USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume II > Part 33
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Mr. Hirsch was married at Point Pleasant, Ohio, to Miss Lola May Bushman, and they have two sons and a daughter. Fraternally he is con- nected with Kingston Lodge No. 16, A. F. & A. M., and with Sierra Lodge No. 9, K. P.
George T. Miller, who is engaged in the conduct of a drug store in Hillsboro, where he is also filling the position of postmaster, spent his youth in Chicago, Illinois, his native city, where he was born August 16, 1866. He came to New Mexico in 1893 from Minneapolis, Minn., where he lived from 1879 to 1893, and for two years thereafter was connected with mining interests in the vicinity of Hillsboro, where he has con- tinuously made his home to the present time. He was afterward engaged in bookkeeping for the firm of Keller, Miller & Company, and when he re- tired from that position embarked in the drug business on his own ac- count, and afterward bought out the rival store of C. C. Miller. He has continued successfully in the drug business to the present, and has a well- appointed establishment and receives a large patronage from the town and surrounding district, his success resulting from his laudable ambition, in- defatigable energy and close application. In 1898 he was appointed post- master of Hillsboro, which office he has since filled.
John C. Plemmons, county treasurer of Sierra county and a resident of Hillsboro, has made his home in the Territory since 1876, and has been identified with ranching and mining operations, two of the important sources of income of this part of the country. He was born in Dalton, Georgia, on the 25th of November, 1859, and on account of conditions brought about by the Civil war he received no educational privileges save those afforded by the school of experience. He was left an orphan when only nine years of age, and in his youth was employed as a cabin boy on a Mississippi steamboat for two years. He afterward spent a year as a scout in the employ of the United States government, being with the troops stationed on the frontier to suppress the uprisings of the Apache Indians. He came to New Mexico in 1876, located on the Dry Cimarron and became a cowboy in the employ of Hall Brothers, with whom he continued about five years. In 1880 he went to what has since become known as Chloride, and was with the first outfit that went into the Black Range. Becoming connected with mining interests, he located the Colossal mine, which he afterward sold. Later he built the first house at Hermosa and established a. mercantile enterprise at that point, which he conducted from 1883 until 1900, successfully carrying on business for a period of seventeen years. At the same time he was interested in the cattle business and yet owns a cattle ranch at that place. He has continued to own mining properties, having claims at Hermosa, and is producing ore from Polomas Chief mine, carrying copper, silver and a small quantity of gold. The business has been incorporated under the name of Polomas Chief Mining Company and the mine is now being profitably worked.
In 1900 Mr. Plemmons was elected treasurer of Sierra county and is
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now serving for the third term, having been three times chosen to the office as the candidate of the Democratic party. Watchful of opportunities, he has promoted his business interests along lines leading to success, and he is also a representative of that class of citizens who, while promoting individual prosperity, also advance general progress and improvement. He is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, belonging to Hills- boro Lodge No. 12. He is a master Mason of Kingston Lodge No. 16, A. F. & A. M., and belongs to the Lodge of Perfection at Santa Fé, the Denver consistory, in which he has attained the thirty-second degree, and Albuquerque temple of the Mystic Shrine. He was married in May, 1898, to Miss Edith Curtis, a native of New Mexico, and they have three children : Lillian G., Alice M. and Sylvie.
John M. Webster, a mine operator living in Hillsboro, Sierra county, was born and reared in New Hampshire and arrived in the Territory of New Mexico in July, 1882, at which time he located in Kingston, being one of its first settlers. He was identified with many operations there until 1885, when he came to Hillsboro and has since been interested in mining in this part of the Territory. He had previously been identified with min- ing operations in Arizona from 1875 until coming to New Mexico seven years later. He is an expert in his estimate of the value of mine proper- ties and the best methods of development, and occupies a foremost place among the respresentatives of the business in the Territory.
