99 New Mexicans and a few Other Folks:Ellos Pasaron por Aqui
PRAISE FOR 99 NEW MEXICANS…AND A FEW OTHER FOLKS
This compilation of old-time stories illustrates how the Wild West really was during New Mexico’s frontier era. In a showdown between folklore and fact, Don Bullis is triumphant. 99 New Mexicans…and a few other folks is a must read for Western history buffs.
Bob Alexander, Author/Historian
Dangerous Dan Tucker
Lawmen, Outlaws and S. O. Bs.
And others
Read Don Bullis’ essays in 99 New Mexicans…and a few other folks and journey back to a time long since forgotten. Don possesses a deep, intrinsic knowledge of New Mexico’s history and his prose flows flawlessly to capture the essence and true flavor of the state’s vivid past.
Betta Ferrendelli, Editor
Rio Rancho (New Mexico) Observer
Tales of courage and cowardice, sinners and saints—all fascinating and exceptionally well referenced. 99 New Mexicans…and a few other folks is a must-have, must read compendium of New Mexico’s most enchanting historical figures.
Karl Lassiter, Author
Sword and Drum, White River Massacre,
Warriors of the Plains, and others
Author Don Bullis has mined old newspapers and scholarly publications to present interesting short stories about famous, infamous and controversial figures in 99 New Mexicans…and a few other folks. It is an entertaining primer for anyone seeking facts, legends and trivia about New Mexico’s past.
Deborah C. Slaney
Curator of History, The Albuquerque Museum
Ellos Pasaron Por Aqui
(They Passed by Here)
99
New Mexicans…
And a Few Other Folks
Don Bullis
Science & Humanities Press
Chesterfield Missouri
Copyright
Copyright 2005 by Don Bullis. All Rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
.
Graphics Credits:
The cover design is by Dana McCausland. Credits and acknowledgements for the various historical photos are in their respective legends.
ISBN 1-888725-92-3 Science & Humanities Press Edition
ISBN 1-8887293-1 MacroPrintBooks Edition (large print)
Publication date January, 2005
First Printing, January, 2005
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bullis, Don.
99 New Mexicans? and a few other folks : ellos pasaron por aqui = they passed by here / Don Bullis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-888725-93-1 (large print (16pt) : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-888725-92-3 (regular print (Science & Humanities Press imprint) : alk. paper)
1. New Mexico--History--Anecdotes. 2. Frontier and pioneer life--New Mexico--Anecdotes. 3. New Mexico--Biography--Anecdotes. I. Title: Ninety-nine New Mexicans? and a few other folks. II. Title: Ellos pasaron por aqui. III. Title: They passed by here. IV. Title.
F796.6.B85 2005
978.9--dc22 2005008884
Science & Humanities Press
PO Box 7151
Chesterfield, MO 63006-7151
(636) 394-4950
sciencehumanitiespress.com
