He came from Griffin, Georgia to Johnson County with his parents at the age of 18, and while this son of a newspaper owner and peach grower is not as well remembered as some of the legendary men that rode for Issac C. Parker, he was a certified legend in his own time.
US Marshal Paden Tolbert's story is one of excitement, adventure and status as a lawman that may have equaled anything emerging from the "Wild West" history of Fort Smith, the Indian territory and the US Marshal Service.
Tolbert's father James B. was a lawyer, a journalist and a well respected agricultural expert in both Griffin and Macon ,Georgia. A man with a sense of adventure himself, he uprooted from a comfortable life in the Peach State and with wife Elizabeth and eight children moved to "Bloody Clarksville" in 1880 when he bought a newspaper.
The oldest of the Tolbert brood and well educated, Paden became a school master shorty after moving to Johnson County. But the tall, intense Paden at the age of 21 started "riding posse" with legendary lawmen Bud McConnell and John Powers and he found his destiny with a badge and a quick gun.
Paden traveled to Fort Smith and, at age 22, became a deputy U.S. Marshal under Parker's jurisdiction.. Prior to this, he had married his childhood sweetheart, Lucy Rose Turner, and moved their family to the Indian Territory shortly after becoming a deputy marshal.
His brother John would also become a deputy marshal at Fort Smith and the two would briefly work together. Another deputy he was partnered with was Bud Ledbetter who he partnered with to hunt down many notorious outlaws in the Indian Territory.
One of the most infamous "scouts' Tolbert went on during his time working in the Indian Territory was the one that led to a shootout and the death of outlaw Ned Christie.
Tolbert and deputy marshal G.S. "Cap" White led the 16-man posse who rode after Christie, including Heck Thomas, Bud Ledbetter and his brother John Tolbert,
After Christie was charged with the murder of deputy marshal Daniel Maples. While the rest of the posse stocked up on extra weapons including rifles, revolvers and small-arms ammunition, Tolbert traveled over 250 miles to Coffeyville, Kansas and brought back a cannon that fired three-pound shells.
On the morning of November 2, 1894, Tolbert and the rest of the posse surrounded the near impregnable wooden fortress known as the "Rabbit Trap" in the Going Snake District, a mountainous region of the Cherokee nation near present-day Talequah.
Christie had successfully fought off previous attempts to apprehend him for well over a year before their arrival. After cannon blasts and over 2,000 bullets fired at the double-tiered, log fortification proved ineffective it seemed that this would again be the case.
As night fell, Tolbert and the others set to work on building a portable barricade. Using the charred rear axle and wheels from the burned out lumber wagon used to assault the fort the previous month, they built and mounted a thick wall from scrap-oak timbers to use tom work their way closer to the the fort.
Finally, six sticks of dynamite were brought out to be used to breach the fort's walls. Sometime near midnight, Tolbert helped push the wagon towards the cabin along with White, Charley Copeland, Bill Ellis and Bill Smith.
While Christie and his partner attempted to fight off Paden's group from the second story gunports, the rest of the posse provided covering fire until the men were close enough to dynamite the south wall of the house. Although surviving the explosion, Christie made a run for the surrounding woods but was gunned down by Tolbert and
others.
Two years later, Tolbert and several other U.S. Marshals were contacted by the American Express Company to request protection because they had received information of a suspected holdup from one of their agents in Dallas.
On November 13, 1894, Tolbert and Ledbetter were aboard the express car along with Sid Johnson, Frank Jones and as many as three Pinkerton detectives. The train was moving at top speed when it was stopped by Nathaniel "Texas Jack" Reed and his gang.
Although calling on the lawmen to get out of the express car, Tolbert and the others refused to surrender and instead began firing at them. The gunfight continued for over an hour and a half until one of Reed's men, Charley Belstead, was killed.
Reed then ran towards the passenger car, carrying dynamite with him, and tried to blow the express car. Failing this, he instead held up the passenger car.
Erroneously thought to have been killed as he and his men made their getaway, Reed was nevertheless wounded by Ledbetter. The failure of this attack resulted in a manhunt for the fugitives and the eventual capture of Reed.
In mid-July 1897, Tolbert and Ledbetter again rode together to bring in members of the Jennings Gang, which included brothers Alan and Frank Jennings.
During their search, they learned that "Al Jennings and other parties were going about in the Northern District of the Indian Territory under assumed names".
Tolbert and Ledbetter were sent after them with a warrant for their robbery of a post office at Foyll in Cherokee territory. They stayed on their trail for some time before tracking them to the Spike S ranch and, along with several others, surrounded the hideout.
After a brief gunfight, they chased them a distance of 60 miles before apprehending them together with Pat and Morris O'Malley.
After a successful 12 year career, Tolbert retired and became a special officer for Fort Smith and Western Railroad. After only a few months, he became ill from congestion of the lungs and sent to Hot Springs to recover.
However, his condition did not improve and he died in Weleetka, Oklahoma on April 24, 1904 and was buried in Oakland Cemetery near Clarksville, four days later.
Following his death, his widow was appointed honorary postmistress of Paden, a town in the Indian Territory named after her husband.
Tolbert is the only US Marshall in the history of the service to have a town named in his honor.
One other remembrance of Tolbert and the Tolbert family comes around when the world famous Elberta peaches from the Clarksville area are harvested each year.
Tolbert's father brought that particular species of peaches to Johnson County and the orchards and land the Tolbert family cultivated at the end of the 19th century played a big part in the agricultural history of the region.
