Trish Long: Oliver Lee embroiled in 1896 NM murders
by Trish Long / El Paso Times
POSTED: 01/01/2011 12:00:00 AM MST

Every time I go to Alamogordo and see the sign for the Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, I tell myself I am going to find out who Oliver Lee is. I hadn't yet gotten around to it when I received an e-mail from Janie Bell Furman of Alamogordo a couple of weeks ago.

Janie informed me that Oliver Milton Lee was a New Mexico rancher, "famous or infamous in New Mexico, depending on who you talk to, who was tried and found not guilty of the murder of Col. Fountain."

An October 1999 article by Sharon Simonson, New Mexico reporter for the El Paso Times, describes Col. Albert Jennings Fountain's life and death.

"The life of Albert Jennings Fountain is so rich in drama and conflict that it has inspired at least two history books and two novels.


TALES FROM THE MORGUE
El Paso history.

"Fountain's life, after all, was intertwined with the development of the land that would become Southern New Mexico during a time of lawlessness and turmoil. It was the post-Civil War era in the territorial frontier, no place for the timid or weak. A country was in the making and Manifest Destiny was gathering momentum as settlers pushed westward.

"Fountain was killed at age 58 along with his 8-year-old son, Henry, as they crossed New Mexico's Tularosa Basin on what is now White Sands Missile Range.

"For years before his death, Fountain was the attorney for the Southeastern New Mexico Stock Association. Only a month before his death, he sought and secured indictments on charges of cattle rustling against 23 men.

"Rancher Oliver Lee and his cowhand Jim Gilliland were ultimately tried for Henry's murder, but neither was convicted. They were defended at trial by Fountain's political nemesis and Lee's best friend, Albert Fall. No one was ever tried for Fountain's murder. His body was never found.

"Though the circumstances of Fountain's death are obvious fodder for dramatic interpretation, his less-recognized contributions during life more directly affected the destiny not only of the El Paso-Southern New Mexico region but of Texas and New Mexico.

"So persuasive were his political and oratory skills that the governor-elect of Texas appointed Fountain majority leader of the Senate in 1870 for the 'provisional' session of the Legislature before Texas was re-admitted to the Union after the Civil War. It was Fountain's first term in the office.

"Less than 20 years later, his peers named him speaker of the House in the New Mexico Territorial Legislature.

"While leading the Texas Senate, he guided to passage constitutional amendments abolishing slavery and giving voting rights, which allowed Texas to re-enter the United States.

"As speaker of the New Mexico legislature, he helped bring the state's college of agriculture to Las Cruces.

"Fountain spent about eight years in El Paso, beginning in 1865. He served in the Texas Senate from 1868 to 1874.

"Four years after he moved back to Mesilla, the Lincoln County War began in 1878. William 'Billy the Kid' Bonney was the most famous player in the war. When Bonney was charged with killing Sheriff William Brady, Fountain defended the outlaw but lost.

"Fountain's and Bonney's story cross again with Pat Garrett. The man who reportedly killed Bonney in 1881, Garrett later was hired to investigate the Fountain murders."

As for Oliver Milton Lee, David Sheppard of the Times wrote in an August 1990 article, "The Otero County pioneer once owned a million-acre cattle and horse empire that stretched from Tularosa south to El Paso.

"Born in Buffalo Gap, Texas, Lee moved to New Mexico when he was 19 and built the Dog Canyon ranch in 1893. He lived there until he moved his headquarters to the Circle Cross ranch near Timberon, N.M., in 1907.

"A rustling dispute brought Lee, one of the most influential figures in territorial New Mexico, into the Fountain case that remains unsolved after 94 years.

"In January 1896, he (Fountain) secured grand jury indictments against 32 suspected rustlers, including Lee.

"A few days after the jury met in Lincoln, N.M., Fountain and his 8-year-old son, Henry, vanished while returning home to Mesilla by buckboard.

"Sheriff Garrett investigated the case. A $10,000 reward was offered for information.

"Lee and two other men -- Jim Gililland and Billy McNew -- were indicted on murder charges.

"After eluding Garrett for three years, Lee turned himself in and went on trial in 1899.

"He was acquitted in June of that year and later went on to serve in the New Mexico House and Senate. Gililland also was acquitted. The charges against McNew were dropped.

"Lee at first refused to turn himself in on the murder charges, saying he was convinced he couldn't get a fair trial in Mesilla.

"After he escaped from Garrett in a shootout at Wilde Wells, Lee knew Garrett would kill him if he got a chance.

"Lee got married in Abilene, Texas, about two years after he was indicted. He brought his bride home to a new master bedroom he had added onto the ranch house in Dog Canyon. ..."

The state park is 12 miles south of Alamogordo on U.S. Highway 54 and four miles east on Dog Canyon Road.

I have always felt Oliver Lee has gone to his just rewards, and it ain't a good one. Just a few too many corpses laid to his account, for a bunch of cows.

Not the least of which was that of Francois-Jean Rochas, the quietly industrious Frenchman, likely carver of the famous spiral staircase, who's crime was to have first rights to the water.

Birdwatcher

Well I'll be. I never heard about any of that, but do know of the staircase of which you speak, Birdy.

I guess when he built that ranch he still had to deal with hostiles, grizz, wolves and rustlers.

May be too bad Garrett didnt catch up with him. I wonder if he had any connection to Billy the Kid and the Lincoln Co. War.

There are those that think the Lee family are pretty good folks. I'm one of them. Oliver may have killed his share of men, but he didn't murder that boy or Fountain.

I know his descendants, and am pretty good friends with them, as they are still in the ranching business there in Otero County, NM. Bebo Lee, Oliver's great grandson was NM Cattleman of the year awhile back. His father Charlie was a NM State Senator. They have contributed a lot.

Jim Gilliland mentioned in the story has descendants still in the area as well. They are my friends too.

Fountain, on the other hand, still has followers in Las Cruces.

Perhaps Fountain, a known "carpet bagger", that pushed his political agenda to further his own personal agenda dug his own grave by falsely accusing political enemies of cow thievery, and thus may have reaped what he sowed.

To be sure, Oliver Lee was a good man with a gun. He didn't mind using it either. Can't blame him with all the murderous S.O.B.'s running around the area at the time.

Pat Garrett tried bushwacking Lee at his home, but did not know of a tunnel that Lee had from his house to the barn, and when they fired upon his house with wife and kids inside, Lee returned fire and killed one of Pat Garrett's deputies. Oliver Lee was never charged with that killing, as it was considered "justified".

Pat Garrett was a back shooting traitor that made his rep by shooting his friend William Bonney in ambush in the dark.

Funny how time doesn't heal all wounds, huh?

Still folks on both sides.

BW,

Frenchy disappeared. To be sure, there were those that thought Oliver Lee caused that for the water Frenchy claimed, but it would have been cheaper to just buy him out. Oliver had money.

After being all over that homestead, which is in some of the roughest country of the foothills between the desert floor and the mountains, I firmly believe that country was too rough for cattle to get to the water there. I have seen those foothills make cattle so sore footed, that they lay there are die before they will get up and head to food or water.

That old Circle Cross headquarters is still there between Cloudcroft and Timberon. Met the new owner of it a couple years back when trapping there.

Lots of history there for sure.

Very interesting. I have really known nothing about these things other than a little history of the ranch and its historical size, until I stumbled upon that story I posted earlier.

I have stayed in the old huge multi- story ranch house many times which is just north of Timberon as you know. I am friends of the old manager who worked there many years when owned by the Fergusons of Lovington (or was it Hobbs) who were patients of mine many years ago.

Some wonderful times were had by my brother and I years ago when we camped up Sulphur Springs or a graveyard canyon well east of the road wich is now a freaking 4 lane boondoggle highway, while we bowhunted. How any elk or deer are able to survive crossing that road cut through the steep ridges is beyond me, what with the resulting cliffs either above or below the highway.

If you can find it, there is an excellent book that gives not only both sides of the story about Lee and Fountain, but also a very interesting history of that entire area, and the "old West" days there.

"TULAROSA, Last Of The Frontier West," by C.L. Sonnichsen, University of New Mexico Press, �1960. A lot of information about the characters who settled that area, and their feuds and fights, rustling, Indians, hardships, court cases, etc.

Also interesting how Pat Garrett was murdered and why.


Perhaps your library can find a copy for you.

L.W.

for a man described as a back shooter, i thought this was interesting on how he met his death according to the writeup:
http://cjmlawyer.wordpress.com/2010...t-self-defense-or-cold-blooded-murder-2/

Were the Lee Brothers of lion hound fame his descendents?

No one is suggesting the sins of the father, great or small they may have been, also attached to the children. I have no reason to doubt all the various descendants are decent folk.

A tremendous and detailed explanation of all the complex events of the time can be found here....

nmsua.edu/tiopete/files/2008/12/stockmancarpenter.pdf

Its a pdf, but if the links don't work google on "The Stockman and the Carpenter"....

