Part of the Outlaw Series

Billy The Kid Henry McCarty William Bonney Kid Antrim John Miller??? "Brushy Bill"??? William Henry Roberts 1859-1881 1859-1950 Died age 21 Died age 90 Timeline   His Identity Still in Controversy Over 120 years After his Reported Demise Billy's reported biography is in black Brushy Bill's information is in burnt orange   Henry McCarty (Billy the Kid, William H. Bonney) was born out of wedlock to Catherine McCarty in New York City on November 23, 1859. William Henry Roberts (Brushy Bill) was born to James H. Roberts and Mary Adeline Roberts in Buffalo Gap, Texas on December 31, 1859. James rode with Quantrill during the Civil War. Mary Roberts died in 1862. When Mary died, Brushy Bill went to live with Catherine McCarty, his half-aunt. She had a son named Joseph. She apparently was afraid that Billy's father would reclaim him, so she named him Brushy and allowed folks to believe he was her son. The prominent place he occupies in American frontier history and folklore is almost beyond explanation. The "Boy Bandit King's" dramatic escapades as a cattle rustler and gunslinger have continued to intrigue the public long after those of most of his contemporaries were forgotten. Some of his exploits occurred in the Texas Panhandle, which abounded in cattle and was always a good place to engage in the livestock trade, legal or otherwise. While legend has it that Billy the Kid's real name was William H. Bonney, scholars have determined that Bonney was simply one of a series of aliases used by the Kid. McCarty spent his youth in New York before venturing west with his mother and brother. Santa Fe County records show that his mother married William Antrim at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Fe on March 1, 1873-with her two sons, Henry and Joseph, in attendance. Afterward the family moved to Silver City, where Antrim worked in the mines and Catherine died of tuberculosis on September 16, 1874. The following year Henry, who apparently had developed a rebellious streak and sticky fingers, had his first brush with the law when Harvey Whitehill, the local sheriff, arrested him for stealing clothes from a Chinese laundry. Actually an older prankster, George Shaffer, had prodded Henry and another boy into hiding the bundle. At any rate Henry, fearing his stepfather's reaction, escaped from the Silver City jail and headed for Arizona. For two years he worked in Graham County as a farmhand, teamster, and cowboy under the name of Kid Antrim. His age, appearance, and size soon won him the sobriquet "Kid." The Kid's first killing occurred in the settlement of Bonita, near Camp Grant, in August 1877. Frank P. Cahill, a local blacksmith, took delight in bullying the boy, and the two seem to have quarreled on a number of occasions. One day, however, the usual exchange of insults erupted into a fist fight which ended with the Kid fatally shooting his antagonist. Arrested once more, Kid Antrim again broke out of jail and fled to Mesilla, New Mexico, where he assumed the alias William H. Bonney and rode briefly with the Jesse Evans gang. His only fight with Indians occurred while he and a companion, Tom O'Keefe, were riding in the Guadalupe Mountains of eastern New Mexico. From there he drifted to Lincoln County, where he became acquainted with several area residents, including George and Frank Coe. For a time Billy enjoyed the hospitality of John S. Chisum, who was then challenging the monopoly of Lawrence G. Murphy and his associates over government beef contracts in New Mexico. The Kid's direct involvement in the struggle started when he went to work for John Tunstall and Alexander McSween, leaders of the Chisum crowd. Bad relations between rival factions culminated in the murder of Tunstall by Murphy partisans on February 28, 1878. Billy was arrested by Sheriff William Brady, a Murphy tool, and consequently cast his lot with McSween and Dick Brewer, Tunstall's foreman. In the resultant feud, known as the Lincoln County War, Billy rode with a vigilante group called the Regulators, which had a cloak of legality since Brewer was the appointed constable. In March the Regulators captured two of Tunstall's murderers, whom Brewer wanted to incarcerate in Lincoln. However, both men were killed, probably by Billy, before they ever reached town, thus giving the Murphy