Chasing Our Tales - Billy the Kid

The Antrims

In November of 2005 Former Lincoln County, New Mexico, Sheriff Tom Sullivan and Capitan, New Mexico, Mayor Steve Sederwall tried to prove that John Miller, who died in and is buried in Prescott, Arizona, was the “real” Billy the Kid. John Miller died in 1934.

But Prescott, being fairly far from home, Billy just had to come to North Central Texas, as well! The people in Hico, Hamilton County, Texas, claim that one Brushy Bill Roberts is, in fact, the true Billy the Kid. He died in Hico on December 27, 1950.

Historically it seems that Henry McCarty, alias Kid Antrim; alias William H. Bonney; alias Billy the Kid, whom historians traditionally claim as the real Billy the Kid was born out of wedlock on November 23, 1859. He was born in New York City to Catherine McCarty, and some of his escapades involving livestock happened in the Panhandle of Texas.

McCarty came West with his mother and brother, and Santa Fe County, New Mexico, records the marriage of Catherine to William Antrim at the Fist Presbyterian Church on March 1, 1873, and that both Henry, and his brother Joseph witnessed the wedding. The family then moved to Silver City.

Antrim worked in the mines, but Catherine died of TB on September 16, 1874, when Henry was 15, and the next year, at age 16, Henry was arrested for stealing clothing at a Chinese laundry. As Henry felt his step-father would be angry, he escaped the jail and went to Arizona where he was a farmhand, teamster, and cowboy in Graham County, working under the name Kid Antrim, as he looked very young and was quite small.

His first murder was that of Frank P. Cahill, a blacksmith you enjoyed bullying the boy. Henry fatally killed Cahill in August 1977, was arrested, broke out of jail, and fled to Mesilla, New Mexico, where he began using the alias William H. Bonney. And there he rode briefly with the Jesse Evans gang, a group hired early in the Lincoln County Wars to work for Dolan and Company.

McCarty’s only Indian fight happened when he and a companion, Tom O’Keefe, were riding in the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico, and shortly after than he ended up in Lincoln County and came to know George and Frank Coe.

Going by his alias Bill Bonney, he enjoyed the friendship of John S. Chisum who was, at the time, challenging Lawrence G. Murphy and his associates in their monopoly of government beef contracts, but he became directly involved in the “Wars” when he went to work for John Turnstall and Alexander McSween, Chisum’s associates. However, Turnstall was murdered on February 28, 1878, and Billy was arrested for the murder by Sheriff William Brady, a member of the rival faction.

Billy rode with a vigilante group called the Regulators which were cloaked in legitimacy as Turnstall’s foreman, Dick Brewer, had been elected constable, and in March of 1878 they captured two of Turnstall’s murders, and, in turn, were murdered, probably by Billy. Later Billy and five others ambushed and murdered Sheriff Brady and his deputy George Hindman on the main street of Lincoln, New Mexico.

On April 4 of 1878 Billy was involved in a gun battle at Blazer’s Mill, on the slopes of the Sacramento Mountains, where A. L. “Buckshot” Roberts killed Dick Brewer. Roberts later died of gunshot wounds.

Following the Blazer’s Mill incident, Billy became the leader of the McSween men, and in July of the same year participated in the five-day battle in Lincoln. McSween was killed, but Billy and the others escaped and continued their battle against Murphy.

In August Billy was present when Mescalero Indian Agent Morris J. Bernstein was killed, and soon after he and his gang bunked at the Chisum Ranch where they continued to steal horses and cattle from Murphy’s friends.

In the fall of 1878, at age 19, Billy went to the Texas Panhandle where Chisum had sent cattle to graze in the Canadian Valley, and although not in Chisum’s employ, Billy and his friends Tom O’Folliard, Henry Brown, Fred Waite, and John Middleton, followed Chisum with 125 stolen horses which they planned to sell to Panhandle outfits.

Although this group of men was generally well behaved, Boston rancher Ellsworth Torrey ran them off his land for insulting his wife and daughters, but Billy soon made friends of Dr. Henry F. Hoyt to whom he sold Sheriff Brady’s horse, Dandy Dick. Then in the winter Billy and his gang returned to New Mexico and added new members, Charlie Bowdre and Dave Rudabaugh to their successful rustling operation.

In February of 1879, when Billy was still 19, Lew Wallace was elected territorial governor of New Mexico and began to seek ways to end the “Wars” in Lincoln County. He promised Billy immunity if he would come in and testify against the murderer of lawyer Houston Chapman. However, once in custody, Billy’s pardon was delayed, and although he was allowed considerable latitude, he was not freed, so he told the guards he was tired of waiting, walked out of a store where he was being held, mounted a horse, and rode out of town. As he felt he should be paid for his assistance in the “Wars” he tried to collect $500 from John Chisum, who refused to pay, and when Chisum refused, Billy helped himself to some of Chisum’s cattle.

