New! The Legend of Billy the Kid “The Early Years” A Documentary series.
Here’s a Database on Billy the Kid to all the newspapers reporting on Billy in the State of New Mexico from the year 1878 – 1900
Billy the Kid quarries from, “All digitized newspapers”
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Timeline of Billy the Kid see Here
The link below will show all the people Billy the kid might have met while in White Oaks.
1880: List of 50 People that settled in White Oaks N.M. in 1880
Geographical Timeline for Billy-the-kid
Found this story that is no longer online from the internet’s “Way Back” Machine
Billy the Kid Story
By Georgia B. Redfield
Source: Mrs. Ella B. Davidson
Paraphrased by C. W. Barnum
Counties: Lincoln, De Baca
Surnames mentioned: Story, Davidson, Bolton, Church, Stanton, Bell, Ollinger, Kid, Davidson, Cyrus, Brady, McSween, Garrett, Bowdre, Kilgore, Kinkle
Mrs. Ella Bolton Davidson, is one of the few living pioneer women, who experienced all the hardships and dangers of the first years of settlement of the new country of Southeast New Mexico. Mrs. Davidson, as a child, lived in Fort Stanton, New Mexico, an army post, where she was constantly surrounded by danger from Indians, and where she had few educational advantages. Later, as a woman she lived the hard life of a pioneer’s wife and became a typical pioneer mother, when unattended by a physician her second child, a little girl, was born. She made a happy home for her family, in which she ruled with gentleness and kindness, and graciously welcomed the stranger and newcomer as well as her friends. Wherever she has lived she quietly became one of the leaders in all cultural and educational issues instituted for the improvement and enjoyment of the town’s people.
In 1871, when six years of age Ella Bolton and her mother Ella, Doyel Bolton and a brother and older sister who is Mrs. Amelia Bolton Church, came to America from their native town and country, Wexford, Ireland. They joined their husband and father, John Bolton, at Fort Stanton, New Mexico. Mr. Bolton had preceded his family in coming to the United States and was head of the Government Commissary Department at Fort Stanton, which was an army post maintained for protection of the early New Mexico settlers from the hostile Mescalero and Apache Indians.
After the voyage from Ireland, on landing in New York, the Bolton family continued their journey to New Mexico, by rail. They traveled as far as the railroad went, in the state of Kansas, where they were met at the end of the railroad by a military escort sent from Fort Stanton, for their protection from Indians during the remainder of their journey overland through the hostile Indian infested country of Kansas, Colorado and part of New Mexico through which they were to travel. An army post ambulance was sent in which Mrs. Bolton and the children rode. While the soldiers rode in three covered wagons.
They were allowed to make only thirty miles a day and were required to make camp at Government Army Posts, stationed along the route. At night the wagons and ambulance were place in a circle in which the mules, used for their conveyances, were confined where they could be watched and guarded from Indian raids. There were no Indian attacks, and no Indians were seen on their entire journey, though there may have been some hidden in many places who dared not attack the well armed soldiers who were constantly on the alert. The ambulance was, comparatively speaking, easy riding, but the slow traveling had become monotonous and uninteresting long before the three weeks time taken far the journey had passed. They saw no houses or human beings for hundreds of miles in some districts, except the soldiers at the army stations.
The children becoming restless and adventuresome, on the frequent stops, would wander short distances from the wagons. On one occasion while gathering little stones found on mounds made by ants which they put in little tobacco sacks, discarded by the soldiers, they were suddenly running and screaming from the pain of many ant stings. This becoming an experience of the journey, they never forgot. Also red chili peppers called New Mexico fruit by a Mexican who presented some to the children when bitten into by them, became another experience of childish importance, as the one of the stinging ants, and likewise was never forgotten.
The original Fort Stanton, of flimsy construction, established in 1855 on the site now occupied by the Government Marine Hospital was purposely established on Indian hunting grounds between the White Mountains and El Capitan, and was built in a strategic flat stretch of land from which Indian activities could be under observation. Many raids and massacres were headed off and prevented by the alert attention of the army officers.
The fort was named for Captain Henry W. Stanton, First Dragoons, who was killed January 19, 1855, sixty-six miles southwest of Roswell, on the Penasco River in the Sacramento Mountains near the old home site of J. F. Hinkle, former Governor of New Mexico. As an army post the fort was abandoned in 1861, was again occupied by the army in 1863 and substantial stone and brick buildings and other improvements for defense, were constructed in 1868. In this reconstructed fort John Bolton, after the arrival of his family in 1871, built their adobe house and here, in this, her first New Mexico home, Ella Bolton with her parents and her sister and brother spent three of her early childhood years.
Fort Stanton was again abandoned as an army post in 1896 and since 1899 it has been continuously occupied as a Government sanatorium. In 1873 John Bolton moved his family to Lincoln, New Mexico where he was made postmaster, and here Ella Bolton, nearly ten years of age, and her sister Amelia two years older grew to young girlhood. They entered into the social life of the town, and with their youthful grace and charm contributed to the pleasure of the social gatherings of the harassed people of bullet scarred Old Lincoln during the Lincoln County War of 1876 to 1879. Billy the Kid, famous outlaw of that region, who was one of the leaders of the gang of the Alexander A. McSween adherents, against the Major Lawrence G. Murphy followers contributed a large share to the destruction and murdering that resulted through the many encounters of that famous cattle war.
Ella Bolton met the young desperado at a dancing party given by a woman hostess who shared the belief of many others, that the Kid had been led into evil paths, and through kindness and friendliness of hospitality might be led back into the straight and narrow way. Billy the Kid thoroughly enjoyed the party and the occasion of his dancing with Ella Bolton until in his exuberance of enjoyment of the dance, he lifted her and lightly swung her off her feet. The Then he who had boasted of conquests and murders of numerous big strong man, was made ashamed when he was left on the dance floor, where he stood in confusion, vanquished by a small young girl.