faction another grievance against the McSween group. Later Billy and five companions ambushed and killed Sheriff Brady and his deputy, George Hindman, on Lincoln's main street. On April 4, 1878, the Kid was involved in the gunfight at Blazer's Mill, on the southwest slopes of the Sacramento Mountains, where A. L. (Buckshot) Roberts, a Murphy partisan, killed Dick Brewer before he himself expired from bullet wounds. After that, Billy emerged as a leader among the McSween men. In July 1878 he participated in the "five-day battle" in Lincoln, where the Murphy partisans besieged the Regulators in McSween's home. McSween was killed, but Billy and the others escaped from the burning house. Thereafter, Billy and his cohorts used no restraint in continuing the fight against the "House of Murphy," whom the power structure in New Mexico endorsed as the victor. In August the Kid was present when Morris J. Bernstein, clerk at the Mescalero Indian agency, was killed. Afterward he stayed for a time at the Chisum ranch while he and his friends stole horses and cattle from known Murphy partisans. Billy the Kid arrived in the Panhandle in the fall of 1878, after Chisum had sent some of his cattle to graze in the Canadian valley in the vicinity of Tascosa. Although not in Chisum's employ, Billy and four companions, Tom O'Folliard, Henry Brown, Fred Waite, and John Middleton, followed in the cattleman's wake, trailing approximately 125 stolen horses, which they planned to sell to Panhandle outfits. Billy intimidated Ellsworth Torrey, after the Boston rancher had run off the Kid's men for insulting his wife and daughters; otherwise the group was generally well-behaved during their stay in Tascosa and spent money freely. Although his reputation had preceded him, Billy soon made friends among Tascosa residents, notably a young transient doctor, Henry F. Hoyt, to whom the Kid sold Sheriff Brady's horse, Dandy Dick. By the winter of 1878-79, after selling the horses, Billy and Tom O'Folliard had returned to their home turf and soon added new members, including Charlie Bowdre and Dave Rudabaugh, to their rustling operation. In the aftermath of the Lincoln County War, Lew Wallace, the new territorial governor of New Mexico, published a wanted list which included the Kid, who was implicated in the murder of Sheriff Brady. A momentary truce called in February 1879 ended when Murphy partisans killed a lawyer named Houston Chapman. Seeking to end the troubles once and for all, Governor Wallace arranged a meeting with the Kid and promised a full pardon for all charges against him in exchange for his testimony against Chapman's murderers. Assured that his own life was not endangered, Billy agreed to have himself placed in custody at Lincoln, but then Chapman's killers escaped. Nevertheless, Billy remained in custody until the spring of 1879, when many of the cases arising from the Lincoln County conflict came before the court. By arrangement with the governor he was allowed considerable freedom, but the pardon he hoped for was delayed. Growing impatient, Billy told his guards that he was tired of waiting, walked away from the store where he was being held, mounted a horse, and rode out of town as the guards watched. Billy remained on the loose for several months thereafter. Believing that he should be paid for his services to the Lincoln County Regulators, he tried to collect $500 from John Chisum. When the cattleman refused to pay, Billy vowed he would collect in some other way and from then on helped himself to Chisum's livestock. In January 1880 he killed a bounty hunter named Joe Grant in a saloon at Gallinas, after Grant's gun misfired. By then Billy the Kid and his gang were the bane of all cattlemen in the area and were part of the reason for the formation of the Panhandle Stock Association in Mobeetie. With a price of $500 on his head, the Kid was almost captured at the town of White Oaks, northwest of Lincoln. He escaped, however, and seems to have resurfaced at the Greathouse Ranch, where a man named Jim Carlyle died. Billy received the blame for that, and the new Lincoln County sheriff, Patrick Floyd Garrett, made catching the Kid his first priority. Late in November 1880, with a posse of Panhandle men, Garrett ambushed the gang at Fort Sumner and killed Tom O'Folliard. Billy and the other