Gavilan Trail 1889

This 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 Nana's tail in August 1881.

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 referenced the published journals of soldiers who made the trek in the Mexican War.  Emory Pass was not used by Kearney, though it commemorates his army's endeavors.

The headwater stem of Macho Creek in sections 30 and 31 is now known as Pollock Creek in memorial to Brady Pollock who was murdered by Geronimo in September 1885.

On the full version of the map, 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 Jacob Hailing was murdered in Ulzana's Raid of November 8, 1885.  -- Craig Springer

Gavilan Trail and the headwater of Macho Creek near Lake Valley, New Mexico.
This is culled from the township subdivisional survey map, General Land Office. Surveyed January-Feburary 1889. T.18., R.8W. 

April 1880 - A claim for Indian Depredations

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."

Warm Spring Apaches led by Victorio in 1879 - 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.

Kingston in Myth and Memory

By Craig Springer

To see the old photos, you can tell that Kingston was a busy place for a time. But that time didn’t last.

Set on the east flank of the Black Range in western Sierra County, Kingston is today a relic of the distant past. On some maps, it’s a ghost town. But everyone living there is alive--engaged in business, creating art, active in retirement. It’s an old mining town at the head of the Middle Percha Creek. From a distance, the Black Range looks the part of a long purple armada. The 10,000-foot Hillsboro Peak stands like a silent sentinel above. Vision through the gray distant haze over steep folded mountainsides becomes clearer as you get closer. And so it is with the myth of Kingston being New Mexico’s largest territorial town.

Kingston had its start with the discovery of silver. In the early 1880s, prospectors from nearby Hillsboro, Lake Valley, and Georgetown worked under the continual threat of Apache depredations as they scratched dirt for signs of precious metal. Like most of the Black Range, the surface is more rock than soil. It’s the rock that drew attention; it was rich with silver ore. In October 1882, James Porter Parker, a civil engineer and former Confederate Lt. Colonel and General George Custer’s roommate at West Point platted a townsite. The portly fellow became Sierra County’s first Assessor two years later.

Kingston topped out at about 1,500 residents ca. 1893. Starr Peak and the Caballo Mountain are seen in the distance. The stone church stands in the right margin of the photo. Photo Black Range Museum

Kingston was to get bigger. A Methodist minister in January 1888 reported on the progress of a stone church to serve Kingston’s 1,000 residents. There was work to do: “If I could take the reader along the main street on our way to a school-house for evening service, he would see the typical mining town in all its wickedness.” The minister lamented the gambling, smoking, drinking and a woman singing in soprano at the back of a hall. 

The town grew bigger yet -- but only in myth. In travel guides, state tourism office promotions, and academic writings by professional historians, you will see a phrase repeated so often that a myth has turned to “memory,” that Kingston once exceeded 7,000 residents and was the largest town in New Mexico. It’s even on Forest Service signs. Seven thousand is about as big as Truth or Consequences is today. And it’s a bogus number, usually attended by an equally bogus count of the number of newspapers that kept shop in town: three.


One is led to think that three publications competed for readers and advertisers. Actually, 10 newspapers published in Kingston from 1883-1893, but all were very short-lived titles except the Weekly Shaft. From April 1885 to March 1886 during Kingston's supposed prime the town lacked a newspaper. The Mines of Kingston, a March 1883 prospectus on the then five-month-old town of Kingston, was published by the weekly Tribune. Editor and publisher Charles W. Greene would pull up stakes and move the newspaper to Deming by Kingston's first birthday.

The 1890 census counted 1,449 people in Kingston; 3,785 lived in Albuquerque--more than all of Sierra County’s 1890 population. A Territorial Bureau of Immigration publication printed in 1894 reported on the condition and prospects of the territory stating that, “The town itself is well situated, has a public water service, churches and schools, two good hotels, and a pushing, go-ahead population of about 1,000 persons.”

Those prospects may had already changed by the time the Bureau publication hit the streets. The economic Panic of 1893 and with silver prices going south, Kingston was all but abandoned. 

How such a myth got started is a bit of a mystery. The earliest writing on an inflated town size, a purported 5,000 people, that I found was in Log of a Timber Cruiser, published 22 years after Kingston was abandoned. 


Then, in August 1936, WPA writer Clay Vaden interviewed Sadie Orchard in Hillsboro. Orchard told Vaden that Kingston thronged with 5,000 residents in 1886. You can read what Vaden documented from Orchard in the Library of Congress holdings.


That same year Sierra County pioneer, James McKenna published Black Range Tales and upped the Kingston population by 2,000. And so it’s become gospel since, that Kingston was New Mexico’s largest town. 


The entire population of Sierra County didn’t reach 7,000 until 1950, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.


Craig Springer and his wife Felicia own the historic George T. and Ninette Stocker Miller home in Hillsboro. He's a professional writer in Santa Fe County.

Judge Frank Wilson Parker: Frontier Lawyer, Political Warrior

By Mark Thompson

In May of 1885, thirty-six residents of the Hillsboro area in Sierra County petitioned the territorial governor and the adjutant general seeking the creation of a volunteer militia to fight an insurgency in their backyard, the threat of the Apaches led by Geronimo. The petition resulted in the establishment of Company G captained by one of the petitioners, Nicholas Galles. Among the petitioners receiving a noncommissioned officer position was a twenty-four year old lawyer from Michigan, F. W. Parker. Company G saw limited service, September 30 through October 7, 1885, and, unlike politicians who regularly touted their experience as "Indian fighter," Parker apparently downplayed the importance of the campaign. Frank Wilson Parker, however, went on to make his mark in New Mexico legal history, proving to be a courageous participant in the political wars.

