Harry Tracy Oregon Outlaw

Harry Tracy & David Merrill escaping from prison.

On June 9, 1902, Harry Tracy and David Merrill made their break from the Oregon State Prison. They were working in the prison foundry when Tracy grabbed a rifle and dropped guard, Frank Farrell. Another prisoner, Frank Ingraham, tried to stop them—Merrill shot him in the leg. It later had to be cut off.

Out in the yard, the place turned into a shooting gallery. They gunned down the fence guard, Thurston Jones Sr. with shots to the chest and gut. Guard Bailey Tiffany was next. He was shot dead while standing watch. Duncan Ross hit the dirt and played dead. The escapees climbed a ladder, dragged Tiffany with them, and used his corpse as a shield. As they hit the tree line, Tracy put a bullet into Tiffany’s head. Three guards lay dead in three minutes.

That night, Tracy and Merrill holed up in the woods. Around 10 p.m., they met a man named Stewart and made him strip before breaking into his house. A few days later, they forced Mrs. H. Akers to cook them breakfast, then looted her pantry.

On June 15, they stole a team of horses near Oregon City. The next day, they crashed Charles Holtgrieve’s home on the Columbia River, demanded a meal, and made five men row them across. Outside Vancouver, they mugged a rancher named Reedy for his clothes, then disappeared for two weeks.

Harry Tracy & David Merrill

On June 27, Tracy commandeered Captain H. S. Clark’s oyster boat and ordered the crew to haul him to Tacoma—then changed his mind mid-ride and aimed for Seattle instead. Somewhere along the way, Tracy decided Merrill had outlived his usefulness.

“I shot him in the back,” Tracy told Frank Scott. “The papers said he had more guts than me. That made me hot.”

They were supposed to duel—ten paces, then shoot. But Tracy turned early and gunned Merrill down, claiming he was better off without him.

Tracy landed at Meadow Point, near Seattle. On July 3, reporter Louis Sefrit joined a posse led by Deputy Jack Williams. Tracy leaped up from behind a stump and dropped Karl Anderson with a shot. He nailed Charles Raymond next. Sefrit played dead as bullets whizzed past. Tracy fired again—one bullet struck Williams, who fell groaning into the brush.

Sefrit was left alone with Raymond’s corpse beside him. “His eyes were open,” Sefrit wrote. “The stare on his face was frightful.”

Sheriff Ed Cudihee picked up the trail and found Tracy hiding in Mrs. Van Horn’s home in Fremont. When deputies shouted, “Throw down that gun, Tracy!” he opened fire. Two officers went down. Tracy tore through a fence and vanished again. Officer Breece lay dead, and Cornelius Rawley bled out in the dirt.

Days later, Tracy appeared at the Johnson farm, hungry and soaked. He told Mrs. Johnson he was Harry Tracy and warned her to hush or die. He ate, changed clothes, read the paper, and took a bath. He even apologized for Breece’s killing, calling it a waste. Then he robbed them clean—four watches, some rings, a bridle, and a saddle.

He made John Anderson, the hired man, row him across the sound. Anderson said Tracy moved like a deer and never wore out.

On July 8, Tracy ran into May Baker and Mrs. McKinney. He marched them to Charles Gerrell’s place and sent Gerrell’s son to town for a pistol. The boy ran to the sheriff instead.

When the posse arrived, they found Tracy chatting with three women. They asked if he was inside. “No,” the women lied. But Tracy snuck out, vanished into the brush, and disappeared again. He doused his tracks with red pepper, swam rivers, and doubled back over his own path to throw the hounds off.

On July 11, he took E. M. Johnson’s family hostage near Kent. He sent Johnson to Tacoma for a gun. Three days later, he was at the Pautot house near Black Diamond, calmly watching deputies pass within feet of the window while he ate dinner.

On August 1, Tracy met W. A. Sanders and Sam MacEldowney in the Wenatchee Valley. MacEldowney gasped, “My God, it’s Harry Tracy.” Tracy dined with Sanders’ family, then rode off with fresh horses.

George Goldfinch soon brought word: Tracy had holed up at Lou Eddy’s ranch, holding the family for two days. At one point, he helped them build a track in the barn, even letting the men handle his weapons—making sure no barrels pointed his way.

Deputy Straub and his posse moved in. Deputy Smith described what happened:

“We saw two men unhitching a team. One matched the description. We called out. Tracy grabbed Mr. Eddy and used him as a shield, then ran for the marsh. As he hit the wheat, he fell flat and opened fire.”

Harry Tracy

The posse ducked for cover as Tracy’s bullets ripped through the air. At last, silence. No one dared approach in the dark. They waited till dawn.

When they found him, Tracy was dead. One bullet through the skull. A Colt revolver in one hand, a Winchester gripped in the other. The top of his head was blown clean off.

Tracy had been loose for 58 days and covered nearly 1,500 miles. Nine men died along the way.

Even in death, Tracy caused a stir. Posses argued over who earned the reward—$5,600, a fortune back then. His body lay in undertaker Stone’s parlor, where townsfolk picked souvenirs off the corpse—buttons, suspenders, even shoelaces. One fellow tried to steal the embalming kit.

Then came the carnival. Tracy’s widow struck a deal to show the corpse in Seattle and Spokane, charging two bits per peek. But within weeks, the papers were already whispering: what if he wasn’t dead?

Some said the body was a ringer. Others claimed lawmen let him vanish to stop the chaos. Like Jesse James and Billy the Kid, Harry Tracy’s legend refused to die. Every so often, a newspaper swore he’d been spotted again—somewhere down the line, gun in hand, on the run.