rustlers escaped, but a few days later the posse caught up with them at Stinking Springs, twenty-five miles from Fort Sumner. After a brisk gunfight, in which Charlie Bowdre was killed, Billy and three remaining cohorts surrendered. They were taken to the jail in Las Vegas, then to Santa Fe, before being moved to Mesilla for trial the following spring. There the Kid was initially charged with the shooting of Buckshot Roberts, but after that charge was dropped he was tried, convicted for the murder of Sheriff Brady, and sentenced to hang. He was then transferred to the courthouse and jail in Lincoln, but on April 28, 1881, he killed deputies John Bell and Robert Olinger and escaped. Pat Garrett went on the Kid's trail again, this time aided by John W. Poe, who was acting as a special detective for the Panhandle Stock Association, and Thomas McKinney. At White Oaks in July 1881 Poe received an anonymous tip that Billy was hiding out at the home of Duvelina, an Indian slave and former sweetheart, at Fort Sumner. He immediately notified Garrett and McKinney, and the trio set out for that town. Unable at first to find a clue to the outlaw's whereabouts, Garrett consented to call on Pete Maxwell, whose ranch headquarters occupied the former United States 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. Brushy Bill Roberts said that the man that was actually killed by Pat Garrett was Billy Barlow. That it was someone else other than Billy The Kid, has some believability in the sense that it was noted that Billy couldn't grow a beard while he was in jail for four months. The man who was killed by Pat Garrett was with a full beard.    McCarty was buried in the old military cemetery at Fort Sumner next to his "pals," Bowdre and O'Folliard, and near the grave of Lucien B. Maxwell. Even before his death, Billy's escapades had received nationwide attention through the National Police Gazette. Soon after his death, several "biographies" appeared in rapid succession, most notably Pat Garrett's Authentic Life of Billy the Kid (1882). Ghosted by Garrett's friend, Ash Upson, this book contained several errors and half-truths regarding Billy's early life and exploits. Over the years the Kid's image as a ruthless bandit who claimed twenty-one men, one for each year of his life, mellowed into that of an American Robin Hood, forced into crime by evil men. Even then, the accounts of Charles Siringo, Walter Noble Burns, and Miguel Antonio Otero relied heavily on Garrett and Upson's erroneous data. Several Hollywood westerns have portrayed Billy either as a cold-blooded killer or a good boy gone bad. The myth was enhanced even more during the 1950s when Ollie L. (Brushy Bill) Roberts, an elderly ex-lawman from Hamilton County, Texas, claimed that he was Billy the Kid and petitioned the governor of New Mexico for a pardon for crimes committed under that name. Although a hearing was granted through the efforts of Roberts's attorney, William V. Morrison, no conclusive proof was ever brought forth. Apparently, Brushy Bill had a stroke at the private meeting with the governor, unable to testify to his claim. He had a heart attack in less than a month later and died. Prior that incident, Brushy Bill said the following was his track after the Garrett incident: He then escaped, going to Fort Sumner He went to Mexico for a couple of years, living with Indians He came back to Texas... working in Carlton He was arrested and released in Kansas City because someone claimed they recognized him as Billy The Kid He worked for Buffalo Bill Cody He worked for the Anti-Horse Thief Association from 1885-1889 He worked for Judge Isaac Parker in Fort Smith, Arkansas He worked with the Pinkerton Detective Agency He worked as a U.S. Marshal investigating train robberies He worked in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show He joined the Rough Riders and went to Cuba He had his own wild west show for little while He fought for Villa and Carranza in the Mexican Revolution He worked as a plainclothes policeman in Gladewater, Texas He married four times He used a dozen aliases John W. Poe's eyewitness account of the Kid's last moments also generated interest among scholars like Maurice Garland Fulton, William A. Keleher, and Ramon F. Adams, who have attempted to separate the facts from the gunsmoke of legend. It