F. W. Parker was born October 16, 1860, on a farm in Sturgis Township, St. Joseph County, located near Kalamazoo, Michigan and also bordering the State of Indiana on the south.  His grandfather, John Parker, and grandmother, Elizabeth (Leiser) Parker, were born in Pennsylvania but had moved to Michigan from New York shortly after the birth in 1829 of Frank’s father, James Wilson Parker. Frank’s mother was Maria Antoinette Thompson of Sturgis, Michigan who at age 15 was living in the John Parker household, indicating, perhaps, the early death of her parents. 

The biographical sketches, including remarks printed in the New Mexico Law Reports, indicate that Parker attended school in the town of Sturgis and at age eighteen entered the University of Michigan. One biographical sketch indicates that he took “a limited course in the ‘Academic Department,’” and another has him graduating from the “Ann Harbor” Law School. Although Parker is not mentioned in a compilation of graduates and ex-students of the University of Michigan Law School serving in the judiciary in the United States, the official school website includes Parker in the class of 1880.

The University of Michigan Law School, probably the premier public law school in the United States, was established in 1859, at a time when it was rare for lawyers to have any academic training in the law. In 1878, the only two requirements for admission to the Law Department were proof that the applicant had reached age eighteen and was of good moral character. Graduation with an LL.B. required only completion of the full two-year course and passing an “approved” examination, including a dissertation. I did not find the exact date for Parker’s completion of studies, or for his admission to the Michigan Bar, but in the federal census for July 1880, he is shown with the occupation “lawyer.”    

Possibly at the suggestion of a friend, in October of 1881, Parker moved from Michigan to Socorro, New Mexico. The next month, now 21 years of age, he was admitted to the Bar by the Second District Territorial Judge, Samuel C. Parks. With two years of academic study of the law and a year of practice in Michigan, Parker should have had no trouble gaining admission to the practice of law under the standard prevailing at the time. One fanciful biographical sketch says he was examined by a committee of the bar, but even if Judge Parks had some help in the process, Parker only needed to convince the judge that he knew enough law to be granted his license. In 1881, admission by one of the territorial judges was sufficient for all purposes. New Mexico did not limit the power of the individual judge and had no uniform standards for admission until 1909.

Sierra County Courthouse as seen from atop the George T. Miller home. Frank Parker practiced law here, and presided over the trial of Oliver Lee and Jim Gililland for the murder of 8-year-old Henry Fountain. Photo George T. Miller Collection Black Range Museum

Shortly after admission to the bar, Parker moved his practice to La Mesilla, and, with an intermediate stop in the emerging town of Kingston in 1882, by 1883 he had taken up residence in Hillsboro, where he practiced law for the next fourteen years. In addition to his brief stint in the territorial militia, he participated in Republican Party politics and he served a two-year term as Sierra County school superintendent, an elected position. By 1897, U.S. Presidents, in the absence of overriding political needs, were willing to appoint "local" lawyers to the territorial bench, and President McKinley picked Parker to succeed Judge Gideon Bantz on the Territorial Supreme Court and as judge for the Third District, with headquarters in Las Cruces.   

Territorial judges appointed by the President served as trial judges in their individual districts and as appellate judges sitting as the territorial supreme court. Although they were “federal judges” in that they were appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, they did not have lifetime tenure, i.e. they were not “Article Three Judges” under the U.S. Constitution. With a four-year appointment prescribed by the act creating the territory, they were characterized as “legislative” judges. Obviously politics played a large part in their appointment and reappointment, and some historians claim that they served at the “will of the President.” I have argued elsewhere that the Congress intended that judges have more independence than territorial executive branch officers appointed by the President, and consequently could not be removed on a whim except during the existence of a separate federal law, the so-called “Tenure of Office Act.”

Even if they had some tenuous hold on their seat, the judges were products of the political system and "political" lawsuits, including criminal prosecutions, were probably more common than we would like to think. To have the confidence of the parties and lawyers and to be considered honest and fair was no small task for a trial judge.  Perhaps overlooked, at least by those of us far removed from the fray, was the need for the personal courage required to administer justice under the circumstances. Just two months after assuming the bench on January 10, 1898, Frank Parker would be tested by involvement in what certainly would be considered one of the most "political" criminal cases in New Mexico history.  

On February 1, 1896, the prominent lawyer and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Albert J. Fountain, disappeared with his young son Henry somewhere between Lincoln and their home in La Mesilla and were presumed dead. Finally, in a long anticipated move, Sheriff Pat Garrett of Dona Ana County, on April 3, 1898, asked Judge Parker to issue arrest warrants for Oliver Lee, Jim Gililland and William McNew. Although the judge granted the application, it would be another thirteen months before he could get the case to trial. I have no intention of “retrying” the murder case, which would be something like “carrying History to Hillsboro,” but it would be interesting to see the case from the viewpoint of a new judge, something we are unfortunately prevented from doing in the absence of a memoir by a long retired judge.

Lawyer, and later Justice Frank W. Parker, walked through this east arch of the Sierra County Courthouse, this image taken in 2010. Photo Craig Springer

First, there is an apocryphal story that every new judge is warned that in a criminal case he should never sustain the prosecution objection to evidence tendered by the defense and, to the extent possible, always sustain the objections of the defense. The reason is simple—the judge does not want to give the defense grounds for overturning a conviction on appeal. Without even knowing Parker’s motivation, it is possible to answer the criticism that he acquiesced in all of the “demands” of the defense by just applying the apocryphal rule.