On April 1, 1878 Major William Brady, Sheriff of Lincoln County was fired upon and killed by the McSween partisans, among them Billy the Kid. The gang lay in wait, concealed by an adobe wall, until Sheriff Brady should walk by after having gone through the motion of dismissing court, that because of threats of shooting and murdering had never convened. On hearing the shots that killed Sheriff Bardy and Deputy Sheriff George Hindman who was one of three man who accompanied him, the other two were not shot the Lincoln school master became excited and dismissed the school children who walked to their homes in danger of being shot by any of the throngs of armed men, who wrought to a high tension of excitement, would have shot to kill on any slight excuse.
The bodies of Brady and Hindman, no one dared remove, still lay in the street when the school children passed and Ella Bolton, among them, realized then that the slender gray eyed youth, she knew as William Bonney, was possessed of a passion for murdering and destruction. The story as an eye witness of parts of the final bloody battle that practically ended the Lincoln County War is best given in Mrs. Davidson’s own words: Lincoln became an armed battle ground after the killing of Ollinger and Bell, the Kid’s guards when he made his escape from the Lincoln jail where he had been confined since his capture after the slaying of Brady and Hindman.
On the Sunday evening before the terrible days that ended the Lincoln County War Mother said: Ella this is the week that will end all this bloodshed and fighting and, I thank God your father is away and won’t be mixed up in the shooting, but I an afraid to stay here with you children unprotected. So that night after supper she took us to stay with the Ellis family, in their house which was built with all the rooms in one long row. About ten o’clock we heard someone with spurs on, come clattering down the whole length of the house. The door where we sat opened and there was Billy the Kid! He was followed by fourteen men who took possession of the house.
We went back to our home but Mother was afraid to stay there after she thought our water supply would perhaps be cut off, so we went to Juan Patron’s house and about midnight that house was taken over by some of the fighters. We then went to Montonna’s store where we went to bed and when we got up the next morning about twenty men had taken possession there, but we stayed there from Sunday evening, until the next Friday morning. Mother got up and after we saw men fired on and one killed, she said, I am going to take you children out of this danger.
So she took us two miles out of town where there were some tall poplar trees, many are are still there, and about noon we saw heavy smoke. It was the McSween store that had been set afire by the Murphy men to burn out the McSween men, one of them was the Kid who were surrounded, so they couldn’t escape. When the fire was under way Mr. McSween calmly walked to the door as if surrendering and was shot down. Then, two others that followed were riddled with bullets. George Coe Henry Brown and Charlie Bowdre were among the crowd that escaped. Billy the Kid was the last one left in the building. During the excitement of the roof crashing in, he rushed out with two pistols blazing. Bob Beckwith whose shot had killed McSween was killed by one flying bullet and two others were wounded. The Kid, with bullets whizzing all around him, made his escape.
After this battle that took place in July, 1878 everything quieted down, and my mother took us home. Mrs. McSween whose home was burned, stayed with us all night, and the next morning she asked me to go with her to see the ruins of her house. We found only the springs and other wires of her piano that was the pride of her life. She raked in the ashes where her bureau had stood and found her locket, That was the most destructive battle of the Lincoln County War. We were terribly upset with all the fighting and killings. My sister Amelia had more than she could stand so my mother sent her to a ranch until things could settle down.
We moved to the Block Ranch in 1879 and my father engaged in ranching. Indians made a raid one night while the ranch hands were away with all the ammunition. My father who was the only man on the place found four gun shells, that these he fired, thinking to frighten the Indians, who were not to be scared off. They drove away eighty horses. I spent all of the time of the raid shaking with fright, hidden under the bed.
We moved to White Oaks in 1830, where I was married in 1883 to Syrus L. Cyrus Leland Davidson. We had two children, a boy named Syrus Cyrus for his father who was born in 1884 in White Oaks. Millie, our daughter was born in 1886 in Picacho where there was no physician to be had for attendance of her birth. We moved to Roswell in 1898.
Mrs. Davidson, who is the only surviving member of her immediate family, makes her home with her sister Mrs. Amelia Church in Roswell. She is a member of the Chaves County Archaeological and Historical Society and is a member of St. Andrews Episcopal Church, of which she was one of the organizers and hard workers for the church fund when the church was built in 1899. She also was one of the guild workers who gave a turkey dinner to raise the money with which three dozen kitchen chairs were bought for seats for the church.
After having lived in New Mexico, under nerve breaking conditions and rough surroundings, for over half an average life time, Mrs. Davidson, at the present time shows no ravages of those times of her hard past life. She is small in height and slender built, and has calm kind eyes and a placid countenance. There are no signs of strain or nervousness, in her quiet manner of bearing that one usually finds in those who have lived under the strain of harrowing experiences. She receives her friends in a quiet restful atmosphere, where she has all the comforts and beauty of surroundings of a modern home, that the pioneer, during the days of settlement, never believed one would be able to obtain and enjoy in New Mexico. Source: Mrs. Ella Bolton Davidson, Mrs. Belle Kilgore.
Billy the Kid various Names
BILLY’S NAMES
•Henry McCarty
•William Henry McCarty
•Henry Antrim
•Billy Antrim
•William Antrim
•Kid Antrim
•Austin Antrim
•The Kid
•William H. Bonney
•Billy Bonney
•Billy Kid
•Kid Bonney
•Billy the Kid
•Captain Kidd
•Billy Coyle (questionable)
•Billy Donovan (questionable)
•Billy Conley (questionable)
•El Chivato
•El Bandito
•Little Casino
•William Wright
•The Young Kid
•Bilitos
•Martin Garcia,
Billy the Kid Items Sold
Billy the Kid Story from Ancestor.com
alias he used when he allegedly married Abrana S. Garcia “The Real Billy the Kid” by Miguel Antonio Otero is one of the best authentic sources for his life from a non-biased perspective. Otero befriended Billy and accompanied him from Las Vegas NM to Santa Fe in chains. Otero later became Governor of New Mexico and wrote extensively of his “Life in the Frontier”. Miguel Otero is one of my cousins, another Otero cousin helped make the coffin and buried Billy. Our family looks favorably on Billy, we have some stories of him from our Jaramillo cousins. (by Dr. Denis Ismael HaLevi-Otero) ISBN-10: 1558852344 ISBN-13: 978-1558852341 Introduction Source: About Billy the Kid William H. Bonney alias Billy the Kid is probably the most misunderstood historical figure of the Old West. He was not a cold-blooded killer, nor was he a robber of trains or banks. Instead he was a gunfighter in a feud between two factions in which both sides stole from each other and killed.