is interesting that Poe had apparently never seen Billy before and was only going by what Pat Garrett had told him. Other points of interest are: The coroner's jury never saw the body The ones who viewed the body after Billy was supposedly killed, except for Pat Garrett and deputies who had never seen Billy before, were friends of Billy's [what better time to say, "Yep, that's Billy alright." It would have allowed their friend to escape with no more harassment.] Pat Garrett did not sign an affidavit relating to the shooting Pat Garrett's daughter, in 1983, said that her father had not killed Billy Many other details of interest that can be found at this link Billy's grave remains Fort Sumner's chief attraction, and the citizens of Lincoln reenact the Kid's dramatic last jailbreak each summer.   "MCCARTY, HENRY." The Handbook of Texas Online.   See Book list below for a lot more detailed information on Billy. Born Henry McCarty November 23, 1859 Brooklyn, New York ? Born William Henry Roberts December 31, 1859 Buffalo Gap, Texas   March 1, 1873 Catherine McCarty married William Antrim in Santa Fe, New Mexico-- Henry and brother [or cousin] Joseph were in attendance age 13   September 16, 1874 Catherine died of tuberculosis age 14   1875 Arrested for stealing clothes from a Chinese laundry-- escaped jail and went to Arizona age 15-16   1875-1877 Worked in Arizona for two years as a farmhand, teamster and cowboy-- going by Kid Antrim age 15-17   August 1877 Killed Frank P. Cahill in settlement of Bonita, Arizona [southwest of Safford] as a result of fist fight, then shooting-- He was arrested and again broke out of jail and went to Mesilla, New Mexico going by William H. Bonney age 17   1877-1878? Rode with Jesse Evans gang briefly age 17-18?   February 28, 1878 After the murder [not done by Billy] of John Tunstall, Billy was arrested by Sheriff William Brady who was on the other side of a feud between the John S. Chisum bunch and the Lawrence G. Murphy bunch... a feud fueled by a struggle for contracts for supplying beef to government. The feud eventually became known as the Lincoln County Wars. age 18   Later in 1878 Billy rode with a vigilante group called the Regulators, headed up by Dick Brewer, who was the appointed constable. age 18   March 1878 Two of the men thought to have been Tunstall's murderers were captured by the Regulators. Brewer wanted to incarcerate them in Lincoln [northeast of Ruidoso]. However, both were killed before reaching town. It is thought that Billy killed them. age 18   April 4, 1878 Billy was involved in a gunfight at Blazer's Mill. A.L. (Buckshot) Roberts, a Murphy partisan, killed Dick Brewer and then died from bullet wounds himself. After that, Billy became the leader of the Regulators. age 18   July 1878 The "five-day battle" took place in Lincoln. The Murphy bunch surrounded the home of McSween, where the Regulators were. McSween was killed, but Billy and others escaped the burning house. After that, the remaining Regulators continued the fight against the "House of Murphy." age 18   Later in 1878 Billy was present when Morris J. Bernstein was killed. After which he stayed at the Chisum ranch and, with his friends, stole horses and cattle from known Murphy partisans. age 18   Fall 1878 Billy came to the Texas panhandle, in the Canadian valley, where Chisum sent some cattle for grazing. age 18   Late 1878 into 1879 Billy made friends among the residents of Tascosa, Texas on the Canadian River, northwest of Amarillo. He sold Sheriff Brady's horse, Dandy Dick, to Dr. Henry F. Hoyt. The gang sold all the horses they had stolen. age 18-19 Early 1879 Billy and Tom O'Folliard returned to the Lincoln area and recruited new members to their rustling operation. age 19 Early 1879 New territorial governor of New Mexico published wanted list which included Billy, who was implicated in the murder of Sheriff Brady. age 19 February 1879 A momentary truce ended when Murphy partisans killed a lawyer named Houston Chapman. age 19 Early 1879 Governor Wallace arranged a meeting with Billy and promised a full pardon for all charges against him in exchange for his testimony against Chapman's murderers. age 19 Early 1879 Billy agreed to the meeting, allowing himself to be placed in custody at Lincoln, but then Chapman's killers escaped. age 19 Spring 1879 Billy