Billy the Kid
Billy the Kid's real name was Henry McCarty and he was born in New York City. His father died when he was a child. His mother moved West when she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, and was advised to move to a drier climate. Billy was 12 at the time. They moved to Silver City, New Mexico. On March 1, 1873, she married William H. Antrim. She operated a boardinghouse, and he worked in the mines. She died a year later.
After his mother died he quit school. He took up poker. He moved in with the Truesdall family, who operated the Star Hotel. Billy worked for his keep by waiting tables and doing kitchen chores.
In 1875, his first brush with the law occurred when he stole clothes from two Chinese men. He escaped from jail and was on the run ever after. About this time he changed his name to William H. Bonney.
On August 17, 1877, he killed his first man. This was near Camp Grant, Arizona at a saloon. The victim was a blacksmith named Windy. He had been constantly tormenting Billy, slapping him around and wrestling him to the floor. Finally Billy had enough and shot him. He fled town and wandered among the cow towns of New Mexico and Arizona.
Finally he arrived in Lincoln County, New Mexico. He arrived just about the time the Lincoln County "War" was about to heat up. It erupted because of the land monopoly by John Chisum, whose ranch was one of the largest in the west. Billy was working at the Coe ranch, one of the smaller ranches infringing on Chisum's space. The co-enemy was L.G. Murphy & Co. who the ranchers saw as unfairly inflating prices in their stores. John Tunstall, an Englishman who had set up a competing mercantile, took Billy in and outfitted him.
The war erupted in February 1878. Alexander McSween, a lawyer, had been retained by the late Lt. Col. Fritz's brother and sister to collect a $10,000 life insurance policy. Fritz was the partner of Murphy. McSween was on Tunstall's side. There was a delay of several months while McSween attempted to find out if there were any other heirs. Murphy & Co. persuaded Fritz's relations to sue for failure to pay the life insurance policy. In February, a "sheriff's posse," rode to the Tunstall ranch demanding payment of the debt with Tunstall's property. Billy and others urged him to fight, but Tunstall refused. While riding in to Lincoln with his herd, another Murphy
Latest Articles