USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 34
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Anyhow, it is asserted that the war put an end to cattle rustling, and when the forces of law and order once more reasserted themselves in southern New Mexico the vicious and lawless were pretty well cleaned out, just as the atmosphere is cleared after a thunderstorm .*
'The "war," as already hinted, had made Lincoln county a favorite spot for the criminal class, who held life of no account if it stood in the way of the consummation of their plans. The conscientious performance of duty during these days required a rare degree of physical as well as moral courage. On one occasion a plot was formed to assassinate the en- tire Lincoln "county party," as the judge, the clerk and the lawyers ac-
*The names of men who died in the Pecos Valley since 1877, "with their boots on :" John Tunstel
Mccluskey
John Northern Dick Smith
Frank Baker
Negro killed by Fred Aberdeen (name unknown)
Billy Morton
Frank McNab
Brown Allen
Johnson
Tom Lowery
John Jones
Frank Lowery
John Beckwith
Buck Gise
McSwain (Law.)
D. D. Adams
Harvey Morris Jim French
George Parker
Charlie Bowder
J. W. Spurlock
Henry Brown
Manwell Maxwell
Tom Ofolliard
Henry Byers
Bob Beckwith
John Champion
Bob Olinger
Will Turk Johnson
Lally Cooler (only name known) Dick Brewer Roberts
Hindman
Killed at Martin Chaves' (three, names unknown)
Spence Sears
Sam Goodin
Joe Harris
Billy the Kid. Goe Grant
Eusavio Ruiz
John Long
George Peacock
James Corn
George Baker
John Edwards Jeff Kent
Bill Milligan
Less Dow
Soapsticks (real name not known)
Zack Light
Carlisle
Bell
Sheriff Brady (of Lincoln County)
Newt Huggins
John Griffin and Cousin
Johnny Hurley
Bennett Howell
George Nesbet
Many names are omitted as the men killed were not known to the authors of the information.
Jack Finan
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companying them were referred to. Judge Warren Bristol, who was then on the bench, and the other members of the party who were to open court at Lincoln, started one day from Mesilla for that place. On reach- ing Tularosa they learned that the sheriff of Lincoln county had been killed and that an attempt on their lives was to be made. While deliberat- ing upon a plan of action, there arrived a detachment of soldiers under the command of a lieutenant from Fort Stanton, who gave Judge Bristol a letter from the post commander containing a statement of what had oc- curred at Lincoln, and offering a military escort. The offer was accepted and the party proceeded to Fort Stanton, whence the judge, clerk and lawyers went each day to the county-seat, nine miles distant, under military escort.
BILLY THE KID.
Billy the Kid was a product of the environment of the Lincoln County war. He was little more than a boy when he was killed, and he had been inured to the violence of border warfare until he was unable to resist the habits of outlawry. It is probable, too, that he had gone so far in crime during the war, when there was some sort of justification for wholesale slaughter, that he was a marked man ever afterward, and while the in- dictments against various other participants were annulled by a kind of general amnesty, the law still threatened the Kid, so that his subsequent career was almost the result of desperation.
Pat Garrett, until recently collector of customs at the port of El Paso, and a well-known political and public character of the Southwest, was the man who arrested the dangerous career of Billy the Kid by putting an end to his existence. Emerson Hough has described the closing events of the Kid's life from Garrett's standpoint.
"It was during Garrett's first term of office as sheriff of Lincoln county," writes Mr. Hough, "that he was called on to capture the noto- rious young desperado, Billy the Kid, then not over twenty years of age, hut charged with nearly a dozen murders-most say he had killed twenty- one men; Garrett says nine. With the Kid at their chosen headquarters about nine miles east of Fort Sumner were Tom Pickett, one of the Lin- coln County war fighters; Tom O'Folliard, another reckless character charged with murder; Dave Rudabaugh, who had killed his jailer at Las Vegas, and Charley Bowda, formerly a small rancher on the Bonito, but of late turned killer. Garrett concealed his deputies in houses at Fort Sumner and put out scouts. One day he and some of his men were riding eastward of the town when they jumped Tom O'Folliard, who was mounted on a horse that proved too good for them in a chase of several miles. Garrett at last was left alone following O'Folliard. The latter later ad- mitted that he fired twenty times at Garrett with his Winchester, but it was hard to do good shooting from the saddle at two or three hundred yards' range, so neither man was hit.