Secondly, the politics of the case was extreme. Even after Parker issued the warrants in April 1898, the political maneuvering continued apace, including the formation of Otero County to deprive Dona Ana County Sheriff Pat Garrett of jurisdiction. After the new county was created effective January 30, 1899, Oliver Lee surrendered in March 1899 to George Curry, a future governor and the newly appointed sheriff for Otero County. Parker was able to set the case for trial in May, after first granting a defense motion for a change of venue from Otero County to Hillsboro in Sierra County.

The fight on several levels, including in the legislature, was between Albert B. Fall of Las Cruces and Thomas B. Catron of Santa Fe, the men who would eventually be selected as the first U.S. Senators for the State of New Mexico. Fall represented Lee and Gililland, Catron was a special prosecutor aiding the district attorney, Richmond P. Barnes. It seems likely that Judge Parker knew most of what was “at stake” politically, but did he himself orchestrate the result?  Fall even accused him in closing arguments of being a part of the conspiracy to convict Oliver Lee, probably pure political theatre rather than a serious claim by the defense. At least the residents of Hillsboro and the spectators at the trial made it clear where they stood—upon the announcement of “not guilty,” “[t]he people cheered.”

Having been twice reappointed to the territorial bench, Parker in 1909 then presided over what many view as the sequel to the Lee/Gililland trial, the prosecution in Las Cruces of Wayne Brazel for the murder of Pat Garrett. Garrett had been killed in March of 1908 and Brazel had immediately "confessed" with a claim of self-defense to Dona Ana County Sheriff, Felipe Lucero. The case came on for trial on April 19, 1909, and was over with a “not guilty” verdict in one day. No cheering by the spectators this time, but several citizens found it necessary, in a letter to the Rio Grande Republican, to defend the result and Judge Parker, perhaps against a charge of local bias favoring the defendant: “The presiding judge of this court, while a resident of New Mexico, is an appointee of the president of the United States, is a federal judge and has held such position for several years.” Albert B. Fall had again served as defense counsel, with former district attorney Herbert B. Holt taking the defense lead at trial. The later public relations campaign, although including Governor Curry and several prominent citizens, appears to be clearly instigated by Fall.    

By defending Judge Parker, Fall may have sought to avoid the issue historians have considered more important, the quality of the prosecution. Unlike in the Lee/Gilliland case, the prosecution this time had no big name lawyers, although Attorney General James Hervey may have suggested that the A.G.’s office handle the case. Instead, the prosecution was conducted by twenty-seven year old Mark B. Thompson, admitted to the bar in January 1906 and appointed district attorney by Governor Hagerman in March of 1907.  But to claim youth and inexperience as an excuse for a prosecution conducted, according to some historians, with “appalling indifference and incompetence,” would be disingenuous. Governor Curry in his letter to A.B. Fall suggested that the Attorney General had said the evidence did not warrant conviction but that “the district attorney thought it best to let the case go before a jury . . . .” Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but probably the best the prosecutor was going to get. Thompson would eventually become Fall's personal attorney and work for Fall in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

The Las Cruces years were good to Judge Parker, including a second marriage, this time to Anna Davis of Iowa in 1904. The union  produced one child, Frank W. Jr., born in 1907. In 1910, he was a successful candidate for delegate from Dona Ana County to the Constitutional Convention, joining fellow Judge Clarence J. Roberts of Colfax County as one of the powerhouse lawyers at the convention. Parker, as chairman of the Judiciary Department Committee, is generally credited with achieving the agenda of the conservative, “railroad lawyers” in making sure that the first New Mexico Constitution had an elected judiciary. Parker then obtained the Republican nomination for one of the three Supreme Court positions and was elected to the initial court at the special election in 1911. Following the final act granting statehood, the signature of President Taft on January 6, 1912, Frank W. Parker began a twenty-year career on the New Mexico Supreme Court.

An appellate judge may be one step removed from the political cases, but Justice Parker could not avoid involvement in the fascinating political controversy between a district judge and an Albuquerque newspaper editor. Carl C. Magee as editor of the decidedly Republican Albuquerque Journal decided to take on the party establishment and in 1921 lost his control of the Journal but was able to continue his attacks as editor of the New Mexico State Tribune. Much of his ire was directed at the judiciary, especially Judge David Leahy of Las Vegas, but Judge Leahy saw an opening for revenge when Magee made a comparatively mild criticism of Chief Justice Frank Parker, suggesting that Parker had failed to see anything wrong in the way the clerk of the Supreme Court was handling court money. Judge Leahy charged Magee with criminal libel and of course obtained a guilty verdict from a Las Vegas jury.  That was followed by an attempt to disbar Magee’s attorney, former Supreme Court Justice Richard Hanna. Both of these cases resulted in Supreme Court action, first, affirming Governor Hinkle’s pardon of Magee and, second, resulting in a slap on the wrist for Hanna.    

Judge Leahy could not let go and in 1924 he convicted Magee of direct criminal contempt of court, i.e. contempt of Leahy himself. Magee was again pardoned by the governor, but the sheriff refused to release Magee resulting in a habeas corpus “original proceeding” in the Supreme Court. Having recused himself from sitting on the first two cases, Parker wrote the opinion in the habeas corpus action, holding that the governor’s constitutional pardon power extended to those guilty of direct criminal contempt. “Judges are human,” wrote Parker, and the governor’s pardon is “a reasonable check upon the exercise of a one-man power…which often must be exercised under the stress and sting of personal insult, sometimes depriving the judge of the ability to act wisely and judicially in such matters.”  

In what could be unprecedented, on January 11, 1928, the New Mexico Supreme Court paused to eulogize its still sitting Chief Justice on the thirtieth anniversary of his first appointment. Lawyer and State Senator, Herbert B. Holt, a long time friend, and once a court reporter for Parker, was recognized and no doubt "pleased the court" by his remarks. Judge Parker had many more years to contribute to New Mexico law and, upon his death, the court devoted even more space in the New Mexico Reports to honor him and his work on the court. Frank W. Parker died in Santa Fe on August 3, 1932, and was buried in the Fairview Cemetery on Cerrillos Road. Justice Parker was memorialized in the halls of the Supreme Court.