Two minor corrections; the shootout between Lee and Garret did not occur at Lee's home, nor was a tunnel involved, although a tunnel at Lee's house did exist. Also, Frenchy Rochas, the enigmatic hermit and skilled craftsman, was shot from ambush at his works, his body found with a single bullet to the chest.

If you'll read the pdf, you'll note that Lee did indeed buy Rochas' cattle, "buying him out" in that sense, but there is no eveidence that Rochas was willing to sell his property, especially as he was starting a vineyard. None of this of course means that Lee had him shot or even wanted Rochas gone, but Rochas was an enigma, and quite likely COULD NOT be bought out as it seems he cared little for money (IIRC whoever built that staircase refused all payment).

In any case, a single round from a Winchester rifle certainly would have been cheaper than buying the guy out.

I dunno Fountain's motives during his career, I do know he volunteered on the Union side in the Civil War and saw combat, purposefully putting himself in harm's way. He also volunteered for duty against the Apaches, taking a bullet and two arrows in the process. Also, when he was part of the despised post-war Republican government of Texas, besides openly facing opponents in duels, he was the guy most responsible for bringing back the Texas Rangers.

In his last years Fountain was also sigularly unintimidated by the by-then powerful Lee/Fall alliance.

In context of all of that, dismissing the guy as a "known carpetbagger" as you do sounds sorta petty.

The murders of Fountain and his eight year-old son have been much discussed over the years; it took no small amount of nerve on Fountain's part to travel alone through an area filled with so many enemies as he did. At least one source had it he took the boy at the insistence of his wife, who believed even thieves wouldn't kill a child.

Suffice to say they did, killing an eight year old being the act of scum, scum with reason to be afraid, rather than the act of a mere political rival.

I haven't heard of Pat Garret being a backshooter before, nor do I know what the relationship was like between him and William Bonney.

We do know that Bonney had killed several men, including a deputy. Would he have shot Garret first in that dark room if he could have? The only alternative is to believe that Bonney would have quietly surrendered to his at least sometime friend Pat Garret so as to be taken into custody and hung.

Pat Garret's several business failings later in life do seem to indicate that if he WAS a treacherous backshooter, he wasn't a very sly or devious one.

OTOH, if a man is known by the company he keeps, look at Lee's close ally Albert Fall; a cunning and completely false man,the sort of lawyer who gave lawyers a bad name and who probably should have been born Mexican, where lack of ethics would have fit right in in the political scene.

Birdwatcher

Yeah, the old lines in the sand are still drawn even today with people that know more of the history and stories of that whole era.

Bob Bose Bell wrote this account of that Garrett-Lee gunfight, based on a researcher's notes.

That researcher, Corey Recko, was very biased towards the Fountain side of the conflict. He also made money from a book he published about his opinions on the case.

http://www.truewestmagazine.com/jco...unfights/3712-a-wild-time-at-wildly-well



If Jim DID confess to the murders, WHO did he confess to? No mention is made of that.

Much like the Kennedy assassination, the only things that come to light about the disappearance of Fountain and the boy are theories, with the facts washed away by the high winds of the desert.

Another excerpt from the article:

Interestingly enough, you ought to read the comments at the bottom of the story by people descended, from them, or still alive today.

So, we have McNew released because they could not successfully prosecute Lee and Gilliland. Brazel was found not guilty, Lee was not charged in the murder of Garrett's deputy because it was self defense, Lee was not a known cattle thief, nor convicted of that despite the trumped up charges that had to be even presented in another county because of lack of evidence in Otero County....

There sure were a lot of folks accused, but nobody could make ANY charges stick to ANY of them.

Was Billy the Kid's death at the hands of Pat Garrett anything more than a shot in the dark that ended up with Garrett killing is old pal, Wm. Bonney? I dunno... That whole Lincoln County War was a political tumble too.

Who really knows the facts or motives when such strong political motivations are involved?

One interesting fact about Pat Garrett was that he was kinda run out of NM after the Billy the Kid thing. He happened to know "Cactus Jack" Garner in Uvalde and Garner got him a county commissioner seat there.

Interesting article about Garrett that tells of the public distaste for him in the Lincoln County War and the Fountain case:

http://www.jcs-group.com/oldwest/pistoleer/garrett.html

Again, I'm not a "Historian", but have spent many, many days on the sites of these events and am pretty good friends with lots of descendants to the players in the controversial stories. Sometimes, even those descendants accounts vary from the researchers reports.

Fountain was also involved heavily in another political broil known as the Salt Wars. He and his side of greedy politicos tried to grab the income from the Salt Flats in it's heyday and lots of folks died over that THAT too.

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/tx-elpasosaltwar.html

Like I said, I'm no historian, but I do know that Fountain was a much hated carpetbagger in the entire area, excluding Mesilla, where he lived, and his own unethical (to say the least) actions is probably what lead to his demise.

He also "hid behind his young boy" on that trip to Lincoln County and back where he accused all those folks of rustling... He concluded that if he had his 8 year old boy along with him, nobody would dare attempt to kill him. He knew his political enemies wanted him dead.

He was wrong in that reasoning.

Thanks for posting! I just passed the Circle Cross last week. We go to Timberon quite often.

Perhaps another example of the way specific facts can be jumbled up in family oral histories.

Otero County did not yet exist when rustling charges were filed again Lee and others.

Otero County did not exist until 1899, three years after Fountain's death, the borders drawn at that time including the Fountain murder site. IIRC (se the previous pdf link), the timing of the establishment of Otero County meant that when it eventually came to trial, the Fountain murder case had to be tried in relatively distant Hillsboro, a thing apparently more favorable to the defense (although without bodies, conviction was problematic in any case).

Albert Fall was the guy most influential behind the formation of this new county.

Birdwatcher

You are correct on the county boundaries at the time. What I was referring to was Fountain taking the indictments into Lincoln County because he had no support in Dona Ana County, more specifically, in the area known as Otero County now, where the alleged cattle theft took place.

I think its reasonable to assume it was on purpose.

William Bonney at that point had two choices; escape from or kill the lawmen sent to apprehend him, or allow himself to be taken into cutody and hung.

Whatever friendship that had existed, if any, Pat Garret knew what Bonney's options were.

Birdwatcher

I agree. They both knew where the lines were drawn.

Those NM range wars were hell, weren't they?

How is it that incoming American citizens filing legal claim to a salt resource was any different from said settlers claiming any other previously shared resource, such as pasture or water?

Anyhow, whatever his motives, after splitting with the Salt party, Fountain ran for office on a platform of guaranteeing access to the salt by ALL local residents....

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/tx-elpasosaltwar.html

. Fountain, who had a falling out with Mills, later became the leader of the opposing Anti Salt Ring. He was elected to the Texas Senate with the expectation of securing title to the salt deposits for the people of the El Paso area.



Talk about bias.....

You state the man would knowingly put is own son at risk to save himself.... sheesh!

Another explanation is, people tend to think other people think like themselves do. Good people tend to assume other people act from good motives, bad people tend to asume others are similarly peverse. Seems likely Fountain didn't expect to be waylaid and murdered at all, let alone with his young son with him, else surely he would have brung as armed escort.

Birdwatcher

http://www.desertusa.com/mag06/mar/murder.html



Those old range wars, and cattle detectives, cattle raisers' associations, political affiliations, and emotional, and high passion political lines that were drawn were the demise of many a man. Ask Tom Horn.

Everyone had their opinions. Still do, Birdwatcher... I guess perhaps we both may have lived on the opposing sides. But, I still respect your opinions, although I perhaps don't agree with some of them. Guess I just have too much history with my amigos to change the way I see things.

Comes down to the love of money mostly, at least on one side, much as it does today.

Anyhoo... you must know that the rest of the link you posted comes close to damning Lee.

As for the issue with Fountain's son; the article implies it was at the insistence of his wife that the boy came along at all. Seems like a thing many of us would do; the wife is worried, she would feel better if we took the boy, we don't anticipate danger, so we take the kid along to keep her happy.

Like I said, Fountain would have to have been an awful small and cold dude to hide behind his own son. The other explanation being, he simply didn't believe it would turn that bad.

I doubt anyone living out there in those times who turned around in times of any uncertainty at all would get very far.

Anyways, the fact that he WAS shot points to him having a very real case, in this case directly implicating Lee.

A nice touch (in the link) that Fountain was gifted with a pony by an Apache on the way back, might speak well of the man, being as he had been among the first to take up arms against Apache raiders.

Anyhow, I have no dog in this fight, then or now, just interpreting where the facts seem to lead is all. Everyone in this story has met their maker, for good or ill and as I said, no one attaches the sins of the father to the children.

Birdwatcher

After the diapearance of Fountain and his young son, search parties scoured the area. While they were searching...

From the link....


Meanwhile, Albert Fall, said Gibson, �screamed that the whole deal was political; that the Republicans were using the Fountain issue to crucify innocent Democrats.�


Sounds familiar don't it......

