tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76116869625543240332024-03-13T21:31:16.063-06:00Hillsboro Historical SocietyRide OnHillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-31605625919380132242015-03-01T15:07:00.001-07:002015-03-01T15:56:36.243-07:00Primary Sources and Anecdotes on Kingston's Mythical PastMuch has been written about Kingston, New Mexico. Since the 1970s, and perhaps earlier, stories in the popular press are usually ornamented with statements about the tiny berg being the largest town in New Mexico; having three newspapers; two dozen saloons; Twain and President Cleveland visiting.<br />
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For several years we've gathered historical information around Hillsboro, Lake Valley and Kingston, and it's oddly the latter where myths arose and persist. Most recently, New Mexico Magazine repeated these myths in a feature story.<br />
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Below is a collection of annotated primary sources that are listed in chronological order. Key dates to keep in mind: the east slope of the Black Range was prospected in the late 1870s; Kingston as a town came to life in late 1882. As a place name, it does not exist before August 1882. In 1893, the federal government changed its monetary policy and over night, the price of silver slumped, and the silver miners moved on. <br />
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We consider the information as either a "primary source," that is, information provided by a direct observation, or anecdotal, or a story passed along without direct observation (Ex: N.W. Chase's 1888 "Cornerstone" letter).<br />
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1882<br />
Kingston is but two months old in <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051703/1882-10-04/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=1880&sort=date&date2=1922&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=10&words=Kingston&proxdistance=5&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=kingston&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1" target="_blank">this Las Vegas <i>Daily Gazette</i> story</a>.<br />
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In October, the <i>Lincoln County Leader</i> reported <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87090072/1882-10-28/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=1881&sort=date&date2=1922&words=Kingston&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=1&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&proxtext=kingston&y=-223&x=-1023&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1" target="_blank">350 to 500 people in Kingston.</a><br />
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The Albuquerque <i>Morning Journa</i>l reports 50 house built in a day; <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063567/1882-10-14/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=1877&sort=date&date2=1922&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=0&words=5%2C000+KINGSTON+Kingston&proxdistance=50&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Kingston+5000&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1" target="_blank">reporter speculates arrivals could go to 100 persons per day.</a><br />
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The Albuquerque <i>Morning Journal</i> reports only <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063567/1882-11-14/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1879&index=17&date2=1922&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=Kingston&proxdistance=10&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&ortext=kingston+Chinese&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=kingston&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1" target="_blank">45 men working in the mines in November</a>.<br />
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An estimated 1,200 people are in Kingston in this <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063567/1882-11-15/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=01%2F01%2F1882&sort=date&date2=12%2F31%2F1882&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=13&words=KINGSTON+Kingston&proxdistance=5&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=kingston&dateFilterType=range&page=2" target="_blank">Albuquerque <i>Morning Journal</i> story</a>.<br />
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The <i>Rio Grande Republican</i> reports in November, an <a href="http://www.newspapers.com/image/38669320/?terms=kingston" target="_blank">estimated 5,000 folks in Kingston</a>.<br />
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A correspondent for the <i>Engineering and Mining Journal</i> <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=3kfnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA319&dq=14+grocery+stores+kingston+nm&hl=en&ei=uxPfTd61CsK1twffn4SRCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CE4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=kingston&f=false" target="_blank">documented his November 22 visit</a>.<br />
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This December story notes <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051703/1882-12-07/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1880&sort=date&date2=1922&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=16&words=Kingston&proxdistance=5&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=kingston&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=3" target="_blank">150 families in Kingston.</a><br />
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Kingston <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051703/1882-12-12/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=01%2F01%2F1882&sort=date&date2=12%2F31%2F1882&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=13&words=Kingston&proxdistance=5&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=kingston&dateFilterType=range&page=3" target="_blank">closes out the year with a party.</a><br />
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1883<br />
This <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ED8sAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA9&dq=kingston+town+company+new+mexico&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GCl7VKLuINeHsQSSqIKwDQ&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=kingston%20town%20company%20new%20mexico&f=false" target="_blank">prospectus on Kingston was published in early 1883</a> by Kingston Tribune editor, Charles Greene. By the end of 1883, he had moved his newspaper to Deming.<br />
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The <i>Black Range</i> expected solid growth of <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87090373/1883-03-16/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1836&sort=relevance&date2=1922&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn87090373&index=4&words=City+Percha&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=percha+city&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=7" target="_blank">Kingston and nearby Percha City.</a><br />
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1884<br />
This McKinney business gazetteer covers Hillsboro and Lake Valley businesses, but <a href="https://archive.org/stream/cihm_17236#page/n1537/mode/2up" target="_blank">Kingston is curiously absent. It's awkward to use, but go to page 1456.</a><br />
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1885<br />
At the often reported height of Kingston's activities and population, this 1885 business journal reveals only 300 people in Kingston, jibing with the 1885 Territorial census that counted 329 people in Kingston and outlying Danville camp. <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=2CIzAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=new+mexico+gazetteer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yxZ7VJXANY_IsQSzwoDgAg&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=kingston&f=false" target="_blank">This journal provides an invaluable look at town business, listing names and occupations.</a> Go to page 322, but look elsewhere therein for more details on our area.<br />
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1887<br />
Where was President Cleveland when a prankster <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82000205/1887-01-25/ed-1/seq-1/#words=President+Cleveland&date1=1887&sort=date&sort=date&sort=date&sort=date&sort=date&sort=date&date2=1887&searchType=basic&state=&rows=20&proxtext=president+cleveland&y=11&x=11&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=13&index=5" target="_blank">signed his name on the Victorio Hotel register?</a><br />
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Kingston town <a href="http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx?dm_id=119378&sid=tayvoxu0.3f2&surveyDetailsTabIndex=1" target="_blank">plat survey conducted by the General Land Office.</a><br />
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George Rowell's newspaper directory shows the <a href="http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/imgsrv/download/pdf?id=uva.x004763553;orient=0;size=100;seq=698;attachment=0" target="_blank"><i>Shaft</i> serving a Kingston population of 725.</a><br />
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1888<br />
<i>The Gospel in All Lands</i> documents 1,000 people in Kingston, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=mLPM_OJeDwwC&pg=PA61&dq=kingston,+nm+rev+n.w.+chase&hl=en&ei=znKQTa7OO-SM0QHexf3ACA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">a narrative from Rev. N.W. Chase.</a><br />
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Rev. N.W. Chase penned a letter in 1888 for the cornerstone of the Kingston church, and cites that Kingston had 3,000 people a few years earlier. The original letter (no scan available) is in the Methodist archives in Albuquerque, and a copy is kept at the Black Range Museum.<br />
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1890<br />
The U.S. Census Bureau documents<a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html" target="_blank"> 633 people living in Kingston and 816 in the mining district; 37 Chinese people lived in Sierra County (less than 400 over the entire territory).</a><br />
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1891<br />
The Territorial Bureau of Immigration documents a <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=O0JOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22New+Mexico.+Bureau+of+Immigration%22&hl=en&ei=YUKiTZibMdPKiAK5jYWRAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CFUQ6AEwBA#v=snippet&q=sierra%20county&f=false" target="_blank">population of 5,132 in Sierra Count</a>y.<br />
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The American Newspaper Directory reveals that the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/americannewspape1891newy#page/474/mode/2up" target="_blank"><i>Shaft </i>served a Kingston population of 1,500.</a><br />
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1893<br />
The country falls into an economic depression; <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/07/panic-of-1893.html" target="_blank">silver prices slump and Kingston miners leave.</a><br />
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1894<br />
The Territorial Bureau of Immigration documents a <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=YY9QAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA215&dq=kingston+new+mexico+5,000&hl=en&ei=sOTYTceQBYLBtgfT6u3oDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=kingston%20new%20mexico%205%2C000&f=false" target="_blank">population of 1,000 in Kingston</a>.<br />
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1895<br />
Kingston fails to show up on maps and atlases until the early 1890s. It's on this <a href="http://www.livgenmi.com/1895/NM/state.htm" target="_blank">Rand McNally published 1895</a>.<br />
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1904<br />
This February 26, 1904 article from the Silver City <i>Enterprise</i> was misquoted in a story in the Hillsboro Historical Society's newsletter, December 2014. The 1904 article states that Kingston had a population of 5,000 in the 1880s. The newsletter article characterized this <i>Enterprise </i>story as there being that many living in Kingston in 1904.<br />
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1907<br />
History of New Mexico by George Anderson has Kingston at <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=C7Q1AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA759&lpg=PA759&dq=%22galles%22+lake+valley+new+mexico&source=bl&ots=4xDpMelKQr&sig=1SLMrD1WhRzPS0smdmdVwd3NHNY&hl=en&ei=yw8vTIy-OIWdlgezxMHJCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CC4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">1,800 people in 1882</a>.<br />
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1913<br />
The El Paso<i> Herald</i> reported that Kingston had a population of <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88084272/1913-05-23/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=1877&index=12&date2=12%2F31%2F1922&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn86064199&lccn=sn88084272&words=Animas+Hillsboro&proxdistance=50&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=animas+Hillsboro+&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1" target="_blank">2,000 in the early 1880s.</a><br />