DEDICATION
To Gloria Bullis, to whom I owe just about everything.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
PREFACE 3
NEW MEXICO KILLER CLAY ALLISON: THE ORIGINAL SHOOTIST 4
MANUEL ARMIJO: TRAITOR OR SAINT? 6
SHERIFF ARMIJO SOLVES POTTER CASE: PERPETRATORS LYNCHED 8
ELFEGO BACA FIGHTS 80 TEXANS AT FRISCO PLAZA 11
ELFEGO BACA CAPTURES THE KILLER, JOSÉ GARCIA WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT: OR DID HE? 13
THE LONGHORN WILL-O-WISP KILLS EDDY CO. SHERIFF GEO. BATTON: HIMSELF KILLED IN GUNFIGHT 15
LT. ED. BEALE & THE U. S. ARMY CAMEL CORPS: EXERCISE IN STRANGENESS 16
JUDGE KIRBY BENEDICT: JUSTICE NEW MEXICO STYLE 18
ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM H. BONNEY: BILLY THE KID 20
FOUL MURDER OF SHERIFF WILLIAM BRADY: COWARDS ALL! 22
TEXAS CONFEDERATES INVADE NEW MEXICO: COL. CANBY UNABLE TO HALT THEM AT VALVERDE FIGHT 24
SILVER CITY MARSHAL CHARLES CANTLEY SLOW ON THE DRAW: KILLED IN BARROOM GUNFIGHT 26
GUNFIGHT AT THE GREATHOUSE RANCH: DEPUTY CARLYLE KILLED, OUTLAWS ESCAPE 28
“SHERIFF CARMICHAEL AND 1 KILLED, 7 WOUNDED AS UNEMPLOYED RIOT” 30
MARSHAL J. CARSON KILLED IN LAS VEGAS SALOON FIGHT: FOUR KILLERS DIE FOR THE CRIME 32
KIT CARSON: HERO OR VILLAIN? 34
COL. JOHN CHIVINGTON AND THE SAND CREEK MASACRE 36
BLACK JACK CHRISTIAN AND THE HIGH FIVES GANG 38
NEWSPAPERMAN A. M. CONKLIN MURDERED AT SOCORRO: ONE KILLER SHOT—ONE LYNCHED 41
HORSE THIEF NICHOLAS ARAGON KILLS LINCOLN COUNTY DEPUTIES J. CORN & J. HURLEY 43
DON FRANCISCO VÁZQUEZ DE CORONADO: ADVENTURE IN LA TIERRA INCOGNITA 45
DAVY CROCKETT SHOT DEAD AT CIMARRON: SHERIFF CLEARED OF WRONGDOING 48
SHERIFF, GOVERNOR & CONGRESSMAN: GEORGE CURRY WAS A WITNESS TO NEW MEXICO HISTORY 50
ALBUQUERQUE NORTH OF SANTA FE: J. DISTURNELL’S MAP OF 1847 54
CHAVES COUNTY DEPUTY RUFE DUNNAHOO KILLED IN NEEDLESS GUNFIGHT 56
“SMOOTH” STEVE ELKINS AND THE FIGHT FOR STATEHOOD 58
ESTEVAN AND SOME OTHER BLACK PEOPLE: THEIR IMPORTANCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE OLD WEST 60
THE SINS OF ALBERT BACON FALL, NEW MEXICO’S FIRST U. S. SENATOR 62
A NEW MEXICO MYSTERY: WHAT BECAME OF ALBERT & HENRY FOUNTAIN? 65
SOCORRO KILLER JOEL FOWLER: DEAD AT THE END OF A ROPE 68
STATE POLICE OFFICER NASH P. GARCIA SLAIN ON ACOMA RESERVATION: KILLERS IN CUSTODY 71
WHO KILLED SHERIFF PAT GARRETT?? 72
GERONIMO: LAST OF THE WARRING APACHES 76
TERRITORIAL PRISON WARDEN JAMES GREGG FORCED TO RESIGN: IRREGULARITY IN ACCOUNTS 79
JUAN GUTIERREZ & EIGHT FAMILIES SETTLE ALONG LAS HUERTAS CREEK 81
GRANT COUNTY DEPUTY KILLED BY KIDNAPPER:TOM HALL SHOT IN THE BACK—KILLER HANGED 84
LUNA COUNTY DEPUTIES T. H. HALL & A. L. SMITHERS KILLED IN RAGING GUNFIGHT: OUTLAW KILLED 85
DEE HARKEY: MEAN AS HELL 87
JIM HARSHMAN: RELUCTANT HISTORIAN 89
FIGHT OVER TURKEYS RESULTS IN GUNFIGHT: CUSTOMS OFFICER JAY HEARD SHOT, KILLED NEAR HACHITA 91