Prominent in public life. John M. Webster was chosen as first clerk of the probate court of Sierra county, holding the office from 1884 until 1892. He was again elected in 1904, and is filling the position at the pres- ent writing, in 1906. He was also United States commissioner of New Mexico to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Fraternally he is connected with Kingston Lodge No. 16, A. F. & A. M., and has at- tained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite in Masonry. He also belongs to Sierra Lodge No. 8, K. P. During a residence of almost a quar- ter of a century in the Territory he has witnessed its wonderful develop- ment and has contributed to its progress along lines of business and political advancement, resulting in bringing about its present condition of improve- ment and progress.
James H. Latham, a leading representative of stock-raising interests in New Mexico, having a large ranch on which he is extensively engaged in raising sheep and goats near Lake Valley, dates his residence in the Territory from 1885. He was born and reared in Live Oak county, Texas. After coming to New Mexico he spent one year at Anthony in the cattle business, and in 1886 came to Lake Valley, where he began working in the mines. being identified with that pursuit for seven years. All during that period he owned a few cattle and also has some at the present time, but his chief interest at this writing is sheep. From 1887 until 1900 he was engaged largely in raising goats, starting in with only a herd of sixty- seven head, which he has increased to twelve hundred head. These are good Angora goats, which earn about fifteen hundred dollars a year. How- ever, he is now more largely giving his attention to the sheep-raising in- dustry, in which he began operations in 1900 on a small scale. He has increased his flocks until at the present time he has about eight thousand head, and in the year 1905 he realized sixty per cent profit on the money invested, and the average profit is about forty per cent. He considers Sierra
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county as a very good district for this line of business from the fact that sheep are not affected liere with disease to any extent. They shear a little light because of the alkali dust, but stand the drouth better than any other animal. He shipped the best bunch of lambs for weight (twenty-three hun- dred head averaging seventy-three and a fifth pounds per head) ever sent out of New Mexico, and from these cut one and a half per cent.
Mr. Latham is a member of the Knights of Pythias fraternity, be- longing to Deming Lodge No. 30, and he also belongs to the lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen at Hillsboro. He has been very suc- cessful in business since coming to New Mexico, gradually working his way upward and extending the field of his operations until he is today rec- ognized as one of the large and successful sheep-raisers.
B. F. Parks, who is engaged in raising sheep near Lake Valley, is a native of Shelby county, Illinois, where he was reared and educated. His youth was spent upon a farm and he later dealt in live stock, so that it was with considerable practical experience that he entered upon his work as a sheep-raiser in New Mexico. In the interval, however, he became a prac- tical miner, gaining a knowledge of the business in Colorado from actual experience. He went to that state in 1877 and spent five years there in the mines. In 1882 he came to Lake Valley and here began mining, locating and developing claims and prospecting until 1894. He then entered the sheep business, one of the first to engage in sheep-raising in Sierra county. He has given his attention to this industry for the past twelve years, and, although he started in a small way with only about seven hundred head, he is now running between two and three thousand head. He keeps high-grade sheep and is continually improving the breed. The business yields a grati- fying financial income, and he is recognized as one of the enterprising and representative citizens of this part of the Territory. He served in the militia during the Indian troubles of 1885, holding the rank of second lieutenant. He is married, and with his wife and children makes his home near Lake Valley.
E. H. Bickford, manager of the Lake Valley Mines Company and the Rio Mimbres Irrigation Company, his home being at Lake Valley, came to the Territory from Colorado in 1899 and took charge of the Snake and Opportunity mines at Hillsboro, being thus engaged for a vear and a half. In 1901 he took charge of the property of the Lake Valley Mines Company, the leading stockholder being L. G. Fisher, president of the Union Bag and Paper Company. He has charge of all the western works of Mr. Fisher, including the Rio Mimbres Irrigation Company. He is engaged in damming the Rio Mimbres, preparatory to irrigating several thousand acres of land above Deming, New Mexico. The last enterprise is the most important of which he has charge at present, and when completed will be of the utmost value and benefit to the district into which its waters will flow. He has also been prominent in developing mining interests in Sierra county, and at present is searching for a process for treating profitably the low-grade silver ore of the Lake Valley district.
Mr. Bickford is a member of Hillsboro Lodge No. 16, A. F. & A. M., the Lodge of Perfection at Santa Fé and the Consistory at Denver, hav- ing thus attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite in Ma- sonrv.