The Bureau of Public Health official certificate states that the cause of death was "cirrhosis of liver," but, as if anticipating the "objection of counsel," the physician added a question mark on next line! 

Mark Thompson, a former member of the New Mexico Bar, lives in Centennial Colorado.  He is the great grandson of Nicholas Galles and the grandson of Mark B. Thompson.

Bridal Chamber Mine a Centennial Journey

by Craig Springer
The Bridal Chamber, perhaps the richest silver mine in the history of the American Southwest, is the story twice-told.  And we're telling it again, here, thanks to the Office of the State Historian.

The Bridal Chamber is located in Lake Valley, New Mexico, once a thriving boomtown. The 1885 Territorial Census counted 183 people living in Lake Valley while nearby Hillsboro had 376 residents, and 329 people lived in Kingston, according to the University of New Mexico's Bureau of Business and Economic Research.   All three towns were busy places.  Lake Valley was the jumping-off place for train passengers.  Those not staying at Lake Valley moved on by stage to the other two mining towns of western Sierra County.

Enjoy this Centennial Journey (click here), an audio presentation in celebration of the New Mexico's 100 years of statehood.

The labor force that extracted the mineral wealth of the Bridal Chamber lived at Lake Valley, seen here circa 1890. Photo Black Range Museum.

Timbers prop open the Bridal Chamber as mine workers pause for a photo in a moment of levity. Photo Black Range Museum.

Extracting minerals from the earth is a labor-intensive affair, as evidenced by this Bridal Chamber reduction operation at Lake Valley. Photo Black Range Museum.

NICHOLAS GALLES: “The father of Sierra County"

By Mark B. Thompson, III

So said the Albuquerque Journal in its article noting his passing in Las Cruces, New Mexico on December 5, 1911. Galles had died too young; approximately two months short of the fifty-fourth anniversary of his birth in Chicago, Illinois.  He had, however, led a full life, including thirty-five years or so as a volunteer militiaman, businessman, hard rock miner and politician in the Territory of New Mexico.


The parents of Nicholas Galles, William and Anna Marie, with their one year old son, Joseph, arrived in New Orleans from their home in Luxembourg on May 30, 1857. The party of nine also included William’s brother Nicolas as well as their father, Peter. (William’s brother apparently preferred the spelling without the “h,” but for the next generation, I have followed the spelling of the name on New Mexico documents.)  In Luxembourg the family had worked as “wheelwrights,” building wagons, and they anticipated opportunity for working that trade in the expanding frontier of the United States.  While the others headed to Minnesota, William, Anna and Joseph went first to Chicago, possibly because of the large population of Luxembourger/Luxembourgeois immigrants.

Nicholas Galles 1858 - 1911.
Photo Mark B. Thompson III

The Galles family came from a country where most people speak both French and German.  Surname experts believe the name is a Germanization of the French Gallois, which means “Gallic,” i.e. Gaullic or Gaelic.  (The most common pronunciations of Galles are either “gal-is” or “gal-us.) Perhaps young Nicholas shared an “identity crisis” with some of his ancestors. They probably had a hard time keeping their nationality straight before 1815, when the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was finally given a unique nation state status.  In four census enumerations between 1880 and 1910, he never gave his parents birthplace as “Luxembourg;” twice he said “France” and twice he declared their birthplace as “Germany.”


At least his political instincts kicked in and he was evenhanded on the subject!


Chicago was not their kind of town, however, and in 1859, William moved his family to Shakopee, Minnesota, southwest of Minneapolis in Scott County. By 1860, they had moved on to New Ulm, the newly formed German community named after the town in Wurttemberg, Germany.  It seems safe to say that William, whose marriage certificate identifies him as “Wilhelm,” favored his “German side” and New Ulm probably looked liked a good place to build his business among German speakers.  In addition, his brother Nicolas, with help from their father, was building a successful wagon business only a few miles to the east in Nicollet County.  But the move to New Ulm, although it might have appeared to offer “instant community,” brought both short term and long term complications for William and his family.


The first “complication” was caused by the Dakota insurgency of 1862.


A “Gallis,” no first name, appears on the roster of John Helm’s company of the Minnesota Militia, indicating that William took part in defending New Ulm. In addition, a family story indicates that Anna and her children were protected by a Dakota woman Anna had befriended.  Whatever the personal involvement of the Galles, they, with other residents of New Ulm, were clearly affected by the physical destruction of the town. The Galles moved back to Shakopee in 1862 and then on to Oshawa, home to brother Nicolas, in 1865.  By 1869 they had returned to New Ulm.  Although it is unlikely that young Nicholas had an understanding of the insurgency and the move from New Ulm in 1862, his return at age 11 clearly had some impact on his life.


The long-term complications of the move (and return) to New Ulm derive from the nature of the German immigrant settlement of the town.  Originally staked out by a German group from Chicago in 1854, that group was joined in 1856 by another German immigrant group from Cincinnati, Ohio.  The group from Cincinnati was affiliated with a turnereine, a German gymnastics union. Its members were commonly known in this country as the Turner Society or “Turners,” which simply means “gymnasts” in German.  The Turner movement originated in Prussia in 1811 and many of its members came to the United States after the unsuccessful German “revolution” of 1848.