"O'Folliard did not learn his lesson. A few nights later, in company with Tom Pickett, he rode boldly into town. Warned of his approach, Garrett, with another man, was waiting, hid in the shadow of a building. As O'Folliard rode up he was ordered to throw up his hands, but went after his gun instead, and on the instant was shot through the body.
"'You never heard a man scream the way he did,' said Garrett. 'He
" Billy the Kid"
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dropped his gun when he was hit, but we did not know that, and as we ran up to catch his horse we ordered him again to throw up his hands. He said that he couldn't ; that he was killed. We helped him down then, and took him in the house. He died about forty-five minutes later. He said that it was all his own fault, and that he didn't blame anybody. I'd have killed Tom Pickett right there, too,' concluded Garrett, 'but one of my men shot right past my face and blinded me for a moment, so Pickett got away.'
"The remainder of the Kid's gang moved out a little farther into a stone house, ten miles from Fort Sumner, but this new refuge proved to be a veritable trap for them. Garrett and his men surrounded the house just before dawn. It was Charley Bowda who first came out in the morn- ing, and as he stepped in the doorway his career as a bad man ended, three bullets passing through his body. The rest of the gang later surrendered and were taken to Santa Fé. Here the officers had their most dangerous experience, for a mob was formed which stopped the railroad train in the depot yards, threatening to kill both prisoners and officers. As Garrett had accepted the surrender of the prisoners on the condition that they should all be taken safely to Santa Fé, he felt both his life and honor at stake. 'Give me a six-shooter, Pat,' said Billy the Kid, 'and if they come in the car I'll help you, and I won't hurt you, and if they don't kill me I'll go back to my seat when it's over. You and I can whip the whole of them.' This compact between the bad man and his captor was actually made, but at the last moment the leaders of the mob weakened and the train pulled cut.
"Later Billy the Kid was tried and condemned to be executed at Lincoln. A few days before the day set for his execution he killed the two deputies who were guarding him, and broke back to his old stamping- grounds around Fort Sumner. 'I knew now that I would have to kill the Kid,' said Garrett, speaking reminiscently of the old bloody scenes. ‘I followed him up to Sumner, as you know, with two deputies, John Poe and Tip Mckinney, and I killed him alone in a room up there in the old Maxwell house.'
"He spoke of events now long gone by. It had been only with diffi- culty that we located the site of the building where the Kid's gang had been taken prisoners, the structure itself having been torn down and re- moved by an adjacent sheep-rancher. As to old Fort Sumner, once a famous military post, it offered nothing better than a scere of desolation, there being no longer a single human inhabitant there. The old avenue of cottonwoods, once four miles long, is now ragged and unwatered, and the great parade-ground has gone back to sand and sage-brush. We were obliged to search for some time before we could find the site of the Maxwell house, in which was enacted the last tragedy in the life of a once famous bad man. Garrett finally located the spot, now only a rough quad- rangle of crumbled earthen walls.
" 'This is the place,' said he, pointing at one corner of the grass-grown oblong. 'Pete Maxwell's bed was right in the corner of the room, and I was sitting in the dark and talking to Pete, who was in bed. The Kid passed John Poe and Tip McKinney, my deputies, right over there on what was then the gallery, and came through the door right here. He could not tell who I was. "Pete," he whispered, "who is it?" He had his
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
pistol, a double-action .41, in his hand, and he motioned toward me with it as he spoke, still not recognizing me. That was about all there was to it. I supposed he would shoot me, and I leaned over to the left so that he would hit me in the right side and not kill me so dead but what I could kill him, too. I was just a shade too quick for him. His pistol went off as lie fell, but I don't suppose he ever knew who killed him or how he was killed.'
"Twenty-five years of time had done their work in all that country, as we learned when we entered the little barbed-wire inclosure of the cemetery where the Kid and his fellows were buried. There are no head- stones in this cemetery, and no sacristan holds its records. Again Garrett had to searchi in the salt grass and greasewood. 'Here is the place,' said he at length. 'We buried them all in a row. The first grave is the Kid's, and next to him is Bowda, and then O'Folliard. There's nothing left to mark them.'"
