Death At The Birney Post Office

In 1886. the town of Birney was not located at its present location at the mouth of Hanging Woman Creek. The Birney post office was then located several miles south of present-day Ashland, which was then known as "Strader." The office was located concurrently with a trading store operated by the postmaster, John W. Toohey. Toohey was Birney's second postmaster, the first being trader A.M. Birney, for which the town was named.

In March 1886, Mary O'Connell, the wife of Custer County Assessor Samuel O'Connell, applied to be postmaster and was approved. There was one problem, however. She had not received notice of her commission from the postal service.

Local rancher Edwin Brown, brother of Joseph Taliaferro Brown, who later established the Three Circle Cattle Ranch near Birney, soon learned why. According to the Yellowstone Journal:

Ed Brown, who claims to have been a friend of Toohey's knowing that Mrs. O'Connell had applied for the position then occupied by Toohey, one day jokingly inquired how long he was going to hold the office, and Toohey said he expected his time was short, at the same time showing Brown an official letter from the department, addressed to Mrs. O'Connell and containing, as Brown inferred, her commission. Brown saw Mrs. O'Connell shortly afterward and told her he thought Toohey had received her commission and was holding it out on her. She repeatedly asked Toohey if any letter from the department had been received addressed to her, and he as often denied that such was the case. Mrs. O'Connell wrote to the department about the matter and the reply was a peremptory order for Toohey to turn over the office to her at once.

And so it was on the 7th day of July, 1886 when Ed Brown entered John Toohey's store to purchase axel grease and a bottle of beer.

I then told him that I wanted to explain to him the matter of the post office packet about which he was kicking, I told him that I had told Mrs. O'Connell that her commission was here with no intention of raising hard feelings and I did not see any cause for the sound abuse he had given me on the Fourth of July. He then said 'If you or anybody else said I had Mrs. O'Connell's commission he is a damned lying son of a bitch." As he said so he made for his pistol. As he got within reach of it I drew my pistol and held him up. Then he started back where the rifles were, saying as he went "I will kill you as sure as your name is Ed Brown." I threw my pistol on him and said "Mr. Toohey, if you attempt to take one of those rifles, I will kill you."

After some ineffectual maneuvering by both men, Toohey supposedly changed tactics (according to Brown).

He [Toohey] then said, "If you have any manliness about you, you would lay down your pistol and fight me in a fair fight." I said, "to show you, Mr. Toohey, I don't mean to harm you I will go to the field in front of the house away from your guns and I will lay aside my pistol and I will maul the stuffing out of you."

Brown turned to exit the store, with Toohey following. As he entered the field in front of the store, Brown turned to see the postmaster running back into his store, presumably to get a weapon.

I followed him, he slammed the door in my face and held it. When he let go the door I went in and threw my pistol on him just as he was about to take the gun in hand. I prevented his doing so, and he then went behind the counter to where there was a pistol under the shelving. I told him not to attempt to take the pistol if he did I would shoot him. He then began to abuse me and gesticulate with his left hand at the same time with his right he seized the pistol, bringing it up as he did so we both fired. I cannot tell which fired first. I made two or three steps back to the door and fired twice more standing in the door. He, I thought, was firing all the time. When I fired my last shot he was taking aim with both hands. He stooped or dropped behind the counter. I waited in the door, perhaps 30 seconds. I heard a little noise and thinking he was moving towards his other guns, I got in my wagon and drove down to Mr. Wyllie's half a mile distant.

Brown eventually met Wyllie and told him of the incident, not knowing Toohey's condition. Wyllie went down to the store and discovered Toohey had died. Brown then borrowed a horse and rode nearly one hundred miles to turn himself into the authorities. Toohey's body was temporarily stored in an icehouse awaiting the coroner's inquest. One shot had entered Toohey's body under the left armpit and through the body, coming out under the right arm, stopping under the skin of the arm. The killing shot, however, "was near the centre of the forehead, near the left eye."

The coroner's jury, after carefully reviewing the body, then went to the store and found a small pool of blood behind the counter where Toohey fell, and his revolver nearby. The weapon was a black gutta percha handled, 38-caliber Colt, self-cocking revolver. The first cartridge had been fired, the next two showed where the hammer had struck but not exploded the cap, but the fourth cartridge was fired, showing that his first and last cartridge had been fired. Two holes were found, one through the glass door and one in the mud chinking between the logs near the door.

The coroner's jury exonerated Ed Brown on the basis of self-defense. Family and friends of the deceased caused Brown to be re-arrested a few days after the inquest, but Brown was again exonerated. Toohey was remembered fondly by the Yellowstone Journal

J.W. Toohey, the deceased, came to this country in the spring of '80 and immediately took up his abode on the upper Tongue River at what was then known as Strader's springs. He has resided there ever since and had built up for himself a good, comfortable trade with the Indians. He was postmaster at Birney for over two years and was exceedingly well known in that part of the country in which he lived. All the old-timers knew J.W. Toohey, the ex-tragedian, over whose untimely death we would wish to draw the manner of charity. "We could have better spared a better man."

Mary O'Connell took her rightful place as postmaster and moved the post office to Ashland, and so the town has been known ever since. Friends of Toohey claimed he had been murdered. Six months later, a new post office for Birney was established near the confluence of Hanging Woman Creek and the Tongue River (present-day Birney). Its new postmaster served a few years before moving back to Texas. His name was Edwin Brown.