Interesting thread. I recently read "To Hell On A Fast Horse" by Mark Lee Gardner. I thought it was a good read and seems to cover some of this pretty well. It includes some quotes by Pat Garret in answer to his critics from Garret's book about Billy The Kid and the shooting of Billy The Kid that seemed truthful or realistic anyway.

Was he scared?

"I started out on this expedition with the expectation of getting scared. I went out with the probability of being shot at and the possibility of being hurt, perhaps killed; but not if any precaution on my part could prevent such a catastrophe."

Answering some of his critics re not giving Billy a fair chance:

"What sort of 'square fight,' or 'even show,' would I have got," Garret posed, "had one of the Kid's friends in Fort Sumner chanced to see me and informed him of my prescence there, and at Pete Maxwell's room on that fatal night?"

Yes, everyone has their "sides" in all those long ago happenings.

The researchers, the families, their friends, writers wanting to sell copies...Everyone does. That is all your opinion is...A conclusion based on how YOU see what facts actually exist.

The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. as it does in most all things.

I really can't help but think of our current divisions over gun control, or any number of other subjects...

Look at what happened to the state of Colorado, for example.

Colorado is a nice, conservative western state, and an influx of liberal idiots moved in, took over, and turned it into what it is now...

Back then, when you started messing with people that would look after what they had fought for and protected as a legacy and way of life for your family, you ought to expect that someone will try and defend that.

It's really too bad that those messing with us today can't expect the same bullet behind the ear as payment for being a clear and present danger to what we believe in.

To no one in particular.

My wife's family is kin to the Fountain's and i heard all of these things and more.

All of those folks had their hand in doing not so legal and above board things.

They were still murdered and never found and never will be.

Seems that a lot of folks that did not have the backup of gunmen,had a hard time holding on to their stuff.

Made for interesting times.

Probably the biggest mystery of the Old West. Still stirs emotions and draws lines in the sand to this day, much as the above thread lends itself to example.

Some years ago, NMSU was teaching that Fountain was a very highly respected man. I know some Lee's down there, good people, and knew Garrets grandson, who was an instructor at NMSU. The story was that due to the warrant for Lee that Garret had, as sheriff of Dona Anna County, he lost jurisdiction when AB Fall got Otero, who was the territorial governor. to create a new county so that Garret wouldn't have jurisdiction in Otero Co. where Lee lived at the time. True? Don't know but was taught that way with 'certainty'.
Fall was the, IIRC, the Secretary of the Interior who was convicted of taking a bribe for the "Tea Pot Dome Scandal". Not a nice person and mixed up in multiple shenanigans in that area. His home at Three Rivers had a skeleton in the wall which was found when repairs were done. No matter what actually transpired it is, as you said, still an open subject with strong feelings still swirling.
I had on old friend who remembered Gililland and said in the early 40s he was drunk and talking in his cups about the little fellow jumping like a frog when his throat was cut, and at the words, jumped and looked around to see if he had been heard. My friend said even into the 1960s people would look around before talking about Oliver Lee as he was known as a cruel and vindictive man. Again, I didn't know any of them but my friend lived into her 100s and knew nearly everyone in the area, including her many friends in and around Mescalero and was blessed with a wonderful memory.
No matter what really happened it is fascinating to hear it all. Met and talked with Lincoln County's deputy sheriff's grandson who loved to talk about those Lincoln Co. wars days as related by his grandpa. Grandson owned/operated the Rexall in Carrizozo.

Interesting history of one of my favorite places in the world to hunt. I hunt oryx bordering WSMR on private land within 20 miles of Tularosa and elk hunt near the three rivers petroglyph area. We always eat at the little truck stop that everyone I knows calls the "Y."
I have met a lot of great people in that area. One of the guys I met out there is a poet. He recited about a 20 minute long poem about the lion hunters from that area. It was very good. All in all that area of NM has people that remind me of people from my area of MS.

Nearly thirty-five years ago I loaded what few possessions I owned and headed "out West" from New York State. I woulda headed for Oregon but I picked New Mexico instead as it was February, specifically I chose Las Cruces on account of that was where Dennis Weaver's character McCloud was from.

Never made it to Las Cruces, late one night a main bearing seized just shy of Apache Summit on the Mescalero Reservation so I pushed the car around and rolled it nine miles downhill to Ruidoso Downs. Landed among about the friendliest and most hospitable group of people I had ever met.

I still have friends in the area we visit almost every year.

I'll fess up, my main impressions on this whole issue come mostly from gut impressions....

Dog Canyon State Park is strategically located, being a place to get hot showers cheap (or for nothing after hours) and camp if necessary just a long day's drive from home, as well as being a warmer place when adjacent higher elevations are snowed in, so we have stopped there regularly over the years for one reason or another.

My sense of the place is murder, as if some vibe from Frenchy's untimely demise still lingers, and looking south toward the Lee place, the vibe get worse still. Been that way ever since I first set foot.

Ya I know, that and $4.95 will get me an orange mocha cappuccino at Starbucks.

Meanwhile, I cant imagine why Albert Fall would have an actual dead person walled up in his house, seems like there'd be a kazillion places out there to lose a body. There still is even today, even more so back then.

Birdwatcher

Everyone I met in that area were amazingly good people. I hunted once on a ranch owned by a Mrs Fleming...out of Pinion a few miles. Went to service with her at the little church there. I think she was 86 in 2010. I often wonder if she's still alive. She tended her 30 head of cattle every day from a 4 wheeler with her .300 Savage slung between the handlebars. Good people...Great Memories!

Birdy - McCloud was from the other end of the state - Taos!
Were you "disoriented"?

Mark

Barry, can you tell me where I can get a copy of that map?
I've met, and known some of the Lee's BTW - they ARE tough!

Mark

Thanks, LW.

Maybe, or maybe they mentioned the place in an episode, I dunno.

Mark,

I think you can follow up with this link to print a larger map, or adjust the address to perhaps buy a poster sized one.

http://ttpt.org/portals/0/images/TTPT_Map_1895_820w.jpg

The year is 1895 with the county boundaries on it.

TEXAS LEGENDS
El Paso Salt War


The El Paso Salt War began in the late 1860�s as a struggle between El Paso businessmen W.W. Mills, Albert J. Fountain, and Louis Cardis in an attempt to acquire title to the salt deposits near the base of the Guadalupe Mountains. Mexican Americans of the valley communities, who had for years collected salt there for free, were now faced with the threat of being charged salt collection fees.

Mills filed his own claims to the salt beds and formed a group that became known as the Salt Ring. Fountain, who had a falling out with Mills, later became the leader of the opposing Anti Salt Ring. He was elected to the Texas Senate with the expectation of securing title to the salt deposits for the people of the El Paso area.


The Salt Flats are a remnant of an ancient, shallow lake that once occupied this area of the Guadalupe Mountains approximately 1.8 million years ago. Today, they are part of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Photo courtesy National Park System





Cardis and Mills soon joined forces with Charles Howard, a Missouri lawyer. Cardis helped secure Howard�s election to district attorney, but later became bitter enemies with him after Howard filed on the salt lakes for himself. These actions outraged Mexican citizens who considered the lakes public property under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Cardis later joined forces with Father Antonio Borrajos, an Italian priest who served the Mexican communities, to oppose Howard.

In September 1877, Howard started a riot when he arrested two San Elizario residents who attempted to go for salt. An angry mob captured and held Howard for three days at San Elizario. He finally gained his freedom by vowing to give up claim to the salt beds and leave the country. He retreated to Mesilla, New Mexico, but quickly returned to murder Cardis in an El Paso store. Angry Mexicans demanded Howard�s arrest. Howard was arraigned for Cardis� murder and placed under bond to appear in court in March.

In early December, a wagon train of Mexicans from both sides of the border left the valley, headed for the salt lakes. Howard brought suit and left for San Elizario to press charges. In San Elizario, he and a handful of Texas Rangers were besieged by an angry mob and held up for four days in the rangers� fort. On the fifth day Howard gave himself up. The rangers also surrendered, believing that Howard was to be freed. On December 17th, Howard, his agent John E. McBride, and John G. Atkinson were shot by a firing squad composed of Mexicans. The rangers from the fort were allowed to leave after forfeiting their arms.

Within a few days, several detachments of troops and a posse of American citizens arrived in San Elizario, killing and wounding an untold number of people. Most of the mob had already fled into Mexico, and no one was ever arrested or brought to trial. The short lived war very nearly led to an armed confrontation between the U.S. and Mexico. The unfortunate consequence of the Salt War was that Mexicans from both sides of the border were robbed, assaulted, and murdered. An exodus of Mexican families from the San Elizario area immediately followed the event. Eventually, the Salt Flats were claimed and the Mexican community was forced to pay for the salt they once collected for free.

For the Hispanic people of the El Paso Valley region, the Salt War was a struggle against Anglo attempts to exploit natural resources believed by the Mexican culture to be on communal land. The transformation of the salt beds from communal to private ownership threatened the very survival of the Mexican border population.

