Has your opinion changed on roberts over the years?

[Rufus]

Aug 26, 2024 16:12:03 GMT -5 Wayne Land said:

That's a very long and meandering comment. He was younger than thought, he was older than thought, he looked younger than he was, he looked older than he was. Do you have an opinion on just how old Brushy was in 1893 and any real evidence to support that opinion?

I believe that he was born in 1879, in short.

Why? He had four older siblings:

Samantha
Martha
Cordelia
Andrew

According to Donald Cline's book, which took quotes from either the living siblings or children of Brushy's older and younger siblings, they said Oliver and Brushy were one and the same. They grew up with him, went to school with him, and he lived with them at various times throughout his life.

He also resided with his brother Thomas and later his niece Geneva quite frequently. There wasn't a time in his life that his whereabouts wasn't known to them, and they were all aware of his flights of fancy as his nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews has clear memories of him talking about being a masterful rider, Indian fighter, and (yes) even claiming to be Billy The Kid.

According to the family he also claimed to be Frank James for a time when living in Mena, Oklahoma. His wife Mollie died from the flu, he nearly died himself and his stepdaughter was sent away to live with friends or family. So Thomas was told to come get him and take care of him, only to arrive in Mena and was asked by residents whether it was true Oliver was Frank James. Thomas, more than upset, said none of it was true and when he found his brother let him have it; though he took him home, he was so dusgusted by it all he had Brushy go to live with Cordelia. From that time onwards Thomas had nothing more to do with his brother again.

Proof of this story is on the bill of sale for the Mena Arkansas home he had with Mollie are the initials "O.F. Roberts," the F for Frank James. Furthermore, the town of Mena has a log cabin said to be a hideout of the James Gang. It is said by the Roberts family that Brushy had seen Frank James do a lecture years before, and became obsessed with the James family.



The book paints a rather convincing picture that Roberts had some kind of mental or emotional illness, as he could never hold down a job and was always telling wild stories, and couldn't really maintain relationships. That he was a man who had a dislike of children, possibly because they laughed at him, and that he had to constantly move elsewhere because he'd make himself a laughingstock.

The book also had quotes from residents who mentioned incidents where Roberts would tell stories only to be exposed by old timers who had been to the places or been at the events he claimed or had been experienced cattle drivers or ranchers, saying he was full of it. He had been exposed so many times in Hico that if he saw men like "Sarge" Haynes coming around, who frequently called Brushy out on his stories, he would stop talking and run across the street and get out of dodge.

So much so that his last wife told her children not to bring her grandchildren around because she did not want his bad behavior of telling lies to rub off on the children. Its quite the opposite picture that William Morrison ever painted, and Cline's own book mentions Morrison's own nagging doubts that the old man was telling lies because he would be in multiples places all at once, or he could never say what aliases he used and when he used them, and everything led to a dead end. Morrison expressed these doubts private in his own notebooks and letters.

That being said, some of the things in Cline's book was wrong. Through my own research some of his assumptions were incorrect. Even the Roberts family was mistaken on at least one issue, believing he married to some woman named Frances LaRhetta Thompson but my own research shows he was just living with her as a laborer and that the woman was related to the Roberts family via marriage.

However, all in all, I side with the 1879 birthdate simply because he had older siblings and they all insisted he wasnt Billy The Kid and never was in the Spanish American War or anything else. The book is free for anyone to read on the New Mexico Archives website.

We agree to disagree.

Jesus Christ Almighty God bless you all

[RonBk]

Is there any reason to believe anything in Cline's book is not fabrication? The entire book may as well be complete bogus?

[Rufus]

Aug 27, 2024 15:09:32 GMT -5 RonBk said:

Is there any reason to believe anything in Cline's book is not fabrication? The entire book may as well be complete bogus?

I believe it to be an honest effort by a man looking for the truth because I've seen some of the photostatic copies of the letters quoted in the book, and the book has several notes (ie, censuses, etc) basically backing up virtually every page.

The book quotes individuals like Ola Everhard as well, where she said "Bill" never took anything serious with dates, times, aliases, etc saying that nobody cared about that stuff because people forget things after hearing it anyway. So it gives an insight into how little Brushy actually thought of proving things.

