Jack Dubois was early Flagstaff County’s most notorious cattle rustler, as he and his gang of men terrorized local ranchers in the early 1900s, according to multiple accounts.
Dubois’ story is chronicled in multiple accounts, from local history books with eye-witness retellings, to studies of crime in Canada.
In “Violence in Canada: Sociopolitical Perspectives,” author Louis A. Knafla reports that Jack Dubois, along with gang members James and Irven Holt were indicted in 1909 by a North West Mounted Police constable Robert Ensor.
Knafla says Ensor’s investigation led to the discovery of a cattle-rustling operation stretching from Alberta to Montana and Idaho. He reports that not only did Dubois and his gang steal liberally they also terrorized the local population with threats of physical violence.
Author Jim Bradley, who wrote an article he called, “Jack Dubois; an Alberta enigma” for the Alberta Historical Society says Dubois is recorded in police reports and law court records as a cattle thief; “But is also remembered as a man of uncommon charisma and intelligence who became a local folk hero — a good friend and a charitable, cooperative neighbour.” In his account, he calls Dubois “an enigma.”
Bradley says Dubois filed a homestead near Battle River in 1902 near where Big Knife Park is currently located.
Rumour is that his outbuildings still stand, now on privately owned land.
Dubois, which he pronounced “DoBoyce” was born in Alabama, and came to Alberta with a new wife and three children from a prior marriage.
Bradley says, “This was a very different time on the prairies, many stock owners let their stock roam free, using vacant land for free grazing.”
Ian Gillies, an actor who was asked to portray Dubois during Forestburg’s 100th celebration, was one of three actors hired to wander the village in character, then perform on the Rail, calls Dubois the “Cattle Rustler King,” adding, “He was more than the simple villain I thought him to be.” Gillies says he was also a father, and a man stuck in a drastically changing world, as the prairies were cut up into homesteads.
Gillies says, “He was a man skilled in horsemanship and thievery. He would steal cattle, rebrand them, and then sell them off elsewhere to unsuspecting buyers.”
Sydney Hampshire, author of Heritage Barns of Flagstaff, retells a story from 1908, when a member of his rustler gang tried to steal Martin Ullrickson’s cattle, near Galahad.
Ullrickson had tracked and retrieved his cattle, separating them from another herd, when one of the rustlers confronted him at a gate.
The steely eyed Ullrickson pulled a pistol and told the rustler to open the gate. The rustler complied and Ullrickson led his cattle safely home.
Days later, shots were fired at Ullrickson, presumed to be by the rustlers. Hampshire says the rustler missed, fortunately, but that those bullet holes can still be seen today on the old house.
The original story of Ullrickson’s encounter with the Dubois gang, as told by Andrew Ullrickson in Golden Echoes: A history of Galahad and District, related, “I would not have liked to have my father looking down the gun at me with his cold grey eyes.”
Ullrickson says that the North West Mounted Police were gathering evidence with the help of several ranchers against the Dubois gang.
Author Patrick Kuefler, from his story in “Yesterday and Years Ago: A history of Forestburg and District,” reported that Dubois was charged with five counts of cattle theft, which one by one were overturned.
Kuefler says Dubois and his band “led a reign of terror,” for eight years in the region, until 1910.
Kuefler, too, credits Constable Ensor of the NWMP and his tenacity for successfully ending Dubois’ activity.
Kuefler reports, “Six times before the rustler had been arrested and each time escaped conviction.”
He says that in 1908, Dubois had moved his operation from the Battle River to Hand Hills, widening his territory. “He raided at will an area of more than a thousand square miles of open range.”
Kuefler says Ensor credited area ranchers with much of his success, as he worked under cover, dressed as a cow hand, and had four fast horses spread at various ranches.
On March 25, 1909, Ensor had gathered first-hand evidence on the Dubois gang, and he and another officer entered the land of gang members Irven and Jim Holt and arrested them. The next day, three other members of Dubois’ crew were taken into custody. Dubois, however, went on the run after getting wind of the arrests, and was tracked to Calgary, where he was arrested on April 9.