They had constructed the road to Salt Flat and therefore had a vested interest in the future of the salt beds. The El Paso Salt War was not merely a quarrel over control of the salt beds, but rather a struggle for the economic and political future of the area.

Added July, 2007
Source: Guadalupe National Park

Albert Jennings Fountain

The infamous Fountain Murders

By Jay W. Sharp

As he harnessed his team of two horses to his four-wheel buckboard carriage, Albert Jennings Fountain understood fully the threat that he � with his eight-year-old son, Henry � would face in crossing the Tularosa, that foreboding desert basin in south-central New Mexico.
Even though his carriage bore a cover, which offered some protection against the icy winds of winter blowing over the land, Fountain also worried about young Henry, who was suffering from the onset of a bad cold. The child needed his mother�s caring hand.

Fountain and his young son faced a three- to four-day westbound journey, some 140 miles in length. It began in Lincoln, nestled in the pass between El Capitan Mountains to the north and Sacramento Mountains to the south. It led southwest, through the Ponderosa pines of the Sacramentos to the village of Tularosa. From there, it turned south to the hamlet of La Luz. It then bore southwest for 40 miles southwest across the basin, a desert grass- and shrubland, past the spectacular dunes called White Sands and a gypsum-laced rise called Chalk Hill. It ascended San Augustine Pass, between the Organ and San Augustine Mountains, then descended the western flanks of the mountains, passing through the mining community of Organ. As it drew near the Rio Grande river valley, it passed through Las Cruces and into Mesilla and home.
A Hard and Lawless Land
If Fountain knew the risk before him and his son, he also bore the confidence of a man who had flourished in a land as hard as carborundum. He saw in southern New Mexico and western Texas an often lawless country that, in that late January of 1896, still bore the open wounds of the Mexican/American and Civil Wars. Americans, moving westward, appropriated lands that rightfully belonged to Hispanic peoples who had not met the bureaucratic requirements necessary to validate their claims under U. S. law. Newly minted land barons effectively subjected Hispanic peoples to a system of peonage. The Catholic bishops of Durango and Santa Fe had, until recently, competed for the allegiance of the Faithful. Bitter Republican and Democratic political rivalries grew out of the desert sands, giving rise to a bloody riot on the plaza of Mesilla in 1871. Cold-blooded and cunning attorneys, newly arrived Texas ranchers, audacious cattle rustlers and callous gunfighters formed alliances of convenience, a wellspring of enemies for any man they didn�t like.
The Enemies He Makes
Albert Jennings Fountain knew his enemies well. He knew that Las Cruces lawyer and political rival Albert B. Fall and Tularosa Basin cattleman Oliver Lee and gunmen like Billy McNew and Jim Gilliland stood at the top of the list of those who would like to kill him, given the chance.
Fall, a �rough-hewn native of Kentucky and son of a Confederate office,� according to Gordon R. Owens, The Two Alberts: Fountain and Fall, had held a kaleidoscope of odd jobs, including that of a miner in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. He grew fluent in Spanish. He read the books of the law. He married. He moved with his family to southern New Mexico in 1887 to capitalize on post-war opportunities, becoming a powerful force in the Democratic Party. Fired by a towering ambition that would propel him to regional and national prominence, Fall soon became the crafty leader and lawyer for the equally ambitious Lee and his hired gunfighters. He hated Albert J. Fountain, finding him ��exceedingly obnoxious to myself,�� according to a quote cited by A. M. Gibson in The Life and Death of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain.

Lee, �magnificently muscled, straight as a young pine, catlike in his coordination,� according to C. L. Sonnichsen in Tularosa: Last of the Frontier West, had come from Texas to the basin as a young man with his family to claim a ranch and raise cattle. He soon became famous because of �his wizardry with a six-shooter and rifle.� He killed men who challenged or crossed him. He helped himself to the cattle of major livestock syndicates. In return for the legal services of Fall, Lee and his men terrorized men and voters on the lawyer�s behalf.
Sometime in the early 1890s, Lee �added Bill McNew and Jim Gilliland to his inner circle� said Sonnichsen. �McNew, a tough Texan with ice-blue eyes, had come down from the mountains to work for Lee.� Gilliland was �another hard-fighting, iron-nerved Texan... He wanted to prove that he was not afraid of anything, however, and that makes a man dangerous.�
Like other private ranchers in the region, Lee and his men � their crimes absolved in the courts by Albert Fall � felt entitled to government and private land in the Tularosa and the cattle of the big companies. In a practice called �brand blotting,� Lee and his men altered brands on other people�s cattle, modifying the identifying marks so they would resemble his own. Bloody conflicts spiraled into a full-scaled range war, yielding bitterness that lingered among local families well into the 20th century.
Fountain Takes His Toll
Even knowing the risks, Fountain challenged Fall and his cohorts in the political arena and in the courts. He came to the task well seasoned and thoroughly prepared. The son of a sea captain, he had traveled throughout the world. He had worked as a miner and a freighter. He had studied the law. He had joined the Union�s First California Infantry Volunteers, commanded by Colonel James H. Carleton, and marched eastward across the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts to southern New Mexico and western Texas. He had advanced rapidly from private to lieutenant. He had fought the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apaches in the Indian Wars. Married to an Hispanic woman, Mariana P�rez, he had become fluent in Spanish.
In 1866, he moved with his family to El Paso, where he established a legal and political career, held various local offices, and won state office. No stranger to violence, he �killed political enemy Frank Williams in a duel after Williams insulted him in a saloon,� said Gibson in an article, �Fountain, Albert Jennings (1838 � 1896),� The Handbook of Texas Online.
In 1873, fearing for the safety of his family in El Paso, he moved to Mesilla, where he carved out a new legal and political career. He promptly became a powerful force in the Republican Party, serving in leadership roles in the territorial legislature. He founded a local newspaper. He helped lay the foundation for the local university. He served as Colonel in the Mesilla Scouts, a volunteer militia charged with protecting the community against raids by the Apaches. As one of the most prominent attorneys in the state, Fountain became known, not only for his defense of Billy the Kid, but even more for his aggressiveness as a prosecutor. He stood as the most powerful political threat against Fall and as the most serious legal threat against Lee and other rustlers. He was about to turn up the heat even more.
As chief investigator and prosecutor for the newly formed Southeastern New Mexico Stock Growers� Association � an organization of the big cattle operators backed by eastern and foreign capital, according to Gibson � Fountain set out, both in the legislative and law-enforcement venues, to put a stop to the cattle rustling. The thievery had cost the association members thousands of head of livestock. �By late July [1894],� said Gibson in The Life and Death of Colonel William Jennings Bryant, �scarcely three months after the organization of the southeastern New Mexico Stock Growers� Association, warrants were issued for the arrest of the Slick Miller gang,� a band of cattle rustlers out of central New Mexico. Within a year, Fountain had engineered convictions that sent 15 of the gang to prison.

He turned next to Oliver Lee. �I shall start in person for Tularosa and begin the work of corralling the entire gang� Fountain said in a report to the Association, according to Gibson. �The present condition of affairs cannot long exist I anticipate a hard contest, one perhaps to the death.� His wife, Mariana, mourning the recent death of her mother, now suffered �from mental trouble arising from her apprehension that my life is in danger.�
A Feeling of Being Closely Watched
Fountain, with a thrilled young Henry at his side (no one, insisted Mariana, could be evil enough to attack a child), had come to Lincoln in that January of 1896 to seek indictments against Oliver Lee and his men. He presented a grand jury in the Lincoln County Courthouse with a case full of evidence, including depositions, letters, affidavits and brand registrations document, according to Gibson. Always persuasive, Fountain secured 32 indictments.
�Throughout the proceedings,� said Gibson, �Fountain had the feeling of being closely watched�in the courtroom, on the streets of Lincoln, and in the hotel lobby at night as he visited with friends. During a recess on the final day of court an anonymous messenger handed him a crudely written note. It warned, �If you drop this we will be your friends. If you go on with it you will never reach home alive.��
In the afternoon of January 30, Fountain loaded the buckboard and started for home, with Henry at his side. On the first leg of the trip, they headed up into the Sacramento Mountains, through the Ponderosa Pines, stopping for the night near the village of Mescalero, where an Apache friend gave them a pinto pony.
The next morning, January 31, with the pinto tied to the rear of the buckboard, they headed down the western slope of the Sacramentos to the desert floor. At Tularosa, at the foot of the mountains, they turned south, skirting the western flank of the mountains, headed for the hamlet of La Luz to spend the night. He stopped for brief visits with friends he met along the way. During the day, he noticed two riders, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, always too far away to permit recognition. Fountain, perhaps remembering the note, �you will never reach home alive,� grew uneasy.
At La Luz, Fountain gave Henry, now taken with his bad cold, a quarter to buy sweets. The child spent 10 cents. Carefully, he tied the change, a nickel and a dime, in the corner of his handkerchief.
Early the next morning, February 1, Fountain, with Henry beside him and the pinto pony in tow, struck the wagon road to the southwest, across the Tularosa Basin past White Sands, bound for Mesilla and home. He met a stagecoach. The driver, Santos Alvarado, said that he had seen three riders back up the road. They stayed too far away to permit recognition. Soon Fountain saw the three riders, one, he noticed, on a white horse.