D. S. Miller, a prominent representative of commercial and industrial
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interests in the Territory, is conducting a profitable wholesale and retail general mercantile establishment at Lake Valley and is also largely inter- ested in valuable mining properties. A native of Virginia, he was born in Powhattan county in 1853 and was reared to farm life, early becoming familiar with the labors that fall to the lot of the agriculturist in connec- tion with the development of the fields. A young man of twenty-five years, he arrived in Grafton, New Mexico, and entered upon the work of mining, traveling through the country in that connection. Being pleased with the Territory and its future prospects, he decided to return, and did so in 1880, reaching Grafton just about the time of the discovery of gold and silver in that locality. He built the second cabin in the town and was en- gaged in mining there from 1880 until 1884. He afterward spent six months in the mining regions of Idaho, and then returned to New Mexico, settling at Lake Valley, where he embarked in merchandising in partnership with S. F. Keller and Henry Herrin under the name of Herrin, Keller, Miller & Company. Three years later Isaac Knight purchased Mr. Her- rin's interest and the firm style was changed to Keller, Miller & Com- pany. They conducted stores at Lake Valley, Hillsboro and Kingston for a number of years, but in 1892 the Kingston store was discontinued, and at the present time they are representatives of commercial interests in Lake Valley and Hillsboro. They conduct general mercantile establishments, carrying on both wholesale and retail trade, and their annual sales reach a large figure, for they supply an extensive surrounding territory. For a short time Mr. Miller gave up mining altogther, but returned to it, be- lieving that this district has splendid ore supplies. He has invested ex- tensively and is now heavily interested in zinc and lead mines in the Car- penter district, which will undoubtedly prove a very profitable field, having rich veins of mineral deposits. He developed the Log Cabin mine, which is now producing light-grade ore in immense quantities, while high-grade ore in large quantities is being taken out 'of the Sierra Blanca mine.
Mr. Miller organized the Pioneer Association of Black Range of New Mexico. He is a member of Percha Lodge No. 16, K. P., and in his political affiliation is a stalwart Democrat. He served on the penitentiary commission from 1896 until 1901, but has not been an active politician in the sense of office-seeking, preferring to concentrate his time and en- ergies upon his business affairs and the development of mining proper- ties.
Henry J. Brown, the owner of a large ranch devoted to the raising of goats, and also interested in mining, makes his home in Kingston and his residence in New Mexico dates from 1886. He was born in Kendall county, Texas, November 9, 1857, and was there reared. His educational privileges were limited. He attended school for only three or four months and walked a distance of three or four miles to the schoolhouse with his rifle upon his shoulder, owing to the fear of Indian attacks. His home was in a frontier district and the story of Indian atrocities and depredations was a familiar one. He was about twenty-eight years of age when, in 1886, he came to New Mexico, locating near Crow Spring, ninety miles east of El Paso. Here he became connected with the cattle industry, having the first ranch in that part of the county, but he lost a great number of cattle from drinking alkali water. They died off so rapidly that he removed to Tierra Blanca, where he remained for about three years, and then, on account of
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a mistake in the government survey, which cut off his homestead from a water supply, he was again forced to move. He took up his abode in Kingston, where he turned his attention to the dairy business, which he conducted for about a year. In 1892 he located upon his present ranch, a mile below Kingston, and was engaged in raising cattle until 1896, when he began raising Angora goats. He has since continued in this line of stock-raising with excellent success, and has become one of the prosperous representatives of stock farming in this section of the Territory. At the same time he has been interested to a greater or less extent in mining prop- erties.
Mr. Brown was married in Texas in 1880 to Miss Mary Gobble, and they have seven children. In his social relations he is an Odd Fellow, be- longing to Percha Lodge No. 9. He has a wide and favorable acquaintance in the Territory, where he has now lived for twenty years, and in the work of general improvement and progress he has borne a helpful part, while at the same time he has gradually advanced his individual business in- terests.