CONRAD HILTON: A SON OF NEW MEXICO 93
DOC HOLLIDAY KILLS ARMY SCOUT MIKE GORDON AT LAS VEGAS: GORDON DRUNK 95
THE LEGEND OF THE HUMMER: A NAVAJO RETURNED SPIRIT 98
SHOOT OUT IN CORRALES: LOUIS & LOUISA IMBERT BOTH KILLED 100
A NEW ACCOUNT OF THE 1898 CORRALES SHOOTOUT 102
LAS CRUCES DEPUTY JERRELL KILLED BY TEXAS STAGECOACH ROBBERS 103
NEW MEXICO’S JEWISH MERCHANTS: A PEACEFUL REVOLUTION 104
MA & PA JONES SETTLE SEVEN RIVERS (??) 109
TEXAS BANK ROBBERY GANG WREAKS HAVOC IN EASTERN NEW MEXICO: TWO LAW OFFICERS KILLED, HARVE BOLIN & TOM JONES 111
KIT JOY BANDIT GANG BITES THE DUST: SILVER CITY MERCHANT KILLED 116
FORMER EDDY COUNTY SHERIFF DAVE KEMP KILLS CURRENT SHERIFF LES DOW 118
DEPUTY KENT KILLED BY HORSE THIEVES NEAR FOLSOM: JAMISON BROTHERS ARRESTED 120
WHISKEY & GUNS DON’T MIX; DRUNK COWBOY
SHOOTS, KILLS SILVER CITY MARSHAL & CONSTABLE 122
JOHN KINNEY: NEW MEXICO’S PREMIER CATTLE RUSTLER 124
OLIVER LEE OF THE TULAROSA COUNTRY: GOOD GUY OR BAD??? 126
SHERIFF KILLED IN TAOS UPRISING: S. L. LEE KILLED AT HIS HOME 132
SAM KETCHUM WOUNDED IN WILD GUNFIGHT AT TURKEY CANYON: COLORADO SHERIFF KILLED 133
UNARMED ALBUQUERQUE OFFICER ALEX KNAPP KILLED BY DRUNK PRISONER 135
THE LACKEY—TESSIER MURDERS AND THE DEMISE OF THE SANDIA MOUNTAIN DESPERADO 137
DEPUTY HAWKSHAW LEONARD KILLED IN ROSWELL GUN BATTLE 139
GEORGE LUFKIN DISCOVERS SILVER AT LAKE VALLEY 140
EDITOR MAGEE SHOOTS JUDGE LEAHY! INNOCENT BYSTANDER KILLED 142
CONSTABLE JUAN MARTINEZ KILLED: THREE OTHERS DIE IN LINCOLN CO. GUNPLAY 144
MYSTERIOUS DAVE MATHER: KILLS ONE, WOUNDS TWO, IN SALOON SHOOTING 146
RAILROAD OFFICER J. A. McCLURE KILLED: KILLERS SHOT-DOWN IN TEXAS 148
OUTLAWS KILL MARSHAL McGUIRE & DEPUTY HENRY IN MARTINEZTOWN GUNFIGHT: KILLERS ESCAPE 150
BLACK COWBOY GEORGE McJUNKIN DISCOVERS PREHISTORIC BONES 152
SUSAN HUMMER McSWEEN BARBER: THE CATTLE QUEEN OF NEW MEXICO 154
KILLING SPREE IN RATÓN: SALOON KEEPER MENTZER LYNCHED (TWICE) 156
L. G. MURPHY: THE RISE AND FALL OF HIS LINCOLN COUNTY EMPIRE 158
MASS MURDER AT BONITO CITY: MARTIN NELSON GOES BERSERK 161
EVA POE NEWKIRK AND THE BLIZZARD OF 1957: 14,000 HEAD OF LIVESTOCK PERISH 163
“LAS VEGAS, NEW MEXICO HOTTEST TOWN IN COUNTRY” SAYS GOV. MIGUEL OTERO 165
JOSÉ LEANDRO PEREA OF BERNALILLO: SHEEP KING OF NEW MEXICO 169
J. Y. PEREA: AN ICONOCLAST IN HIS TIME 171
AMERICAN ZEBULON PIKE GETS A LOOK AT SPANISH SANTA FE 173
RED PIPKIN: OUTLAW 176
POPÉ AND THE PUEBLO REVOLT 178
JUSTIN JEROME DE PRASLIN AND THE GHOST TOWN OF HAGAN 180
CHAVES CO. DEPUTY RAINBOLT SHOT, KILLED AT ROSWELL: ASSAILANT ESCAPES 182
DICK ROGERS: SHORT-LIVED GUNFIGHTER 184
SEBOYETA, THE MOTHER VILLAGE: SAVED BY DOÑA ANTONIA ROMERO 186
RUSTLERS STRIKE NEAR CABAZON: RANCHER JUAN ROMERO KILLED 188
SALLY ROOKE: HEROINE OF THE GREAT FOLSOM FLOOD 190
NM GOVERNOR EDMUND ROSS: A FORGOTTEN NATIONAL HERO 193