After a rest at a mid-way stage stop, Fountain pressed on. He met another stagecoach. As they stopped for a brief visit, he and the driver, Saturnino Barela, both saw the three riders, hovering like specters in the distance. Fountain declined Barela�s suggestion to return to the mid-way stage stop, spend the night, then finish his journey in the company of a stage the following day. Henry had a cold. He needed care. Mariana, worried, expected them home sooner. Besides, no one could be evil enough to attack a child.
He headed across the rise called Chalk Hill. With the sun falling and a cold wind rising, Fountain gathered a blanket and a quilt around Henry, said Gibson. He buttoned his heavy overcoat. He looked for the three riders. He could not see them. With growing uneasiness, he picked up his Winchester rifle. He heard the sudden crack of gunfire. That was the last thing that he or his eight-year-old son would ever hear. Someone was evil enough to attack a child.
The Aftermath
The next morning, an anxious Saturnino Barela, at the Chalk Hill crossing on his return trip to Las Cruces and Mesilla, discovered the tracks of Fountain�s waylaid buckboard. He found the hoof prints of strange horses. He saw no sign of the carriage, the horses, or Fountain and his son. He rushed across San Augustine Pass and down the mountain slope to Fountain�s home in Mesilla to alert the family.
Two search parties, one of them led by Fountain�s son, rushed through the darkness of the icy night to the murder site. Helped by two Mescalero Apache scouts, they began piecing together the evidence as the sun rose over the Sacramento Mountains, on the eastern horizon. They found where a man had knelt and fired from behind a growth of shrubs, leaving shell casings on the ground. They discovered the site where two men had tended three horses. They followed wagon tracks and discovered a pool of blood. One man discovered a blood-soaked handkerchief with a nickel and a dime tied carefully in its corner. They followed the wagon tracks of the buckboard and the hoof tracks of six horses east for some 12 miles, into sand dunes west of a small and isolated mountain range called the Jarillas. There, they discovered the carriage, which had been plundered and abandoned. They tried to follow the tracks of the killers. One trail led toward one of Oliver Lee�s ranches, where trackers found a threatening reception.

In the days to come, new posses joined the search, hoping the find the bodies of Fountain and his son. Rumors swirled throughout the desert and across the country. Newspapers covered the story in detail. The governor of New Mexico offered a reward for the capture of the killers. The Republican Party and the regional cattlemen mourned Fountain�s passing.
According to Sonnichsen, a local paper, the Republican, said, under the headline THE HOUR AT HAND: �A devoted wife and loving family await longingly and hopefully the coming of a kind husband and father and a dutiful son and brother upon whose living faces they may never look again. Many friends hope against fate for the return of an honored friend while many other search the plains for his living or dead body. If dead there can be no question as to at whose door the blame lies...�
Meanwhile, Albert Fall, said Gibson, �screamed that the whole deal was political; that the Republicans were using the Fountain issue to crucify innocent Democrats.�

Gradually, as months and then years passed, investigators, including Pat Garrett, famous lawman and gunfighter, finally put together a case. The governor, said Gibson, told a representative of the famous Pinkerton National Detective Agency that, �The men who are suspected of this crime are Oliver Lee, William McNew, and James Gilliland.� They eventually came under arrest. In a legal charade orchestrated by Albert Fall, McNew won his release. Lee and Gilliland, defended in their trial by Fall, won �Not Guilty� verdicts. �The gallery,� said Gibson, �cheered wildly.�
Although rumors and leads surfaced for years, no one has ever found the bodies of Fountain and his son.
Politically craven, Albert Fall switched from the Democratic Party to the dominant Republican Party in 1904. He won a seat in the senate when New Mexico became the country�s 47th state in 1912. He served until 1921, when he accepted President Warren G. Harding�s appointment as Secretary of the Interior. He promptly proceeded to engineer the infamous Teapot Dome scandal, which prompted his resignation from office, his conviction on a felony charge, a term in prison and the loss of many assets. Disgraced, he moved to El Paso, where he died in 1944.
If you would like to learn more about the infamous Fountain murders, you can get a good overview of Fountain and Fall in the internet sites Borderlands and The Handbook of Texas Online. You will discover good accounts of the murders in A. M. Gibson�s The Life and Death of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain; Gordon R. Owen�s The Two Alberts: Fountain and Fall; and C. L. Sonnichsen�s Tularosa: Last of the Frontier West. You will find good background information in Owen�s Las Cruces, New Mexico 1849-1999: Multicultural Crossroads and Mary Daniels Taylor�s A Place as Wild as the West Ever Was: Mesilla, New Mexico 1848-1872.

People of the Desert

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Pat Garrett is best known as the man who killed Billy the Kid in 1881. The Billy the Kid. And everybody knows who Billy the Kid is, right? Billy was the reality celebrity of his day. No two ways about it, Billy was a criminal. He stole horses and cattle. People had a nasty habit of dying in his presence, some by his hand in questionable circumstances. Sometimes he found himself on the right side of the law, but more often than not he was on the wrong side. This was not all that unusual in his time as people living in territorial New Mexico did not depend on the government to solve their problems and were not averse to engaging in self-help remedies.

Pat Garrett was born in 1850 in Alabama, the son of a slave owner. He slowly drifted westward before finding himself voted in as Sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, in 1880. Before becoming a lawman, Garrett lived a quasi-criminal existence and had already killed a man during his buffalo hunting days on the frontier. Garrett captured Billy the Kid. Twice. The second time, on July 14, 1881, he ended Billy�s life in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Both men entered American folklore soon after. The United States government was determined that political change was coming to New Mexico and Garrett was one of the blunt instruments of that change. The lawlessness had to go and Billy the Kid, who was robbing and killing his way through the territory, was the poster boy of lawlessness.

In many ways, Pat Garrett gets relegated to playing second fiddle to Billy the Kid. However, after killing Billy, he went on to live an interesting life, serving first as Sheriff in Lincoln County and then, later, Sheriff of Dona Ana County, where he eventually settled. He was later appointed as a customs agent in El Paso, Texas, by President Theodore Roosevelt. He was married to a hispanic woman and had eight children. However, the sad fact is that Garrett reached his zenith with Billy. No matter what anybody says about Garrett, he was a man who did his duty and believed in the law and in justice. Reportedly, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, at the train station there while transporting Billy and his gang to Santa Fe after first capturing him, a mob demanded that Garrett give them Dirty Dave Rudabaugh, a member of Billy�s gang and a particularly cruel man, because Rudabaugh was wanted in Las Vegas for gunning down a Las Vegas jailer while trying to bust his friend out of jail there the year prior. Garrett told the mob, which included the local Sheriff, that he was executing federal warrants and that he would arm the prisoners himself should they attack the train car in which Garrett and the prisoners were riding. They all reached Santa Fe safely. That was the kind of man Pat Garrett was. He drank heavily most of his life, loved to dance and played cards for hours on end. But he also loved his family and was deeply devoted to them. Pat had a lot of friends, but just as many enemies.

Pat Garrett was undoubtedly a legend in his own time and his death is much more interesting than Billy�s demise. Garrett met his maker on February 29, 1908, in the desert east of Las Cruces, New Mexico. To this day, his death remains controversial. I wanted to find out for myself what really happened the day Pat Garrett died.

First, I would need to locate the actual murder site. As a criminal defense attorney who has investigated and defended numerous cases, I can tell you that going to the scene of an event is key to understanding it. The historical marker erected by the State of New Mexico is of little help in locating the murder site as even it says, cryptically, the actual location is �nearby�. I drove to the marker armed with another clue, that the murder site is directly southeast of the marker, but no idea how far. Unfortunately, traveling directly southeast of the marker will take you into a quaint residential neighborhood and several dead ends. I got out and walked around for a bit to get a lay of the land. There were no signs anywhere saying �Pat Garrett Murder Site� or anything you might expect of a place of this historical significance. Unfortunately, the only living person I saw while walking in the neighborhood drove off in her car before I could ask her some questions. This was going to be more difficult than I thought.


The Marker isn't much help in finding the actual murder site.

I went home and I retrieved some aerial views from Google Maps and got a much better idea of where the site was located. Additional research turned up two photos taken of the area a few years back and I discovered that I needed to look for power lines. Using the maps and information, I refined the search area and realized it would be easier to take another road into the area as opposed to the one by historical marker.


