APACHE KID:
Said to have been the fiercest Apache next to Geronimo, as well as a notorious outlaw of the late 19th century, was the Apache Kid.Born in the 1860’s on the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona, the “Kid” was most likely of the White Mountain Apache. Named Haskay-bay-nay-natyl, "the tall man destined to come to a mysterious end," the pronunciation was too much for the citizens of Globe, who simply called him "Kid." Learning English at an early age, he worked at odd jobs in Globe and was soon befriended by the famous scout, Al Sieber.
At that time, early settlers of the Southwest faced numerous raiding bands of Apaches and General George Crook had come up with the idea to use Apaches to fight other Apaches. Enlisting Apache Indians from San Carlos and other reservations, the enlisted scouts could locate the trails that the hunted Apaches traveled.
In 1881, the Kid enlisted in the Indian Scouts and was so good at the job that he was promoted to sergeant in July, 1882. The following year he accompanied General George Crook on the expedition of the Sierra Madre.
The Geronimo Campaign of 1885-1886 found the Kid in Mexico early in 1885 with Sieber, and when the Chief of Scouts was recalled in the fall, Kid rode with him back to San Carlos. He re-enlisted with Lieutenant Crawford's call for one hundred scouts for Mexican duty, and again went south in late 1885. In the Mexican town of Huasabas, on the Bavispe River, the Kid nearly lost his life in a drunken riot in which he had been a participant. Rather than see the Apache Kid shot by a Mexican firing squad, the judge fined him twenty dollars, and the Army sent him back to San Carlos.
In May, 1887 the Apache Kid was left in charge of the Indian Scouts and guardhouse at San Carlos when Captain Pierce and Al Sieber, an anglo scout, were both gone on business. Though the brewing of tiswin, a beverage made of fermented fruit or corn was illegal on the reservation, with the white officers gone, the Indian Scouts decided to have a party. With the liquor flowing freely, a man named Gon-Zizzie killed the Apache Kid’s father, Togo-de-Chuz. Kid’s friends, in turn, killed Gon-Zizzie. However, the killing of Gon-Zizzie was not enough for the Apache Kid, who then went to the home of Gon-Zizzie’s brother, Rip, and killed him.
When the Apache Kid and the four other scouts returned to San Carlos on June 1, 1857, both Captain Pierce and Al Sieber were there ahead of him. Captain Pierce ordered the scouts to disarm themselves and the Kid was the first to comply. As Pierce ordered them to the guardhouse to be locked up, a shot was fired from the crowd who had gathered to watch the display of events. In no time, the shots became widespread and Al Seiber was hit in the ankle, which ended up crippling him for life. During the melee that followed, the Apache Kid and several other Apaches fled. Though it was never determined who fired that shot that struck Sieber, it was for sure not the Kid nor the other four scouts ordered to the guardhouse as they had all been disarmed.
The Army, reacting swiftly, soon sent two troops of the Fourth Cavalry to find the Apache Kid and the others who had escaped. For two weeks the cavalry followed the fugitives along the banks of the San Carlos River, when finally, with the aid of more Indian Scouts, located the Kid and his band in the Rincon Mountains.
The soldiers seized upon the Apaches' horses and equipment while the Indians fled by foot into the rocky canyons. In negotiations with the soldiers, Kid relayed a message to General Miles stating that if the Army would recall the cavalry he and his band would surrender. When Miles complied, the Apache Kid and seven members of his band surrendered on June 25th.
The Kid and four others were tried court-martialed where they were found guilty of mutiny and desertion and sentenced to death by firing squad. However, General Miles was upset over the verdict and ordered the court to reconsider the sentence. When the court reconvened on August 3, they were re-sentenced to life in prison. However Miles was still not satisfied and reduced the sentence to ten years. Beginning their sentence in the San Carlos guardhouse, they were later sent to Alcatraz.
However, their conviction was soon overturned on October 13, 1888, due to prejudice among the officers of the court-martial trial and the Indians were returned to San Carlos as free men. Causing an outrage among the citizens of the area, a new warrant was issued in October, 1889 in Gila County for the re-arrest of the freed Apaches for assault to commit murder in the wounding of Al Sieber.
