on being paid when he missed the target and killed
the proverbial innocent bystander. Feeling that anyone could make a mistake,
Mannie returned Pecos undaunted.
Four
years later, in 1893, he got another opportunity. Mannie, Jim Miller, and a
shadowy character called “M.Q. Hardin”, attempted to assassinate Reeves
County Sheriff Bud Frazer. There had been bad blood between Miller and Frazer,
and Miller intended to bury the hatchet – preferably in Frazer’s head.
The
plot, as they so often do, went awry, and Frazer survived.
Miller
was determined, however, and on June 1, he and Frazer met again. And again, the
results were not what Killin’ Jim had been hoping for. But this time, Frazer
had ambushed Jim, So Miller decided to take the Sheriff to court and get rid of
him legally. To do this, he needed a lawyer.
Mannie
sent a wire to John Wesley Hardin, recently released from prison and looking to
get his fledgling law practice off to a good start.
There
are many who claim that Hardin was a reformed man when he got out of prison. I
don’t know why they say that. He did, after all, become a lawyer.
Because
of strong partisan feeling on both sides, the trial was moved to El Paso. When
Clements, basking in reflected glory, rode into town with his two infamous
relatives, the town was electrified. Hardin, despite spending 16 or so years in
prison, was still an instantly recognizable nave in Texas, and Jim Miller had
been notorious for years.
On
April 14, 1895, attorney John Wesley Hardin entered the courtroom to represent
Jim Miller. He couldn’t have been more poorly prepared. Unfortunately, john
Wesley had done most of his preparing for the trial in the company of lots of
toadies, liquor and prostitutes, who, uh, affected his concentration.
Luckily,
though, the jury members, who were also impressed with Hardin’s reputation
acquired before he was a lawyer, decided it would be in everyone’s best
interest if they were unable to agree on a verdict.
A
second trial was scheduled to be held in September of 1895 in Colorado City,
Texas. Ultimately, Frazer was acquitted for all the good it did him.
On
September 14, 1896, Miller and Frazer met for the last time. On that day, in
Toyah, Texas, Miller spied Frazer playing cards in a saloon. Depending on which
version you read, Frazer either saw or did not see Miller a moment or so before
Miller used both barrels of a shotgun on Frazer.
John
Wesley Hardin didn’t live long enough to see the September, 1895 trial or the
September, 1896 killing of Frazer. Hardin himself had been shot from behind in
the Acme Saloon by El Paso Constable John Selman in August of 1895.
By
1908, Mannie Clements had been working for some time as an El Paso Constable and
was something of an enforcer of the law in the truest sense. He was considered
to be a formidable opponent in a gunfight – it was just unwise to cross him.
At the age of 40, Mannie was finally getting the attention that he had craved
almost since birth.
Over
the years, he had also developed some political ambitions. He ran for police
captain and lost, but during the campaign rumors began to circulate that Mannie
was involved with organized crime that had been running rampant in El Paso for
several years. (Between 1903 and 1907, there had been some 49 unsolved and/or
unprosecuted murders.)
There
may well have been something to these rumors. Mannie and his wife of six years,
Effie, seemed to always have an abundance of cash and people couldn’t help but
notice when they paid for a new house in cash. As a lawman, he made $30 a week.
Mannie
did a lot of gambling, and it may gave been a factor in his separation from
Effie in the summer of 1908. In addition, since the death of John Wesley Hardin,
Mannie had developed an almost psychotic animosity toward anyone remotely
connected with the incident.
John
Selman, the triggerman in Hardin’s death, had been unwillingly removed from
the planet in 1896 at the hands of yet another lawman, George Scarborough.
(Lawmen seemed to kill each other in Old El Paso with amazing regularity.)
Nevertheless,
Mannie was always “on the prod” when talk turned to the death of John Wesley
Hardin. Most of the participants involved in the last days of Hardin were either
dead and/or gone. But on man remained who Clements felt shouldn’t have: Albert
Bacon Fall. Fall had been the attorney who defended John Selman at his trial.
Mannie thought it would be a nice thing if Fall were to suddenly die.
Mannie
made at least two attempts on Fall’s life, both taking place in saloons and
both being foiled by alert patrons who knocked Mannie’s gun aside.
But
this wasn’t the worst of Mannie’s problems.
The
worst of his problems took the form of a Chicago gentleman of Dutch extraction
named Sam Van Rooyen. Van Rooyen, while a successful businessman, appears not to
have had a lick of sense otherwise. Festooned in expensive jewelry and flashing
a large wad of bills, Van Rooyen made the rounds of the El Paso saloons. When he
was relieved of all this excess weight by well-meaning thieves, Van Rooyen
claimed to have recognized Mannie Clements as one of the bandits.
Before
the trial began, Mannie loudly announced that he hoped the jurors loved life as
much as he, if they got his meaning.
During
the trial, Mannie busied himself by glaring at the jurors, one by one.
Apparently, they got his meaning. He was acquitted.
The
incident, however, cost him his job as constable.
In
December of 1908, he ran for deputy sheriff and lost. It was also rumored that
he was hiring out as an assassin at the exorbitant sum of $1,500 per job. And
there were some mysterious killings in El Paso about that time.
It
was about 6 p.m., on December 29, 1908, when Mannie Clements strolled into the
Coney Island Saloon. The details of the last moments of Mannie Clements’ life
are confused, but apparently he became involved in arguments with several men.
No one could later agree on just who had fired the fatal shot, some claiming
that they had seen a man in along coat and hat rush out the back door just after
the shot was fired. Eyewitnesses saw Clements stagger, put a hand to the back of
his head and turn and face the man with whom he had most recently argued. He
staggered again, seemed right himself for a moment and then, grabbing for the
edge of the bar, twisted and fell on his back.
It
was never definitely established who fired the fatal shot.
A
bartender named Joe Brown was tried and acquitted.
Popular
opinion at the time favored Coney Island owner (and close friend of Pat Garrett)
Tom Powers, who had once been known as a trick shot.
One
of the reasons that bartender Brown was acquitted was that he was standing so
close to the victim that there
would have had to have been powder burns on Clements’ head. There were none.
Powers, however, stood about six feet away.
In
the end, it made no difference. The 20th century had arrived and the
day of the gunfighters was over. Mannie Clements had been born into a
Gunfighting family and had died in the family tradition.
Drew Gomber - Lincoln Heritage Trust Historian
The
Tombstone Epitaph
February
2002