Description

Equipment

Equipment/Livestock/Property/Money:
He has an excellent horse, one muscular half-mustang buckskin, but no other property to speak of. The buckskin has his saddle, bridle and pads, plus saddle bags with a mess kit, a knife sharpening stone and razor sharpening leather strap, a shaving razor, field glasses, 56 .44-40 rounds for the Winchester, a bar of soap, a small notebook, a quill and some ink in a metal flask, a metal alcohol flask, a pair of gloves, and a canteen; there is also a sheath with a '66 Henry lever-action repeating 16 shot rifle, a water skin and a bed roll on the saddle. The buckskin has a pack saddle with waterproof bags containing: extra socks, boots, jeans, pants, shirts, a heavy faded wine colored frock-coat, a suit, a cravat, suspenders, 150' light rope, 2 water skins, 5 days of trail rations, a couple classics books (the Works of William Shakespeare being one of em and a book about playing card games, written by Hoyle ), half a dozen newspapers and about a dozen dog-eared dime novels , a bible, a tarp, 100 rounds in a cartridge belt for the Henry Repeating Rifle, a cartridge belt with 50 12g shotgun loads, a gun repair kit, a tin of matches with a screw-on top; plus a rifle case with a Henry Repeating Rifle with a 30x scope and a sheath with a double-barrel 12g Greener sawed-off shotgun. He has a .41 calibre Remington Over-Under 2- shot derringer in his holster tucked into his waistband beneath his vest, and a gold watch of his grandfather's attached to the vest with a small gold chain and in the watch pocket; his revolver have been balanced (by himself) and include a shaved trigger, lightened main spring and 4" barrel. He has saved most everything that he earned bounty hunting; he has $326.59 on his person ($20 in his money belt and another $306 secreted in his boots) and 59 cents in his pockets; he also another$521.00 deposited into a Western Union draft account.

History

Background Information: In his early teens, he and his mother moved to San Francisco. As a boy Jasper was rambunctious and this led to his being arrested for stealing wagon wheel axles and spokes, as well as participating in other petty crimes. So his mother agreed that he should be confined to the California Boys' Republic in Chino, CA., for 18 months. That is a move which he credits with giving him a valuable attitude adjustment.

By the time he got out of the reform school, in April of 1846, his mother had moved to New York City. He joined her there, briefly, then at age sixteen signed on as a laborer on a tallship called the USS Albatross. But working as a crewman on a ship did not appeal to Lonaghan, so he jumped ship when the Albatross docked in Cuba. He made his way to the Dominican Republic and then back to the United States.

Then, having just turned 17, he decided to join the Merchant Marines. Jasper was not a model sailor at first. He was rough and rowdy. But he also became a hero. During a training exercise in the waters off Nova Scotia, a clipper struck a submerged outcropping of rock and flung several oil barrels and the crewmen trying to secure them overboard into the freezing, turbulent water. Many Marines drowned immediately, unable to get out of the sub-zero freezing water or swim against the storm-tossed tide. Lonaghan jumped into the water personally saved the lives of five men. For this act of heroism Jasper Lonaghan was chosen to be part of the Honor Guard protecting General Ulysses S. Grant’s yacht. And he was honorably discharged April, 1850.

Then he traveled to the West and worked in Texas on a cattle ranch and later in Canada as a lumberjack and gold miner. And then he returned to New York and found a cold-water flat for nine dollars a month, and he worked at various odd jobs along the waterfront of the Hudson River barely making ends meet. Then an actress friend suggested he try his hand at acting. And he was accepted in the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he studied hard for two years.

He was expelled from the acting troupe for riding a runaway horse through the halls of a local teacher’s college and jailed for a year and fined $500.00 for public endangerment.

Jasper Lonaghan finally made it to Broadstreet in the lead role in the play "Much Ado About Nothing.". During this time, Jasper married his first wife, actress Nellie Adams in 1856. This marriage lasted some 5 years.

After moving to Promise City, New Mexico, Jasper Lonaghan got several parts in some low budget vignettes, the most famous of which has to be "Dastardly Dick", which closed out after only 6 weeks when a recently fired piano player set fire to the playhouse, killing the director and the assistant manager who’d been sharing a private tryst up in the flies.