The Galles family, devout Roman Catholics, and perhaps others, saw the Turners as more of a religion.  Indeed, one of the goals of the Turners was the promotion of “reason against all superstition.” A sociologist/historian of religion might agree that this could look like a “belief system,” or from the standpoint of the New Ulm Catholics, a “non-belief” system, one which was a threat to the church.  William and Anna’s oldest, Joseph, eventually became active in the Turners and was denied the sacraments by the Roman Catholic Church. This was to have a devastating impact on the Galles family, especially on Anna after the death of William in 1878, when she was forced to move in with Joseph and his family.  It may have contributed to her mental illness which resulted in her commitment to the state hospital in St. Peter where she died in 1901.


Perhaps just as relevant to our story was the influence of the Turners on the public education system in New Ulm. One of their historical efforts was to promote “non-sectarian” schools during that period of American history when the most powerful religion in a community often controlled the education of the young.  As a result of the Turner efforts, William and Anna eventually sent some of their children to school in other communities.  Nicholas apparently ended up in Lake City in Wabasha County, which by today’s roads would be approximately 130 miles from New Ulm.


It is unclear why Lake City was chosen; for example, no Galles relatives lived in that community.  On    my trip to Lake City in 2011, I found evidence that may indicate that for both the move to Lake City and the following move to New Mexico, Nicholas Galles appears to have come under the influence of a character named Abner Tibbetts.


Born in Maine about 1825, Tibbetts found his way to Lake City, Minnesota in 1855.  Apparently he had some political connections and in 1861 was appointed Register of Public Lands at the St. Peter, Minnesota office of the Government Land Office by President Lincoln.  He resigned his position in April of 1865 and is back in Lake City at the time of the Minnesota census enumeration in June.  Appointed to the same post by President Grant in March of 1869, Tibbetts and his wife Marian moved again, this time to New Ulm.  In the 1870 census they are found a mere six homes from the William Galles household, which at that time included twelve year old Nicholas Galles.


The ubiquitous Abner and Marian Tibbetts can be found in the May 1875 Minnesota census in Mankato, Minnesota living in the household of their in-laws, headed by Edgar Walz (Sr.).


More importantly, at least for this story, earlier in that year Abner had made a trip to New Mexico and a letter to his son-in-law, William Walz, written from Mesilla, New Mexico, is published in the Lake City Leader.


Although he does not mention Nicholas in the letter, the Mesilla News of April 4, 1875, notes that on Thursday April 1, 1875, the Hon. A. Tibbetts and N. Galles had arrived in Mesilla from Lake City, Minnesota “and have decided to make their future home with us.”


Abner and Marian are found in the 1880 census living with Nicholas and others in a boarding arrangement headed by George Perrault in Hillsboro, but in 1881 Tibbetts was appointed by the U.S. President as a Collector of Customs and the Tibbets moved again, this time to El Paso, Texas.


We believe that Galles in 1875 had headed back north to Socorro, New Mexico and for a time taught school in that community. In April of 1876, he was appointed Postmaster at Aleman, New Mexico, a settlement south of Socorro in that desolate land known by its Spanish name, El Jornado del Muerto, “the journey of the dead.”  He worked on a ranch at Aleman before moving on, perhaps in 1877, to Mesilla where he read the law in the office of Albert J. Fountain one of New Mexico’s most famous lawyer/politicians.  We do not believe that Galles asked Judge Warren Bristol, once of Red Wing, Minnesota, for admission to practice law. Galles instead moved again, this time to the Black Range area of northern Doña Ana County where gold had been discovered.  We do know that in March of 1879 he was appointed the first Postmaster of Hillsboro and it is likely that he had earlier formed a general store with George Perrault.  He made the history books by leading a company of militia against the insurgency of the Apaches, led by Chief Victorio, in the 1879 battle at Lake Valley where fourteen of the Galles militia company lost their lives.

This preserved letter documents a long-distance romance.
Photo Pam Thompson Rau

After moving to New Mexico, Nicholas Galles apparently kept in contact with  Harriet Stocker, a young woman he had met in Lake City. In August of 1880, he wrote her father asking if Mr. Stocker would have any objections to “Hattie” and Nicholas getting married.  Apparently no objections were lodged and on January 5, 1881, they were married in Chicago, Illinois, not in Lake City nor in nearby rural Goodhue County, Minnesota, where her mother was living with a second husband and Hattie’s sister Ninette, nicknamed “Nettie.”  Although she appears in the 1880 Lake City census in her father’s household, Hattie is also is listed in her paternal grandparents’ household in McHenry County, Illinois that same year.  The marriage certificate indicates that the bride lived in McHenry, Illinois, and, because Harriet does not appear in a list of graduates at the Lake City high school, I suspect that she may have finished her schooling in McHenry.

Harriet Stocker Galles posed in the Kingston Studio of J.C. Burge in 1889.
Photo Pam Thompson Rau

Three of his younger brothers, Louis, Peter and George, then living in New Ulm, followed Nicholas and Harriet to New Mexico. Their father had died in 1878 and, as indicated above, their mother was not very happy living with their older brother Joseph. George, the youngest, appears to have stayed in Minnesota for his education and is in brother John’s household in Minneapolis in 1895, but then is in Hillsboro working as an engineer (mining?) and is counted in the 1900 census.  According to a Nicholas Galles obituary, he was in Washington State in 1911.  Peter had a successful career in Hillsboro as a carpenter, and married Ophelia Jones there in 1887.  Peter died in Hot Springs (Truth or Consequences), New Mexico on June 24, 1918. Louis was successful in business in Hillsboro and was the patriarch of the automobile dealership family of Albuquerque and Taos, creating New Mexico Motors in 1908.  He did not stay long in that business, however, and his son, the first H. L. Galles, is credited with creating the enduring Galles legacy in the automotive world.