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1919<br />
Hearst's magazine reports that Kingston swelled to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lrIiAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA3-PA33&dq=doheny+kingston+5000&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rDDzVLijEIOWyATo-4H4Ag&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=doheny%20kingston%205000&f=false" target="_blank">6,000 people in the early 1880s.</a><br />
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1935<br />
New Mexico magazine states that Kingston had 1,500 residents (see Facebook cite below).<br />
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1936<br />
Black Range Tales says that 7,000 people lived in Kingston.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rLoZ3-nYnLg/VPN_zCAsArI/AAAAAAAAAwU/jqtfqXTR2X8/s1600/kingston041.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rLoZ3-nYnLg/VPN_zCAsArI/AAAAAAAAAwU/jqtfqXTR2X8/s1600/kingston041.jpg" height="640" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Silver City Enterprise 2/26/04 (part 1)</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iOtRLcb-hYw/VPN_04GvkLI/AAAAAAAAAwc/aCpXpfYLrGo/s1600/kingston042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iOtRLcb-hYw/VPN_04GvkLI/AAAAAAAAAwc/aCpXpfYLrGo/s1600/kingston042.jpg" height="400" width="397" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Silver City Enterprise 2/26/04 (part 2)</td></tr>
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You can find more documentation, census records and newspaper directories, on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hillsboro-Historical-Society/178407232361275?sk=photos_stream" target="_blank">Hillsboro Historical Society's Facebook site in the "Photos" section</a>. <br />
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You can read about the newspaper that tried to make a go of it in Kingston, <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/05/meet-press-kingston.html" target="_blank">in this previous post.</a><br />
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You should read beyond this arcana on the origins of Kingston's mythic population, and <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?date1=01%2F01%2F1882&date2=12%2F31%2F1882&searchType=advanced&language=&proxdistance=5&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=kingston&dateFilterType=range&page=1&sort=date" target="_blank">check out what some of the territory's newspapers were saying about the area for yourself. </a> You won't be disappointed. You'll read about the comings and going of folks, the values of the mines, the business successes and failures and an occasional killing. You can read about the newspaper that set up shop under a tree, a photo of which was in the most recent HHS newsletter. That press wasn't Kingston's first. You'll read what the observers saw and thought at the time--and how lucky we are to have that available to us.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ugyDXz-HgnI/VPOLxu_sMlI/AAAAAAAAAws/xMpk-T5WfxQ/s1600/Kingston%2B1890%2BBRM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ugyDXz-HgnI/VPOLxu_sMlI/AAAAAAAAAws/xMpk-T5WfxQ/s1600/Kingston%2B1890%2BBRM.jpg" height="216" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kingston, 1890, Starr Peak is visible to the east. Black Range Museum.</td></tr>
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<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-13219970341489511502014-09-07T07:39:00.001-06:002014-09-07T07:39:09.016-06:00Hillsboro Declared Disaster Area - 1972President Richard Nixon declared Hillsboro, New Mexico, a disaster area in September 1972. <a href="http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1973/0356/report.pdf" target="_blank">Click here to learn why.</a><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-99B-zr2KwcY/VAxeaOovFXI/AAAAAAAAAv8/2mXTvYjDBjI/s1600/photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-99B-zr2KwcY/VAxeaOovFXI/AAAAAAAAAv8/2mXTvYjDBjI/s1600/photo.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two Hillsboro youths wade Percha Creek near the NM 152 bridge, built in 1972. The flood of 1972 destroyed the former bridge and much property, and killed four people. It was the third major flood to hit Hillsboro. The others occurred in 1887 and 1914.</td></tr>
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<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-84384383138442786282014-08-19T06:20:00.001-06:002014-08-19T06:20:54.047-06:00Lee and Gilliland to be Tried againThey finally gave in the authorities. Oliver Lee and Jim Gilliland will be tried for the murder of 8-year-old Henry Fountain in a creative reenactment, two showings on Labor Day weekend, at the Hillsboro Community Center.<br />
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Who will determine their guilt? You.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">Tickets are $10.00 and may be purchased at the Hillsboro Historical Society Gift Shop (credit cards welcome!), the General Store Cafe, the Barbershop Cafe and Black Range Vineyards Tasting Room, all located in Hillsboro, New Mexico. You may send a check to Hillsboro Historical Society, P.O. Box 461, Hillsboro, NM 88042 (be sure to specify which performance date you prefer); your tickets will be secured and available at the "will-call" desk at the Hillsboro Community Center the days of the performance. For further information, please call the Hillsboro Historical Society at 575 895-3321.</span></div>
Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-46001896272351042652014-06-05T22:05:00.000-06:002014-06-05T22:05:40.017-06:00Belated Happy Birthday, HillsboroWe're late. Hillsboro celebrated a birthday on May 22. You can read about the anniversary in this 1906 Albuquerque newspaper story, below. You can read the <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020615/1906-05-30/ed-1/seq-6/#date1=1836&index=8&date2=1922&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=Animas+Hillsboro&proxdistance=5&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=Animas+Hillsboro+&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=3" target="_blank">entire page, here</a>.<br />
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Stitzel stayed in the area, and is buried in Hillsboro's cemetery. Yankie returned to his natal lands to live out the rest of his life near Hillsboro, Ohio. Yankie survived not one, but two ambushes by <a href="http://issuu.com/enchantmentmagazine/docs/september-2013" target="_blank">Victorio in September 1879</a>. His four-year-old daughter, Evangelina, was abducted by Apaches near Hillsboro in 1878, so said newspaper reports. If you know what became of Dugan, let us know. Comments are open to all.<br />
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<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-73990194068045727082014-01-17T05:56:00.000-07:002014-01-17T05:56:37.286-07:00Pat Garrett and Albert Fountain Murders Thread through HillsboroThe February 2014 issue of True West magazine will surely be of interest to Hillsboro and Sierra County historians. The magazine covers Sheriff Pat Garrett and Albert and Henry Fountain's murders. <div>
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Oliver Lee and gang are indicted and convicted in the magazine for <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/02/february-1-1896-remembering-fountain.html" target="_blank">murdering eight-year-old Henry Fountain</a>. Jim Gilliland who slit young Henry's throat ranched in eastern Sierra County and is buried in Truth or Consequences. The connections to Garrett's murder a decade later are made clear in the magazine. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.truewestmagazine.com/jcontent/images/resized/images/stories/feb-2014/assination-of-pat-garrett-murdered_300_200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.truewestmagazine.com/jcontent/images/resized/images/stories/feb-2014/assination-of-pat-garrett-murdered_300_200.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: True West Magazine, Feb. 2014</td></tr>
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The stories include Hillsboro judge, <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2012/01/judge-frank-wilson-parker-frontier.html" target="_blank">Frank W. Parker</a>. Parker presided over the Fountain and Garret murder trials. Parker owned the three lots in town next to the courthouse, including the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/HistoricMillerHouse" target="_blank">Miller House</a> and the <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-is-pinteresting-union-church-and.html" target="_blank">Union Church</a>. In fact, he donated the lot to build the church in 1892. He later moved to Las Cruces then Santa Fe to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.</div>
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Hillsboro pioneer Nicholas Galles, a Fountain associate, and the <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/12/nicholas-galles-father-of-sierra-county.html" target="_blank">father of Sierra County</a>, was a business partner with Judge Parker. Judge Parker was the godfather to <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cMFuOqXMYeI/Tt0UlUkn4sI/AAAAAAAAAaw/vQAryTvxlt0/s1600/Galles+girl+JC+Burge+photog+Kingston+1889+front.jpg" target="_blank">Galles' daughter Edith</a>. She married Las Cruces lawyer Mark B. Thompson. It was Thompson who unsuccessfully prosecuted Garrett's accused murderer, Wayne Brazel. And Brazel had something in common with Lee: defense attorney, Albert Bacon Fall. When Fall got in hot water in the <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/05/teapot-dome-literature-and-litigation.html" target="_blank">Tea Pot Dome Scandal</a>, Thompson was part of his defense team. His grandson, Mark B. Thomson III, is a frequent contributor to this blog.</div>
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The True West pieces are compelling stories with compelling photographs that you won't see in the online versions. These two stories are threaded through Hillsboro. You can read the part of the Garrett story, <a href="http://www.truewestmagazine.com/jcontent/history/history/history-features/6521-the-assassination-of-pat-garrett" target="_blank">here</a>, and some of the Fountain story, <a href="http://www.truewestmagazine.com/jcontent/history/history/classic-gunfights/6528-the-fountain-murders" target="_blank">here</a>. Get the print magazine at the news stand for the whole picture.</div>
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--Craig Springer</div>
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Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-25329086155709712782013-12-04T06:01:00.000-07:002013-12-04T06:01:38.779-07:00Required Reading: Log of a Timber CruiserWriter William Pinkney Lawson spent several months on the crest of the Black Range measuring trees for the nascent Gila Forest Reserve, today's Gila National Forest, circa 1912. He turned the experience into a book, <i>The Log of a Timber Cruiser</i>. It was published in 1915.<br />
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Though Lawson spent most of his time in the woods high in the Black Range, he writes about a murder in Hillsboro, his observations of an abandoned Kingston, and about some of the personalities he met along the way. Founder of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, called the book a "real record of real things."<br />
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Some of those real things including being treed by a mountain lion, facing the harsh elements, catching Gila trout, and getting cleaned up for a fandango and meeting girls at ranch on Black Canyon.<br />
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This is a must-read for a look into life a century ago. You can <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=9A8wAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+log+of+a+timber+cruiser&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Hh6fUuHEDKWGyAGF54CoCw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">read the book online</a>. Be sure to type in some local place names in the search box to read what Lawson saw. If you want a copy of your own, try <a href="http://aldosattic.com/" target="_blank">Hillsboro bookseller, Aldo's Attic</a>.<br />
--Craig SpringerHillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-89163189636711819562013-11-27T05:14:00.000-07:002013-11-27T05:14:27.323-07:00In the News: June 28, 1906<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bisbee Daily Review</td></tr>
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<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-38780124845306760082013-11-23T08:03:00.000-07:002013-11-27T05:18:52.549-07:00Kingston Plat 1887<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pHeGjrOXQrk/UpCxmhmBD0I/AAAAAAAAAt8/kMT8NOHY96s/s1600/NM230160S0080W00005-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pHeGjrOXQrk/UpCxmhmBD0I/AAAAAAAAAt8/kMT8NOHY96s/s200/NM230160S0080W00005-2.jpg" width="102" /></a>The General Land Office surveyed the Kingston townsite in 1887. The town was five years old. The resulting map illustrates where commerce was centered--and no surprises, on Main Street.<br />
