JERRY BARTON
Arizona Republican Newspaper
June 12, 1904

Another of the old time Arizonians is gone.  Jerry Barton 
died at the hospital at Tucson recently.  He had lived in 
the territory from the earliest times.  He was locally famous 
for many things but his reputation rested mainly upon the 
forceful blows he could deliver with his fist.  It is said 
that he killed three men in the territory by striking them 
and he had a doubtful record of having killed six men in a 
saloon fight in Texas.

Some years ago he had a quarrel with a man in Tombstone and 
struck him in the head and he fell like a log.  When he was 
picked up his neck was found to be broken.  He was tried for 
this homicide, convicted and sentenced to a term in Yuma.  
Soon after his discharge from the penitentiary and his 
removal to the northern part of the territory a reminiscent 
reporter of the Republican went into his past life and into 
his striking record.  In the course of time the gaze of 
Jerry Barton fell upon the article and he sent word to the 
reporter that he was coming to Phoenix as soon as he could 
arrange his affairs to do so.  He thought, he said, that he 
could strike as hard as ever, at any rate, if he should 
meet the reporter he would see if his biceps had lost any 
of their power.

It is said that all of the men who died at his hands had 
their necks broken.  There was never a fracture of the 
skull, indicating that the blow had been delivered with 
extraordinary force.  The blow seemed to have been a 
peculiar one, like those which prize fighters discover 
and cultivate though none of them have ever discovered 
one so deadly as that of Barton's.  He was a man of 
wonderful physique but when he died he was a wreck, a 
condition partly due to age and in part to the violence 
with which he had lived.