Sisters Ninette Stocker Miller (l) and Harriet Stocker Galles pose in this circa 1900 photo taken on Ninette's porch in Hillsboro. This image was replicated on a fresco on the home's stucco wall in the early 1990s. Photo Craig Springer 

The Apache insurgency continued, and Nicholas had to set the record straight when his death at the hands of the insurgents was erroneously reported in newspapers in 1881.


Galles probably made good use of this publicity for his entry into politics. In 1881 he began a two-year term as a county commissioner for Doña Ana County. In 1884 he served as a representative from the county in the territorial House of Representatives. It was during that session that he sponsored the bill which created Sierra County out of Doña Ana, Grant and Socorro counties.  The county commissioners of the new county rewarded him with a Justice of the Peace commission in July of 1884.  In a twist of irony, he ran for Sierra County Sheriff in November 1884 and was walloped by Democrat Tom Murphy, 447 to 280. The Rio Grande Republican reported four precincts: Hillsboro, Lake Valley, Kingston, and Las Palomas. Galles carried only Kingston. The Republican had opined in September that "Thos. Murphy will have an easy victory. In June of 1885, Galles led several of his fellow citizens in petitioning for a new militia to combat the Apache insurgency, now being led primarily by Goyakla, better known as Geronimo, the nom de guerre given to him by the United States military.  Galles was commissioned a captain in an infantry company which saw limited action in September of 1885, but for less than the thirty days required by law to allow Harriet to later obtain a military widow’s pension.

Edith Georgia Galles, taken March 1889 in the
Kingston studio of J.C. Burge.
Photo Craig Springer

Nicholas and Harriet’s first child, Gertrude, was born in Hillsboro in 1883.  Possibly due to a fall by the pregnant Harriet from a horse, Gertrude lived with both physical and mental “retardation” until her death in Las Cruces in 1921.  Their second daughter, Edith Georgia, was born in June of 1886 and was baptized at the Galles home in 1887 by the Episcopal Bishop of Arizona and New Mexico, with future New Mexico Chief Justice, Frank W. Parker, as one of the sponsors. The Galles family also increased the population of Hillsboro by bringing in more relatives. In addition to the brothers of Nicholas, Hillsboro also attracted Harriet’s younger sister Ninette, who, with her first husband, George T. Miller, arrived soon after their marriage in Minneapolis on June 24. 1891.

Edith Georgia Galles at age 16.
Photo Pam Thomson Rau

After 1900, the Millers were joined by the mother of Harriet and Ninette, Tamezin (Kimball) (Stocker) Dodge, who died in Hillsboro in 1927.  Ninette Stocker, who also served as “Postmistress” of Hillsboro, married Alphonso Lafayette Bird after the death of her first husband.  She died on October 23, 1946, in Hillsboro.


It is difficult to create a timeline for his business ventures with precision, but it does appear that Nicholas continued with some aspect of the mining and milling of ore during the 1880s.  In September 1889, he was one of the Sierra County delegates to the New Mexico Constitutional Convention.  Nicholas was a committed Republican, as were many voters in New Mexico until the 1930s, and this convention was seen as an effort by the Republicans to control the statehood debate.


In another echo of New Ulm for Nicholas, the first being the military campaign against native insurgents, the constitution adopted by the convention was opposed by the Roman Catholic Church because it proposed a “non-sectarian” public school system. The main problem was that few Democrats publicly supported the proposed constitution and it was rejected by more than a 2-1 margin in the special election.


During the 1880s, Nicholas apparently convinced his father-in-law, Henry Stocker, to take some role in his mining ventures.

The letterhead of the Standard Gold Mining & Milling Co. indicates that Minneapolis was the “main office” and Stocker was shown as a Vice-President. Stocker’s association with the Galles businesses continued into the 1890s and the two families had homes in 1895 about ten blocks from each other in Minneapolis.  In 1894, Standard Mining, Galles, Stocker and others were sued in Minneapolis in what the newspaper called a “famous” and important case. The case took 36 days to try, a record for the times, and resulted in the reputation of Stocker being tarnished because of his conflict of interest as both a stockholder in Standard and as an attorney for the plaintiff.


During the nineties Nicholas was also engaged in mining ventures in Colorado and Prescott, Arizona.  Henry Stocker moved to Prescott to practice law about 1897, apparently leaving his second wife in Minneapolis.  When Stocker died in May 1900, the Prescott, Arizona obituary indicated that Nicholas Galles was in charge of arrangements.


During the 1890s Harriet apparently spent considerable time in Minneapolis, allegedly due to unspecified “health problems.” Perhaps the dry air of the high desert was a problem and she needed the humidity of the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes! They show up in both the 1895 Minnesota state census and the 1900 federal census near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. They are not found in the 1900 census in Hillsboro and the Louis Galles family is listed near Ninette and George Miller in a house that may have belonged to Nicholas and Harriet.  Apparently Nicholas did not give up legal residency in New Mexico.  In 1894 he served on the Territorial Bureau of Immigration, an official body charged with drumming up new residents for the territory. In 1894-95 he represented Sierra County in the upper chamber of the territorial legislature, known as the Council.


On January 21, 1902, Nicholas was nominated by President Theodore Roosevelt to be the Register for the Las Cruces, New Mexico District office of the Government Land Office and was confirmed by the Senate on January 29, 1902.  The Register was one of the three main local officials of the GLO, the other being the Receiver (of public moneys) and the Surveyor General, the latter being a single, state-wide position.    The Register was appointed for a four-year term, but served at the pleasure of the President.  The position might be described as “quasi-judicial” in that a Register could be “disqualified” from acting on a land application when he had a conflict of interest.  He had a base salary of $500.00 per year, plus fees and commissions from the sale of government land.  That compensation method itself sounds like a conflict of interest waiting to happen but the Santa Fe New Mexican in June 1902 declared Nicholas to be a “man of the hour” and we believe he completed his term without any scandal.