Area Map

I returned the next day and, using the information I had gathered, I was able to locate the actual murder site. It is indeed remote, located about a mile or so into the desert almost directly south of Onate High School. A four wheel drive is required to access the area. I surveyed the area and took some pictures and two videos. The date was February 28, 2010, nearly 102 years to the day that Pat Garrett was killed. It was a cloudy, overcast morning, not unlike how conditions were described on that day in 1908. The growth of Las Cruces (it�s currently about twenty times the size of its 5,000 residents in 1908) is slowly encroaching on the area from the west and I could see a few houses about a half mile away in that direction. But, in 1908, there was nothing out there except the arroyo, which, except for a few power lines and four wheel vehicle tracks, has remained relatively unchanged in the last century. I climbed the steep rise directly to the south of the murder site to get a good view and was able to envision what happened on the day Garrett died.


Looking North and down onto the murder scene



Garrett was traveling that day with two men, Carl Adamson and Wayne Brazel. Brazel was a local boy who was in tight with W.W. Cox, a prominent Dona Ana County citizen and rancher. Garrett was heavily in debt to Cox, whose ranch adjoined Garrett�s property. At this point in his life, Garrett was in desperate financial straits. No longer Sheriff, he had also been fired from his customs job in El Paso in 1905 and had turned to ranching as his main source of income. As good as a peace officer as he was, he did not have nearly as much luck ranching. A few months prior to Garrett�s death, Brazel and his business partner, Print Rhode, approached Garrett with a proposition. Brazel and Rhode would lease a portion of Garrett�s ranch for grazing purposes for a period of five years. They also would pay some cash up front to sweeten the deal for the desperate Garrett. The cash which was reportedly provided by Cox. Cox was also related to Rhode, having married his sister. Garrett, no doubt realizing his financial peril, agreed to the offer.

The lease quickly went sour. Brazel and Rhode moved in a herd of over one thousand goats onto the property. Garrett became livid as apparently he had been told that only cattle would be grazing on the property as opposed to the much more destructive goats. He filed suit against Brazel and Rhode in attempt to have lease voided. The suit was thrown out by the Justice of the Peace in Organ. At the end of his life, it seems as if Pat Garrett was on a long, slow losing streak.

Enter Carl Adamson. Adamson, from Texas, approached Garrett with another offer. He reportedly had some cattle that he was moving through the area from Mexico and wanted to purchase Garrett�s ranch as a stop while moving them to market. Garrett realized this could be his financial savior, but still had the problem with the lease with Brazel and Rhode and their damned goats. Garrett explained the situation and Adamson reportedly offered to purchase some or all of the goats from Brazel and Rhode. Apparently, the men were unable to reach agreement as to the sale price on the goat herd and the deal fell through. Garrett, desperate, agreed to a meeting between the men in Las Cruces in the hope that a successful mediation could be reached. So, on the morning he was killed, he and Adamson boarded Garrett�s horse drawn wagon at Garrett�s ranch. Garrett had two items with him: his Burgess shotgun and a check in the amount of $50.00 from New Mexico Governor George Curry. They made a quick stop in Organ to water the horses.

Garrett and Adamson ran into Brazel in Organ and, according to witnesses, Garrett and Brazel began arguing almost immediately about the goats. The three men continued their journey to Las Cruces, heading westward along the Alameda arroyo, Brazel on his own horse and Garrett and Adamson on the wagon. According to both Adamson and Brazel, the arguing between Garrett and Brazel continued. Sometimes Brazel rode next to the two men, but also sometimes kept his distrance, and when he was near the arguing would begin again. According to Adamson, at one point Brazel spoke briefly to a horseback mounted cowboy some distance ahead of the wagon. The unknown cowboy then rode off.

Adamson would later say that he needed to urinate and stopped the wagon in the Alameda arroyo. Garrett apparently had to go also and he jumped off the wagon and walked a few steps away, still arguing with Brazel. Adamson said that while his back was turned to the pair, he heard two shots ring out in quick succession and turned to see Pat Garrett fall dead. Brazel would later state that he believed Garrett was going for his gun and, fearing for his life, he shot Garrett down. Brazel turned himself in to the Sheriff and was charged with murder.

Here�s where things get interesting and, in my opinion, shows that the fix was in. Cox quickly secured Brazel�s release on bail. Albert Bacon Fall, the most notorious defense attorney in the territory and close friend of Cox, was retained to represent Brazel. Adamson testified at the preliminary inquiry, but not at the subsequent trial, though he was available as a witness. The trial lasted one day. The prosecuting attorney did not seem to zealously present his case. He put physician William Field on the stand.

According to Dr. Field, who reached the site a few hours after the killing, Garrett was found lying on his back, arms outstretched to his sides and one knee drawn up, with a blanket or robe partially covering his corpse. The fly in his trousers was unbuttoned and he was wearing one riding glove, the right one, and his left hand was bare. Garrett�s Burgess shotgun was lying on the ground, disassembled and incapable of being fired, still in its leather holster a few feet from his body. Dr. Field noted no disturbance to the sand around the holster, as one might think would occur if someone suddenly dropped the weapon onto the ground. That is, unless it was placed there, which is what Dr. Field believed had really happened.

Dr. Field also performed the autopsy on Garrett. Garrett had two gunshot wounds. The first and fatal shot was a bullet that had entered at the bottom rear of Garrett�s head and exited above Garrett�s right eye. The second bullet entered the front of his abdomen and was found by Dr. Field lodged in one of Garrett�s shoulders, meaning the bullet had traveled upward after entering through Garrett�s body.

Interestingly enough, Field was never asked by the prosecutor to explain Garrett�s wounds or his other observations at trial. Adamson did not testify at the trial. Brazel testified that he feared for his life and shot Garrett down while Garrett was going for his own weapon. The jury deliberated for about fifteen minutes before pronouncing Brazel not guilty, apparently believing the self-defense claim. Cox would later purchase Garrett�s ranch from his widow, further consolidating his New Mexico land and ranch empire.

The physical evidence at the scene is inconsistent with self-defense. The first shot into Garrett came from behind, killing him instantly. The second shot most likely came while Garrett was falling or already on the ground, as it moved upward through his body from his abdomen before stopping in his shoulder. But with his trousers unbuttoned and one glove removed, his head tilted forward, it becomes clear that Pat Garrett was killed at a time when all men are most vulnerable. He was killed while urinating. The shotgun was later placed next to him to bolster Brazel�s self defense claim and the blanket was draped over him to preserve some of his dignity.

Reportedly, within a week of Garrett�s murder, law enforcement officers found a Winchester shell casing not far from where Garrett was killed. Some surmise that someone waited in ambush, possibly the unidentified cowboy that Brazel spoke with. Deathbed confessions by people in the know in the mid-20th century would identify that cowboy as Print Rhode, Brazel�s business partner and Cox�s brother-in-law. Print Rhode would later kill a man, another brother-in-law, in Arizona. After being convicted, his case was, in a most unusual manner, transferred to New Mexico where Cox was able obtain a pardon from the governor. It�s certainly possible that Rhode was out there that day and could have been lying in wait for Garrett, but it�s also possible that the shell casing had nothing to do with Garrett�s murder or had perhaps been planted there by the investigating officers. Modern forensics could help put the issue to rest, but those facilities did not exist in 1908.

A big question is whether Adamson was in on the scheme or whether he was just someone who knew when to keep his mouth shut in the company of dangerous men. Adamson was related to James �Killer� Miller, a Texas assassin who would later be lynched after engineering an assassination that bore a striking resemblance to Garrett�s murder and Miller was rumored to have done the same in the past. Some speculate that Miller may have been the man waiting in the brush to kill Garrett. Without any hard evidence, it is merely speculation.

Besides financial gain, Cox had other reasons to want Garrett dead. About ten years before his murder and while still Sheriff of Dona Ana County, Garrett had investigated the disappearance of Colonel Albert J. Fountain and his young son near White Sands. Fountain, who at the time was the Third Judicial District Attorney, had obtained indictments against associates of Albert Fall (Oliver Lee and William McNew) and others a few days prior to his disappearance and Fall is thought to have engineered Fountain�s disappearance. Cox was also believed to be possibly involved in Fountain�s disappearance. Subsequent to Garrett�s thorough investigation of the Fountain case, Lee and McNew were tried for Fountain�s murder (though no bodies were ever found) and they were represented by none other than Albert Fall, who would later go on to defend Brazel in Garrett�s murder trial. Can you guess what the verdict was in the Fountain case?

Based on the evidence, Brazel�s claim of self defense can be ruled out. Pat Garrett was murdered, plain and simple. You don�t shoot a urinating man in the back of the head in self-defense. Garrett�s Burgess shotgun was not capable of being fired in the condition in which it was found. Garrett�s killer knew Garrett was a dangerous man and took no chances in dispatching him. It really comes down to who pulled the trigger on Garrett. Even money is on either Brazel or Rhode. Most people who knew Brazel thought him incapable of murder, but it is obvious that Rhode was more than capable and had also apparently tried to goad Garrett into a fight during their court case for the lease. A longshot guess is James �Killer� Miller, but I think this is nothing but sensational speculation. But as to a wider and larger conspiracy, all signs point to W.W. Cox and, possibly, Albert Bacon Fall. However, other than some innuendo and hearsay, not much directly connects Cox and Fall to Garrett�s murder, but these men were adept at engineering heinous plots and getting away with it. In all probability, there was a conspiracy that existed to murder Pat Garrett. However, the size and extent of that conspiracy has been lost to history and will likely remain one its great mysteries.