The Lincoln County War would have turned out exactly the way it did if Billy the Kid never took part in it. His role in the LCW was minor -he wasn’t the leader but a follower. Although Billy the Kid was one of many who fought and killed during the LCW, he was the only one that faced conviction and was sentence to death. So Billy the Kid used his wit and courage to escape his date with the hangman which boost his notoriety even more. If his spectacular escape wasn’t enough, his controversial death was the final dramatic ending to his story. But it wasn’t the end, Billy the Kid lives on in history and legend. Please take notice of the footnote numbers in parenthesis within the summary, you will find the footnotes at the end of the paragraph in italics ———————— Billy the Kid’s real name was William Henry McCarty
(1), when and where he was born, or who or what happened to his father is not known. It’s estimated that he was born around 1860-61 possibly in New York. History first traces the Kid as a youngster in Indiana in the late 1860s and then in Wichita, Kansas in 1870. His mother Catherine McCarty was a widow and single mother and he had a younger brother named Joseph (born 1863). By 1871, Catherine was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and was told to move to a climate that was warmer and drier. Footnote 1: There’s a mystery with the last name of McCarty; it’s speculated that it may be his father’s name, mother’s maiden name, or the last name of his half brother’s father. On March 1, 1873 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Catherine McCarty married a man named William Antrim. Since there were now two Billies in the household, the Kid’s mother referred to him by his middle name, he was now Henry McCarty-Antrim
(2). Footnote 2: It’s my guess that Billy the Kid’s stepfather never legally adopted his stepsons, since the Kid would also be referred to by his last name “McCarty” in Silver City. The family moved to Silver City in Grant County, located in southern New Mexico. Catherine was suffering from consumption and her health began to deteriorate rapidly. Then on September 16, 1874, the Kid’s mother died. Antrim didn’t want to be burden with two small boys, so he separated them and placed them in foster homes and left Silver City for Arizona. The Kid now had to earn his own keep, so he was put to work washing dishes and waiting on tables at a restaurant. After a year of no parental guidance and looking out for himself, the Kid quickly fell in with the wrong crowd. One of his troublemaking buddies, Sombrero Jack, stole some laundry from a Chinese laundry cleaner and told the Kid to hide the bundle. The Kid got caught with it and was arrested. The county sheriff decided to keep him locked up for a couple of days just to scare him, but the Kid escaped and ran away
(3). Footnote 3: The Silver City newspaper reported: “Henry McCarty, who was arrested Thursday and committed to jail to await the action of the grand jury, upon the charge of stealing clothes from Charley Sun and Sam Chung, celestials, sans cue, sans Joss sticks, escaped from prison yesterday through the chimney. It’s believed that Henry was simply the tool of Sombrero Jack, who done the stealing whilst Henry done the hiding. Jack has skinned out.” The Kid fled to one of his foster families and they put him on a stagecoach to Clifton, Arizona where his stepfather was living, but when he found his stepfather he didn’t want him and told the Kid to leave. All alone in a strange desert, the Kid wandered from one ranch to another to find work. For the next 2 years the Kid tramped around as a ranch hand and gambler. He then met up with a horse thief name John Mackie who taught him the tricks of the trade and the two became partners. But after some close calls, arrest, and escaping from custody, the Kid decided it was wiser to give up his new occupation. He returned some stolen horses to the army to clear himself and got work as a ranch hand.
One day while at a saloon in Camp Grant, Arizona, the Kid who was about sixteen at the time, got into serious trouble. He got into an argument with a bully named Frank “Windy” Cahill, who had picked on him numerous times before. After some name-calling, Cahill rushed the Kid and slammed him down on the ground, then jumped on top of him and proceeded to slap him in the face. The Kid worked his hand free to his revolver and fired it into Cahill’s gut. When Cahill fell over the Kid squirmed free, ran off, and mounted the nearest horse and fled Camp Grant. The Kid didn’t stick around to face murder charges and left Arizona and returned to New Mexico. Now an outlaw and unable to find honest work, the Kid met up with another outlaw named Jesse Evans, who was the leader of a gang of rustlers called “The Boys.” The Kid didn’t have anywhere else to go and since it was suicide to be alone in the hostile and lawless territory, the Kid reluctantly joined the gang. The gang made their way to Lincoln County where the Boys joined forces with James Dolan, who was currently in a feud against an Englishman entrepreneur named John Tunstall and his attorney and partner Alex McSween. The feud would be famously known as the Lincoln County War
(4). Footnote 4: James Dolan was the protégé of LG Murphy and when Murphy became ill of cancer and hospitalized in Santa Fe, Dolan stepped up to take his place. Supporting Dolan was the powerful Santa Fe Ring (similar to a mafia) in which members consisted of the governor, politicians and attorneys. Tunstall came to Lincoln to start his own business and ranch, but Dolan didn’t like the competition and set out to drive him away. Tunstall refused to be intimidated and instead tried to fight back with legal action. When Tunstall realized he couldn’t fight his enemies the legal way due to the bias Judge Bristol and Governor Sam Axtell, Tunstall decided to fight fire with fire and hired his own gunmen. The feud then turned into an all out war. The Boys started to steal Tunstall’s livestock, so arrests were made and the Kid eventually was caught and placed in jail. Tunstall noticed something different about this rustler, he wasn’t rough like the other men, but just a boy who got a bad start in life and was looking for place to belong. So Tunstall gave him an ultimatum: if he testified against the other rustlers, Tunstall would hire him as an employee.