Does it have its faults or errors or mistakes? Sure. But most books that are non-fiction tend to. Either assumptions are wrong, theories are wrong, data was wrong, etc. Most are minor. Seldom catastrophic towards one's case as a whole. From my perspective the book is in the majority truthful, though some minor details were wrong.

How else would one explain away older siblings, in-laws, friends, younger siblings, town residents, nieces and nephews, all basically saying that Oliver and Brushy were one and the same unless he was?

Jesus Christ Almighty God bless you all

[RonBk]

A possible explanation is that Cline never spoke to any of those people. It could be the siblings and in-laws and friends never said any of the things Cline said that they did, it's just a fabricated story. Is this even a real book? What is the title of the book and where was it published? Is Donald Cline even a real person?

[Rufus]

Aug 27, 2024 22:54:01 GMT -5 RonBk said:

A possible explanation is that Cline never spoke to any of those people. It could be the siblings and in-laws and friends never said any of the things Cline said that they did, it's just a fabricated story. Is this even a real book? What is the title of the book and where was it published? Is Donald Cline even a real person?

Again, I saw photostatic copies of some of the letters addressed to Donald Cline. Much of his papers and life's work are at the New Mexico archives. Yes, he was a real person who had other books published about Billy The Kid and other subjects of the Wild West.

The book was unpublished, I suspect because it was incomplete. Towards the end of his life Cline developed dementia and his papers were unorganized, so I suspect part of the reason why it was unpublished is because the letters, etc were so disorganized it was hard to recompile them. When he died, however, his family had all of his papers sent to the New Mexico archives.

His manuscript has been previously quoted by Gale Cooper rather extensively in her series on Brushy Bill Roberts. The book itself was recently released in online format for free from the New Mexico archives. I'll provide a link to it at the end of this post.

All of his research and papers one can request from the New Mexico archives which is where I saw the photostatic copies of letters from the Roberts family. However, I haven't (so far) seen all of the letters he quoted or cited in the notations at the end of every chapter. I suspect this is because they are unorganized from his personal collection. For a fee, I believe, you can request copies of every single paper he ever had.

From my point of view arguing that he did not actually speak to the family, etc when the evidence is there that he did is holding on to an opinion despite contrary evidence. As promised the book is here:

drive.google.com/file/d/1GAHqZhMiw5XPHRk4I7q-KVSNkiTvlh6m/view?fbclid=IwY2xjawE7_dNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQuBcpQWEhwsTvB0JDre96_jCJNQbmfU44cH3Bo7AyCJr1d4ydvwlozl6g_aem_taQO0pXPe9M-bm60dUdYWg

If the link doesn't work search for the title "I Wasn't Billy The Kid" by Donald Cline. There is also youtube videos out there discussing the book. It's been making the rounds for months on various Wild West forums on Facebook.

Jesus Christ Almighty God bless you all

[RonBk]

Interesting, I will have to look into this. Im not really arguing either way, all im saying it does not seem like super solid evidence, just because one person (in this case a person with dementia) wrote in a manuscript he received letters from certain other persons, this is not really proof those people wrote those letters. Even if you saw photostatic copies of one letter, how do you really know who wrote that? But im not saying it's fraudulent. I never said I know it's fraud I was asking a question about the possibility it could be bogus possibly. Maybe it is bogus and maybe it isn't. Anyway, thanks for the reply and the info about this.

[Wayne Land]

Likewise Rufus, thanks for the info on this. I will also attempt to access the book before assuming anything. But let me say my biggest question is why these relatives only wrote to this one man and never said anything to anyone else. I don't know how many of them were still alive in the 50's and beyond but you'd think there would be other sources other than Cline presenting this information. Are there any records of Cline himself making any effort to make the info public knowledge? Any interviews, etc.?

[Wayne Land]

I have dowloaded the book by Cline and carefully searched through it looking for a specific thing which I could not find anywhere. I wanted to know if there were any quotes of actual letters from anyone who knew Oliver P. Roberts when he was a child in the 1880's or even in the 1890's who had sworn he was the same person they knew as Brushy Bill after 1910 or so. When I have time I plan to read more of it more carefully but so far I've not found that "smoking gun". Most of the book, at least the parts that claim knowledge Brushy was not "BTK" is hearsay. If anyone can point to a specific passage or letter in the book that provides what I'm looking for, please, please let me know what page it is on.