At the trial on October 25, 1889, four Apaches including the Apache Kid were found guilty and sentenced to seven years in the Territorial Prison at Yuma. While being transported to the prison the Apache Kid, along with several others escaped. During the fighting that took place during the escape, the three guards, Glenn Reynolds, Eugene Middleton and W. A. Holmes, were overpowered. Glen Reynolds was killed, Middleton was wounded and Holmes apparently died of a heart attack. Middleton later recovered, saying the Kid had prevented another of the Apaches from "finishing" him by bashing his head with a rock.
The Kid and the others fled, their tracks obliterated by a snowstorm. It would be the last "official" sighting of Apache Kid, though unconfirmed reports of his whereabouts would contin
ue to filter in for years.
Apache Kid Wanted PosterOver the next few years the Apache Kid was accused of various crimes and said to have led a small band of renegade Apache followers, raiding ranches and freight lines throughout New Mexico , Arizona and Northern Mexico as he hid out in the Mexican Sierra Madre Mountains. Others insist that he became a lone wolf who was despised by his own people and was terribly feared by the Anglo settlers. Some accounts have the Apache Kid kidnapping an Apache woman until he tired of her, then killing her, before kidnapping yet another. Reportedly, the Kid preyed on lone ranchers, cowboys, and prospectors, killing them for their food, guns, and horses. Before long, a price of $5,000 was placed on his head by the Arizona Territorial Legislature, dead or alive, but no one ever claimed the reward.
It is impossible to determine how many of the crimes he is blamed for that he actually committed.
During an 1890 shootout between Sonoran Rurales (a branch of the army) and Apaches, a slain warrior was found to have Reynolds' pistol and watch, but he was too old to have been the Kid. After 1894, reports of his crimes came to an end. Some sources claimed he died at this time while others argue that he crossed into Mexico and retired to his mountain hideout.
In 1899, Colonel Emilio Kosterlitzky, head of the Rurales, reported him alive and living with other Apaches in the Sierra Madre. In the interim, there were several unconfirmed reports of his death - by gunshot or by tuberculosis. However, southern Arizona ranchers continued to report Apache stock raids into the 1920s
There are so many different variations of the crimes committed by the Apache Kid, all with the purpose of exacting revenge for the treacherous way in which the Apache scouts had been treated by the army, that even historians cannot agree on exactly what he was responsible for, nor when he died. Seemingly, his namesake "the tall man destined to come to a mysterious end" was a prophecy.
Though the questions are many regarding the death of the Apache Kid, a gravesite memorial can be found high in the San Mateo Mountains of the Cibola National Forest in New Mexico. Here is yet another place that the Apache Kid was said to have been killed, after having been hunted down by local ranchers angered by his relentless raids. Reportedly, to mark the site of the site of the Kid's undoing, the vengeful posse blazed a tree, the hacked remains of which you can see to this day. The grave is one mile northwest of Apache Kid Peak at Cyclone Saddle. (Kathy Weiser, owner/editor, Legends of America, http://www.legendsofamerica.com)
BILLY THE KID:
Patrick Henry McCarty, aka, William Henry Bonney, aka, Billy the Kid, was born on November 23, 1859, most likely in New York City. His parents’ names are not known for certain but his mother was thought to be Katherine and his father perhaps Patrick.
History then traces Billy to Indiana in the late 1860s and Wichita, Kansas in 1870. His father died around the end of the Civil War and at about the same time, Billy's mother contracted Tuberculosis and was told to move to a drier climate. On March 1, 1873, Catherine McCarty married a man named William Antrim, who moved the family to Silver City, New Mexico .
His stepfather worked as a bartender and carpenter but soon got the prospecting bug and virtually ignored his wife and stepsons. Faced with an indigent husband, McCarty's mother took in boarders in order to provide for her sons. Despite the better climate, Billy's mother continued to worsen and on September 16, 1874, she died of her condition.
After her death, Antrim placed Billy and his younger brother Joseph in separate foster homes and left Silver City for Arizona. At the age of 14, the smooth-cheeked, blue-eyed McCarty was forced to find work in a hotel, washing dishes and waiting tables at the restaurant The boy was reported to be very friendly. The manager was impressed by the young boy, boasting that he was the only kid who ever worked for him that didn't steal anything. His school teachers thought that the young orphan was "no more of a problem than any other boy, always quite willing to help with chores around the schoolhouse".