The Kid took Tunstall’s offer. Now fighting for the Tunstall side and in the hopes of a better future, the Kid changed his name to William H. Bonney, but his friends called him “Kid.” Tensions were high and the feud between Dolan and Tunstall escalated in to bloody violence. John Tunstall was brutally murder by members of Sheriff Brady’s posse and the Boys. Tunstall’s ranch hands then formed a vigilante group called “the Regulators.” Now the war was on. At first the deputized Regulators tried to do things legally by serving warrants, but with the prejudice Sheriff Brady and the bias court system, they couldn’t count on justice being served. So they took the law in their own hands. They retaliated by killing Bill Morton, Frank Baker and William McCloskey. Then they ambushed Sheriff Brady and his deputy George Hindman in Lincoln (5). Lastly, they had a dramatic gunfight with Dolan gunman Buckshot Roberts, but during that shootout their leader Dick Brewer was killed.
Footnote 5: The Regulators were particular bitter towards Bill Morton, because he led the posse that murdered Tunstall and was one of those that shot him. As for William McCloskey, he was a Regulator suspected for playing both ends of the table and tried to intervene in Morton and Baker’s execution after the Regulator’s arrested them. As for the Brady shooting, six members of the Regulators (the Kid included) ambushed the sheriff and four of his deputies as they walked down the street in Lincoln to arrest Alex McSween. The Regulators revenge only made things worse. They were now viewed as the bad guys and warrants were put out for their arrest. Now the Dolan side struck back. Dolan’s gunmen and newly appointed sheriff, George Peppin and his men, had the McSween house surrounded with Alex McSween and many of the Regulators trapped in side. Dolan sent for Colonel Dudley at Fort Stanton for assistance. The colonel came with troops along with a Howitzer and Gatling gun.
On the fifth day of the siege the Dolan side was getting impatient, so they set the house on fire. By nightfall, the house was completely ablaze and heat from the flames were overwhelming. The Regulators began to panic, so the cool-headed Billy the Kid, only about seventeen years old, took over leadership of the men. The Kid divided the men into two groups, he lead his party out the door first and ran in one direction so as to draw the line of fire towards them so McSween’s party could make a run in another direction and get away. When the men began to run out of the burning house the Dolan side opened fire and all hell broke loose. McSween and three men were killed, but Billy the Kid and the others escaped into the darkness. The war was over; the Regulators disbanded and the Kid was now a fugitive. Billy the Kid was unable to settle down, so he made his living by gambling and rustling cattle.
The Kid heard about Governor Axtell being replaced by Lew Wallace, who was now trying to bring law and order to Lincoln. The Kid wrote to the governor that he was tired of running and would surrender to authorities and testify against the Dolan side to have his murder charges dropped. The governor agreed and promised the Kid a full pardon. The Kid surrendered and testified in court, but the Santa Fe Ring had influence over the court system, so members of the Dolan side, including James Dolan, were acquitted. Billy was in unfriendly territory and one of his threats was prosecutor attorney William Rynerson, who was part of the Ring and wanted to put the Kid on trial for the murder of Sheriff Brady. The Kid felt betrayed when he learned that Governor Wallace didn’t have the power to pardon him without Rynerson’s cooperation, nor was the governor pressuring the attorney to collaborate. Wallace simply lost interest and left the Kid to his fate.
Billy the Kid knew he didn’t stand a chance in court and he had lost faith in the governor, so he escaped. On the run again and an outlaw, the Kid went back to making a living the only way he knew how –rustling. There were other outlaws and rustlers in New Mexico, much worse than Billy the Kid, but the Kid had gain fame and was singled out by the newspapers who had built him up into something he wasn’t. It was the newspapers who had given him a name that he would forever be known as “Billy the Kid.” Since the end of the Lincoln County War, the Kid spent the next two years eluding the law and living in and around Fort Sumner (a former military fort transformed into a tiny Mexican village).
While in Fort Sumner, he would kill a drunk at a saloon (6), but the killing was shrugged off and got almost no attention, but unfortunately, the Kid got into more serious trouble that did get plenty of attention. It happened when a posse from White Oaks surrounded the Kid and his gang at a station house, during the standoff the posse accidentally killed their own deputy, James Carlyle. Of course the death was credited to the Kid and destroyed any ounce of sympathy the public had for him, not to mention, any chance for him to get things squared up with the governor to get his pardon. Footnote 6: Before the shooting, Billy the Kid sensed trouble from a man named Joe Grant and he casually went up to him and asked to see his gun. As he pretended to admire it, he spun the cylinder so the hammer would fall on an empty chamber. This wise precautionary move saved the Kid’s life, because Grant then pulled his gun on him and fired. The gun clicked and then the Kid had his turn but his gun went BANG.
As the Kid dodged the law, Pat Garrett was elected sheriff and made US Marshal to hunt for Billy the Kid. He was familiar with the Kid’s habits and hideouts, which may show that Garrett may have been a rustler himself or at one time may have ridden with the Kid. During the pursuit for Billy the Kid, Garrett ended up killing two of the Kid’s closest comrades, Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre. Finally on December 23, 1880 Garrett trapped the Kid and three other gang members at a cabin in Stinking Springs. After a short standoff, Billy the Kid came out and surrendered. Billy the Kid was quickly put on trial in Mesilla and was sentence to hang for the murder of Sheriff Brady. After his sentence was passed, the Kid was taken to Lincoln to await his hanging. The Kid was shackled and imprisoned in a room in the Lincoln courthouse as two deputies took turns guarding over him.
On April 28, 1881 the Kid made his most daring escape (which would also be his last). The Kid was successful in getting a drop on the lone guard, Deputy James Bell, by slipping his hand out of the handcuffs and using the heavy restraints to hit the deputy over the head. The Kid then jerked Bell’s pistol and told him to throw up his hands, but instead the deputy ran and the Kid had no choice but to shoot him. The other guard Bob Olinger was across the street having dinner when he heard the gunshots. He ran toward the building and as the Kid saw him approaching he shot Olinger down with a shotgun (7). The Kid rode out of Lincoln a free man and headed to the only place he could call home: Fort Sumner. Footnote 7: Bob Olinger was a bully and an old enemy of Billy the Kid. He took pleasure in tormenting the helpless prisoner and used his shotgun to intimidate him. So when Olinger ran to the courthouse, the Kid didn’t hesitate to shoot him with his own shotgun.
