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Kate Watson was probably born in Lebanon, Kansas in about 1862. As a young woman she moved to Wyoming where she established a homestead near Independence Rock. She became close friends with James Averell, a neighbouring farmer.
Watson helped Averell in the saloon. A local newspaper, the Cheyenne Mail Leader, described her as "of a robust physique, a dark devil in the saddle, handy with a six-shooter and a Winchester, and an expert with a branding iron."
In 1889 Watson and Averell got involved in a dispute with Albert J. Bothwell, a powerful cattleman in Wyoming. Both their homesteads were on land claimed by Bothwell for grazing his cattle. Averell wrote to the local papers criticizing Bothwell. He retaliated by claiming that Averell and Watson were stealing his cattle. Watson was also accused of being a prostitute who sometimes accepted stolen cattle in payment.
On 20th July, 1889, six men, Albert Bothwell, Tom Sun, Ernest McLean, Robert Connor, Robert Galbraith and John Durbin, arrived at the homes of Kate Watson and James Averell, and told them they intended to arrest them for rustling. Averell's foreman, Frank Buchanan, followed the party and observed them stopping at the mouth of a small canyon by Sweetwater River. When it was clear that the men intended to lynch Watson and Averell, Buchanan opened fire on Bothwell and his men. Outnumbered, Buchanan was eventually forced to flee from the scene.
Bothwell and the five other men were charged with the murders of Watson and Averell. Frank Buchanan, the key witness to the crime, disappeared and was presumed murdered. Another witness also died in mysterious circumstances. Therefore Albert J. Bothwell and his fellow defendants were acquitted.
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