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<br />The plat shows the position of mining claims that coincide with the townsite, that is, the mining interests beneath the town. The smelter site was on the north edge of town.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UySDi2FsWFk/UpCxtEIMBLI/AAAAAAAAAuI/W5-SRxWk7Ns/s1600/NM230160S0080W00005-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UySDi2FsWFk/UpCxtEIMBLI/AAAAAAAAAuI/W5-SRxWk7Ns/s200/NM230160S0080W00005-3.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kingston, 1887.</td></tr>
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<br />The map has another value in showing us today the siting of two businesses, the Printing Office and Photo Gallery, located next door to one another on the west end of town on the north side of Main. Look for lines surveyor's lines and notation that run northwesterly. <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/03/picture-history.html" target="_blank">The gallery was most likely owned by the prodigious photographer J.C. Burge.</a> A good many of his images are archived at the <a href="http://econtent.unm.edu/cdm/search/searchterm/Burge" target="_blank">New Mexico History Museum and viewable online</a>.<br />
<br />A couple of curiosities come to the fore looking at the town plat, and the another map of the entire 36-square-mile township map. One, the townsite is rather small; it's only 240 acres. Something else of note, the buildings are few.<br />
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The township map dated 1889, shows more of the mining claims beyond Kingston. Moreover, it shows outlying ranches, mail and stage roads, and the slaughter house east of Kingston probably where <a href="http://www.nmgenweb.us/contents/cantwell.shtml" target="_blank">Toppy Johnson infamously "laundered" stolen beef</a>. This map also shows the reservoir site west of Kingston.<br />
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If you would like to see the maps in their entirety, click on these links.<br />
Kingston's 240-acre <a href="http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx?dm_id=119378&sid=tayvoxu0.3f2&surveyDetailsTabIndex=1" target="_blank">townsite plat map, 1887</a>.<br />
Kingston <a href="http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx?dm_id=119366&sid=x5uk5tjy.15x&surveyDetailsTabIndex=1" target="_blank">township map, 1889</a>.<br />
--Craig Springer<br />
<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-33093242474061400832013-11-19T17:04:00.001-07:002013-11-21T06:36:47.592-07:00Kingston through the Eyes of a Reporter - 1882Kingston sprung from the wilderness with the finding of silver float. The townsite was platted in the latter part of 1882. The mining activity drew much attention from prospectors, capitalists -- and reporters.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87090072/1882-10-28/ed-1/seq-4.jp2" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87090072/1882-10-28/ed-1/seq-4.jp2" width="464" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lincoln County Leader, <br />
October 28, 1882. Library of Congress</td></tr>
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One such journalist writing for the <i>Lone Star</i> offers us <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87090072/1882-10-28/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=1881&sort=date&date2=1922&words=Kingston&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=1&state=New+Mexico&rows=20&proxtext=kingston&y=-223&x=-1023&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1" target="_blank">a very early glimpse into the economy and life style of the nascent mining camp called Kingston.</a> The writer remarked on title issues associated with the town's lots. Witness this curious remark: "One woman has taken a lot and built on it and refuses to pay for it. She is not being molested."<br />
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The story was reprinted in the October 28, 1882 <i>Lincoln County Leader</i>, published in White Oaks, New Mexico. -- Craig SpringerHillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-7889942127299450652013-11-15T11:05:00.001-07:002013-11-19T16:42:35.687-07:00Gavilan Trail 1889This portion of the 1888 township subdivisional survey plat map shows Gavilan Trail heading over the pass in the Mimbres Mountains. This is likely the trail taken by the U.S. Cavalry and posse on <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-tale-of-two-canyons.html" target="_blank">Nana's tail in August 1881</a>.<br />
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This was a well worn path. Stephen Watts Kearney and the Army of the West, with Lt. Emory, guided by Kit Carson passed this way in October 1846. In fact, they camped one night a few miles downslope to the east along Berrenda Creek. Harley Shaw in a previous post on Hillsboro History <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/10/army-of-west-or-this-day-in-history.html" target="_blank">referenced the published journals of soldiers</a> who made the trek in the Mexican War. Emory Pass was not used by Kearney, though it commemorates his army's endeavors.<br />
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The headwater stem of Macho Creek in sections 30 and 31 is now known as Pollock Creek in memorial to <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/05/operation-geronimo-10.html" target="_blank">Brady Pollock who was murdered by Geronimo </a>in September 1885.<br />
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On the <a href="http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx?dm_id=119685&sid=jdv0loat.oxv&surveyDetailsTabIndex=1" target="_blank">full version of the map</a>, those familiar with the history around Hillsboro, Kingston and Lake Valley will recognize some of the names on the map, those like Knight, Richards, Parks, and Latham. Parks Ranch, too, is associated Apache depradation. Ranch hand <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=OVLNhxrfX18C&pg=PA648&lpg=PA648&dq=%22jacob+hailing%22+ulzana&source=bl&ots=Cxa87YTxmo&sig=Tjobzb_JWe6sQWtNV2Xv4hcAqu0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=F_cjUZ6AM4KuqgHer4DgAw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22jacob%20hailing%22%20ulzana&f=false" target="_blank">Jacob Hailing was murdered in Ulzana's Raid </a>of November 8, 1885. -- Craig Springer<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gavilan Trail and the headwater of Macho Creek near Lake Valley, New Mexico. <br />
This is culled from the township subdivisional survey map, General Land Office. Surveyed January-Feburary 1889. T.18., R.8W. </td></tr>
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<span id="goog_1285405852"></span><span id="goog_1285405853"></span><br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-78382620478124197202013-11-11T09:40:00.000-07:002013-11-11T09:40:08.095-07:00Veterans of HillsboroIn keeping with this remembrance of veterans, here's a vignette of a former Hillsboro resident, the late Ernest Springer, who lived through the <a href="http://www.fws.gov/momentseverlasting.html?Section=Publications2&CONTENTID=26088&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm" target="_blank">historic Heart Break Ridge battle in North Korea</a>, September - October, 1951. Some Hillsboro, Lake Valley, and Kingston residents might remember him for his long walks.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DBArBqnVMtA/UoEGkn_oGqI/AAAAAAAAAtc/ENTbQo4iCsY/s1600/H1st+Texas+Reenactors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DBArBqnVMtA/UoEGkn_oGqI/AAAAAAAAAtc/ENTbQo4iCsY/s400/H1st+Texas+Reenactors.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reenactors commemorate General C.C. Crews, at his grave in Hillsboro.</td></tr>
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Springer is only one of several Hillsboro-area men and women who served in the military. Hillsboro's earliest, and in fact very first residents, were veterans of the Civil War, men like <a href="http://www.enchantment.coop/features/0913.php" target="_blank">Joseph Trimble Yankie</a>, David Stitzel, <a href="http://www.opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/custer-and-his-roommate-part-ways/?_r=0" target="_blank">James Porter Parker</a>, and General C.C. Crews. The first two were Union soldiers, that latter two were Confederates.<br />
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Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-55610677517208223002013-11-11T07:14:00.001-07:002013-11-11T07:14:15.658-07:00A Tale of Two Canyons<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Mark B. Thompson, III</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It seems fair to state that my great-grandfather, and Hillsboro, New Mexico politician, Nicholas Galles, was undoubtedly proud of his association with what I would call the defense against the Apache insurgency, 1860-1886. For example, both a 1902 <i>Santa Fe New Mexican</i> article, and his 19ll obituary in <i>The Rio Grande</i> <i>Republican</i> published in Las Cruces mention his involvement from 1877 through 1886. I have previously written that by time of the 1902 newspaper article he was certainly not “trumpeting” his involvement in the 1885, Geronimo, campaign. I decided to take a closer look at <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2010/06/nana-apache.html" target="_blank">the 1881 encounter with Nana.</a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As described in the Saturday, August 27, 1881, edition of <i>The Rio Grande Republican, </i>Galles was reported as “missing in action” after the August 19, 1881, battle with the Apaches: “Mr. Elias Blain of Hillsboro, who arrived here last Sunday furnishes the <b>Republican</b> the particulars of the fight at Gabilan cañon, between Lake Valley and Georgetown, a brief account of which was given in last Saturday’s <b>Republican</b>. [Note: Phonetic spelling of Gavilan and Spanish for canyon in original.]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“It appears the Indians rode right into Hillsboro and from a hill overlooking the town fired into the houses. Lt. G.W. Smith, with twenty troops and thirty-five merchants and miners of Hillsboro and Lake Valley started in pursuit of the Indians and when passing through Gabilan cañon, nine miles from Lake Valley, they were fired upon by the Indians concealed in the rocks. They were completely surprised and Lt. Smith and Mr. Daly and three soldiers were killed and four soldiers wounded. The troops and citizens scattered and twelve of the most prominent citizens are still missing, among them Mr. Nicholas Galles, one of the county commissioners of this county.” [Note: Hillsboro was part of Doña Ana County until <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/04/happy-birthday-sierra-county.html" target="_blank">Sierra County was created in 1884</a>.]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Both the 1902 and 191l newspaper accounts arguably cover the story of 1881 but without a clear date reference. The Galles 1911 obituary describes a battle in Grant County which could be a reference to the August 1881 encounter because it states that Galles had his horse shot out from under him but that he was able to hide from the enemy for the rest of the battle, was missing for several days and thought dead until his reemergence. [<a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89064939/1881-09-07/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1881&index=0&rows=20&words=Galles+Nicholas&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1881&proxtext=nicholas+galles&y=13&x=18&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1" target="_blank">Ironically, it was the report of his death in the New Ulm, Minnesota newspaper in September of 1881 that provided us with more background information on why the Minnesotan Galles had come to New Mexico about 1875.</a>] The obituary, however, says that 65 soldiers and “militia” died in the otherwise unidentified encounter which clearly did not happened in August 1881. The 1902 <i>New Mexican </i>article merely states that Galles was “present” at the encounter in which Lt. Smith and George Daly were killed.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If that tale seems strange, the fact is that the civilians at “Gavilan Canyon” generally come off looking bad. Historian Charles L. Kenner, <b><i>Buffalo Soldiers</i></b><i> and </i><b><i>Officers </i></b><i>of</i> <i>the </i><b>Ninth Cavalry, 1867-1898 </b>(1999), pp. 225-31, claims that Lt. Smith knew he was to wait for reinforcements but that George Daly called him a coward and threatened to lead the civilians out of Lake Valley in pursuit of Chief Nana and the Apaches with or without the cavalry. Kenner says that when the cavalry entered the canyon at 9:30 A.M. on the 19</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> with the “motley train of miners and cowboys,” many of the civilians “were still drinking.” He says that after Smith and Daly were killed in the opening salvo, “the miners either fled madly down the canyon or collapsed in fright behind boulders.” Historian Frank N. Schubert, <b>Black Valor: Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor, 1870-1898 </b>(1997), pp. 76-89, says that Lt. Smith knew better but had followed the “eager cowboys” into Gavilan Canyon and does not mention the “cowboys” continuing the fight after the initial killing of Daly.