Captain Jack Crawford Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

John W. Crawford (1847-1917), known as "Captain Jack, The Poet Scout", began writing verse and reciting his rhymes in the late 1870s and became a popular lecturer. His first volume of verse, The Poet Scout, was published in 1879. "Captain Jack" had a colorful career in the Old West, beginning when he is said to have been one of the first seven men to enter the Black Hills region after the ill-fated Custer expedition. There, he served as Chief of Scouts for the Black Hills Rangers. During the Sioux Wars of 1876, "Captain Jack" was a scout in New Mexico and also a special agent of the Indian Bureau near San Marcial on the Rio Grande River. Crawford, who also wrote three plays and over 100 short stories, had not learned to read and write until during the Civil War, when he wounded at Spotsylvania and sent to a hospital, where he was taught by a nurse.