The Kid’s original plan of escape was to take Bell prisoner, lock him up, and slip out unseen before Olinger came back. The Kid decided to laid low long enough until the law would give up hunting him and he could “rustle” up some money and leave the territory. By July of 1881, Garrett heard rumors that Billy the Kid was in the Fort Sumner area, so with two deputies he rode into Fort Sumner.
On July 14, 1881 just before midnight, Pat Garrett waited till the town was quiet before he slipped into Pete Maxwell’s room to ask him about Billy the Kid. Garrett was a former employee of Pete Maxwell’s and it’s possible that Maxwell tipped Garrett off that the Kid was in the area. At that exact moment, the Kid with a knife in hand went to Maxwell’s house to get some fresh beef for a late steak dinner. As he approached, he saw Garrett’s two deputies on the porch and since he didn’t recognizing the strangers, he backed cautiously into Maxwell’s room and asked “Pete, who are those fellows outside?” He got no answer and as he walked towards the bed, he saw Garrett’s silhouette and started to back away and asked in Spanish, “Whose there?” Garrett recognized the Kid’s voice and fired his gun. The bullet pierced the Kid’s heart and he fell to the floor. Garrett and Maxwell ran out of the room and huddled outside with the two deputies and waited. They could hear as the Kid gasped for breath and then all was quiet -Billy the Kid was dead (8). Footnote 8: It’s of great speculation whether or not the Kid was armed with a gun.
There’s also something fishy about this whole incident and there may have been more foul play then we’re led to believe. Garrett may have deliberately been waiting in the dark to shoot the Kid.. The next day Billy the Kid was buried at the Fort Sumner cemetery near his two fallen companions, Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre. He was killed not for who he “really” was, but for what people “thought” he was. He was a pawn in losing game and he was made a scapegoat for other outlaws’ crimes. Although he did participate in killings, the men he fought against were much worse than he ever was. This nineteen or twenty year old lived a short life but made a lasting impression. If it weren’t for our attraction to Billy the Kid, the history of the Lincoln County War and its participants would’ve been long forgotten.
Thanks to Billy the Kid, New Mexico has a thriving business in tourism as a steady flow of tourists each year come to visit the Billy the Kid sites. Even in death Billy the Kid is likeable and he has a large following with people all over the word. A matter of fact, Billy the Kid is known as the Old West’s most favorite outlaw. ——————– Henry McCarty; aka Billy the Kid; aka Willian H Bonney (he used his grandfather’s name). a 19th century American frontier outlaw and gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War.
According to legend, he killed over 20 white men and a number of Mexicans and Indians ]but he is generally accepted to have killed four men. McCarty (or Bonney, the name he used at the height of his notoriety) was 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) to 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) tall with blue eyes, a smooth complexion and prominent front teeth. He was said to be friendly and personable at times, and many recalled that he was as “lithe as a cat”.] Contemporaries described him as a “neat” dresser who favored an “unadorned Mexican sombrero”. ——————– Wikipedia William Bonney (English)
Henry McCarty, better known as Billy the Kid, but also known by the aliases Henry Antrim and William H. Bonney (reportedly November 23, 1859 – July 14, 1881), was a 19th century American frontier outlaw and gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War. According to legend, he killed 21 men, but he is generally accepted to have killed between four and nine. McCarty (or Bonney, the name he used at the height of his notoriety) was 5 feet 8 inches (173 cm) to 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) tall with blue eyes, a smooth complexion and prominent front teeth. He was said to be friendly and personable at times, and many recalled that he was as “lithe as a cat”. Contemporaries described him as a “neat” dresser who favored an “unadorned Mexican sombrero”. These qualities, along with his cunning and celebrated skill with firearms, contributed to his paradoxical image, as both a notorious outlaw and beloved folk hero.
A relative unknown during his own lifetime, he was catapulted into legend the year after his death when his killer, Sheriff Pat Garrett, along with co-author M.A. “Ash” Upson, published a sensationalistic biography titled The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. Beginning with Garrett’s account, Billy the Kid grew into a symbolic figure of the American Old West. Early life Little is known about McCarty’s origins, but many reputable scholars of western history “contend that he was born on the eve of the Civil War in the bowels of an Irish neighborhood in New York City (70 Allen Street). If indeed, his birthplace was New York, no records that can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he ever lived there have ever been uncovered”.[9][10]
While his biological father remains an obscure figure, some researchers have theorized that his name was Patrick McCarty, Michael McCarty, William McCarty, or Edward McCarty. There is clear evidence that his Mother’s name was Catherine McCarty, although “there have been continuing debates about whether McCarty was her maiden or married name”. According to some accounts, McCarty was born as William Henry McCarty, Jr., but his mother preferred to call him “Henry” because she did not wish him to be known as “Junior”. It is generally believed that McCarty’s Mother was a survivor of the Great Irish Famine of the mid-19th century.
Some genealogists argue, however, that the future outlaw was born William Henry Bonney, the son of William Harrison Bonney and wife Katherine Boujean, paternal grandson of Levi Bonney and wife Rhoda Pratt and great-grandson of Obadiah Pratt, who in turn were the Grandparents of Mormon leader Parley P. Pratt, making him and McCarty first cousins once removed. By 1868, Catherine McCarty had moved with her two young sons, Henry and Joseph, to Indianapolis, Indiana.
There, she met William Antrim, who was 12 years her junior. In 1873, after several years of moving around the country, the two were married at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and settled further south in Silver City. Antrim found sporadic work as a bartender and carpenter but soon became more interested in prospecting and gambling for fortune than in his wife and stepsons. Nevertheless, young McCarty often used the surname “Antrim” when referring to himself. Faced with a husband who was frequently absent, McCarty’s mother reportedly washed clothes, baked pies, and took in boarders in order to provide for her sons. Although she was fondly remembered by onetime boarders and neighbors as “a jolly Irish lady, full of life and mischief”, she was already in the final stages of tuberculosis when the family reached Silver City. The following year, on September 16, 1874, Catherine McCarty died; she was buried in the Memory Lane Cemetery in Silver City.