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Battles between Buffalo Soldiers and<br />Apaches in NM made national news.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One of New Mexico’s earliest history writers, Ralph Emerson Twitchell, apparently thought this was a story about the leadership of John B. McPherson, a Hillsboro merchant and saloon keeper. Twitchell claims that McPherson was the leader of a group of forty citizens who accompanied the troop of forty soldiers into “Gavalan [sic] Canyon,” misstating the date, but mentioning the deaths of Lt. Smith and George Daly. <b>The Leading Facts of New Mexican History </b>(Vol. 2, 1912), pp. 438-39, n. 359. No other historian or history writer mentions McPherson and I suspect that McPherson’s living in Hillsboro until his death there in 1921 may have something to do with Twitchell making him the leader, when all others seemed to think it was George Daly.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Both Kenner and Schubert rely upon a documents found in the Medal of Honor files, documents available on microfilm at the National Archives & Records Administration in Washington D.C. or at three regional offices, but not the office in Broomfield, Colorado. I am guessing that Lee Silva, in his essay, “<a href="http://www.historynet.com/warm-springs-apache-leader-nana-the-80-year-old-warrior-turned-the-tables.htm" target="_blank">Warm Springs Apache Leader Nana: The 80-Year-Old Warrior Turned the Tables</a>,” also made use of the Medal of Honor affidavits and reports. Silva makes sense of the story by stating that the group left Lake Valley shortly after midnight, having spent the evening drinking at a local saloon, and that the ambush took place at about 10:30 A.M. He states one or two other civilians were killed and that George Gamble of Lake Valley, like Nicholas Galles, was also late getting back home and only after Gamble’s spouse had been told that Gamble was dead. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Lee Silva also deals with what is a “major distraction” with this story, where did the ambush take place? The original reports of the Army talk about “Gavilan Pass,” “Cavalaus Canon,” probably a misreading of a Spanish name, and “McEwer’s Ranch,” undoubtedly a misspelling of an early name for Lake Valley, McEvers Ranch. Historian Dan L. Thrapp, <b>The Conquest of Apacheria</b> (U. of Okla. 1967), p. 215, places the ambush at “Guerillo Canyon, fifteen miles from McEver’s Ranch.” Because there is no Guerillo Canyon on modern maps or in the USGS place name tables, I have no idea where he came up with that story. A more serious “problem” is that there is also no “Gavilan Canyon,” the name most often used in the histories, often misspelled and sometimes using the Spanish name. [“Gavilán” is Spanish for “sparrow-hawk,” but has other meanings and uses.]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Silva describes a route to “Gavilan Canyon” that probably would have taken about ten hours from Lake Valley and would be consistent with his story that the posse and Cavalry left the saloon shortly after midnight and encountered the Apaches about 10:30 AM. Just as importantly, Silva’s description is more or less consistent with the August 27</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> newspaper account putting the event about nine miles west of Lake Valley. Silva has the group going north to Berrenda Creek, then west to an unnamed spot, then south to Pollock Creek, which could then be followed almost to the summit of the Mimbres Mountains, then over the mountain (and the Grant/Sierra county boundary today) to Dry Gavilan Creek. The map below, courtesy of Gary O’Dowd, outlines what that route might have looked like. But some questions, given all of the factors described by Silva, still exist.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Potential route taken by Nana, posse, and Cavlary from Lake Valley, <br />over the Mimbres Mountains, August 1881. Courtesy Gary O'Dowd</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If this is a story of not just two but multiple canyons, it is also a story of at least two tales with the second being the more important. As you might have guessed, the second tale is what happened after Lt. George W. Smith was killed in opening minutes of the ambush. Both Kenner and Schubert, as well as Silva, tell us the story of the African-American “Buffalo Soldier” Brent Woods and how he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at “Gavilan Canyon.” See also, Bob Barnes' excellent portrayal in a “<a href="http://www.blackrange.org/The_Black_Range_Rag/Tales_of_Lake_Valley.html" target="_blank">Tale of Lake Valley</a>.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Although these authors of “military history” vary somewhat in the detail, they all explain how Brent Woods rallied the troops after the death of Lt. Smith and held off Nana and the Apaches for several hours before Nana decided that the better part of his valor was to abandon the fight. Another “side bar” story concerns the fact that it took the Army until 1894 to recommend Woods for the Medal of Honor. Kenner concedes that the contemporary Army record of Gavilan Pass barely acknowledges Woods valor. Schubert notes that, in reviewing the medal proposal in 1894, Major General John M. Schofield questioned the absence of contemporary reports on Woods and Gavilan Canyon but eventually decided the post-1881 evidence was persuasive. In reporting the awarding of the medal, <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87062244/1894-07-14/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1881&index=0&rows=20&words=Brent+Woods&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1894&proxtext=brent+woods&y=-223&x=-1026&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1" target="_blank"><i>The Washington Times</i> on July 14, 1894</a>, says it was awarded “By direction of the President.”</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buffalo Soldier and Medal of Honor recipient, Brent Woods, is honored at the New Mexico Memorial Garden in Albuquerque. Mark B. Thompson photo</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In addition to the sources cited above, </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Wikipedia</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> has an article on Brent Woods, and there are several photos online, most probably taken at or near the time he was awarded the medal. When he died in 1906 he was not given a military funeral nor a veteran’s grave marker and it was only in 1984 that his remains were reinterred in the Mills Springs National Cemetery in Kentucky. In 2011 he was honored by the creation of a statue now standing in the New Mexico Veterans Memorial Gardens in Albuquerque. I could be wrong, of course, but it seems to me that the “Buffalo Soldier” awarded a Medal of Honor for his bravery in an encounter with the Apaches in 1881 is largely ignored in New Mexico history.</span></div>
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Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-19053977229966622152013-03-19T05:38:00.000-06:002013-11-11T07:19:47.284-07:00Francisco Bojorquez: The Cowboy Sheriff of Sierra County<br />
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<b>Saturday, April 13, 3:00 p.m., at the Hillsboro Community Center</b></div>
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<b style="font-size: small;">Presentation by Karl W. Laumbach</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sponsored by the Hillsboro Historical Society</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><i>Francisco Bojorquez (l) with Hillsboro banker Gillespie</i></span></div>
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Francisco Bojorquez is a fading legend in the memories of old timers in Sierra County. Born in California, the son of Spanish émigrés, Bojorquez was raised in Sonora where he learned the skills of a <i>vaquero.</i> </div>
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Arriving in Sierra County in the 1880s, herapidly established himself as a top hand on local ranches and in regional "cowboy contests," where he pitted his roping and riding skills against the best cowboys in the Southwest. </div>
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The respect that made him foreman on large ranches employing Texas cowboys also propelled him into political office as county commissioner, state representative and finally, county sheriff. </div>
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Karl Laumbach, a graduate of New Mexico State University, spent nine years directing projects for the NMSU archaeology program before joining <a href="http://humansystemsresearch.org/" target="_blank">Human Systems Research, Inc.</a>, in 1983, where he currently serves as Associate Director and Principal Investigator for diverse projects. Among his varied research interests are northeastern New Mexico land grants, the pueblo archaeology of southern New Mexico, and the history and </div>
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archaeology of the Apache.</div>
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Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-52377664880259804642013-03-15T07:31:00.000-06:002013-03-15T07:31:43.604-06:00Nicholas Galles and the 1885 “Geronimo Campaign”<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Almost ten years before his death, the <i>Santa Fe New Mexican</i> ran a front page article about <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/12/nicholas-galles-father-of-sierra-county.html" target="_blank">Nicholas Galles</a> on June 21, 1902, with the banner “Men of the Hour in New Mexico.” The article contained a long paragraph detailing his “five years” as a captain in the New Mexico Territorial Militia, the predecessor of the New Mexico National Guard, during the “Indian Troubles.” Surprisingly, the article did not mention his work in the 1885 campaign, probably the best documented of any of the Galles military experiences. Perhaps not surprisingly, this neglect of the 1885 events, not to mention the several other “errors and omissions,” were carried over into numerous obituaries after his death on December 5, 1911. Had Galles decided that “1885” was “no big deal?” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On June 5, 1885, Galles wrote a letter* to New Mexico Territorial Governor, Edmund G. Ross, a former U.S. Senator from Kansas, later included in John F. Kennedy’s <i>Profiles in Courage</i> for his part in the trial of Andrew Johnson for impeachment. This letter, accompanied by a petition signed by 36 willing volunteers, sought creation of a militia cavalry company for the Hillsboro area. They did not get a cavalry appointment, but on June 10, 1885, Galles took the oath of office as a captain of Company G of the 1</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Infantry. (I wonder if they nevertheless rode horses?) The muster roll for Company G shows that 40 men in addition to Galles were enrolled, including the once and future Chief Justice of the <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2012/01/judge-frank-wilson-parker-frontier.html" target="_blank">New Mexico Supreme Court, Frank W. Parke</a>r, as well as the soon to be convicted felon, Julian L. (“Junee”?) Fuller. The four documents referred to can be found in the New Mexico Territorial Archives, together with a report from Galles which accompanied the eventual request for payment. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">What prompted the June letter and what was the role of Company G in the 1885 campaign? Fortunately the original of the report was later read and “relied upon” in Washington, but the microfilm version is almost illegible. I believe we must turn to the historians, something we needed to do any way, to get the basic “facts.” The writers on the Chiricahua Apache “wars” are legion, and I have relied primarily on one recent publication: Edwin R. Sweeney, <b><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=y7Ij7TlJdZ8C&pg=PT2&lpg=PT2&dq=cochise+geronimo+sweeney+ou+press&source=bl&ots=ESv0LI_cVW&sig=-rQ9RluNWbsGTWrcz35TqeaBG5w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VhpDUZC-FYeq2QXj6IH4BQ&ved=0CGwQ6AEwCQ" target="_blank">From Cochise to Geronimo: The Chiricahua Apaches, 1874-1886 </a></b>(Norman: U. of Okla. Press, 2010). Sweeney does cite his sources in detail and each paragraph of his 580-page book is so crammed with facts that you almost have to outline each paragraph in order to have some confidence that you know what you just read. If not the last word on the subject, it certainly seemed like a good place to start.