A Wild Time at Wildly Well
Pat Garrett vs Oliver Lee & Jim Gililland Written by Bob Boze Bell Published June 01, 2008

Click above image to view more graphics




July 12, 1898

At around 4 a.m., Do�a Ana County Sheriff Pat Garrett and his posse are trying to sneak up on murder suspects Oliver Lee and Jim Gilliland at Lee�s Wildy Well Ranch, east of the Jarilla Mountains in New Mexico.

Lee and Gililland are wanted for the murder of Albert Jennings Fountain and his eight-year-old son Henry.



For Garrett, it�s almost 17 years to the day since the incident that made him famous (or infamous)�the killing of Billy the Kid. This is a chance for him to reclaim some of the glory that had eluded him since that night in Fort Sumner. He may be able to restart a law enforcement career that stalled more than a decade ago.

He�s headed for a disappointment.

The lawmen break into the adobe house�and find the Madison family, asleep in their beds. Lee and Gililland are asleep on the adobe�s flat roof, and protected by a two-foot high wall.

Garrett and his men leave the house and reposition themselves, ready for a fight. He leads two of them onto the roof of the shed attached to the house. Another guards the Madisons, and one takes cover behind a nearby water tank. All are exposed to any gunfire from the suspects.

Garrett calls for Lee and Gililland to surrender. Almost immediately, Deputy Kent Kearney�nervous and jumpy�opens fire. Then the fight becomes general. One of Lee�s shots just misses Garrett�s head. Kearney is hit in the shoulder and groin, and falls off the roof. Another deputy jumps down and is pinned by gunfire. Lee and Gililland pepper the water tank with bullets, soaking the lawman crouching behind it. Reportedly, Oliver Lee is laughing the whole time.

The shooting stops. Garrett orders the suspects to surrender; they refuse. In fact, Lee says, �Pat, don�t you think you�ve got the worst of this?� Garrett replies, �Don�t you think I know it?�

The two sides make a deal�Garrett and company will be allowed to leave and get help for Kearney, who lies wounded on the ground. The lawmen depart, later sending a railroad crew to get their injured comrade. It�s the most embarrassing moment in Pat Garrett�s law enforcement career.

Aftermath: Odds & Ends

Mary Madison cared for Deputy Kent Kearney, removing the bullet from his groin. Later that afternoon, the section crew moved him to Alamogordo for additional medical help. He died the next day.

***

Murder suspect Oliver Lee continued to be an important New Mexico rancher and later became a state legislator. Lee died in 1941. One of his ranches became a state park, bearing his name. Many historians�including researcher Corey Recko�believe that he and his cohorts killed the Fountains and got away with it.

***

Jim Gililland bought his own ranch in 1902 and lived a quiet life until his death in 1946. In 1927, he confessed that he�d helped Lee and Bill McNew kill the Fountains and bury their bodies in the White Sands area. He even identified the burial spot�but nothing was ever found there. Lee and McNew denied their pal�s claims.

***

Pat Garrett did not seek reelection as Do�a Ana County sheriff. He shuffled from job to job throughout the next several years. He was gunned down on a lonely New Mexico road in late February 1908. Albert Fall again used his wiles in defending Garrett�s suspected killer, Wayne Brazel, by claiming self-defense. The verdict: not guilty. Some believed then�and now�that Oliver Lee was involved in a conspiracy to kill Garrett.

Patrick (Pat) Floyd Garrett


Garrett, Patrick Floyd (Pat), 1850-1908, U.S., lawman. Raised in Louisiana, Patrick Garrett was one of six children. His parents died shortly after the Civil War and at eighteen, in 1869, Garrett went west to seek his fortune. He worked as a cattle driver in the Texas Panhandle and later became a buffalo hunter. While working in Texas, Garrett killed his first man. Near Fort Griffin, Texas, in November 1876, Garrett got into an argument with Joseph Briscoe, a burly Irish skinner. Garrett made a derogatory remark about Briscoe washing his clothes in a stream and both men got into a wild fistfight. Briscoe was a short, squat man and Garrett was six-foot-four-inches tall. He easily bested the mule skinner but Briscoe grabbed an ax and raced toward Garrett who, in turn, lifted his rifle and fired into Briscoe's chest. The mule skinner died a few minutes later with Garrett standing over him, tears running down his ruddy cheeks.

The plains-hardened Garrett, who had become an expert with a gun, arrived in Sumner, N.M., driving cattle. Here he got a job tending bar and later opened a small cafe. He married in 1879, but his teenage bride died of illness and Garrett married again. While tending bar and running his restaurant, Garrett also spent a considerable amount of time gambling, and at the tables he met most of the young cowboys who later became gunslingers involved in the infamous and bloody Lincoln County War. One of these was Billy the Kid. The two became so close that they were known as Big Casino and Little Casino, nicknamed after their sizes and because they were constantly playing casino poker.

When the Lincoln County war erupted between warring cattle barons, Billy the Kid and his friends shot and killed several gunmen who had murdered John Tunstall, the Kid's former employer and mentor. In 1880, Garrett was elected county sheriff with specific instructions to halt the bloody war and, most importantly, bring Billy the Kid, his former friend, to justice. So Garrett and his deputies set out after the Kid's gang and, in early December 1880, Garrett and others encountered Tom O'Folliard on the trail in Lincoln County, N.M. O'Folliard was riding to join the Kid at the time, and once he spotted the posse, he fired his Winchester several times in a running gunfight with the pursuing lawmen before outdistancing them.

Garrett, in December 1880, had just delivered some prisoners to Puerto de Luna, N.M., when he encountered a boisterous Mariano Leiva in a store. Leiva saw Garrett, by then a noted lawmen, and began stomping about the store, snarling: "No gringo can arrest meC' He then went to the street and shouted for all to hear, particularly the patient, tight-lipped Garrett: "By God, even that damned Pat Garrett can't take me!"

Garrett stepped onto the porch of the store, faced his antagonist, and pushed him into the street. Leiva went for his gun, firing a single bullet that went wild. Garrett drew his six-gun and snapped off two shots, one missing Leiva, the other ploughing into Leiva's left shoulder, smashing the blade. The would-be gunman was thrown over a saddle and led to jail. He was later fined $80 for attempting to murder Garrett.

In an effort to capture Billy the Kid and his gang, Garrett and a number of lawmen moved into the post hospital at Fort Sumner. One of the Kid's riders, Charlie Bowdre, had a wife who lived at the post, and Garrett was expecting that Bowdre and the others would soon ride into Fort Sumner to visit the woman. He was correct. On the evening of Dec. 19, 1880, Billy the Kid, accompanied by Charlie Bowdre, Tom O'Folliard, Billy Wilson, Tom Pickett, and Dave Rudabaugh, rode into the post.

Garrett, Lon Chambers, and others stepped onto the porch of the hospital and saw O'Folliard and Picket riding ahead of the Kid and the rest of the riders. "Halt!" shouted Garrett and at that moment O'Folliard drew his six-gun and began blazing away at the lawmen. Garrett and Chambers fired back simultaneously and a bullet stuck O'Folliard in the chest. He and Picket, along with the Kid and the others behind him, turned their horses about and galloped away. Pickett was wounded and Rudabaugh's horse later died from a wound. But the gang escaped, riding pell-mell from the post, except for O'Folliard, who suddenly wheeled his horse about and trotted back to face the lawmen. O'Folliard shouted: "Don't shoot, Garrett! I'm killed!"

Barney Mason, one of the deputies, aimed his six-gun at the wounded O'Folliard, saying: "Take your medicine, boy." Garrett stopped him from shooting and ordered O'Folliard: "Throw up your hands! Surrender!" "I can't raise my arms," O'Folliard said weakly as he rode slowly forward. He then fell from his horse into the arms of the lawmen, who took him to the hospital where he was put on a couch and doctors told him he had a fatal wound.

A bizarre scene then ensued with Garrett and his deputies sitting at a nearby table, playing poker, while talking to the dying O'Folliard, asking him to name the members of the gang. "Tom," Garrett told him, "your time is short." He then asked for the names of the gang members.

Replied O'Folliard: "The sooner the better. I will be out of pain:" He then moaned out the names of his fellow outlaws: The Kid, Wilson, Rudabaugh, Pickett, and Bowdre. O'Folliard also gave Garrett the locations of the Kid's hideouts. About half an hour later he died. O'Folliard would later be buried in a common grave with Bowdre and Billy the Kid.