At age 14, McCarty was taken in by a neighboring family who operated a hotel where he worked to pay for his keep. The manager was impressed by the youth, contending that he was the only young man who ever worked for him that did not steal anything. One of McCarty’s school teachers later recalled that the young orphan was “no more of a problem than any other boy, always quite willing to help with chores around the schoolhouse”. Early biographers sought to explain McCarty’s subsequent descent into lawlessness by focusing on his habit of reading dime novels that romanticized crime. A more likely explanation, however, was his slender physique, “which placed him in precarious situations with bigger and stronger boys”. Forced to seek new lodgings when his foster family began to experience “domestic problems”, McCarty moved into a boarding house and pursued odd jobs.
In April, 1875, McCarty was arrested by Grant County Sheriff Harvey Whitehill, after McCarty stole some cheese. On September 24, 1875, McCarty was again arrested when he was found in possession of clothing and firearms that a fellow boarder had stolen from a Chinese laundry owner. Two days after McCarty was placed in jail, the teenager escaped by worming his way up the jailhouse chimney. From that point on, McCarty was more or less a fugitive. According to some accounts, he eventually found work as an itinerant ranch hand and shepherd in southeastern Arizona.
In 1876, he settled in the vicinity of Fort Grant Army Post in Arizona, where he worked local ranches and tested his skills at local gaming houses. Sheriff Whitehill would later say that he liked the boy, and his acts of theft were more due to necessity than wantonness. During this time, McCarty became acquainted with John R. Mackie, a Scottish-born ex-cavalry private with a criminal bent. The two men supposedly became involved in the risky, but profitable, enterprise of horse thievery; and McCarty, who targeted local soldiers, became known by the sobriquet of “Kid Antrim”.[30] Biographer Robert M. Utley writes that the nickname arose because of McCarty’s “slight build and beardless countenance, his young years, and his appealing personality”.
In 1877, McCarty was involved in an altercation with the civilian blacksmith at Fort Grant, a loquacious Irish immigrant named Frank “Windy” Cahill, who took pleasure in bullying young McCarty. On August 17, Cahill reportedly attacked McCarty after a verbal exchange and threw him to the ground. Reliable accounts suggest McCarty retaliated by drawing his gun and shooting Cahill, who died the next day. The coroner’s inquest concluded that McCarty’s shooting of Cahill was “criminal and unjustifiable.” Some of those who witnessed the incident later claimed that McCarty acted in self-defense. Years later, Louis Abraham, who had known McCarty in Silver City but was not a witness, denied that anyone was killed in this altercation. In fear of Cahill’s friends and associates, McCarty fled Arizona Territory and entered New Mexico Territory. He eventually arrived at the former army post of Apache Tejo, where he joined a band of cattle rustlers who targeted the sprawling herds of cattle magnate John Chisum.
During this period, McCarty was spotted by a resident of Silver City, and the teenager’s involvement with the notorious gang was mentioned in a local newspaper. It is unclear how long McCarty rode with the gang of rustlers known as “the Boys”, but reliable sources indicate that he soon turned up at the house of Heiskell Jones in the Pecos Valley, New Mexico. According to this account, Apaches stole McCarty’s horse, forcing him to walk many miles to the nearest settlement, which happened to be Jones’ home. When he arrived, the young man was supposedly near death, but Mrs. Jones nursed him back to health. The Jones family developed a strong attachment to McCarty and gave him one of their horses. At some point in 1877, McCarty began to refer to himself as “Willam H. Bonney.” Lincoln County War In the Autumn of 1877, McCarty (now widely known as Bonney) moved to Lincoln County, New Mexico, and was first hired by Doc Scurlock and Charlie Bowdre to work in their cheese factory.
Through them he met Frank Coe, George Coe and Ab Saunders, three cousins who owned their own ranch near to the ranch of Dick Brewer. After a short stint working on the ranch of Henry Hooker, McCarty began working on the Coe-Saunders ranch. Late in 1877, McCarty, along with Brewer, Bowdre, Scurlock, the Coes and the Saunders, was hired as a cattle guard by John Tunstall, an English cattle rancher, banker and merchant, and his partner, Alexander McSween, a prominent lawyer. A conflict known today as the Lincoln County War had erupted between the established town merchants, Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, and competing business interests headed by Tunstall and McSween. Events turned bloody on February 18, 1878, when Tunstall was spotted while driving a herd of nine horses towards Lincoln and murdered by William Morton, Jessie Evans, Tom Hill, and Frank Baker — all members of the Murphy-Dolan faction, and members of a posse sent to attack McSween’s holdings.
After murdering Tunstall, the gunmen shot down his prized bay horse. “As a wry and macabre joke on Tunstall’s great affection for horses, the dead bay’s head was then pillowed on his hat”, writes Frederick Nolan, Tunstall’s biographer. Although members of the Murphy-Dolan faction sought to frame Tunstall’s death as a “justifiable homicide”, evidence at the scene suggested that Tunstall attempted to avoid a confrontation before he was shot down. Tunstall’s murder enraged McCarty and the other ranch hands. McSween, who abhorred violence, took steps to punish Tunstall’s murderers through legal means; he obtained warrants for their arrests from the local justice of the peace John B. Wilson. Tunstall’s men formed their own group called the Regulators. After being deputized by rancher Richard “Dick” Brewer, Tunstall’s foreman, who had been appointed a special constable and given the warrant to arrest Tunstall’s killers, they proceeded to the Murphy-Dolan store. The wanted men, Bill Morton and Frank Baker, attempted to flee, but they were captured on March 6. Upon returning to Lincoln, the Regulators reported that Morton and Baker had been shot on March 9 near Agua Negra during an alleged escape attempt.
During their journey to Lincoln, the Regulators also killed one of their own members, a man named McCloskey, whom they suspected of being a traitor. On the very day that McCloskey, Morton, and Baker were slain, Governor Samuel Beach Axtell arrived in Lincoln County to investigate the ongoing violence. The governor, accompanied by James Dolan and associate John Riley, proved hostile to the faction now headed by McSween. Thus, the Regulators “went from lawmen to outlaws”.[59] Notably, Axtell refused to acknowledge the existence of the so-called “Santa Fe Ring”, a group of corrupt Republican politicians and business leaders led by U.S. Attorney Thomas Benton Catron. Catron cooperated closely with the Murphy-Dolan faction, which was perceived as part of the notorious “ring”.