As he started his fourth and final year as Register, Galles made a move for another political office; he sought the governorship of the Territory. President Theodore Roosevelt began his second, but first elected, term as President, on March 4, 1905. The pundits and experts were sure he would take the opportunity to relieve Miguel Otero of the governorship he had held for seven years and appoint “his own man.” Nicholas obviously thought he had TR’s ear and announced that at least 18 U.S. Senators were ready to confirm his nomination.


The position of the nominee on statehood would be the “litmus test,” and Galles’ main opposition was probably lawyer Bernard Rodey of Albuquerque. Rodey, however, had just been rejected, first by the Republicans, and then, as an independent candidate, when he sought re-election as Territorial Congressional Delegate.

Nicholas Galles was an engaged businessman. This ad is from a 1909 NMSU Round-Up. 

Perhaps to avoid a fight among “good Republicans,” Roosevelt fooled everyone and reappointed Otero, only to ask for his resignation a couple of years later as the controversy over statehood strategy heated up.


No doubt disappointed, Galles turned again to business pursuits. In April of 1905, he joined several other businessmen, including his son-in-law, Robert Mayes, the husband of Edith Georgia and father of Nick’s first grandchild, Edith Sue, to form the First National Bank of Las Cruces.  Galles was then chosen to serve as the first President of the bank, which eventually became part of the Albuquerque based Sunwest Bank holding company and now part of the Bank of America system. During this period, he was elected to the board of directors of the Mesilla Valley Water Users Association, an organization which would play a significant role in the development of the Elephant Butte and other dams on the Rio Grande.  In the 1910 census, Galles gave his occupation as “unemployed miner,” perhaps the truth but also showing a sense of humor. One of his last business related positions was his service as the chairman of the Mesilla Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Hillsboro, looking west, as Galles saw it circa 1900. Photo George T. Miller Collection, Black Range Museum.

It was during this period that Nicholas and Harriet Galles started acquiring land on Depot Avenue, now Las Cruces Avenue.  Judging from the 1910 and 1920 censuses, they may have at one time owned the entire south side of the street in the West 400 block.  In 1909 they gave their daughter Edith Georgia and her second husband, Mark B. Thompson, a portion of the land on which a home was built at “409” and which is noted by historian Linda Harris as the “Mark Thompson House.”


In the 1910 census, the Galles and Thompson families are listed next door to each other, and, although no house numbers are shown, we believe that the Galles were at what would become 425 W. Las Cruces Ave.  Harris identifies the extant house at that address as built “circa 1910” but names it the “Duarte House” and Sixto Duarte is listed with his family at the address in the 1930 census. By deed dated February 15, 1922, Amelia Armendariz de Duarte, the wife of Sixto Duarte, had purchased the property from Harriet Galles.


Sixto and Amelia Duarte were both born in Chihuahua, Mexico and immigrated in 1913 and 1915, respectively. A successful Las Cruces merchant, Sixto died in El Paso, Texas, in November of 1966.


In January of 1908, yet another hearing was scheduled in Washington on New Mexico statehood and a committee of prominent citizens from each county was chosen to go to D.C. to “lobby” for statehood.  Nicholas, Mark Thompson and others, were chosen to represent Doña Ana County.


The trip never took place and this effort does not even rate a mention in the definitive history of the “quest” for statehood. 


The statehood “enabling act” was passed by Congress in 1910, but Nicholas Galles did not run for delegate to the constitutional convention held that year. Galles’ good friend, and sitting territorial judge, Frank Parker, was elected as a delegate and played a major role in shaping the New Mexico judiciary.  The Galles son-in-law, Mark Thompson, however, was an unsuccessful candidate for a Doña Ana County delegate position, the only time he ran for political office.


Perhaps the skin cancer was already beginning to take a toll on Galles.  He died one month and a day before President Taft signed the legislation on January 6, 1912, creating the State of New Mexico. Harriet Stocker Galles continued to make Las Cruces her home and died in El Paso, Texas on January 7, 1930.


Mark B. Thompson, III, is the great grandson of Nicholas Galles.


Sources

¹ “Pioneer of New Mexico, Nicolas (sic) Galles, Dead,” The Albuquerque Morning Journal (Wednesday, December 6, 1911), p. 7.  See also, “Death of Nicholas Galles,” The Rio Grande Republican (Friday, December 8, 1911), p. 2.

² Nicholas Galles can be found in census population schedules for 1860, 1865 & 1870 (Minnesota, in his father’s household), in New Mexico in 1880, 1885 and 1910, and Minnesota in 1895 and 1900. 

³ See generally, Kenneth Carley, The Dakota War of 1862 (St. Paul: Minn. Hist. Soc. Press, 1976).  A new edition is due out in 2012, the 150^th anniversary of the insurgency.

⁴ A good, short (“inhouse”) history of the Turner movement is published at http://northwestturners.org. 

⁵ I have not yet found any evidence of Nicholas’ attendance in a school in Lake City.

⁶ The Walz household not only included William, married in 1874 to Jennie May Tibbetts, but also his younger sister, Julia A. Walz, who in 1877 married Thomas B.  Catron of Santa Fe, and a younger brother, Edgar A., who later played a small role in the Lincoln County War as a business partner of Catron.  Given this history, I think perhaps Abner Tibbetts should be known as the head of the “Minnesota Ring.”  

⁷“New Mexico as Seen by A Minnesotan,” The Lake City Leader (Thurs. May 13, 1875), p. 2.  It was the accidental discovery of this letter in the Lake City Public Library which led me on the Abner Tibbetts chase and eventually to his association with Nicholas Galles.