was held in custody until his case came before the court... one of many regarding the Lincoln County War. age 19 Spring 1879 Billy had an arrangement with the governor of the territory whereby he had considerable freedom while awaiting a pardon. He eventually grew impatient, told the guards he was tired of waiting, got on a horse within their view and rode away. age 19 1879 Months later, Billy approached John Chisum in an attempt to collect $500 for his services with the Lincoln County Regulators. Chisum refused to pay. Billy helped himself to some of Chisum's livestock after that. age 19 January 1880 Billy killed a bounty hunter named Joe Grant in a saloon after Grant's gun misfired. age 20 1880 With a price on his head of $500, he was almost captured at the town of White Oaks, northwest of Lincoln. age 20 1880 After escaping capture, he seems to have shown up at the Greathouse Ranch, where Jim Carlyle died... Billy receiving the blame. age 20 Late in November 1880 Pat Garrett, Sheriff of Lincoln County, and a posse ambushed Billy's gang at Fort Sumner, killing Tom O'Folliard. Billy and others escaped. age 20-21 A few days later 1880 The posse caught up with the gang at Stinking Springs, 25 miles from Fort Sumner. A gunfight ended with Charlie Bowdre being killed. Billy and three others surrendered... being taken to jail in Las Vegas, then to Santa Fe before being moved to Mesilla for trial the following spring. age 21 Spring 1881 Billy was charged with the shooting of Buckshot Roberts, but it was dropped. Then he was tried and convicted for the murder of Sheriff Brady, and sentenced to hang... then being transferred to the courthouse and jail in Lincoln. age 21 April 28, 1881 Billy killed deputies John Bell and Robert Olinger and escaped. age 21 July 1881 John W. Poe, now aiding Pat Garrett, received an anonymous tip that Billy was hiding out at the home of Duvelina, an Indian slave and former sweetheart of Billy's at Fort Sumner. age 21 July 14 1881 Billy moved to the Maxwell Ranch to visit Celsa Gutierrez, his sweetheart. In the darkness of a room at the ranch house, Pat Garrett, recognized the voice of Billy and shot twice, killing Billy. age 21 1937 There were some Indians who thought their neighbor, John Miller, was an escaped Billy The Kid who lived until 1937. See book list below What Ever Happened To Billy The Kid? 1940's Ollie L. (Brushy Bill) Roberts indicated that he was Billy the Kid. No conclusive evidence was ever presented. It must be noted that Brushy Bill seemingly had facts about the Lincoln County War that were not available elsewhere. It must also be noted that differences between the two have been pointed out in that Billy was literate whereas Brushy Bill apparently was not. However, Brushy Bill had several diaries and had corresponded with a number of people... something that an illiterate could not do. The controversy still lives on.       Buy The Book Fugitives From Justice Books about Billy The Kid The Collected Works of Billy the Kid From the Publisher From the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient comes a visionary novel, a virtuoso synthesis of storytelling, history, and myth, about William Bonney, a.k.a. "Billy the Kid, " a bloodthirsty ogre and outlaw saint. "Ondaatje's language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets."—Annie Dillard. The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid From the Publisher Of all firsthand accounts of lawlessness in the old Southwest, none is more fascinating that Pat F. Garrett's The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. First published in 1882, a year after Sheriff Garrett killed the Kid, "the bravest and more feared" gunman of the Lincoln County, New Mexico, cattle war, it is at once the most authoritative biography of William H. Bonney and the foundation of the Billy the Kid legend Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life Description from The Reader's Catalog Utley, a distinguished historian of the American West, synthesizes all that we know of the obscure and troubled career of Henry McCarty, aka Billy Bonney, from his birth in New York's Irish slums to his death, aged 21, at the hands of Pat Garrett. A fascinating glimpse of the often sordid reality behind an enduring folk legend The Saga of Billy the Kid A reviewer, March 29, 2001, This