Statewide County AZ Archives Obituaries.....Burns, Tom 1901
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Elizabeth Burns burns@asu.edu and D. Joshua Taylor http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00006.html#0001358 July 4, 2005, 6:29 pm

Arizona Republican-June 20, 1901
On the San Pedro last Saturday, Wallace, a  cowboy and 
Tom Burns quarreled over work on the Tom Wills ditch.  
Burns struck Wallace over the head with a shovel, 
cutting the scalp.  Wills ordered Burns away.  On 
leaving he encountered Wallace and threatened to kill 
him with a shovel.  Wallace drew a revolver, killing 
Burns instantly.  He was buried with his boots on.  
Burns is said to have worked on Arizona ranges, to 
have been a Wells Fargo guard and to have been a 
member of the force that captured Evans and Sontag.

Mr. Finch of Tempe received  a letter from his niece, 
who is living near Mammoth on the San Pedro giving an 
account of the killing of Tom Burns, more or less noted 
as a bad man, who achieved some fame on account of his 
being a member of the posse that pursued Evans and Sontag, 
two of the most daring and desperate train robbers who 
ever plied their craft in the west.  They were captured, 
Evans desperately wounded, after a terrible battle and 
were afterward committed to the penitentiary, where 
Sontag was killed at a later date.

The details of Burns' tragic end so far as could be learned 
are as follows:  Tom Burns and Willis Miller got into a 
dispute over some matter which ended in a fight in which 
Burns struck Miller over the head with a shovel.  Miller, 
covered with blood, started on a run for the house with 
Burns in pursuit.  Miller ran into the house and Burns 
was intercepted by the ranch foreman who told him to 
leave the ranch as he would discharge him for beating 
Miller up in such a manner.  Burns replied that he 
would as soon have killed that ____.  He then started 
around the house and met Miller who in the meantime
had armed himself and renewed his attack on him, when 
Miller shot and killed him instantly, the bullet entering 
his heart.

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