However, on September 23, 1875 McCarty was arrested for hiding a bundle of stolen clothes for a man playing a prank on a Chinese laundryman. Two days after Billy was thrown in jail, the scrawny teen escaped by worming his way up the jailhouse chimney. From that point onward McCarty would be a fugitive.He eventually found work as an itinerant ranch hand and sheepherder in southeastern Arizona. In 1877 he became a civilian teamster at Camp Grant Army Post with the duty of hauling logs from a timber camp to a sawmill. The civilian blacksmith at the camp, Frank "Windy" Cahill, took pleasure in bullying young Billy. On August 17 Cahill attacked McCarty after a verbal exchange and threw him to the ground. Billy retaliated by drawing his gun and shooting Cahill, who died the next day. Once again McCarty was in custody, this time in the Camp's guardhouse awaiting the arrival of the local marshal. Before the marshal could arrive, however, Billy escaped.
Again on the run, Billy next turned up in the house of Heiskell Jones in Pecos Valley, New Mexico. Apaches had stolen McCarty's horse which forced him to walk many miles to the nearest settlement, which was Mrs. Jones' house. She nursed the young man, who was near death, back to health. The Jones' family developed a strong attachment to Billy and gave him one of their horses.
Now an outlaw and unable to find honest work, the Kid met up with another bandit named Jesse Evans, who was the leader of a gang of rustlers called “The Boys.” The Kid didn't have anywhere else to go and since it was suicide to be alone in the hostile and lawless territory, the Kid reluctantly joined the gang.
He later became embroiled in the infamous Lincoln County War in which his newest friend and employer, John Tunstall, was killed on February 18, 1878. Billy the Kid was deeply affected by the murder, claiming that Tunstall was one of the only men that treated him like he was “free-born and white." At Tunstall's funeral Billy swore: "I'll get every son-of-a-bitch who helped kill John if it's the last thing I do."
Billy would enact revenge by gunning-down the deputy who killed his friend, as well as another deputy and the County Sheriff, William Brady. Now an even more wanted man than before, McCarty went into hiding but soon started to steal livestock from white ranchers and Apaches on the Mescalero reservation.
In the fall of 1878, retired Union General Lew Wallace became the new territorial governor of New Mexico. In order to restore peace to Lincoln County, Wallace proclaimed an amnesty for any man involved in the Lincoln County War that was not already under indictment.
Billy was, of course, under several indictments (some of which unrelated to the Lincoln County War) but Wallace was intrigued by rumors that McCarty was willing to surrender himself and testify against other combatants if amnesty could be extended to him. In March of 1879 Wallace and Billy met to discuss the possibility of a deal. True to form, MMcCarty greeted the governor with a revolver in one hand and a Winchester rifle in the other. After several days to think the issue over, Billy agreed to testify in return for an amnesty.
Part of the agreement was for McCarty to submit to a show arrest and a short stay in jail until the conclusion of his courtroom testimony. Even though his testimony helped to indict one of the powerful House faction leaders, John Dolan, the district attorney defied Wallace's order to set Billy free after testifying. However, Billy was a skilled escape artist and slipped out of his handcuffs and fled.
For the next year he hung around Fort Sumner on the Pecos River and developed a fateful friendship with a local bartender named Pat Garrett who was later elected sheriff of Lincoln County. As sheriff, Garrett was charged with arresting his friend Henry McCarty, who by now was almost exclusively known as "Billy the Kid".
At about the same time, Billy had formed a gang, referred to as the "Rustlers" or simply Billy the Kid's Gang who he survived by stealing and rustling as he did before. The core members of the gang, sometimes referred to as the "Rustlers," were Tom O'Folliard, Charlie Bowdre, Tom Pickett, Billy the Kid, "Dirty Dave" Rudabaugh, and Billy Wilson.
Billy The Kid Wanted Poster On December 15, 1880, Governor Wallace put a $500 reward on Billy's head and Pat Garrett began the relentless pursuit of the outlaw. Garrett set-up many traps and ambushes in an attempt to apprehend Billy but the Kid seemed to have an animal instinct that warned him of danger, but that was not to last.
On November 30, 1880, Billy the Kid's Gang, David Anderson, aka: Billy Wilson; and Dirty Dave Rudabaugh rode into White Oaks, New Mexico and ran into Deputy Sheriff James Redman. Taking shots at the deputy, Redman hid behind a saloon as several local citizens ran into the street, chasing the fugitives out of town.