Unfazed, the Regulators planned to settle a score with Sheriff William J. Brady, who had arrested McCarty and fellow deputy Fred Waite in the aftermath of Tunstall’s murder. At the time Brady arrested them, the two men were attempting to serve a warrant on Brady for his suspected role in looting Tunstall’s store after the Englishman’s death, as well as his posse members for the murder of Tunstall. On April 1, Regulators Jim French, Frank McNab, John Middleton, Fred Waite, Henry Brown and McCarty ambushed Sheriff Brady and his deputy, George W. Hindman, killing them both in Lincoln’s main street. McCarty was shot in the thigh while attempting to retrieve a rifle that Brady had seized from him during an earlier arrest. With this move, the McSween faction disillusioned many former supporters, who came to view both sides as “equally nefarious and bloodthirsty”.
The connection between McSween and the Regulators was ambiguous, however. McCarty was loyal to the memory of Tunstall, though not necessarily to McSween. There is some doubt as to whether McCarty and McSween were even acquainted at the time of Brady’s death. According to a contemporary newspaper account, the Regulators disclaimed “all connection or sympathy with McSween and his affairs” and expressed their sole desire to track down Tunstall’s murderers. On April 4, in what became known as the Gunfight of Blazer’s Mills, the Regulators sought the arrest of an old buffalo hunter known as Buckshot Roberts, whom they suspected of involvement in the Tunstall slaying. Roberts, however, refused to be taken alive, even after he suffered a severe bullet wound to the chest. During the gun battle that ensued, Roberts shot and killed the Regulators’ leader, Dick Brewer. Four other Regulators were wounded in the skirmish.
The incident had the effect of further alienating the public, given that many local residents “admired the way Roberts put up a gutsy fight against overwhelming odds”. Killing of Frank McNab and after After Brewer’s death, Frank McNab was elected as captain of the Regulators. For a short period, the Regulators benefited from the appointment of Sheriff John Copeland, who proved sympathetic to the McSween faction.[69] Copeland’s authority, however, was undermined by the Murphy-Dolan faction, which promptly rounded up recruits from among Sheriff Brady’s former deputies.
On April 29, 1878, a posse including the Jessie Evans Gang and the Seven Rivers Warriors, under the direction of former Brady deputy George W. Peppin, engaged Regulators Frank McNab, Ab Saunders and Frank Coe in a shootout at the Fritz Ranch. McNab was killed in a hail of gunfire, while Saunders was severely wounded and Frank Coe was captured. Frank Coe escaped custody a short time later, when his captors were occupied elsewhere.
What is known about the morning following McNab’s death is that the Regulator “iron clad” took up defensive positions in the town of Lincoln, trading shots with Dolan men as well as U.S. cavalrymen. The only casualty was Dutch Charley Kruling, a Dolan man wounded by a rifle slug fired by George Coe at a distance of 440 paces. By shooting at government troops, the Regulators earned their animosity and gained a whole new set of enemies.
On May 15, the Regulators tracked down Seven Rivers gang member Manuel Segovia, the suspected murderer of Frank McNab, and shot him to death. Around the time of Segovia’s death, the Regulator “iron clad” gained a new member, a young Texas “cowpoke” named Tom O’Folliard, who became McCarty’s close friend and constant companion.
The Regulators’ position worsened when the governor, in a quasi-legal move, removed Copeland and appointed George Peppin (an ally of the Murphy-Dolan faction) as sheriff. Under indictment for the Brady killing, McCarty and the other Regulators spent the next several months in hiding and were trapped, along with McSween, in McSween’s home in Lincoln on July 15, by members of “The House” (as the Murphy-Dolan faction was known) and some of Brady’s men.
On July 19, a column of U.S. cavalry soldiers entered the fray. Ostensibly neutral, the column’s actions worked to the clear advantage of the Dolan faction. After a five-day siege, McSween’s house was set on fire by the sheriff’s posse. McCarty and the other Regulators fled, although McCarty is believed by some to have killed one “House” member named Bob Beckwith. McSween was shot down while fleeing the blaze, and his death essentially marked the end of the Lincoln County Cattle War.
Lew Wallace and amnesty
In the Autumn of 1878, a former Union Army general, Lew Wallace, became Governor of the New Mexico Territory. In an effort to restore peace to Lincoln County, Wallace proclaimed an amnesty for any man involved in the Lincoln County War who was not already under indictment. McCarty, who had fled to Texas after his escape from McSween’s house, was under indictment, but sent Wallace a letter requesting immunity in return for testifying in front of the Grand Jury.
In March 1879, Wallace and McCarty met in Lincoln County to discuss the possibility of a deal. McCarty greeted the governor with a revolver in one hand and a Winchester rifle in the other. After taking several days to consider Wallace’s offer, McCarty agreed to testify in return for amnesty. The arrangement called for McCarty to submit to a token arrest and a short stay in jail until the conclusion of his courtroom testimony.
Although McCarty’s testimony helped to indict John Dolan, the district attorney, one of the powerful “House” faction leaders, disregarded Wallace’s order to set McCarty free after his testimony. After the trial, McCarty and O’Folliard slipped away on horses that were supplied by friends. For the next year-and-a-half, McCarty survived by rustling, gambling, and taking defensive action. In January 1880, he reportedly killed a man named Joe Grant in a Fort Sumner saloon.
Grant, who did not realize he was playing poker with McCarty, boasted that he would kill “Billy the Kid” if he ever encountered him. In those days people loaded their revolvers with only five rounds, with the hammer down on an empty chamber. This was done to prevent an accidental discharge should the hammer be struck. The Kid asked Grant if he could see his ivory handled revolver and, while looking at the weapon, rotated the cylinder so the hammer would fall on the empty chamber when the trigger was pulled. He then informed Grant of his identity. When Grant fired, nothing happened, and McCarty then shot him. When asked about the incident later, he remarked, “It was a game for two, and I got there first”.