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sweeney tells the 1885 story partly through the eyes of General George Crook of the U.S. Army. Sweeney, (p. 430), describes how on May 28, 1885, Crook left Prescott, Arizona to establish his field headquarters at Ft. Bayard, southeast of Silver City and west of Hillsboro, not knowing that Geronimo (and Chief Mangas) had left New Mexico for Mexico. Although the Galles letter to Gov. Ross is vague and general about the looming threat, it seems reasonable to assume that the prospective volunteers in Hillsboro were probably aware of Crook’s concerns and that Hillsboro might need to be defended. In fact, as described in detail by Sweeney, the focus of the story shifts to Mexico during the summer of 1885, but about September 5, 1885, it was determined that Geronimo was headed back into New Mexico (Sweeney p. 460).</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">At that point it was assumed that the Chiricahuas were probably headed to <i><a href="http://www.canadaalamosaproject.org/warm-springs-appache" target="_blank">Ojo Caliente</a></i>, north of Hillsboro, and the home of the Chihenne band before they were removed to the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. The first sighting was apparently in the Cooke’s range, the southern part of the Mimbres Mountains, about September 9, 1885. At that point neither U.S. troops nor militia were following Geronimo (Sweeney p. 462). On <a href="http://www.desertexposure.com/201209/201209_hillsboros_911s.php" target="_blank">September 11, 1885</a>, Geronimo’s men showed they were in fact traveling north when they attacked in several places, killing Brady Pollock near today's Pollock Canyon west of Lake Valley, then heading down Gavilan Canyon into the Mimbres drainage killing Martin McKinn and kidnapping his brother Santiago "Jimmy" McKinn. Geronimo then attacked further north in Gallinas Canyon, southeast of San Lorenzo. (Today you can roughly follow this path, and the Mimbres River, by traveling north on State Highway 61.) Finally, at least by September 12, 1885, the U.S. Cavalry from Ft. Bayard, militia from Hillsboro, and a small party of ranchers were in pursuit (Sweeney p. 464). Sweeney does not identify anyone in the militia from Hillsboro.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sweeney says that Geronimo and his men spent the night of September 12, 1885, “near the confluence of Sapillo Creek and the Mimbres” (p. 464). Given the route Geronimo was taking toward the northwest, Sweeney could have meant either the confluence of Sapillo Creek and the Gila, or another creek on the Mimbres. Sapillo Creek is on the Pacific side of the Continental Divide and drains to the Gila. In any event, Geronimo now realized that he needed to put some distance between himself and the pursuers and by the evening of September 13, 1885, he had arrived at the Black Canyon, about eight miles southeast of the Gila Hot Springs. On Monday, September 14, 1885, the Apaches had reached the junction of Little Creek and the West Fork of the Gila. According to Sweeney, the army and militia at that point gave up the chase (p. 464).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Geronimo and his men made it to Arizona by September 19, 1885, but by September 27</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> they were back in New Mexico, killing a merchant, A.L. Sabourne, at Cactus Flat, about five miles northwest of Buckhorn. (Today U.S. 180 runs through Buckhorn.) Apparently they camped in that area for about a week and Sweeney relates that “Geronimo’s party left for Mexico about October 6, 1885” (p. 471). As we shall see, the period between the September 27</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> and October 6</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> is important for the Galles story, but Sweeney does not give any indication that Geronimo had moved east toward Hillsboro from Buckhorn during this period. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Perhaps because Congress passed another pension provision for veterans (and widows) of the “Indian Wars” on March 4, 1917, the widow of Nicholas Galles, Harriett Stocker Galles, filed an application for a widow’s pension on January 12, 1918. The application said that Galles had served in the territorial militia “in 1885 and perhaps 1886.” This application was rejected on March 5, 1919, on the grounds that the “muster rolls in the State Archives fails to show the period of service.” The records in Santa Fe were eventually found and apparently a request for “reconsideration” was filed with the federal authorities. A preliminary decision was made on August 29, 1923, indicating that the service was “pensionable if period of 30 days is shown.” By November 13, 1923, it was determined that the period of service was only eight days, from September 30, 1885, through October 7, 1885, and a final decision rejecting the application was issued on August 26, 1924. Harriett Galles filed yet another application in June of 1927, but it does not recite any additional facts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small; letter-spacing: 0px;">The dates of September 30</span><span style="font-size: x-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"> through October 7</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> are consistent with a return of Geronimo to New Mexico on September 27</span><span style="font-size: 11px;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small; letter-spacing: 0px;">and his leaving for Mexico on October 6</span><span style="font-size: x-small; letter-spacing: 0px;">. It would make sense that the militia was “activated” on the September 30</span><span style="font-size: x-small; letter-spacing: 0px;"> because of the possibility of Geronimo moving toward Hillsboro, but, as we know (or believe), he stayed to the southwest of Hillsboro and then soon moved on to Mexico. What about the period of September 12, 1885 and September 14, 1885, when the militia had joined in pursuit of Geronimo up the Mimbres, etc? Was the militia, referred to by Sweeney, in fact Company G headed by Galles? As a matter of law, adding three or four days to the eight used for the pension application would have made no difference on the pension decision—it was still short of the required 30 days of service.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Even if the record had shown two-plus weeks of “active duty” during the 1885 campaign, Galles may have concluded that it was nothing to “brag about.” Sitting around and a few days chase on horseback obviously resulted in no encounter with Geronimo. Given the inclination of politicians to trumpet their “Indian Fighter” status, the absence of any mention of 1885 in the 1902 <i>Santa Fe New Mexican</i> article should give us pause. I have not confirmed that Galles served five full years as a captain in the militia during the period 1877-1882, as alleged in the 1902 article. There is, however, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=9ZwMDynuZBIC&pg=PA439&lpg=PA439&dq=twitchell+yankie+galles&source=bl&ots=D55Mk-j6e1&sig=Mf0Do9YEcaGIox9N3bQpRQ8qBM8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jiFDUe-tJYGG2wXdi4CgBQ&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=twitchell%20yankie%20galles&f=false" target="_blank">evidence of his participation in encounters with the Chiricahuas in 1879</a> and 1881, both of which, with mistakes, etc., are recited in the 1902 article and the subsequent obituaries. Geronimo was, and still is, the big name in this genre, but Galles may have decided it was better not to embellish his limited involvement in the 1885 encounters.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">*You can read the referenced 1885 letter to Ross is the book, <a href="http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/9780738579528/Around-Hillsboro" target="_blank">Around Hillsboro</a>.</span></span></div>
Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-91444094193904191702013-01-23T20:28:00.000-07:002013-01-23T20:28:12.115-07:00The Pancho Villa ConnectionIt's a storied invasion. Pancho Villa brashly attacked Columbus, New Mexico in 1916, killing several civilians, opening the wrath of the U.S. Army led by General Pershing.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4zKDtGMMIJg/UQCmbHNRgRI/AAAAAAAAAqE/N1jl2JyNz0w/s1600/4-27-1916_W-017_46_Berryman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4zKDtGMMIJg/UQCmbHNRgRI/AAAAAAAAAqE/N1jl2JyNz0w/s200/4-27-1916_W-017_46_Berryman.jpg" width="155" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Editorial cartoon 1916 LOC</td></tr>
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And there is a Hillsboro connection.<br />
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Druggist C.C. Miller, originally from Kansas, went to Columbus after pulling up stakes in Hillsboro. C.C. Miller sold his drugstore business to George T. and Ninette Miller (no relation that we know of), and in that family the business remained until the early 1970s, when their son, George A. Miller passed away. Today, the building is the Country Store and Cafe.<br />
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C.C. Miller left a vacancy in the hearts of friends and family. His friend, Dr. Stivinson, survived the attack, and had this to say: "We found the body of our good friend, C.C. Miller, the druggist, lying in the door of his store . . . Mr. Miller had been a particularly fine character."<br />
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Part of the connection to Hillsboro is still tangible in the holdings of the Black Range Museum. The museum has C.C. Miller's pharmaceutical certification, dated 1885. Be sure and visit the museum to see this gem and many others. It's a privately owned museum, and your donations are encouraged and appreciated.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C.C. Miller's Kansas pharmacy certification. Miller, a former Hillsboro druggist, was murdered by Villistas. Black Range Museum</td></tr>
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<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-26606578117645344822012-08-21T19:59:00.001-06:002012-08-21T19:59:54.388-06:00This is Pinteresting -- Union Church and the NM History MuseumPerhaps next to the Sierra County Courthouse ruin, the Union Church is probably Hillsboro's most recognizable architectural landmark. Its steeple is certainly the tallest manmade object in town.<br />
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The New Mexico History Museum, an active participant in <a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/188869778093877400/" target="_blank">Pinterest, recently posted this image on that web site.</a> If you visit Pintrest, type "Kingston" in the search box, too.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EHA05zMMcG8/UDQ4yGu3cyI/AAAAAAAAApg/rrnBziNt3S4/s1600/188869778093877400_XSOvkAQO_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EHA05zMMcG8/UDQ4yGu3cyI/AAAAAAAAApg/rrnBziNt3S4/s1600/188869778093877400_XSOvkAQO_c.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Union Church, built 1892, on Elenora St. Hillsboro NM.<br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #211922; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Palace of the Governors Photo Archives 067561.</span></td></tr>
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It was taken by David Sullenberger in 1976. While for some readers, that recent of a year may not seem long enough ago to be "historic," the image arguably offers a look of how the building appeared then, compared to now --- and there's not much difference. And one can argue that that's a good thing for this grand brick building nestled high on Elenora Street.<br />
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The property was once owned by <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2012/01/judge-frank-wilson-parker-frontier.html" target="_blank">Justice Frank W. Parker</a>. Perhaps we'll have a history of the Union Church some day soon. The Hillsboro Historical Society possesses historic deeds and organizational papers of the church, thanks the Rev. Russ Bowen, a current pastor.<br />
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If you hanker for something really historic, then you will appreciate this image from inside the Union Church. Here again, doesn't look much different than it does now. If you know who this preacher is, do let us know via the comments section found below each posting, or email me. -- Craig Springer<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MFlGDrvRBUk/UDQ6a0OJnlI/AAAAAAAAApo/3BgbHawkHLw/s1600/A+Inside+Unitarian+Church.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="252" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MFlGDrvRBUk/UDQ6a0OJnlI/AAAAAAAAApo/3BgbHawkHLw/s400/A+Inside+Unitarian+Church.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the Union Church in Hillsboro, New Mexico. These chairs are still used every Sunday for two services. The clergy's name and photo date are unknown. Black Range Museum</td></tr>