THE CRIMES AND DEATH OF DAVE RUDABAUGH: A NEW MEXICO VILLIAN 195
ON THE DEATH OF RUSSIAN BILL: HE CHOKED TO DEATH, GRANT CO. SHERIFF REPORTS 198
THEIVES MURDER OTERO CO. SHERIFF BILL RUTHERF0RD: ESCAPE HANGMAN’S NOOSE 200
SANDIA PUEBLO: A PEOPLE PERSECUTED 202
LORDSBURG CONSTABLE C. B. SCHUTZ KILLED BY ESCAPEES 205
DEMING SHERIFF DWIGHT STEPHENS KILLED BY JAIL ESCAPEES: OUTLAW KILLED IN GUNFIGHT 206
COL. EDWIN V. SUMNER ORDERS CONSTRUCTION OF FORT UNION ON SANTA FE TRAIL 208
IKE AND PORT STOCKTON: OUTLAWS 210
PROHIBITION AGENT RAY SUTTON MISSING: FOULPLAY FEARED 212
ALBUQUERQUE MAYOR/GOVERNOR CLYDE TINGLEY: A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH 214
PANCHO VILLA INVADES NEW MEXICO: 17 U. S. CITIZENS KILLED, 100 MEXICANS ALSO DIE 216
BEN WILLIAMS: PEACE OFFICER 218
BOOTLEGGER SHOOTS ROSWELL MARSHAL: ROY WOOFTER DEAD 221
UNCLE DICK WOOTTON: HIS LIFE AND TIMES 223
ALBUQUERQUE’S MARSHAL YARBERRY KILLS TWO MEN: SENTENCED TO HANG 225
REFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH OF COLE YOUNG, TRAIN ROBBER 228
NEWSPAPER/PERIODOCAL SOURCES 230
BIBLIOGRAPHY 233
OTHER PUBLICATIONS/SOURCES 237
CORRESPONDENCE & INTERVIEWS 238
INDEX 239
INTRODUCTION
Ask us New Mexicans why we love our high, dry state and we’ll first tell you it is because of our mountain-desert landscape and our big blue skies. Talk a bit longer and you’ll learn that we also delight in the interesting citizens our state has been collecting from the Ice Age down to modern times. Give them a little time and New Mexicans will begin telling you about some of them. You’ll hear of Popé, who led the only successful Indian revolution against new comers in North American history, and captured Santa Fe in 1680. You’ll hear about U. S. Senator Albert Bacon Fall of New Mexico, later Secretary of the Interior, who gave America its famous “Teapot Dome Scandal” in the 1920s. You’ll even hear about the “determined citizens” of Silver City who wiped out Kit Joy’s gang of bandits in 1884.
Every New Mexican should have a head full of accounts of our colorful heroes and villains to educate visitors from the less interesting states, and Don Bullis has provided us with the fullest and most useful collection of them ever created.
Since this is New Mexico, many of these accounts tend to involve violence of one sort or another. Bullis spent a lot of his life involved in New Mexico law enforcement making the endless effort to maintain some sort of order in a landscape that contributed more than its share to America’s wonderful legends of the Wild West and wild westerners. Thus he is just the man to take a backward look and explain what happened, and why, and to whom. As a lawman, he made a career of “being there and doing that.” He’s given us a book that deserves a place in every Westerner’s library.