Other versions of this story exist. One biographer, Joel Jacobsen, recounts the story as described in Utley, describing Grant as a “drunk” who was “making himself obnoxious in a bar”. As in other accounts of the incident, the Kid is described as rotating the cylinder “so an empty chamber was beneath the hammer”. In Jacobsen’s recounting of the incident, however, Grant attempted to shoot McCarty unawares. “As McCarty was leaving the saloon, his back turned to Grant, he heard a distinct click. He spun around before Grant could reach a loaded chamber. Always a good marksman, he shot Grant in the chin”.
In November 1880, a posse pursued and trapped McCarty’s gang inside a ranch house owned by one of the Kid’s friends, James Greathouse, at Anton Chico in the White Oaks area. A posse member named James Carlyle ventured into the house under a white flag, in an effort to negotiate the group’s surrender. Meanwhile, Greathouse was sent out to act as a hostage for the posse. At some point in the evening, Carlyle evidently decided the outlaws were stalling. According to one version of events, Carlyle heard a shot that had been fired accidentally outside. Concluding that the posse members had shot down Greathouse, he chose escape, crashed through a window and was fired upon and killed. Recognizing their mistake, the posse members became demoralized and scattered, enabling McCarty and his gang to slip away. McCarty vehemently denied shooting Carlysle, and later wrote to Governor Wallace, claiming to be innocent of this crime and others attributed to him.
Pat Garrett
During this time, McCarty became acquainted with an ambitious local bartender and former buffalo hunter named Pat Garrett. While popular accounts often depict McCarty and Garrett as “bosom buddies”, there is no concrete evidence that they were ever friends. Running on a pledge to rid the area of rustlers, Garrett was elected as sheriff of Lincoln County in November 1880, and in early December, he assembled a posse and set out to arrest McCarty, now known almost exclusively as “Billy the Kid” and carrying a $500 bounty on his head.
The posse led by Garrett fared well, and his men closed in quickly. On December 19, McCarty barely escaped a midnight ambush in Fort Sumner, which left one member of the gang, Tom O’Folliard, dead. On December 23, the Kid was tracked to an abandoned stone building located in a remote location known as Stinking Springs (near present-day Taiban, New Mexico). While McCarty and his gang were asleep inside, Garrett’s posse surrounded the building and waited for sunrise.
The next morning, a cattle rustler named Charlie Bowdre stepped outside to feed his horse He never pushed in his advice or opinions, but he had a wonderful presence of mind. The tighter the place the more he showed his cool nerve and quick brain. He never seemed to care for money, except to buy cartridges with. Cartridges were scarce, and he always used about ten times as many as everyone else. He would practice shooting at anything he saw, from every conceivable angle, on and off his horse”. George Coe, a cousin to Frank who also served as a Regulator, stated: “Billy was a brave, resourceful and honest boy. He would have been a successful man under other circumstances. The Kid was a thousand times better and braver than any man hunting him, including Pat Garrett”. Susan McSween, widow of Alexander McSween, stated: “Billy was not a bad man, that is he was not a murderer who killed wantonly. Most of those he killed deserved what they got. Of course I cannot very well defend his stealing horses and cattle, but when you consider that the Murphy, Dolan, and Riley people forced him into such a lawless life through efforts to secure his arrest and conviction, it is hard to blame the poor boy for what he did”.
Deluvina Maxwell, a friend of Billy the Kid, stated: “Garrett was afraid to go back in the room to make sure of whom he had shot. I went in and was the first to discover that they had killed my little boy. I hated those men and am glad that I lived long enough to see them all dead and buried”. Louis Abraham, who befriended the Kid in Silver City, New Mexico, stated: “The story of Billy the Kid killing a blacksmith in Silver City is false. Billy was never in any trouble at all. He was a good boy, maybe a little too mischievous at times.
When the boy was placed in jail and escaped, he was not bad, just scared. If he had only waited until they let him out he would have been all right, but he was scared and ran away. He got in with a band of rustlers in Apache Tejo in part of the county where he was made a hardened character”. People claiming to be Billy the Kid Legends grew over time that Billy the Kid had somehow cheated death, despite eyewitness accounts of his slaying. In 2004, researchers sought to exhume the remains of Catherine Antrim, McCarty’s mother, “so her DNA could be tested and compared with DNA to be taken from the body buried under the Kid’s gravestone”.
Ultimately, the case was bogged down in the courts, “much to the delight of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who knows all too well the value of Billy as a cultural icon and a draw for tourists”. At least two men claimed to be McCarty, and they were successful in persuading a small segment of the public. Brushy Bill In 1949, a paralegal named William Morrison located a man in West Texas named Ollie P. Roberts (nicknamed “Brushy Bill”), who claimed to be Billy the Kid and challenged the popular account of Billy’s slaying at the hands of Pat Garrett in 1881.
Most historians reject Brushy Bill’s claim, although his argument was not entirely bereft of supporting evidence. Despite discrepancies in birth dates and physical appearance, the town of Hico, Texas (Brushy Bill’s residence), has capitalized on the Kid’s infamy by opening the Billy The Kid Museum. John Miller Another individual who allegedly claimed to be Billy the Kid was John Miller, whose family supported his claim in 1938, some time after Miller’s death.
Miller was buried at the state-owned Pioneers’ Home Cemetery in Prescott, Arizona. Tom Sullivan, a former sheriff of Lincoln County, and Steve Sederwall, a former mayor of Capitan, disinterred the bones of John Miller in May 2005.[120] DNA samples from the remains were sent to a lab in Dallas, Texas, to be compared with traces of blood obtained from a bench that was believed to be the one upon which McCarty’s body was placed after he was shot to death. The pair had been searching for McCarty’s physical remains since 2003, starting in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and eventually ending up in Arizona. To date, no results of the DNA tests have been made public.
Family Members
Parents
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Patrick Henry McCarty
1805–1865
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Catherine Devine McCarty Antrim
1829–1874
Siblings
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Joseph “Josey” Antrim
1862–1930