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<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-17445966965438837082012-08-15T16:08:00.000-06:002012-08-19T05:51:30.412-06:00So, what did Abner Tibbetts do for Hillsboro -- and New Mexico?<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">By Mark B. Thompson III</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Even if you are a dedicated Hillsboro “history buff” you are probably saying to yourself, “never heard of him.” But there they are, Abner Tibbetts and his wife Marian, in the 1880 census living in “Hillsborough” with Abner described as a “general merchant.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Still rings no bells? The census taker, the lawyer Edward E. Furman, includes them in what looks like a boarding house given the number of persons, 29, including Furman himself, listed under one address. On the other hand, 29 people would require a pretty big house and none are listed as boarders or with some “relationship” to the first name at the address, George Perrault. One other clue—also listed is Nicholas Galles, a partner of Perrault, and, like Tibbetts, a onetime resident of Minnesota. Were they all living under one roof, and what was Abner Tibbetts doing in Hillsboro in June of 1880?</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abner Tibbetts, front-center, had an influence on Hillsboro history. El Paso Public Library Otis A. Aultman Collection</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">As befitting someone who just shows up in the 1880 census in Hillsboro, little appears to be known about the early life of Abner Tibbetts. I believe that he was born about 1823 in Penobscot County Maine, the son of Joseph and Sarah (Crane) Tibbetts and that he is found in their household in the 1850 census. He married Marian Lewis in Racine Wisconsin on March 31, 1852, and then moves further west to Wabasha County Minnesota in 1855. The 1857 Minnesota census does not list his occupation but the 1860 federal census for Wabasha County describes him as a “farmer.” During this time he apparently participates in the founding of Lake City in Wabasha County and <i>The History of Wabasha County </i>contains a rather vague description of his “political activities.”(1) </span></span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In one way or another, it is through his political connections and activities that we can construct a biography of Tibbetts, revealing his relevance to Hillsboro history.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Coincidently with Tibbetts locating in Wabasha County, two Republican politicians settle in adjoining counties, Goodhue to the north and Winona to the south. In 1855, lawyers Warren Bristol and William Windom moved to Red Wing, Goodhue County and Winona, Winona County, respectively. Bristol had moved from Hennepin County (Minneapolis) and Windom from Ohio, and both had practiced law before moving to southeastern Minnesota. Bristol had served as a district attorney in Hennepin County and had been prominent in the founding of the Republican Party in Minnesota in 1854.(2) </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Red Wing is just up the road from Lake City and, if Tibbetts was inclined to Republican Party politics, he undoubtedly met Bristol “early on.”</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is an association with Windom, however, which probably explains how Tibbetts obtained his first presidential judiciary appointment.(3) </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Windom, at age 31, was elected a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1858, a position he would hold for ten years.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Undoubtedly at Windom’s suggestion, President Abraham Lincoln nominated Tibbetts to be the Register of Public Lands for the General Land Office at St. Peter, Minnesota and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 27, 1861.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nicholas Galles and George Perrault kept shop on Hillsboro's Main Street. Black Range Museum.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Tibbetts resigned his position in St. Peter on April 15, 1865, and was back in Lake City in time for the Minnesota census in June of that year. Other than “farming,” we know little of his activity back in Wabasha County but on April 5, 1869, his nomination by President U.S. Grant to be Register of Public Lands, again at St. Peter, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. During this tenure, the office was moved slightly further west to New Ulm in Brown County Minnesota. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the 1870 census, Abner and Marian, with daughter Jennie May, can be found just six houses from the William Galles family, including <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/12/nicholas-galles-father-of-sierra-county.html" target="_blank">twelve year old Nicholas Galles. Therein lies a significant link to Hillsboro history.</a> As we know, Abner and Marian will be even closer to Nick Galles in 1880 in Hillsboro, but first we need to consider some relevant connections of Tibbetts to New Mexico before 1880.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Perrault (l) and Galles inside their Hillsboro mercantile. Black Range Museum</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">A Register of Public Lands was appointed to a four-year term and served at the pleasure of the President. Tibbetts' second term would have ended in April of 1873.(4) </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In August of 1874, his daughter, Jennie May, married William Gregory Walz in Wabasha County, the Tibbetts home before the move to New Ulm.</span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Walz was from Mankato, Minnesota, a town roughly half-way between Lake City and New Ulm.</span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In the 1875 Minnesota census, Jennie and William, together with their son Harry born in April, are living with William’s parents in Mankato.</span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Also listed at that address are Jennie’s parents, Abner and Marian Tibbetts.</span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">This may have given them a “base of operations,” but at least Abner appears to be “on the road.”</span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">His travels, in addition to his daughter’s marriage into the Walz family, are what may interest New Mexicans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The April 4, 1875 edition of the <i>Mesilla News </i>related that the “Hon. A. Tibbetts and N. Galles from Lake City, Minnesota arrived in Mesilla in good health and spirits, and have decided to make their future home with us.”(5) </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In a letter from Mesilla dated March 23, 1875, Tibbetts wrote his son-in-law about his impressions of New Mexico.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">He did not mention Galles, but he did have some <a href="http://www.leg.mn/archive/LegDB/Articles/11430Essay.pdf" target="_blank">good news about Warren Bristol who had been in New Mexico as a territorial judge for three years</a>.(6) </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We know that Nicholas Galles did stay in New Mexico, living first in Socorro, then Mesilla and eventually taking part in the founding of Hillsboro in northern Doña Ana County, but it is not clear that Tibbetts stayed at that time.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We may surmise, however, that his mostly positive reports about New Mexico influenced the Walz family of Mankato, Minnesota, especially William’s younger siblings, Julia A. and Edgar A. Walz..</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is probably not surprising that most of what we know about Julia Walz is from a chapter devoted to her in a biography of her husband, Thomas B. Catron, perhaps the most powerful man in New Mexico from about 1870 to 1915. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Supposedly Tom Catron met the then 18-year-old Julia Walz in Mesilla, New Mexico where she was teaching school in 1875.(7)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Mesilla in 1875? What a coincidence!</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Catron, originally from Missouri, had lived in Mesilla until 1869 when he was appointed Attorney General by the governor and had moved to Santa Fe.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">He was serving as the U.S. Attorney in 1875 and undoubtedly had business in Mesilla. According to the story, Julia returned to the Midwest to attend college but on April 28, 1877, she and Tom Catron were married in Mankato, Minnesota.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Edgar A. Walz, often referred to as “E.A.,” had just turned 18 on March 3, 1877, but, according to his memoir, he had left home in 1873 and worked for the Chicago & North West Ry. in St. Paul, Minnesota. Unfortunately, he does not describe how either he or sister Julia became interested in New Mexico</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">.(8) He played a minor, if well-documented, role in the Lincoln County War, 1878-79, as the representative of his brother-in-law Tom Catron, who was a financial backer of the Dolan/Riley/Murphy faction.(9) </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">After their marriage in 1880 in Mankato, Edgar brought his new bride, Louella, to New Mexico and their two children were born there, but Edgar mostly lived out his life in California.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">He clearly was a “jack of all trades,” and is credited with creating a company to help innkeepers deal with “deadbeats.”</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">His company, originally the National Debtor Record Company, exists today as the Gelco Expense Management Company with headquarters in Minnesota.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Unfortunately, the end of the 1870s also came with significant disruption for the older brother, William Walz. He and Jennie May (Tibbetts) had their second child, also named Jennie, on February 27, 1877, but then, on December 13, 1879, Jennie May (Tibbetts) Walz died in Mankato. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Although I failed to determine whether his mother and father divorced or if his father had died, I found William’s children, Harry and Jennie, living with William’s mother in New Haven, Connecticut in 1880.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Madeline Walz is listed in the 1880 census as “single,” not widowed or divorced.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I have been unable to determine the location of William in 1880; he was not with his in-laws in Hillsboro, but that will change shortly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In March of 1869, William Windom was appointed to fill an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate and he then was chosen by the Minnesota legislature to a full term in 1871. He was re-elected in 1877 and then, with the inauguration of President Garfield in March of 1881, he resigned his Senate seat and was confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury. The Treasury Department was responsible for the collection of customs at the U.S. borders and, of course, Windom’s good friend Abner Tibbetts was immediately nominated by President Garfield to be a Collector of Customs at El Paso, Texas. Tibbetts' nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 19, 1881, and thus ended his sojourn in Hillsboro, New Mexico. At some point during his time in El Paso, he followed what appears to be a fairly common practice in the West and gave himself a military title.(11) </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Tibbetts became “Colonel Tibbetts” and, as the circa 1883 photo of Tibbetts with several lawmen in El Paso shows, he looked like he had been “cast” for the part.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Having hitched his wagon to the Windom star, it was not surprising that Tibbetts would be affected by that star’s changing orbit. Windom only served as Treasury Secretary until November of 1881,(12)</span></span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> leaving to once again represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate. Windom shortly lost favor with the Minnesota politicians and was out of the Senate in 1883. He moved to New York City to practice law but also became involved in the railroad business. Receiving an offer from Windom he could not refuse, Tibbetts, on February 21, 1884, submitted his resignation as Collector of Customs to take a position with the El Paso, St. Louis & Chicago R.R.Co.(13) </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">The railroad company was involved in a major project which would link central Mexico to Topolavampo on the Pacific coast.</span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">On April 25, 1886, Tibbetts, now president of the railroad company, died of a heart attack while traveling with Senator Windom on a train near Fresnillo, Mexico.(14)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">End of story? Of course not, at least not if you are interested in the legacy of Abner Tibbetts. His son-in-law, William Gregory Walz, followed Tibbetts to El Paso and worked for him in the customs office. William lived out his life in El Paso, remarrying and having several more children, who were joined at some point by their half-brother Harry Walz. William Walz died on July 5, 1913, and is buried in the Evergreen Alameda Cemetery in El Paso. Harry Walz, perhaps influenced by his uncle, Edgar A. Walz, ended up in California where he died on January 8, 1947, and is buried in the Los Angeles National Cemetery. Harry’s sister, Jennie, was in effect “adopted” by her aunt, Julia (Walz) Catron, and lived much of her early life in Santa Fe. Julia Catron died on November 8, 1909, in Santa Fe and Jennie (Walz) Turner died in San Bernadino, California on July 18, 1969.