Many of the names you’ll encounter in 99 New Mexicans…and a few other folks belong to people familiar to those of us who know something of Western history. There’s Clay Allison, the first “shootist,” and Elfego Baca, New Mexico hero as the Socorro County deputy sheriff who fought off eighty Texans and now has a beer (Elfego Bock) named for him, and Lieutenant Ed Beale, whose assignment was to make a U. S. Army Camel Corps practical in New Mexico’s desert, and, on the darker side, Col. John Chivington of the Sand Creek Massacre.
On the brighter side Bullis re-introduces us to Edmund Ross whose vote in the U. S. Senate stopped the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, and who as our territorial Governor created the University of New Mexico. And he reminds us of Sally Rooke, who gave her life as operator of the Folsom telephone exchange, staying at her post and warning folks of the flood roaring down on the northeastern New Mexico village until the waters swept her away.
But we’re wasting time here. The rest of the cast of characters in 99 New Mexicans…and a few others, await us in the pages to come—starting with Clay Allison who was “dangerous and deadly when he was sober, and a downright terror when he was drunk, which was often.”
Tony Hillerman
Albuquerque, New Mexico
PREFACE
About forty years ago, I undertook the task of writing a short item on William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid. I didn’t know much about the man (or boy), but I figured I would find plenty of resources that would provide me with the information I needed. What I almost immediately discovered was that while there was indeed a lot of information available, almost none of the writers agreed about the facts surrounding the outlaw’s life. Some wrote that the Kid’s real name was not Bonney, but McCarty; others claimed his name was Antrim. No one seemed to know how the outlaw came to call himself William Bonney, and some couldn’t even agree on the spelling of the name (Bonny, Bonnie, etc.).
The debate about Billy continues to this day, and many of the questions about him, and his life and death (particularly his death), will never be answered to the satisfaction of everyone.
I wondered about other characters in the history of New Mexico and the Old West. Was there as much disagreement about them as there was about Billy? It didn’t take long to learn that the answer to the question was an emphatic yes. And the problem, I noted, was compounded by the fact that many writers of Western history (perhaps writers of all history) tell their versions of events as if each is absolute fact. Very few make any effort to reconcile the several different accounts of the same event, and the people involved in each.
Could, for instance, New Mexico Governor Manuel Armijo have been as bad as he has often been portrayed? Probably not. Armijo’s primary antagonists had personal
reasons for attacking him. At the same time, was Sheriff Pat Garrett really as heroic as some portrayed him? Also probably not. Perhaps he did one brave deed, but the rest of his life tended to fade in heroic luster, and even arduous self-promotion couldn’t completely restore it.
So when I started writing regular newspaper columns about twenty-five years ago, I thought it would a valuable service to my readers to present the divergent points of view offered by the several writers on any given historical subject. General readers, I thought, would be able to make up their own minds about people and events of a time in the distant past, and those so motivated could dig deeper into items of particular interest to them. Those not stirred to further study, would at least know that many facts about the history of New Mexico and the Old West were not facts at all, but merely legends that have been around for so long that no one questions them.
99 New Mexicans…and a few other folks includes essays, published and unpublished, over the past thirty or so years; newspaper columns published in a half-dozen papers—but primarily the Rio Rancho (New Mexico) Observer—over the past eighteen years; and items excerpted from my earlier book, New Mexico’s Finest: Peace Officers Killed in the Line of Duty, 1847-1999. Each item has been reviewed, revised and updated for inclusion in this book.
This effort is interactive inasmuch as I would like to hear from readers who have knowledge of the people and events described on these pages, or readers who know of historic characters who should be included here. I won’t promise to answer each missive, but I will consider each as I continue to research and write about the people who populated New Mexico from the days before recorded history to modern times. I can be reached at don.bullis@att.net.
Maybe your name will find its way onto the pages of the next 99 New Mexicans…
Don Bullis, Rio Rancho, New Mexico
NEW MEXICO KILLER CLAY ALLISON: THE ORIGINAL SHOOTIST