John Kasser, one of the most prominent representatives of mining in- terests in New Mexico, being manager of the Empire Gold Mining and Milling Company at Hillsboro, was born in Austria in 1865 and came to the United States when thirteen years of age. He began working in mines at Lead, South Dakota, where he was employed for twelve or thirteen years, during which time he became familiar with all the processes of de- veloping the mines. His capability gradually increasing, he was at length given charge of a mine at Lake City, Colorado, where he remained for about a year. He located the first mine at Cripple Creek, called the Prince Albert, and was superintendent of mines in that locality for about five years. He afterward went to Globe, Colorado, where he organized the Live Oak Copper Mining and Milling. Company, continuing in business at that point for about five or six years, after which he came to New Mexico. The year of his arrival in Hillsboro was 1900. He accepted a position as superintendent of the Ready Pay mine, and in 1903 he purchased the Bonanza and Good Hope mines, and with others organized a company for their operation. He won a first prize at the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago for the finest specimens of free gold. He has since 1900 been actively connected with the development of the rich mineral resources of this part of the country and is thoroughly familiar with the most modern processes for taking out the ore and separating it, thus transforming it into a marketable commodity. He erected a concentrating plant of ten stamps in 1904, and is now enlarging this by putting in ten more stamps, making a twenty-stamp mill. Mr. Kasser is manager of the business con- ducted under the name of the Empire Gold Mining and Milling Company and is one of its largest stockholders. He is a member of Kingston Lodge No. 16, A. F. & A. M., and expects soon to take the thirty-second degree in Scottish Rite Masonry.
Ellsworth F. Bloodgood. a well known cattle man living at Kingston, New Mexico, is a native of Schoharie county, New York, born July II, 1862. His education was acquired in Kansas and in 1879, when a youth of seventeen years, he went to Colorado with an emigrant train. He has since been identified with business interests upon the plains and the frontier. He came to New Mexico in 1881, settling first at White Oaks, and in 1882
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removed to Kentucky, where he became identified with freighting. He hauled the first load of ore out of the camp and continued in the freight- ing business from 1882 until 1884, when, believing that the cattle industry would prove more profitable, he established a ranch on the Gila river, mak- ing his home. however, in Kingston, as he was prevented from moving to the ranch because of the warlike attitude of the Indians, who were con- tinually committing atrocities and depredations upon the white settlers of the frontier. Mr. Bloodgood has now for twenty-two years been actively engaged in the cattle business and at the same time has followed mining to a greater or less extent. He has developed the O. K. mine, from which he has taken considerable ore, but he ceased to work this after the demoni- tization of silver. He now has extensive herds of cattle upon his ranch and his annual sales and shipments are extensive, yielding him a good prof- it. He is thoroughly familiar with the history of development and progress here and his personal experiences in connection with the settlement of the frontier, if written in detail, would prove again the correctness of the old adage that "truth is stranger than fiction."
Mr. Bloodgood was married in Kansas to Miss Cora Longfellow and they have one son. In his fraternal relations he is a Mason, holding mem- bership in Kingston Lodge No. 16, A. F. & A. M.
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
EDDY COUNTY.
Eddy county lies in the fertile valley of the Pecos river, in the extreme southeastern portion of New Mexico. On the north it is bounded by Chaves county, and on the west by Otero and a corner of Chaves county. It has an area of 6,613 square miles, and a population of about 3,500.
Although strictly speaking the valley of the Pecos is the entire coun- try drained by the river along its course of five hundred miles through New Mexico and Texas, in recent years the term has become restricted to the districts in the southeastern portion of this Territory which experts have pronounced capable of successful irrigation and in which works by the national government and private companies are well under way. The territory included substantially in Chaves county is known as the Upper Pecos valley ; that in Eddy county, as the Lower valley.
Early Development of the County .- The early and much of the late development of Eddy county is due chiefly to Charles B. Eddy, Charles W. Green and J. J. Hagerman.