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">So what is the answer to the question posed in the title? Perhaps the reader might say the answer is “nothing.” On some level it is hard to quibble with that answer, but a more nuanced answer might be justified. We know that Tibbetts brought Nicholas Galles to New Mexico in 1875 and <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html" target="_blank">Nicholas Galles made a decent contribution to the territory, including Hillsboro</a>, before his death in 1911. It may not even rise to the level of a good hypothesis, but I strongly suspect that Tibbetts played a role in introducing Julia Walz to New Mexico and Thomas B. Catron. </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_589182317"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Catron served the </span><span style="font-size: large;">prosecution</span></a><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/02/february-1-1896-remembering-fountain.html" target="_blank"> in the infamous trial of Oliver Lee and Jim Gilliland in Hillsboro in 1899.</a> As</span><span style="font-size: large;"> her page one obituary in <i>The Santa Fe New Mexican,</i> November 8, 1909, suggests, Julia Walz Catron made a significant contribution during her 32 years in that city. Julia is buried in the Catron mausoleum in the Fairview Cemetery on Cerrillos Road in Santa Fe. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>1</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> History of Wabasha County (1884), p. 1291.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>2</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> See my essay on Warren Bristol on the website of the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library,</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.leg.state.mn.us/legdb/fulldetail.aspx?ID=11430">http://www.leg.state.mn.us/legdb/fulldetail.aspx?ID=11430</a></span></div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>3</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> After Tibbetts’ death, it was widely reported that Windom had been a “student” of Tibbetts in Minnesota. I question that story for two reasons. First, they lived in different counties. Secondly, Windom, according to his Congressional biography, had been admitted to the bar and commenced his legal career in Mount Vernon, Ohio in 1850. It seems unlikely that he would have attended secondary school upon his move to Minnesota five years later. </span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>4</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> We do know that Tibbetts was still in New Ulm in 1872 because he wrote at least one letter calling attention to the difficulties arising from the natural disasters occurring in southwestern Minnesota. <i>See</i> Gilbert C. Fite, ed., “Some Farmers’ Accounts of Hardship on the Frontier,”<i> Minnesota History </i>(Vol. 37, March 1961), p. 207.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>5</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> This quote is from a “secondary source” but the essence of the story was “corroborated” by an article in a Minnesota newspaper six years later. “Mr. Nicholas Galles went to New Mexico several years ago with Hon. Abner Tibbetts . . . .” (untitled) <i>The New Ulm Review </i>(Wed. Sept. 7, 1861), p. 3. I suppose Tibbetts might have become a Justice of the Peace or it is possible that he began referring to himself as a judge because of his duties at the land office. </span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>6</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> William Walz apparently made the letter available to a Mankato, Minnesota newspaper and it was then reprinted by a Lake City newspaper. “New Mexico As Seen By A Minnesotlan” (sic), <i>The Lake City Leader </i>(Thursday, May 13, 1875), p. 5.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>7</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Victor Westphall, <i>Thomas Benton Catron and his era </i>(Tucson: U. of Ariz. Press, 1973), p. 135.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>8</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Walz’s typewritten “Retrospection,” written in 1931, is in a “vertical file” at the Fray Angelico Chavez Library in Santa Fe, New Mexico.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>9</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> <i>See e.g., </i>Robert M. Utley, <i>High Noon In Lincoln: Violence of the Western Frontier</i> (Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1987), pp.28, 72, 131-136.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>10</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> “New Ulm and Vicinity,” <i>The New Ulm Review </i>(Wed. Dec. 24, 1879), p. 3.<i> </i></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>11</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> I have written about two other New Mexico politicians who gave themselves a military title, William Henry Harrison Llewellyn and Lafayette Head. I never found any evidence that either was commissioned a “major” as they claimed. Llewellyn long after introducing himself as “Major Llewellyn” to the residents of Doña Ana County, was commissioned a Captain of a “Rough Rider” company in the Spanish-American War of 1898. He also at one time held the position of Judge Advocate General of the New Mexico Militia (National Guard) which carried the rank of Colonel. Head, a private in the Missouri Volunteers when he mustered out in Santa Fe in 1847, was elected to the territorial senate (council) from Conejos in Taos County. That part of Taos County became part of Colorado in 1861 and Head was elected as the first Lt. Governor of the State of Colorado in 1876.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>12</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Windom would, however, return to the Treasury under President Benjamin Harrison in 1889.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>13</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> “El Paso. Resignation of Col. Tibbetts—Washout and Delay of Trains,” <i>The Fort Worth Gazette</i> (Friday, Feb. 22, 1884), p. 2.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>14</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> “A Noted Minnesotan,” <i> The St. Paul Daily Globe </i>(Monday, May 3, 1886), p. 4; (untitled) <i>The New Ulm Weekly Review </i>(Wed. May 5, 1886), p. 5.</span><br />
<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-17653126931801806892012-08-09T16:22:00.000-06:002012-08-09T16:22:12.337-06:00Kingston covered in 1926 American Mercury magazine<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8U2gbO-xZUw/UCQzm2UDbkI/AAAAAAAAAn0/UWde2Xt2aKY/s1600/10582.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8U2gbO-xZUw/UCQzm2UDbkI/AAAAAAAAAn0/UWde2Xt2aKY/s1600/10582.jpg" /></a><i>The American Mercury</i> edited by H.L. Mencken, September 1926 carried a story about Kingston by Duncan Aikman. It's a wonderful look into a town that once thronged with as many as 1,500 people--miners and attending businesspeople--that had dwindled to a mere 300 people when Aikman visited.<br />
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Aikman leads with a description of a mansion and grizzled miner hanging on to hope of what might still come -- a good grubstake. No names are given, but the descriptions are vivid.<br />
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Aikman was a prodigious writer in the day. He wrote a biography of Calamity Jane and many magazine articles on culture and on politics in Latin America. The latter piqued the interest of the FDR administration; <a href="http://education-research.org/csr/holdings/silvermaster/summaries.htm" target="_blank">Aikman was apparently subjected to wiretaps.</a><br />
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You can read his Kingston story, <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/AmMercury-1926sep-00060" target="_blank">"He Sentimentalists' by clicking here.</a><br />
<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-54637950080062063052012-05-09T18:39:00.000-06:002012-05-09T18:39:27.413-06:00Letter from Rhea KuykendallThanks to the Menaul Historical Museum of the Southwest, we have this snapshot of activities of Hillsboro's Union Church, as remembered by one former Presbyterian minister. Reverend Rhea Kuykendall documents his recollections in April 1937, of who served the church when.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ccw-RU3Znck/T6sJsreSHSI/AAAAAAAAAlI/dtywaZKGwpE/s1600/rhea+kuykendall+letter+hillsboro+church.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ccw-RU3Znck/T6sJsreSHSI/AAAAAAAAAlI/dtywaZKGwpE/s400/rhea+kuykendall+letter+hillsboro+church.png" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A hand-written letter by Rev Rhea Kuykendall. Menaul Historical Library of the Southwest.</td></tr>
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Reverend Kuykendall was very much interested in New Mexico history. He wrote about the "Hillsboro massacre" of 1879, as some termed it, in New Mexico Magazine. The event occurred during the Victorio War at McEver's Ranch near the first townsite of Lake Valley; the numerous men who dies were from Hillsboro. Kuykendall served on the board of the New Mexico Historical Society, and his papers were deposited in the <a href="http://fortworthtexas.gov/library/info/default.aspx?id=13240" target="_blank">Fort Worth Public Library</a>. But not all of them. You can read his diaries surrounding his work as a young Sunday school teacher at Hillsboro's Union Church. <a href="http://menaulhistoricallibrary.org/exhibit1/e10289a.htm" target="_blank">They are held at the Menaul library in Albuquerque. </a><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Union Church in Hillsboro, NM, was chartered in 1892. Craig Springer photo</td></tr>
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<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-4854105258973934782012-04-25T17:24:00.002-06:002012-04-25T17:24:35.976-06:00Sierra County Courthouse - a new viewThe building was icon in its time. Even today, as the pull of gravity reduces the historic former Sierra County Courthouse to rubble, the building is still something to see. Here's a look at a view the likes of Oliver Lee and Jim Gilliland had for a spell. <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/02/february-1-1896-remembering-fountain.html" target="_blank">They were tried and acquitted for killing the 8-year-old Henry Fountain.</a><br />
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As hammers nailed planks together, construction of a platform from which teenager girls <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2012/03/poisoning-at-hillsboro.html" target="_blank">Valentina Madrid and Alma Lyons would hang by the neck </a>was underway on the courthouse lawn. They may have watched the workers build the device that would kill the condemned gals.<br />
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No doubt many other miscreants and those wrongly accused had this same view. <br />
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The jail and courthouse ruins are iconic today. The jail is one of the 100 historic images on the <a href="http://getthepicture.newmexico.org/" target="_blank">New Mexico Centennial celebration's Get the Picture</a> contest. Will this historic ruin be completely lost, or might it be conserved for posterity and interpretation of New Mexico's rich judicial heritage?<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwBKhq5dcdxvM8zzam-y6TMirzz0Eyzxv9sOzG_aV8g5m7saX2yN7KCU7heoTCbC5onyvZSdPeVYNp7gj5oGQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-75728606168474404432012-04-25T12:29:00.000-06:002012-04-25T12:29:21.259-06:00April 1880 - A claim for Indian Depredations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PsxDl7uxI-8/T5g8yqgdttI/AAAAAAAAAkk/c-uONr5mCRc/s1600/montoya-apache-raid-claim-l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PsxDl7uxI-8/T5g8yqgdttI/AAAAAAAAAkk/c-uONr5mCRc/s400/montoya-apache-raid-claim-l.jpg" width="303" /></a></div>
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Romolo Montoya of Monticello, New Mexico, documented in April 1880 that he lost cows, calves, oxen, and one mule, all told worth $775. Montoya lamented that he could have lost his life when Victorio and his followers were at "the height of their atrocities." <br />
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<a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/09/remembering-9-11.html" target="_blank">Warm Spring Apaches led by Victorio in 1879</a> - 80 and Nana in 1881, had area residents on edge and the U.S. Army on the move. The threat of loss of life or property was such that it prostrated the mining industry around Hillsboro in 1880, so said mining engineer, Frank Robinson, in a letter to his wife.Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-77982279959769986322012-04-21T06:55:00.000-06:002012-04-21T06:55:48.403-06:00Tombstone Epitaph Dec. 2, 1882<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qcia5pe0Das/T5KsTk-KjbI/AAAAAAAAAkc/VjzRMMAJeyc/s1600/getimage.exe.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qcia5pe0Das/T5KsTk-KjbI/AAAAAAAAAkc/VjzRMMAJeyc/s640/getimage.exe.jpeg" width="221" /></a></div>
