Did a self-professed world traveler, soldier-of-fortune, part-time movie actor, and newspaper reporter once call Oil City home? So stated "Captain" Jack Lloyd to the Shreveport Times, while passing through that city on a tour of the country to lecture about his life experiences.
Tampa (FL) Times 31-Dec-1940, Page 16
Among his claims (many unverified), he:
- became an orphan at the age of five when his parents were killed in an Indian raid
- once saw George Armstrong Custer when the Seventh Cavalry passed through the encampment in which he was living
- was raised for several years by "Calamity Jane"
- witnessed the murder of "Wild Bill" Hickok
- served as an Indian scout and Texas Ranger
- was a gunfighter who killed 67 men
- toured Europe and appeared at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago as a member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
- hunted for gold in Alaska, and was the inspiration for the character "Burning Daylight" in the novel of the same name by Jack London, with whom he was a friend
- traveled to south Africa hunting for gold (again) and diamonds, and became involved in the Boer War.
- fought with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders at the Battle of San Juan Hill
- was a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War and Chinese Revolution
- served in the French Foreign Legion
- rode with Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution
- acted in many westerns, including The Great Train Robbery, whose star "Bronco" Billy Anderson was a friend
- fought in Central America with "General" Lee Christmas and other American mercenaries
- gave up fighting when gassed during the first World War, that resulted in the loss of his teeth
- claimed the ebony cane he carried had been given to him by Mahatma Gandhi
He was even mentioned in a biography of the actress Donna Reed. The veracity of his boasts were often questioned by those reporting on him, but his fans did not seem to care. A few bits of personal information found:
- He claimed to have been born in Texas on 20-Jun-1868, and apparently registered that with the Social Security Administration, citing his birthplace as Nacogdoches.
- Regarding his once being in the care of Calamity Jane, a biography of the western frontierswoman cites a writing, presumed by Jane, stating she was at the time looking after a little boy named Jackie.
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| "Calamity Jane" |
He frequently wrote articles about (then) world affairs based on his "experiences" in the subject region. Though cited as already being familiar to newspaper reporters in an 1935 feature about Japan's invasion of northern China, that is the first year in which "Captain Jack" appears in the national news. His lectures were advertised or reported on in newspapers across the country for the following 10 years
In a 1939 Shreveport Times article about Lloyd, who was visiting the city, he stated he was living in Oil City at the time Producers Oil Harrell No. 7 was ablaze in 1911.
Producers Oil Harrell No. 7 burned for nearly a month from May to June 1911.
An advertisement for a 1942 appearance at a theater in Murphysboro, IL. He apparently did not speak at Shreveport at the time he was interviewed in 1939.
Shown below is a calling card passed out to attendees, particularly children, at his speaking engagements, in this instance marking his being 70 years in age (and pictured looking more like it).
Jack's frontier stories may have been "inspired" by those of another "Captain Jack" whose real name was John Wallace Crawford, Civil War veteran, Indian scout, poet, and frontier storyteller who interestingly disputed the popular story of a romance between Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. He went as far as to claim her reputation as a frontierswoman was pure invention. He had also served as chief of scouts under George Armstrong Custer and participated in the raid on the Indians that followed the massacre at Little Big Horn.
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| Captain Jack Crawford |
His claimed 20th century exploits largely follow those of a protagonist and book of the same name that is subtitled "The Nearly Incredible Exploits Of An Official Super-Sleuth," which was published in 1928. Like frontier Jack, this American spy Jack had adventures in the Far East, Central America, and Mexico, though his place of birth and upbringing were totally different.
This was published as a serial in the Oakland Tribune in the fall of that year and was "as told" to the author Henry Outerbridge, said to be a European reporter working for an (unnamed) American newspaper. It appears to be his sole published work.
Salt Lake Telegram Sun 03-Jun-1928, Page 3
Whether frontier Jack was (1) the Jack of the book, (2) the author writing about himself (he did publish articles from time to time), (3) the author with a vivid imagination for fiction, or (4) just a reader who adopted elements into his own persona is currently unknown.
What became of Captain Jack is also not known. Mention of him in newspapers ceased after September 1945, save for a single article the following year that appears to be a human interest "filler" recapping an earlier lecture. No wife or other family was ever mentioned in later life. Perhaps he died on the road and was buried without fanfare wherever it occurred. Were his tales factual? Could someone really have been to so many places and done so many things? Did he ever actually live in Oil City, or was his claimed connection to a notable but by then distant event a way to establish some local "street cred" (that would be hard to prove/disprove) during the interview? I'm going to borrow a quote made regarding of one of his lectures from back in 1945 to answer:
"Whether or not all of Capt. Jack's adventures were precisely true, no one in attendance that night really cared. It was the consensus of the folks who heard Lloyd's lecture that night that they were getting a first-hand glimpse of an exciting era, now long gone, by a man who could really tell a spell-binding story."
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