Four days later, on Dec. 23, 1880, with the knowledge of the identities of the gang and their hideout, Garrett led a large posse to a rock house at Stinking Springs, N.M. The lawmen surrounded the crumbling rock house and Garrett gave orders that when the Kid stepped from this structure in the morning, he was to be shot immediately. By this time, Garrett knew that Billy the Kid was lethal and that asking him to surrender was a futile gesture. The next morning Charlie Bowdre, who was about the same size as the Kid, stepped from the rock house. From a distance, he appeared to be the Kid and Garrett raised his rifle, a signal which caused the posse to open a withering fire. Bowdre was hit twice in the chest and sent reeling back through the door of the rock house. Someone inside the house slammed the door shut and gunfire erupted from its windows.

Then Billy Wilson could be heard to call out to Garrett that Bowdre was dying and that he wanted to step outside. Garrett shouted back that Bowdre should step from the rock house with his hands up. Suddenly, Bowdre was shoved outside by the vicious Billy the Kid, who screamed to his friend: "Kill some of the sons-of-bitches before you die, Charlie!" Bowdre, clutching his chest and bleeding heavily, could only stagger forward blindly. He fell into Garrett's arms. The lawman put the dying outlaw on his own bedroll where Bowdre murmured: "I wish - I wish - I wish..:" He then died.

The Kid and his men then tried to pull some of their horses tied up outside to the doorway into the house, but Garrett shot and killed one horse and the outlaws abandoned this attempt. Gunfire was exchanged periodically between the outlaws and the posse until Garrett shouted: "How are you doing, Kid?" The Kid replied: "Pretty well, but we have no wood to get breakfast." Shouted Garrett to his former friend: "Come out and get some. Be a little sociable."

There was no reply. Garrett stared at Bowdre's corpse and told other lawmen that he felt bad about the youth's death. Then he told his men to make several fires and begin cooking bacon and other food. This was done and the thick odor of the food being made wafted to the rock house. A white handkerchief on a stick was then waved from a window and Rudabaugh stepped outside to ask for food. Garrett, after some discussion, told Rudabaugh that if he and the others surrendered, they would be well fed and go unharmed. The Kid and the others slowly stepped from the rock house and surrendered. The Kid was taken to Lincoln and locked up, but he later shot his way to freedom, killing two of Garrett's best deputies while Garrett was away on official business. Garrett now set out to get the Kid, accompanied by Tip McKinney and Frank Poe. They rode into Fort Sumner on July 14, 1881, following a tip that the Kid was hiding with friends at the post.

Several accounts had it that when entering the crowded old fort, Garrett and the Kid actually passed each other, but neither recognized the other. That night, Garrett approached Pete Maxwell, a friend of the Kid's, asking if the Kid was in the vicinity. He entered Maxwell's house and went into the bedroom, sitting on the bed and questioning Maxwell. The room was unlighted and the , door opened. The Kid stood there, framed in the light from the hallway. He had just left his sweetheart and had come to Maxwell to ask for the key to the meat locker so he could prepare a steak.

Tip McKinney was a member of a noted Texas family. His grandfather, Collin McKinney, signed the Texas Declaration of Independence; Robert McKinney, Tip's uncle, died at the Alamo; and his cousin, Robert Moody McKinney, was owner and publisher of the Santa Fe New Mexcian. Tip's father, John McKinney, owned a stock farm in East Texas.
During the late 1870's Thomas L. McKinney helped his father drive a herd of horses to Palo Pinto County, where they traded their animals for a cattle herd. They drove the cattle to New Mexico's Seven Rivers country, where they soon became involved in fighting with the "Seven Rivers Warriors."
Tip later spent some time in Uvalde, Texas, and finally settled in Roswell. Pat Garrett appointed him deputy sheriff, and he was with Garrett when Billy the Kid was killed. McKinney's greatest notoriety as a gunman came during a close-range shooting scrape two months before the Kid's death.
The Kid was in his stocking feet and wore no hat. He had a butcher knife in his hand in preparation of cutting the steak. A six-gun was jammed into his waistband. Maxwell, cowering on the bed, whispered to Garrett in the darkness: "That's him."

Billy stood squinting into the dark room, unable to see its occupants but knowing someone was there after hearing Maxwell speak to Garrett in hushed tones. Said the Kid: "Quien esta? Quien esta?" ("Who's there? Who's there?") He pulled out his six-gun and stepped into the room. Garrett fired a single shot which slammed into the Kid's chest. Then Garrett dove to the floor, expecting the Kid's six-gun to spit. The lawmen fired another shot as he leaped, but the bullet went wild. Maxwell ran from the room and Garrett followed him. The Kid lay on the floor, silent forever. His body was removed a short time later and he was buried the next day in the common grave holding Charlie Bowdre and Tom O'Folliard.

The killing of Billy the Kid brought Garrett fame and criticism. He was lauded for ridding Lincoln County of its most ferocious murderer, a youth who claimed to have killed twenty-one men. But the manner in which Garrett shot his quarry caused him severe criticism, especially from the supporters of Billy the Kid and those who never knew the vicious killer and had romanticized his bloody actions. In truth, he was a cheap, illiterate, back-stabbing slayer who shot from ambush and killed seemingly without cause. To those who idolized his legend, the Kid was the victim of a traitorous friend. Garrett claimed the reward for the Kid and even had to hire a lawyer to obtain this cash. The Republican Party refused to renominate him for sheriff and Garrett went into ranching, establishing operations near Fort Stanton in 1884.

Later, working for a special branch of the Texas Rangers, Garrett chased outlaws along the Texas-New Mexico border. He later supervised operations for other ranchers, established another ranch near Roswell that failed, and then tried to launch an irrigation scheme in the Pecos Valley that did not work. In 1890 Garrett ran for the office of sheriff in Chaves County, but was rejected by voters, a defeat that left him embittered. He moved to Uvalde, Texas, and set up a horse ranch. There he befriended a political powerhouse named John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner, later vice president in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administrations (1933-41). Garrett was elected a county commissioner in 1894, with Garner's help.

In 1896, Garrett was called back to the six-gun when Judge Albert J. Fountain and his young son disappeared and were presumed to be mysteriously murdered in White Sands, N.M. Garrett became sheriff of Dona Ana County with the specific assignment of tracking down the killer of the Fountains. These murders reportedly stemmed from a dispute over a huge cattle empire and were apparently carried out by Jim "Deacon" Miller. Although Garrett suspected Miller, an independent gunman for hire and killer of dozens of persons, he could prove nothing. The Fountain case remained unsolved.

While still sheriff of Dona Ana County, Garrett and four other deputies rode out to a ranch near Wildy Well on July 13, 1898, to arrest Oliver Lee and James Gilliland, who stood accused of murder. The Lee ranch, which was about thirty miles south of Alamogordo, was well-guarded and, as the lawmen approached, a ranch hand gave the alarm. The posse members, advancing on the house, were blasted by heavy gunfire from Lee and Gilliland after Garrett had ordered the pair to surrender. Garrett received a slight wound in the side and his deputy, Kent Kearney, was mortally wounded. So intense was the gunfire from the well-barricaded Lee and Gilliland that the lawmen were forced to retreat in disgrace. Both men later surrendered, but Lee and Gilliand were acquitted after a widely publicized trial.

This disgrace, coupled with his failure to find the killer of the Fountains, caused Garrett to lose his job as sheriff of Dona Ana County. He later opened a livery stable in Las Cruces, N.M., then moved to El Paso, Texas, where he was made a customs inspector through special appointment of President Theodore Roosevelt, again with the help of John Nance Garner. He refused another appointment in 1905 and began ranching again near Las Cruces. Pressed for cash, Garrett began leasing some of his best acreage. Some of this land was leased by Wayne Brazil (or Brazel) for cattle. When Brazil put herds of goats onto the land, Garrett said that he had violated their agreement and threatened to shoot Brazil unless he removed the goats. This led to a bitter feud.

On Feb. 29, 1908, Garrett met with Jim "Deacon" Miller and Carl Adamson, who claimed that they themselves would lease the land Brazil had been leasing. This was an apparent ruse. Miller, the suspected killer of the Fountains twelve years earlier, had apparently been brought in to murder the stubborn Garrett. Garrett, Adamson, and Brazil then rode together to inspect the land in question. Miller rode a circuitous route and lay in ambush about four miles outside of Las Cruces. When Garrett stopped his buggy to relieve himself, a bullet suddenly smashed through the back of his head and exited above the right eye. He spun around and another bullet tore into his stomach. The lawmen fell to the earth, dead. Brazil later reported that he and Garrett had quarreled and both had drawn their sixguns and Brazil had killed the lawman. Miller, however, was the real killer. Neither Brazil nor Miller were ever tried for the murder.

Well done!

Thanks for posting all that.

birdie: eyeball:
it's a small world, my wife's extended family includes john Garner.

A guy who's name comes up in the killing of Pat Garret (tho it likely weren't him that time), maybe the creepiest name in the Old West. The contract/serial killer/psychopath and ostensibly devout Methodist "Deacon" Jim Miller AKA Killer Miller....

Shades of Anton Kugarsh in "No Country for Old Men".....

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-jamesmiller.html

"Let the record show that I've killed 51 men."

I dunno if this total included Mexicans.