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DS, one page, 8.25 x 7, July 3, 1885. County of Johnson bench warrant issued to “any Sheriff in the Territory of Wyoming,” related to an indictment charging “James Cannery with the crime of Branding horse not his own with intent to defraud.” Signed at the conclusion by H. R. Mann as the deputy of Johnson County. In fine condition.
The date of this warrant, July 3, 1885, places it within a formative and increasingly tense period in Wyoming’s livestock industry. Johnson County lay at the northern edge of the territory’s cattle range, where the Wyoming Stock Growers Association had consolidated significant power through the late 1870s and 1880s, exerting strong influence over legislation and enforcement of brand laws. The practice of blotching or altering brands on horses and cattle—modifying an existing mark or applying a new one to another rancher’s stock—had become widespread enough that territorial law specifically targeted such fraud. Disputes over ownership of this kind would, within a few years, erupt into the Johnson County War of 1892, also known as the ‘War on Powder River.'
The Western Americana auction of Jochen Zeitz.