John W. Poe, of Roswell, a United States deputy sent to the Terri- tory to protect cattlemen from the cattle thieves, has furnished versions of several chapters in the Kid's career. Mr. Poe was appointed a deputy sheriff by Garrett, and was in White Oaks with Garrett at the time Billy the Kid made his escape from the court house at Lincoln, where he was in custody awaiting execution.
Billy had been arrested during the winter of 1880-81 near Portales, by Garrett, and placed on trial for the murder of Major Brady and Bern- stein, a young man acting as clerk at the Mescalero Indian agency. He was tried at Las Cruces in the Federal court and convicted and taken to Lincoln to be executed. He was kept in the court house awaiting exe- cution, and in May he made his escape.
Two deputies named Ollinger and Bell had been left in charge of Billy the Kid and some other prisoners. Ollinger took these other pris- oners across the street for the noon meal and Bell was left in charge of Billy. Billy expressed a desire to have his hands loosened from the hand- cuffs for some purpose and Bell obliged him. They were in the corridor of the court house at the time, and Billy, seeing that Bell was some dis- tance behind him, sprung up the stairs and broke in the door of the locker where the weapons were kept, and before Bell realized his position he was dropped with a bullet from Billy's gun.
In the meantime, Ollinger, being attracted by the firing, came running across the street, and Billy, from his position at an upstairs window, called to Ollinger as he appeared directly below him, and as Ollinger glanced up he received a charge of buckshot from his own gun in the hands of Billy the Kid.
Billy crawled out on the balcony and to the crowd which had assem- bled below he gave directions, which were complied with, and after almost an hour and one-half Billy the Kid was mounted and took to the hills.
The news reached Pat Garrett and John W. Poe at White Oaks that night, and Garrett returned to Lincoln at once and posses were started in pursuit. The track was found and lost again, and after a thorough scouring of the country the search subsided.
Mr. Poe some weeks later was at White Oaks, and in a conversation with a friend named Gwynne he learned that Gwynne had overheard the Dietrick brothers, who were avowed friends of Billy the Kid, talking of
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Billy, and the information was obtained which led to the final capture of Billy. By this conversation it was learned that Billy was at Fort Sumner.
Poe went to Lincoln and told Garrett of what he had learned, but Garrett was inclined to give little credence to the story. He finally agreed .to investigate if Poe would accompany him, and so together, with a deputy named McKinney, the three started for Fort Sumner. They came to Roswell, and from Roswell continued to Fort Sumner. The posse ar- rived just outside the fort July 15, 1881, in the afternoon. Poe being un- known to the people of Sumner, he was selected to enter the village and make investigations. The people seemed very suspicious regarding stran- gers, but Poe explained, in answer to inquiries, that he had been engaged in mining at White Oaks and was en route to his home in the Panhandle of Texas.
After investigating with little success in Fort Sumner Poe rode out seven miles to the home of Rudolph, and presented a note from Garrett which explained the presence of the officers, and besought from Rudolph any assistance which he might be able to give. Rudolph was very diffi- dent, and apparently afraid to commit himself, as he doubtless feared he might be placed in a compromising position. Poe took supper with Ru- dolph, and shortly afterwards mounted his horse and rode to the end of an avenue of cottonwood trees four miles north of Fort Sumner, where he met Garrett and Mckinney, as had been prearranged.
Garrett knew that the Kid was intimate with a certain Mexican woman living on the outskirts of the fort, and so they went to this place and secreted themselves in the orchard back of the house and for two hours lay in waiting in the hopes that the Kid might appear.
They were disappointed in this and at the suggestion of Mr. Poe the three officers went to the home of Pete Maxwell, intending to question Maxwell and get, if possible, some information regarding the Kid's where- abouts.
They arrived at Maxwell's house and Garrett, who was familiar with the premises, immediately entered the house and went to Maxwell's bed room. Poe sat down on the edge of the low porch and Mckinney crouched on the ground leaning against the low pale fence which extended along the edge of the porch.
They had scarcely assumed these positions when a man was seen coming along the fence toward the entrance to Maxwell's house. He came up and was almost upon Poe before he saw him. This was "Billy the Kid." Neither Poen or Billy had seen each other prior to this meeting.