Mr. Eddy first appeared in the region just below Seven Rivers, coming from Colorado and opening a ranch there in 1881. In the fall of 1887 he commenced to stake out a ditch on the east side of the Pecos river, eight miles above the present county seat, Carlsbad. After taking it about four miles down the river bank, he met Mr. Green, who had just come into the country, and the latter proposed to Mr. Eddy that he go east and organize an irrigation company, taking the water from a point about two miles below the ditch already constructed. Within the coming year G. B. Shaw, General Bradley, R. W. Tansill and others were interested, and the charter of the Pecos Irrigation and Investment Company was taken out. The capital stock of the company was $600,000, and the irrigation system included what is now known as the Southern canal in Eddy county and the reservoir of Lake Avalon, supplied from the Pecos river, as well as the Northern canal in Chaves county, whose waters were drawn from the Honda river and its tributaries.
For a short time after its organization Mr. Green was manager of the company, but in the spring of 1880 Mr. Eddy succeeded him, and con- tinued in the position until April, 1894. During that period the canal was extended twenty-five miles down the river; about a mile down the eastern side, and there crossing in a flume and continuing down the western bank for the balance of the distance. A great many laterals were also built, and many thousands of acres irrigated and brought into the market as productive and valuable land. In fact, it may be said to the credit of Mr. Eddy, for whom the county was named at its birth in 1891, that he was the first man to really foresee the bright future of this section of the Pecos valley-a great agricultural and horticultural future, founded on the sci- entific and persistent extension of irrigation. Even in the early nineties
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most people (even settlers) were of the opinion that the country would never be adapted to anything but the live-stock business. But Mr. Eddy had unbounded faith in irrigation, and although his enterprises were con- sidered somewhat visionary by many, he had the ability to make money for himself out of these pioneer operations. He gave employment to many poor men, and was their acknowledged friend; what profits he derived came from the pockets of investing capitalists, many of whom in these later years are still reaping the benefits of his long foresight and sound judg- ment.
In 1889, soon after the company had begun the construction of the southern canal in Eddy county, J. J. Hagerman, of Colorado Springs, invested $40,000 in the enterprise, and shortly afterward visited Mr. Eddy at his ranch near the present town of Carlsbad. Being much pleased with the country and impressed with its possibilities, Mr. Hagerman increased his investment, as well as raised a large sum of money in the east for the extension of the irrigation system. During the same year (1889) he pro- cured the charter of the Pecos Valley Railway, with rights to build from Pecos City, Texas, to Roswell, now Chaves county. He raised all the money to build the railroad from Pecos to Eddy-a distance of ninety miles- in 1889, and the line was completed to the latter place in Janu- ary, 1900.
Mr. Hagerman was president of the railroad company from the begin- ning, and became president of the irrigation company in 1890. The follow- ing year he went to Europe on business connected with the Pecos valley enterprises, and while in Geneva, Switzerland, met a number of capitalists of that country, who were looking for a good location in which to plant a colony of Swiss farmers. Their agent in the United States had already met Mr. Eddy and about the time of Mr. Hagerman's arrival was making a favorable report to his superiors of the bright outlook of the Pecos val- ley. The outcome of the matter was that, after the Swiss capitalists had sent an irrigation expert to make a further investigation and report, they invested $500,000 in the Pecos Irrigation and Improvement Company, which had succeeded the Pecos Irrigation and Investment Company. Of the new organization Mr. Hagerman was president and Mr. Eddy vice-president and general manager.
In the fall of 1892 a colony, mainly of Swiss, with a few Italians, bought farms of about forty acres each in the country between Eddy and Black river. They had money enough to make the first payment on their land, build houses, buy stock and put in their first crops ; but, although the Swiss immigration agent had been cautioned not to send over any but prac- tical farmers, the Pecos valley colony proved to be largely composed of educated, well-intentioned young men, some of them of old, aristocratic families, and an overwhelming majority of them eminently impractical. Other immigrants came to the valley, both during this year and the pre- ceding, and it became necessary to extend the irrigation system.
It was therefore decided to construct what is now known as the Mc- Millan reservoir, eighteen miles north of Carlsbad, at a cost of about $300,- 000. In March, 1893, Mr. Hagerman met a number of eastern capitalists at Eddy for the purpose of raising money to build the reservoir and extend the Pecos Valley road from that point to Roswell, as the first step in the systematic development of the Upper valley, with a subsequent extension
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