As a posse gave chase, the outlaws hid out at the ranch of a man named Jim Greathouse, who they held hostage. Accosted at dawn by a posse, they traded their hostage, Jim Greathouse, for Deputy Sheriff James Carlyle who was volunteered to negotiate with the outlaws in attempt to give themselves up. Continuing to surround the house, the posse waited for hours.
Around midnight, the posse called out that they were going to storm the house. Just then a crash came through a window and a man came tumbling out. Shots ripped through the air and Carlyle lay dead. The bullet could have come from either the outlaws or the posse, but many suspect that the posse killed their own man. With this accident, the posse abandoned the siege and the outlaws escaped. Later Billy the Kid would be blamed for killing Carlyle.
Trailed by the resolute Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, Billy Wilson, Rudabaugh, Tom O'Folliard, Charlie Bowdre, and Tom Pickett rode wearily into Fort Sumner, New Mexico on December 19, 1880 and were confronted by Garrett's's posse which had been hiding in an old post hospital building. Pat Garrett, Lon chambers, and several others leaped from cover as Garrett ordered the outlaws to halt.
However, several of the posse members didn’t wait for the outlaws to respond to Garrett's demand, instead, opening fire on Pickett and O'Folliard, who were riding in front. Though Pickett survived to escape, O'Folliard lie dead in the dusty street. Rudabaugh's horse caught a bullet and collapsed. Rudabaugh managed to jump onto Wilson’s horse and he and the other outlaws escaped, holing up in an abandoned cabin near Stinking Springs, New Mexico.
Soon, the determined Garrett's and his posse tracked the outlaws down to Stinking Springs and surrounded the hideout. Inside of the house were Billy, Charlie Bowdre, Rudabaugh, Tom Pickett and Billy Wilson. When Bowdre passed before an open window, he was shot in the chest. The siege continued until the next day, when Rudabaugh finally waved a white flag and the bandits surrendered. Billy the Kid and his gang of "Rustlers" were captured on December 23, 1880 and taken to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Billy was jailed in the town of Mesilla, south of Santa Fe, while waiting for his April 1881 trial. Deliberation took exactly one day and Billy was convicted of murdering Sheriff William Brady and sentenced to hang by Judge Warren Bristol. His execution was scheduled for May 13th and he was sent to Lincoln to await this date. He was under guard by James Bell and Robert Ollinger on the top floor of the building formerly known as the House before and during the Lincoln County War. On April 28 Billy somehow escaped and killed both of his guards while Garrett was out of town. It is not known how Billy was able to do this, but it is widely believed that a friend or Regulator sympathizer left a pistol in the privy that one of the guards escorted Billy to daily. After shooting Deputy Bell with the pistol, Billy stole Ollinger's 10-gauge double barrel shotgun and waited for Ollinger by the window in the room he was being held in.
Ollinger obliged by running immediately from the hotel upon hearing the shots. When he was directly under the window of the courthouse, he heard his prisoner say, "Hello, Bob." Ollinger then looked up and saw the Kid gun in hand. It was the last thing he ever saw as Billy blasted him with his own shotgun killing him instantly.
Billy the Kids grave at Fort Sumer’s Cemetery
This would be, however, Billy's last escape. When Pat Garrett was questioning Billy's friend, Peter Maxwell on July 14, 1881 in Maxwell's darkened bedroom in Old Fort Sumner, Billy unexpectedly entered the room. The Kid didn't recognize Garrett in the poor lighting conditions and asked "¿Quien es? ¿Quien es?" (Spanish for "Who is it? Who is it?), to which Garrett responded with two shots from his revolver, the first striking Billy's heart.
Henry McCarty, the infamous "Billy the Kid", was buried in a plot in-between his dead friends Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre the next day at Fort Sumner's cemetery.
In his short life, Billy the Kid was reputed to have killed 21 men, one for each year of his life. However, many historians calculate the figure closer to nine (four on his own and five with the help of others. (Kathy Weiser, owner/editor, Legends of America,
Geronimo:
Geronimo was born of the Bedonkohe Apache tribe in No-doyohn Canon, Arizona, June, 1829, near present day Clifton, Arizona. The fourth in a family of four boys and four girls, he was called Goyathlay (One Who Yawns.) In 1846, when he was seventeen, he was admitted to the Council of the Warriors, which allowed him to marry. Soon, he received permission; married a woman named Alope, and the couple had three children.