⁸ The Mesilla News item was later confirmed, without reference to a specific date in 1875, in an untitled article on Nicholas Galles. See, The New Ulm Review (Wed. Sept. 7, 1881), p. 3.

⁹ The original name of the community may have been El Aleman, “The German” in Spanish, named for a German resident.  How appropriate for a Minnesotan from the German speaking community!

¹⁰ Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The Leading Facts of New Mexican History (Santa Fe: The Sunstone Press,  2007) [facsimile ed. of the 1911 publication], Vol. II, pp. 438-39, n. 359.

¹¹ “The Gabilan Canon (sic) Fight,” The Rio Grande Republican (Las Cruces, N.M., Sat. Aug. 27, 1881), p. 3. This story was picked up by the New Ulm Review (see note 8, supra) and The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Sat. Sept. 17, 1881. 

¹² “Cupid’s Cavortings,” The St. Paul Daily Globe (Sat. June 28, 1891), p. 10.

¹³ See generally, Robert W. Larson, New Mexico’s Quest For Statehood, 1846-1912, (Albuquerque: U. of N.M. Press, 1968), chap. X.

¹⁴ It was Stocker’s association with Harriett and Ninette in Minneapolis and Hillsboro, we have a photo of Stocker we believe was taken by George T. Miller, which persuaded me that Henry had not completely burned his bridges after he left their mother shortly before 1870.  Her efforts to obtain a widow’s pension, he was a civil war veteran, was a pretty ugly story and left me temporarily convinced that he had walked out of their lives.

¹⁵ “An Important Case,” The St. Paul Daily Globe (Thurs. April 19, 1894), p. 3.  “Mexican (sic) Gold Mine,” The St. Paul Daily Globe (Wed. Aug. 22, 1894), p. 10.

¹⁶ “Men of The Hour in New Mexico,” The Santa Fe New Mexican (Saturday, June 21, 1902), p. 1.

¹⁷ “Nicholas Galles Latest Candidate For Governor,” The Albuquerque Morning Journal (Wednesday, March 1, 1905), p. 1.

¹⁸ See my article in the State Bar Bulletin, “Bernard Rodey and the Jointure Movement in the U.S. Congress,” June 30, 2008 (republished on line by the N.M. State Historian).

¹⁹ Linda G. Harris, Houses in Time: A Tour Through New Mexico History (Arroyo Press, Las Cruces: 1997), p. 74.  Harris in “Houses” also includes a home built by Peter Galles and others for Harriet’s sister, Ninette, in Hillsboro, and known as the “Miller House.”  Id at p. 88.

²⁰ Harris, id at p. 142.

²¹ Special thanks to Neil Weinbrenner, lawyer and historian, for his “fact-checking” the Galles/Duarte transaction. 

²² “Hearings on Statehood Measure,” The Albuquerque Morning Journal (Friday, January 17, 1908), p. 2.

²³ See generally, Larson, note 13 supra.

Remembering 9-11

By Craig Springer
The date, September 11, is seared in American memory. And it was one that perhaps was not forgotten by those who lived in and around Hillsboro in 1879.

In August of that year, the Apache leader Victorio launched a rampage that made its mark in history. Victorio, followed by tens if not hundreds of disenchanted Mimbres and  Mescalero Apaches, and probably Comanche Indians too, raided ranches and isolated military outposts in southern New Mexico, west Texas, and northern Chihuahua.

On September 11, a posse of armed citizen from Hillsboro led by the likes of town pioneers, Joe Yankie and Nicholas Galles, confronted Apaches at H.D. McEver's Ranch 15 miles south of Hillsboro. McEver's Ranch would shortly become the first townsite of Lake Valley following a silver strike.

Nicholas Galles, Hillsboro's first
postmaster, was at McEver's Ranch
on 9-11-1879.
Photo Mark B. Thompson III. 

The number of Hillsboro men engaged in the battle vary, as do the number killed--and so does the actual date--depending upon which report you read. A review of the literature reveals that anywhere from a half dozen to 15 men were killed in action. The 1880 Secretary of War's report to Congress offers some insight as to the geographic extent of the Apache depredations. As for those known to have been killed at McEver's Ranch on September 11, 1879, they were: Steve Hanlon, Thomas Hughes, Thorton, Preissier, Green, Dr. Williams, and I. Chavez.

Other documented works by writers Dan Thrapp, Edwin Sweeney, and Joseph Stout make mention of an entire ranch family murdered and mutilated on Jaralosa Creek a mere few miles from McEver's Ranch that same day. The names of those victims are not reported.

The eastern front of the Black Range would see more action between Apaches, citizens of Hillsboro, and the U.S. Army for another seven years. But in the short-term, McEver's Ranch was the site of a heated battle with the 9th Cavalry, the famous Buffalo Soldiers, led by Maj. A.P. Morrow. If the brief New York Times account, you can sense a frustration that dogged the military in the Victorio campaign that lasted until late 1880. In October 1879, the Apaches attacked McEver's Ranch again, and burnt down its buildings. Because of its location--central to Ft. Cummings to the south and Camp Ojo Caliente and Camp Hillsboro/Camp Boyd to the north--McEver's Ranch would be occupied by the U.S. Army for much of the Victorio and the Geronimo Campaign to come in 1885-86. And coincidentally, September 11, 1885 was a significant date for several ranch families who lost kin to Geronimo near Lake Valley--Abeyta, Hollage, Horn, McKinn, Pollock.

You can read about these events and more in Around Hillsboro a new book written by members of the Hillsboro Historical Society. You can find it in local book stores, and the Black Range Museum.