In January of 1880 Billy killed bounty hunter Joe Grant in Gallinas after Grant’s gun misfired, and because of Billy and his gang’s continued rustling, the Texas Panhandle Stock Association was formed in Mobeetie to protect the cattlemen against them.

With a price of $500 on his head, Billy roamed over New Mexico and Texas and may have killed a man named Jim Carlyle at the Greathouse Ranch. He was blamed for this murder by Patrick Floyd Garret, Lincoln County Sheriff, and the sheriff made catching Billy his top priority.

In November of 1880, when Billy was 21, Garrett and a posse of Panhandle men ambushed the gang at Fort Sumner and killed O’Folliard while Billy and the others escaped, but a few days later the posse caught up with them at Stinking Springs, twenty-five miles from Fort Sumner, and after a gun battle in which Bowdre was killed, Billy and the remaining three surrendered. They were first jailed in Las Vegan, New Mexico, and then in Santa Fe before they were moved to trial in Mesilla in the spring of 1881.

Although Billy was at first charged with the murder of Buckshot Roberts, that charge was dropped, and he was tried and found guilty of the murder of Sheriff Brady and sentenced to hang. He was transferred to the jail in Lincoln, but on April 28, 1881, he killed deputies John Bell and Robert Olinger and escaped.

Pat Garrett went after the Kid again, aided by John W. Poe, special detective for the Panhandle Stock Association, and Thomas McKinney. Poe received an anonymous tip in July 1881 that the Kid was hiding out at the home of an Indian slave and former sweetheart in Fort Sumner. Poe notified Garrett and McKinney, and the three traveled to Fort Sumner. They consulted Pete Maxwell whose ranch headquarters occupied the of Army post.

“On the night of July 14, 1881, Billy the Kid, who had been hiding out at a nearby Mexican sheep camp, moved on to the Maxwell Ranch to visit Celsa Gutierrez, his sweetheart. After removing his boots and other riding paraphernalia, Billy left Celsa's room, which was located in the long adobe building just south of the Maxwell home, to procure some of the fresh quarter of beef that was hanging on Maxwell's north porch. Taking a butcher knife and a pistol, the Kid walked along the inside of the picket fence in front of the house. Suddenly, he came upon the shadowy figures of Poe and McKinney, who were waiting there. Drawing his six-shooter, the Kid demanded to know who they were. Poe, not knowing who the man was, tried to reassure him, but Billy backed through the open door into the darkened bedroom, where Garrett was talking with Maxwell, repeating his demands in Spanish. Recognizing the voice and perhaps seeing the drawn gun, Garrett fired twice and killed him. Billy the Kid died without knowing who shot him. Maxwell and other Fort Sumner residents later admitted that they had been living in terror of the Kid and were afraid to inform on him.” Handbook of Texas Online

Henry McCarty is buried in an old military cemetery at Fort Sumner next to gang members Bowdre and O’Folliard, and near Lucien B. Maxwell.

There is one letter I would like to share with you regarding a precious column. It comes from Bob Bellamy, 350 Lamkin Road, Mineral Wells, and reads:

“In your Chasing Our Tales article in the July , 2007, issue of the North Texas Star, you state that you have had an enquiry from Roy Malone asking, ‘Was Mattie Brown the first white child born in Palo Pinto County?’

“In J. Carroll McConnell’s book, The West Texas Frontier, Vol. 1, Gazette Print, Jacksboro, Texas, 1933, p. 177, he writes:

‘W. W. Price, son of Mr. And Mrs. I. W. Price, was the first white child born in Palo Pinto County. He was born January 5, 1855, near old Black Springs. Will Bevers, a son of Mr. And Mrs. George R. Bevers, who lived near the Flat Rock Crossing on Keechi, was born August 21, of the same Year. Mollie Vaughn, who married Milton Pryor, was born about the same time.’

“I. W. Price was the first Tax Accessor-Collector elected in the county, and this would make Millie Vaughn the first white girl born in the county. These three children were all born before the county was organized in May of 1857. I am unaware of any record of the first child born after the county was organized.”

Thank you, Bob, for your response!

If you have a question regarding history and genealogy in the North Central Texas Hill Country, please let us hear from you at P O Box 61, Mineral Wells 76068-0061.

©2007 Sue Seibert