Biography of judge roy bean

Law West of the Pecos - The Hanging Judge

Roy Bean. Public Domain.

Of the many colorful characters who have become legends of the Old West, "Hanging Judge Roy Bean," who held court sessions in his saloon along the Rio Grande River in a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas, remains one of the more fascinating.

According to the myth, Roy Bean named his saloon and town after the love of his life, Lily Langtry, a British actress he'd never met. Calling himself the "Law West of the Pecos," he is reputed to have kept a pet bear in his courtroom and sentenced dozens to the gallows, saying "Hang 'em first, try 'em later." Like most such legends, separating fact from fiction is not always so easy.

Western Ramblings

Roy Bean was born in Mason County, Kentucky about 1825. At age 15 he left home to follow two older brothers west seeking adventure. With Brother Sam, he joined a wagon train into New Mexico, then crossed the Rio Grande and set up a trading post in Chihuahua, Mexico. After killing a local hombre, Roy fled to California, to stay with his brother Joshua, who would soon become the first mayor of San Diego.

Roy Bean's Opera House in Langtry.  Photo by Daniel Schwen.

There, Roy developed a reputation for bragging, dueling and gambling on cockfights. Mayor Josh Bean appointed Roy a lieutenant in the state militia and bartender of the Headquarters, his own saloon. In 1852, Roy was arrested after wounding a man in a duel. He escaped, and after Mayor Josh was killed a few months later by a rival in a romantic triangle, Roy headed back to New Mexico where brother Sam Bean had become a sheriff.

Roy tended bar in Sam's saloon for several years while smuggling guns from Mexico through the Union blockade during the Civil War. Afterward, he married a Mexican teenager and settled in San Antonio, where throughout the 1870s, he supported 5 children by peddling stolen firewood and selling wat

On March 16, 1903, Roy Bean, the self-proclaimed “law west of the Pecos,” dies in Langtry, Texas.

A saloonkeeper and adventurer, Bean’s claim to fame rested on the often humorous and sometimes-bizarre rulings he meted out as a justice of the peace in western Texas during the late 19th century. By then, Bean was in his 50s and had already lived a life full of rough adventures.

Born in Kentucky some time during the 1820s, Bean began getting into trouble at an early age. He left home in 1847 with his brother Sam and lived a rogue’s life in Mexico until he shot a man in a barroom fight and had to flee. He next turned up in San Diego. Again he shot a man during a quarrel and was forced to leave town quickly. He fell into the same old habits in Los Angeles, eventually killing a Mexican officer in a duel over a woman. Angry friends of the officer hanged Bean in revenge, but luckily, the rope stretched and Bean managed to stay alive until the woman he had fought for arrived to cut him down. Bearing rope scars on his neck that remained throughout his life, Bean left California to take up a less risky life in New Mexico and Texas.

For about 16 years, Bean lived a prosperous and relatively legitimate life as a San Antonio businessman. In 1882, he moved to southwest Texas, where he built his famous saloon, the Jersey Lilly, in the hamlet of Langtry.

Before founding Langtry, Bean had also secured an appointment as a justice of the peace and notary public. He knew little about the law or proper court procedures, but residents appreciated and largely accepted his common sense verdicts in the sparsely populated country of West Texas.

Bean was often deliberately humorous or bizarre in his rulings, once fining a dead man $40 for carrying a concealed weapon. He threatened one lawyer with hanging for using profane language when the hapless man referred to the “habeas corpus” of his client.

By the 1890s, reports of Bean’s curmudgeonly rulings had made him

1972 film

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean is a 1972 American Western comedy film written by John Milius, directed by John Huston, and starring Paul Newman. It is loosely based on the life of American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, TexasRoy Bean.

Plot

An outlaw, Roy Bean, rides into a West Texas border town called Vinegaroon by himself. The customers in the saloon beat him, rob him, toss a noose around him, and let his horse drag him off.

A young woman named Maria Elena finds and helps him. Bean promptly returns to town and shoots all those who did him wrong. With no law and order, he appoints himself judge and "the law west of the Pecos" and becomes the townspeople's patron. A traveling preacher, LaSalle, buries the dead.

Bean renames the saloon The Jersey Lilly, and hangs a portrait of a woman he worships, but has never met, Lillie Langtry, a noted actress and singer of the 1890s. Maria Elena is given a place to live and fine clothes ordered from a Sears Roebuck catalog. When a band of thieves comes to town (Big Bart Jackson and gang members Nick the Grub, Fermel Parlee, Tector Crites, and Whorehouse Lucky Jim), rather than oppose them, Bean swears them in as lawmen. The new marshals round up other outlaws, then claim their goods after Bean sentences them to hang. Prostitutes are sentenced to remain in town and keep the marshals company.

Dispensing his own kind of frontier justice, Bean lets the marshals hang a murderer named Sam Dodd, and share his money. When a drunk shoots up a saloon, Bean does not mind, but when Lillie's portrait is struck by a bullet, the fellow is shot dead on the spot. Bean then goes through the dead drunk's pockets. Finding money, he then fines the dead drunk for discharging a firearm in a public place and pockets the money.

Bean proceeds to encounter many odd characters passing through his town. First a mountain man called Grizzly

American judge (c. 1825 – 1903)

Phantly Roy Bean Jr. (c. 1825 – March 16, 1903) was an American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, Texas, who called himself "The Only Law West of the Pecos". According to legend, he held court in his saloon along the Rio Grande on a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert of southwest Texas. After his death, fictional Western films and books cast him as a hanging judge, although he is known to have sentenced only two men to hang, one of whom escaped.

Early life

Roy Bean was born circa 1825 in Mason County, Kentucky, and was the namesake and youngest of five children (four sons and a daughter) of Phantly Roy Bean Sr. (November 21, 1804 – June 13, 1844) and the former Anna Henderson Gore. The family was extremely poor; at age sixteen Bean left home to ride a flatboat to New Orleans, hoping to find work.

After getting into trouble in New Orleans, Bean fled to San Antonio, Texas, to join his elder brother Sam. Samuel Gore "Sam" Bean (1819–1903), who had earlier migrated to Independence, Missouri, was a teamster and bullwhacker. He hauled freight to Santa Fe and then on to Chihuahua, Mexico. Sam had moved out of San Antonio after fighting in the Mexican–American War.

In 1848 the two brothers opened a trading post in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Soon after, Roy Bean shot and killed a Mexican desperado who had threatened "to kill a gringo". To escape being charged with murder by Mexican authorities, Roy and Sam Bean fled west to Sonora, Mexico. By the spring of 1849, Roy Bean had moved to San Diego, California, to live with his elder brother Joshua Bean. The latter was elected the first mayor of San Diego the following year, after California became part of the Union.

Considered handsome, Bean competed for the attentions of various local women. A Scotsman named John Collins challenged Bean to a pistol-shootin