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This news clip from Tombstone documents the goings-on around Hillsboro. Kingston yet unknown by name by this newspaper was getting attention by prospectors and speculators. Kingston had in fact had already been <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2012/01/kingston-in-myth-and-memory.html" target="_blank">platted as a townsite three months earlier</a>.Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-72690159725340931222012-03-28T06:34:00.000-06:002012-03-28T06:34:29.973-06:00First Sierra County Assessor makes New York TimesIf you own property in Sierra County, you recently received your Notice of Value stating what the county assessor reasons that your property is worth. From that, the county determines what you own in property tax.<br />
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Oliver Wendell Holmes said taxes are what we pay for a civilized society. One of the men responsible for shaping a civilized society from the wilderness at the head of Percha Creek in the early 1880s was James Porter Parker, a Confederate veteran of the Civil War.<br />
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The portly Parker, who lies at rest in the Kingston cemetery was covered in a finely wrought New York Times column recently. The Ronald Coddington story is part of the <i>Disunion</i> series covering the 150th anniversary of the war between the states. For our readers this is a story twice told -- Matti Nunn Harrison told it here a year ago. Parker, a civil engineer, surveyed the Kingston townsite in the autumn of 1882, and was elected as the first Sierra County Assessor in the spring of 1884.<br />
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It's great to see the NY Times write about Kingston and Hillsboro and use a historic photo, probably taken by George T. Miller. The original photo exists in the George T. Miller collection in the Black Range Museum. The photo of Parker is crisp and clear, as you would expect from a professional photographer. The buffalo gourd flower in Parker's vest pocket looks freshly picked. Miller apparently took several photos of Parker that same day.<br />
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You can read the New York Times story, by <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/custer-and-his-roommate-part-ways/" target="_blank">clicking here</a>.<br />
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You can see other Parker images and read what Matti Nunn Harrison published last year by <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2011/04/custers-roommate.html" target="_blank">clicking here</a>.<br />
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Matti Nunn Harrison and twin sister Patti Nunn co-authored a local history that features Parker and others notable men and women <a href="http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=9780738579528&Store_Code=arcadia&search=NEW&offset=0&filter_cat=&PowerSearch_Begin_Only=&sort=name.asc&range_low=&range_high=%20%26srch_newbook%3D1" target="_blank">in the book <i>Around Hillsboro</i></a>. Book royalties go to the Hillsboro Historical Society. --Craig Springer<br />
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NOTE: Comments are open to all, below.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iNOWmdYZl8Y/T3MBUCjB9WI/AAAAAAAAAkU/63YWL01l0_Y/s1600/Kingston+Cemetery+023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iNOWmdYZl8Y/T3MBUCjB9WI/AAAAAAAAAkU/63YWL01l0_Y/s400/Kingston+Cemetery+023.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Porter Parker lies in an unmarked grave, perhaps this one, in the Kingston cemetery. Few prettier places can be found for earthly remains to spend eternity. Photo Patti Nunn.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-8951252396092919772012-03-11T08:52:00.001-06:002012-03-11T08:54:59.180-06:00A Poisoning at Hillsboro<div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">By Robert J. Tórrez</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6PJc1ZC-U6M/T1ytCYlpBqI/AAAAAAAAAjo/DfrLOMzQHCI/s1600/1890s_Rat_Poison_Trade_Card_800.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6PJc1ZC-U6M/T1ytCYlpBqI/AAAAAAAAAjo/DfrLOMzQHCI/s320/1890s_Rat_Poison_Trade_Card_800.JPG" width="233" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rough on Rats killed Manuel Madrid</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">One of the most fascinating and tragic incidents of crime and punishment in New Mexico's history unfolded the morning of March 30, 1907 as news of the death of Manuel Madrid spread through the community of Hillsboro. The surprising news of Madrid’s untimely death must have quickly turned to shock when Dr. Frank Given, a Hillsboro physician called to Madrid’s bedside by his brother the morning he died, reported to Sierra County District Attorney H. A. Wolford that the dying man had exhibited obvious signs of arsenic poisoning. A coroner’s jury convened by Wolford quickly implicated Valentina Madrid, the sixteen year old widow, and Alma Lyons, her seventeen year old childhood friend. Both girls quickly confessed they had poisoned Madrid, but also implicated Francisco Baca as the mastermind behind the crime.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SgxAOhXoDuQ/T1yy4Ef3JKI/AAAAAAAAAjw/oIqYaw_-Pak/s1600/madrid+murder+clip+may+14+1907+ABQ+citizen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SgxAOhXoDuQ/T1yy4Ef3JKI/AAAAAAAAAjw/oIqYaw_-Pak/s400/madrid+murder+clip+may+14+1907+ABQ+citizen.jpg" width="170" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Albuquerque Citizen. LOC.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">News of the arrests caused a sensation throughout New Mexico. The alleged love affair between Mrs. Madrid and Baca, the girl's age, and the heinous nature of the crime, sparked a storm of public comment and controversy. The trio was <a href="http://hillsborohistory.blogspot.com/2012/01/judge-frank-wilson-parker-frontier.html" target="_blank">brought before District Court Judge Frank Parker</a> at the May 1907 term of Sierra County District Court on charges of first degree murder. Elfego Baca, the famous former lawman from Socorro was appointed special prosecutor to handle the case for the territory. The three entered pleas of not guilty but Judge Parker separated </span>Francisco Baca's case from that of the girls and ordered his trial held over to the next term of court. Baca was transferred to the territorial penitentiary in Santa Fe for “safekeeping.”</div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Tragically, the files of the girls’ and Baca’s trials have disappeared from the district court records held at the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives in Santa Fe, so developments and testimony from the trails has to be pieced together from newspaper reports and correspondence of the time. These documents and stories in Hillsboro’s own Sierra County Advocate show that Manuel Madrid and Valentina had not been married long when Francisco Baca fell "desperately in love" with Valentina. Both girls testified Baca wanted to get rid of Madrid so he could marry Valentina and laid out a plan to poison Madrid. The girls initially resisted the idea, but Baca allegedly threatened them if they did not cooperate. Caught in a quandary, Valentina and Alma decided they had no alternative but to proceed with the plan, and with fifty cents Baca gave them, Alma purchased an arsenic poison called “Rough on Rats” which Valentina mixed into her husband's coffee every morning. Within a week, Madrid was dead.</div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Both girls insisted that Baca had urged them on and promised he would stand by them even at the risk of his own neck. Baca's resolve, however, did not last long. Throughout the girl's trial, he maintained his silence, and when his own trial was held in May 1908, he vehemently denied the girls' testimony. Baca's 1908 trial ended in a hung jury, and when he was finally re-tried in 1910, he was acquitted. A newspaper reported that although the jury felt he was an accomplice, they did not feel there was enough evidence for a conviction of first degree murder. </div><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;">Meanwhile, the girl's own trial concluded the evening of May 9, 1907. It took the jury less than an hour to return a verdict of guilty in the first degree. The following morning, both girls stood before Judge Parker to hear him impose the only sentence allowed by law - Valentina and Alma were to hang together on June 7, 1907. <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UlMOYXEcl-Y/T1yrDQeXDzI/AAAAAAAAAjg/NACtvWgbqdc/s1600/Image+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="285" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UlMOYXEcl-Y/T1yrDQeXDzI/AAAAAAAAAjg/NACtvWgbqdc/s400/Image+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teenage convicted murderers Alma Lyons (l) and Valentina Madrid were hours away from hanging from a rope outside the Sierra County Courthouse in Hillsboro in 1907. Dept of Corrections, Penitentiary of New Mexico, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zjDeMRLW0ns/T1y1bSG6FgI/AAAAAAAAAj4/G89HvE-Qy6g/s1600/Commuted+sentence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zjDeMRLW0ns/T1y1bSG6FgI/AAAAAAAAAj4/G89HvE-Qy6g/s320/Commuted+sentence.jpg" width="276" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Albuquerque Citizen, June 4, 1907. LOC.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;">The sentences drew an outpouring of sympathy for the girls, as dozens of letters and petitions poured into Acting Governor James W. Raynolds' office at Santa Fe. Many were sympathetic and urged Raynolds to exercise his privilege of executive clemency and commute their death sentences to life imprisonment. Others insisted that justice demanded the sentence of the court should be carried out. Finally, reasoning that their execution would eliminate the territory's principal witnesses against Baca, Raynolds issued the commutation on June 4, three days before the scheduled executions. On June 7, 1907, the day they had been scheduled to hang, Valentina and Alma were transferred to the penitentiary in Santa Fe to begin serving their life terms. When Baca ended up being acquitted, the girls alone had to suffer any penalty for the murder of Manuel Madrid. <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Controversy, however, continued to swirl around the girls. In prison, Alma was assigned to do domestic work in Warden John B. McManus' quarters. While there, she developed an intimate relationship with a prison trustee, and soon found herself pregnant. When the situation became public, it took some quick action by prison officials to avoid a major scandal for the administration of Governor William McDonald. Slowly, however, public indignation died down, and early in 1914 Alma was admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital, where she delivered an apparently healthy boy who was adopted by a local family. Both girls were pardoned by Governor Octaviano Larrazolo in 1920 on the condition they not leave New Mexico, stay out of Sierra County and find “honorable employment.” The exact date Valentina and Alma exited the state penitentiary is unclear but they presumably walked out of the prison gates into a life of freedom quite different from the naïve young girls that entered those same gates thirteen years earlier.</div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">You can read other news of the day on the Manuel Madrid murder and the tribulations of these two young women on this Library of Congress web site, <a href="http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?state=&date1=1836&date2=1922&proxtext=%22valentina+madrid%22&dateFilterType=yearRange&rows=20&searchType=basic" target="_blank">Chronicling America.</a> </div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Robert J. Tórrez is the former State Historian of New Mexico. He is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Hanging-Tree-Punishment-Territorial/dp/0826343791" target="_blank">The Myth of the Hanging Tree: Stories of Crime and Punishment in Territorial New Mexico.</a></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7611686962554324033.post-34239137941617835212012-03-11T08:43:00.000-06:002012-03-11T08:43:04.597-06:00Sadie Orchard Poisoned?As the murder of Manuel Madrid by rat poising had quieted in late 1907, another fixture in Hillsboro, former prostitute and hotel owner Sadie Orchard, claimed that she had been poisoned. Mrs. H. Kubale was arrested, but later released we presume for lack of evidence of a crime. --Craig Springer<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GPiIfDEgdF4/T1y30DnaUMI/AAAAAAAAAkA/EsVo4ekNrtc/s1600/sadie+orchard+poisoning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GPiIfDEgdF4/T1y30DnaUMI/AAAAAAAAAkA/EsVo4ekNrtc/s1600/sadie+orchard+poisoning.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Albuquerque Citizen, November 22, 1907. LOC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Hillsboro Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10963216227460014086noreply@blogger.com2