Billy, on realizing the presence of a man, sprang toward the door, and with his pistol covering Poe he backed into the house and into Max- well's room. It being very gloomy in the room, he was unable to recognize Garrett, but he saw the outline of a man seated on the bed beside Maxwell, and in Spanish he inquired, "Who is it?" Garrett made no reply, but reached for his gun, and instantly was covered by Billy's six-shooter. Garrett recognized Billy's voice and could see his outline as he stood there clad in a white shirt. He pulled his gun and fired two shots, killing Billy almost instantly. The next day, Rudolph, who was justice of the peace, was summoned, and an inquest according to law was held over the remains and the notorious outlaw was given burial by the Mexicans according to their belief.
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
THE HARROLD WAR.
The Harrold war, so called, is really a chapter in the almost continuous reign of violence in southeastern New Mexico for fifteen years after the war. Its arena was not so broad nor its results so deadly as the Lincoln County war. The Harrold war was an earlier manifestation of the violence which came to a head in the Lincoln County war. This spasm was com- paratively brief, and did not range all the citizens on opposing sides. Though it had the character of a feud it was a fend based largely on race hatred, and the strife assumed a virulent form because it arrayed the Americans and Mexicans against each other.
The principal actors in this feud, which chronologically, and in some degree because of its consequences, belongs before the Lincoln County war, were the following: Samuel Harrold, the oldest brother, with wife and five children; Tom Harrold, next in age, with wife and one child; Martin, with wife and child; Benjamin, who brought no family ; and Mer- ritt, who had a wife but no children.
These five brothers came from Lampasas county, Texas, in 1873, to New Mexico, and brought with them their stock, etc. About twenty men besides women and children accompanied the Harrolds from Texas. The Harrolds came from Texas because they had trouble there and a feud arose between the Harrolds and Higginses.
All of this party of Texans located on the Riadosa, about sixty-five miles from Roswell. There the Harrolds bought a homestead from Frank Reagan and Haskell Jones, and these other Texans located in the vicinity.
Ben Harrold went to Lincoln on business and while there he, with David Warner and Jack Gilliam, ex-sheriff, began drinking. While brandishing arms they were disarmed by Mexicans who were deputies. Then later they secured other weapons and again they were disarmed by the Mexicans, or rather, they resisted this time and a general fight ensued between these three Americans and the Mexicans, and the three Americans were killed and one Mexican.
As soon as the other brothers learned of the death of Ben they went to Lincoln and made efforts to have the Mexicans tried and an investi- gation ordered. They were unsuccessful in this because the Mexicans claimed they were doing duty. Then trouble began and the Harrolds and their followers began killing Mexicans at every opportunity.
A general war ensued and the Harrolds and their followers fortified themselves at their ranch. They had placed the women and children in the old grist mill of Robert Casey at Picacho. Ham Mills was sheriff at that time and he came to the Harrold ranch intending to arrest this party. They refused to be arrested and the sheriff's posse surrounded the house and shots were exchanged. The posse remained for two or three days and then returned to Lincoln. In a few days the Harrolds went to Lincoln and got in with some soldiers who were in Lincoln on furlough and together they "shot up" a Mexican dance and one Mexican was killed and another wounded.
The Harrolds, on returning to their ranch, took their families to Ros- well. While en route, one of the Harrold party, Ben Turner, was killed at Picacho by Mexicans, and a little later the party met some Mexican freighters and killed them all. The Harrold party afterwards returned to
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Lincoln, leaving their families at Roswell. Their plan was to attack Lincoln, but they could decide on no course and returned to Casey's place with the intention of killing Frank Reagan. Being thwarted in this they went on to Roswell and left the country for Texas, where they afterwards met violent ends.
This ended what is known as the Harrold war, which for a long time caused tense feeling between Americans and Mexicans. A number of the followers of the Harrolds having remained in the country, started the depredations in cattle and as a result the majority of the small cattlemen had to dispose of their cattle interests.
Robert Casey, who figured prominently and honorably in events which have shaped the history of the Territory, came to New Mexico in 1867 from Mason county, Texas, and purchased a ranch from Leopold Chene located about two miles from Picacho on the Rio Hondo in what was then Socorro county. He purchased the Acequia gristmill on the Hondo and improvements on both sides of the river. This was the first mill in this part of the Territory and was, therefore, a very important industry. After making his purchases, Mr. Casey returned to Texas for his family, with whom he arrived at Picacho in March, 1869. In the following winter the Mescalero Indians stole one hundred and twenty-eight head of cattle from his corral. He continued farming for seven years and managed to keep free from the wars and depredations of the Indians.