book is great! This book is a must for any historian or 'fan' of Billy the Kid. While it is not completely historically factual it gives a great overview of his life and, considering that it was the second book ever written about him Walter Burns really did a bang up job. It is especially interesting because the book was written in the 1920's and Mr. Burns was able to interview some of the people who were involved in the Lincoln County War and who knew Billy the Kid. The only reason that I did not give this book 5 stars was due to the historical embellishments made by the author. I would really recommend this. Such Men as Billy the Kid: The Lincoln County War Reconsidered From the Publisher During the 1870s a group of merchants and their allies, known as "The House," gained control over the economy of Lincoln County, New Mexico. In 1877 this control was challenged by an English entrepreneur, John Tunstall. The House violently resisted the interloper, eventually killing him; Tunstall's employees and supporters, known as the Regulators, sought to take vengeance on the House by killing those responsible for Tunstall's death. Among the Regulators was a young man known as Billy the Kid. This story of greed, violence, and death has entered American folklore through the mythologizing of the career of Billy the Kid and also through a tendency to see the Lincoln County War as an archetype of Western history. As are Dodge City, Boot Hill, and the OK Corral, the Lincoln County War is emblematic of frontier lawlessness. The story has been often retold, and central to many of the accounts is the question of right and wrong, even of good and evil; was Billy the Kid merely a thug, a gun-for-hire, in an amoral turf battle between rival gangs? Or was the Kid actually a participant in a brave but doomed attempt to wrest control of a defenseless town from a corrupt and vicious band? Jacobsen investigates the evidence - expressions of public sentiment, court records, and the actions of Tunstall and the House - in order to evaluate the competing traditions ("Billy as martyr," "war among thieves"). By so doing, he finds that - as with most things in life - the truth lies somewhere between. The Real Billy the Kid: With New Light on the Lincoln County War From the Publisher Miguel Antonio Otero, Jr. (1859-1944), the scion of a powerful Nuevomexicano family, served two terms as Governor of New Mexico Territory. But many years before that, he met a less fortunate young man almost exactly his own age: a shackled prisoner named William H. Bonney, Jr., but better known as Billy the Kid. "I liked The Kid very much," Otero writes of his encounter, adding: "Nothing would have pleased me more than to have witnessed his escape." First published in a limited edition in 1936, The Real Billy the Kid is a landmark biography of the infamous Western outlaw: his brief childhood, gunfights, encounters with the Apaches, entanglement in the murderous feud known as the Lincoln County War, and finally his friendship with the man who ultimately killed him, Sheriff Pat Garrett. History of "Billy the Kid" Sarah (cuddlebug2005@excite.com), February 1, 2001 A great, and very factual book I thought this was a very good book, despite the many errors and mis-establishments of Billy the kid's life! A must-have for any Billy the kid fan! Whatever Happened to Billy the Kid Synopsis The author argues that Billy the Kid was not killed by a sheriff in 1881 "after escaping jail and cheating the hangman. . . . Her thesis is that the lawman shot a different man, and in support of it she takes testimony from residents near Zuni, New Mexico. They think a John Miller, a neighboring rancher who died in 1937, was the Kid living under an alias." The Billy the Kid: The Legend of El Chivato From the Publisher In Billy the Kid: The Legend of El Chivato Elizabeth Fackler has re-created the wild lawless West where good men found that the only answer to corruption and violence was brute force. Billy's story, epic in scope, echoing the vast grandeur of the magnificent country in which it is set, traces the chain of events that inexorably shaped Billy and pitted him against a treacherous society that threatened those he cared for. We are adding books on other Outlaws, so check each one for list.

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