In the mid 1850s, the tribe, who was at peace with the Mexican towns and neighboring Indian tribes, traveled into Old Mexico where they could trade. Camping outside a Mexican town they called Kas-ki-yeh, they stayed for several days. Leaving a few warriors to guard the camp, the rest of the men went into town to trade. When they were returning from town, they were met by several women and children who told them that Mexican troops had attacked their camp.
They returned to camp to find their guard warriors killed, and their horses, supplies and arms, gone. Even worse, many of the women and children had been killed as well. Of those that lay dead were Goyathlay’s wife, mother, and three children and as a result, he hated all Mexicans for the rest of his life.
It was the slaughter of his family that turned him from a peaceful Indian into a bold warrior. Soon, he joined a fierce band of Apaches known as Chiricahuas and with them, took part in numerous raids in northern Mexico and across the border into U.S. territory which are now known as the states of New Mexico and Arizona. It was those Mexican adversaries that gave him the nickname of "Geronimo", the Spanish version of the name "Jerome".
In ever increasing numbers, Geronimo fought against both Mexicans and white settlers as they began to colonize much of the Apache homelands. However, by the early 1870s, Lieutenant Colonel George F. Crook, commander of the Department of Arizona, had succeeded in establishing relative peace in the territory. The management of his successors, however, was disastrous.
In 1876 the U.S. government attempted to move the Chiricahua from their traditional home to the San Carlos Reservation, a barren wasteland in east-central Arizona, described as "Hell's Forty Acres." Deprived of traditional tribal rights, short on rations and homesick, they revolted.
Spurred by Geronimo, hundreds of Apaches left the reservation and fled to Mexico, soon resuming their war against the whites. Geronimo and his followers began ten years of intermittent raids against white settlements, alternating with periods of peaceful farming on the San Carlos reservation.
In 1882, General George Crook was recalled to Arizona to conduct a campaign against the Apaches. Geronimo surrendered in January 1884, but, spurred by rumors of impending trials and hangings, took flight from the San Carlos Reservation on May 17, 1885, accompanied by 35 warriors, and 109 other men, women and children.
During this final campaign, at least 5,000 white soldiers and 500 Indian auxiliaries were employed at various times in the capture of Geronimo's small band. Five months and 1,645 miles later, Geronimo was tracked to his camp in Mexico's Sonora Mountains.
Exhausted, and hopelessly out numbered, Geronimo surrendered on March 27, 1886 at Cañon de Los Embudos in Sonora, Mexico. His band consisted of a handful of warriors, women, and children. Also found was a young white boy named Jimmy "Santiago" McKinn, that the Indians had kidnapped some six months earlier in September. The "rescued" boy had become so assimilated to the Apache lifestyle, he cried when he was forced to return to his parents.
The soldiers gathered the group and began the trek to Fort Bowie, Arizona. However, near the border, Geronimo, fearing that they would be murdered once they crossed into U.S. territory, bolted with Chief Naiche, 11 warriors, and a few women and boys, who were able to escape back into the Sierra Madra. As a result, Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles replaced Crook as commander on April 2, 1886.At a conference on September 3, 1886, at Skeleton Canyon in Arizona, General Miles induced Geronimo to surrender once again, promising him that, after an indefinite exile in Florida, he and his followers would be permitted to return to Arizona.
The promise was never kept. Geronimo and his fellow prisoners were shipped by box-car to Florida for imprisonment and put to hard labor.
It was May 1887 before he saw his family. Several years later, in 1894, he was moved to Fort Sill in Oklahoma Territory where he attempted to “fit in.” He farmed and joined the Dutch Reformed Church, which expelled him because of his inability to resist gambling
Geronimo on way to Florida
Band of Apache Indian prisoners at rest stop beside Southern Pacific Railway, near Nueces River, Texas, September 10, 1886. Among those on their way to exile in Florida are Natchez (center front) and, to the right, Geronimo and his son.
Photo courtesy National Archives.
As years passed, stories of Geronimo's warrior ferocity made him into a legend that fascinated non-Indians and Indians alike. As a result, he appeared at numerous fairs, selling souvenirs and photographs of himself. In 1905 he was quite the sensation when he appeared in President Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade. Geronimo dictated his memoirs, published in 1906 as Geronimo's Story of His Life.
Never having seen his homeland of Arizona again, Geronimo died of pneumonia on February 17, 1909 and was buried in the Apache cemetery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. ). (Kathy Weiser, owner/editor, Legends of America,)
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