Kuefler quotes Ensor as saying, “There is no doubt about Dubois being the head and brains of the gang and I am of the opinion we have got the worst expert cattle thief that ever struck this country.”
Kuefler says that while other gang members received convictions and jail sentences, “one by one charges against Dubois were dismissed.”
However one of them did stick, and Dubois ended up doing nine months hard labour at Ft. Saskatchewan’s penitentiary.
The Crown of the time appealed the court’s ruling of the dismissed charges and the Supreme Court ordered a new trial, where Dubois was convicted of both charges. It was an important issue of the day, as the lower court had ruled brands not adequate proof of ownership, which the Supreme Court overturned.
Dubois appealed again, and also saw those charges thrown out of court, as the court speculated that his teenage son must have “rebranded the animals by accident.”
All that remains to mark the passing of the Dubois gang are the ruins of buildings at his original homestead, where his infant daughter, Ramona Dubois, is also laid to rest.
After his release from prison, Dubois moved to BC, where by all accounts, he lived a crime-free existence.
Not all of his neighbours thought the worst of him. In Trails of Tail Creek by Edith Clark, an account by George A. Wells, paints a slightly different picture of Dubois.
Wells came upon Dubois and his brother-in law-camping on the open range while looking for land for a ranch in 1903.
Wells and Dubois became friendly and Dubois reported to Wells that he was looking for land where he could “assist area ranchers by wintering their cattle for them.”
Dubois and his men would often come through the Well’s land, using their place as a stopping point on his ‘cattle drives.’
Wells confirms that Dubois admitted that he slept with his revolver under his pillow, as one morning after an overnight stay Wells’ mother found bullets under the pillow.
A few years later. Wells reports that he was out in a snowstorm searching for a lost steer when he met a large herd of cattle being driven by Jim Holt and Jack Dubois, and with his own missing steer at the head of the herd.
Wells says Dubois convinced him that the steer was not his, showing him an ear mark he claimed marked the steer as someone else’s. Wells later discovered such a mark didn’t exist, but didn’t appear to harbour any ill will over the incident, almost appearing to admire Dubois’ moxie in the brazen lie. Wells also said of Holt, after rumours of a conviction in the US of murder were circulating, “He often mistook somebody’s cattle for their own, but he was no killer.”
Clark also wrote an account of Dubois in her Trails of Tail Creek, saying, “Dubois had inherited quite a sum of money and bought up a lot of stock from those not so well off. He was accused of rustling, but so were many others and it went on just as bad after the Dubois left for the Hands Hill district in a few years.”
Obviously Clark was unaware of Dubois’ reported activities from his new location in Hand Hills.
In his biography, Sgt. J.D.Nicholson of the NWMP says he was called into his superior’s office to read an unsigned letter from a rancher who appealed to police for help in apprehending Dubois before settlers took things into their own hands. Nicholson said the letter reported a “dangerous gang of horse and cattle thieves” and identified Dubois as the leader, also reporting that he carried a revolver, and that he “makes no compunction about drawing his weapon upon anyone who attempts to interfere with his occupation.” The letter writer went on to say the country is suffering from a “chronic state of terrorism” due to Dubois’ and his gangs’ activities.
Nicholson was then sent to assist Ensor, who he says was “delighted to receive long-awaited assistance.”
Nicholson says he and Ensor often followed Dubois’ and his men at a distance, and finally were rewarded for their diligence after the gang brought in a new herd and retired for the evening before the cattle could be “re-branded.”
Nicholson and Ensor were able to gather enough evidence that night to confidently charge the Dubois gang with cattle rustling.
Nicholson says after the arrests, Ensor received a promotion to Sergeant, and both received a well-deserved financial bonus as well.
One final account from “The Wrong Side of the Law: True Stories of Crime,” by Edward Butts also credits a young English homesteader named Henry Brace, who’d lost his entire herd to rustlers.
Butts says that Brace infiltrated the Dubois gang and acted as Ensor’s spy.
There are multiple accounts of Dubois’ escapades, many compiled by Hampshire in the Heritage Barns of Flagstaff history books. These can be found online at: https://heritagebarnsofflagstaff.com/?s=Dubois
Leslie Cholowsky
Editor