Active in politics, however, Mr. Casey exerted considerable influence in public affairs and on the 2d of August, 1875, went to Lincoln to attend a county convention. He was always stanch in support of his honest con- victions, active in politics and a leader on one side in the convention. The side with which he affiliated won in the contest and a bitter feeling arose, resulting in a man by the name of Wilson being hired by the opposite party to kill Mr. Casey. Mr. Casey invited his clerk and also Wilson to dine with him at Lincoln and together they took dinner at noon. At two o'clock that afternoon Wilson shot Mr. Casey on the streets of Lincoln. He was hidden behind an adobe house and fired two shots. Captain Sar- tinino Baca, who was then sheriff, arrested Wilson at once and he was taken to Fort Stanton and kept in a guard house, Captain Versha being in charge of the prisoner. The man was tried in October, convicted and hanged on the 18th of December, 1875. This was the first man hanged by law in the Territory of New Mexico, it is said. Mr. Casey had been in the United States army as a member of the regulars and was a man uniformly respected save by political opponents who allowed the passions of the hour to circumvent their better judgment. As a business man and citizen he contributed largely to the early progress and improvement of the country in which he lived and well deserves mention among the pio- neers to whom the county owes a debt of gratitude for what they accom- plished. Mrs. L. C. Klasner, a daughter of Mr. Casey, now lives on a part of her father's original homestead.
LAS VEGAS WHITECAPS.
The Whitecaps were started among the Knights of Labor at Las Vegas by the sons of Brigadier-General Manuel Herrara, a native officer of the early militia. After having engaged in numerous notorious escapades in
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northern New Mexico, they were finally driven from the Territory by threats of lynching. There were three of these brothers-Juan Jose, Pablo and another. All went to Wyoming when ordered out of New Mexico, but that state, then a Territory, did not extend to them the right hand of fellowship, as they had expected, and a few years later they drifted back to San Miguel county one by one. There they effected the organization of the local order known as the Knights of Labor, and eventually they organized from among its most ignorant native members the Whitecaps.
About this time Judge Thomas J. Smith came to the Territory as chief justice and judge of the Fourth Judicial district, with headquarters at Las Vegas. Judge Smith was a man of exceptionally strong character, pos- sessing an unflinching determination to correct such evils as came under his notice, as far as lay in his power, at all hazards. He was arbitrary, but just. As soon as he learned the political situation and the amazing dis- regard of the law on the part of so large a proportion of the native ele- ment, he determined to break up the Whitecap element at any cost. Pablo Herrara was then the recognized power among this element, and during a term of court in the winter of 1893-4, Judge Smith instructed the offi- cers present to bring Herrara before him, dead or alive. Soon afterward the desperado was brought into the court-room-dead. He had been shot by the deputy or deputies who went after him, and who undoubtedly were glad to avail themselves of the privilege extended to them by the court's alternative order.
Lorenzo Lopez, one of the shrewdest native politicians of this period, did much to incite the more ignorant classes to a show of rebellion against the constituted authority. Those who knew him best say that he would stop at nothing in the furtherance of his political ambitions. To further his ends he joined the Penitentes, hoping thereby to gain their inalienable support. Many of these hepersuaded to commit depredations to annoy and excite the Americans and peaceable Mexicans. He is generally be- lieved to have had a silent hand in many crimes, including that of mur- der.
The popular feeling against the proprietors of the great Maxwell land grant at this time ran very high, and the work of the Whitecaps was closely identified with the numerous attacks against agents of the grant. The center of the grant troubles was at Elizabethtown, and offi- cials of the company never dared to go to that place on business con- nected with the administration of the grant's affairs. For many years prior to 1893 no representative of the grant appeared among the miners of that point. S. E. Booth, a man in whom all parties had confidence, and who was one of the most potential factors in quieting the turbulent con- ditions in San Miguel county, went up to Elizabethtown in 1893, and by reason of his display of tact and courage brought about a better feeling between the contending parties.
ANNALS OF CRIME.
The lawless element in the southern part of Sierra county, chiefly cattle thieves, was permanently broken up about the time that drastic measures were inaugurated against this class in Doña Ana county. With the sentiment of the community back of them, three or four residents of
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