[Rufus]

Aug 28, 2024 15:47:22 GMT -5 Wayne Land said:

Likewise Rufus, thanks for the info on this. I will also attempt to access the book before assuming anything. But let me say my biggest question is why these relatives only wrote to this one man and never said anything to anyone else. I don't know how many of them were still alive in the 50's and beyond but you'd think there would be other sources other than Cline presenting this information. Are there any records of Cline himself making any effort to make the info public knowledge? Any interviews, etc.?

From my understanding Cline compiled this stuff over the years, and what you are reading is essentially the rough draft. His health began to deteriorate, ended up coming down with dementia and passed away before it could go through an editing process or go through more revisions. The draft was 1989, Cline died in 1990.

Around this time Tunstill was making his own rounds and he met with Elaine Haws, and she initially stated Brushy wasn't Billy The Kid but it seems after much correspondence and insistence that he was she recanted everything her mother Martha told her and "approved" of everything Tunstill was saying. As we all know, Roy Haws is adamant his mother was lied to or manipulated which is why he wrote his own book.

I have no idea exactly who was reached out to and who wasn't but I do know as late as the 2000s-2010s that Cordelia's children and grandchildren were still alive. Brushy lived with her many times over the years. Far as I know of Cline was the only one who reached out to her.

I think part of the problem in the 80s a prior is that the Roberts family was basically unknown or kept in shadows, unaware, of any major interest in their brother or uncle. So they didn't really reach out, and they weren't necessarily searched out, until the mid-late 80s and that wasn't their doing but Cline reaching out.

It still blows my mind in many ways that even in Morrison's time there wasn't a greater effort to track down records on "Oliver Roberts," and see his marriage to Anna Lee or track down Chaunsey Truesdell who was a childhood friend of Billy The Kid, or records on Henry Roberts and see who his children were.

So many names and resources were lost forever because nobody reached out until it was too late. As for the smoking gun or smoking guns I'll have to re-read the book, take down notes, and then post them on here.

Jesus Christ Almighty God bless you all

[Rufus]

Aug 28, 2024 19:44:39 GMT -5 Rufus said:

Aug 28, 2024 15:47:22 GMT -5 Wayne Land said:

Likewise Rufus, thanks for the info on this. I will also attempt to access the book before assuming anything. But let me say my biggest question is why these relatives only wrote to this one man and never said anything to anyone else. I don't know how many of them were still alive in the 50's and beyond but you'd think there would be other sources other than Cline presenting this information. Are there any records of Cline himself making any effort to make the info public knowledge? Any interviews, etc.?

From my understanding Cline compiled this stuff over the years, and what you are reading is essentially the rough draft. His health began to deteriorate, ended up coming down with dementia and passed away before it could go through an editing process or go through more revisions. The draft was 1989, Cline died in 1990.

Around this time Tunstill was making his own rounds and he met with Elaine Haws, and she initially stated Brushy wasn't Billy The Kid but it seems after much correspondence and insistence that he was she recanted everything her mother Martha told her and "approved" of everything Tunstill was saying. As we all know, Roy Haws is adamant his mother was lied to or manipulated which is why he wrote his own book.

I have no idea exactly who was reached out to and who wasn't but I do know as late as the 2000s-2010s that Cordelia's children and grandchildren were still alive. Brushy lived with her many times over the years. Far as I know of Cline was the only one who reached out to her.

I think part of the problem in the 80s a prior is that the Roberts family was basically unknown or kept in shadows, unaware, of any major interest in their brother or uncle. So they didn't really reach out, and they weren't necessarily searched out, until the mid-late 80s and that wasn't their doing but Cline reaching out.

It still blows my mind in many ways that even in Morrison's time there wasn't a greater effort to track down records on "Oliver Roberts," and see his marriage to Anna Lee or track down Chaunsey Truesdell who was a childhood friend of Billy The Kid, or records on Henry Roberts and see who his children were.

So many names and resources were lost forever because nobody reached out until it was too late. As for the smoking gun or smoking guns I'll have to re-read the book, take down notes, and then post them on here.

Jesus Christ Almighty God bless you all

Correction on Truesdell, he lived into the 1950s not 1960s. He died in 1952.

Jesus Christ Almighty God bless you all

[Wayne Land]

Just to clarify my point on all this. There certainly are various individuals who went on record stating that Brushy and Oliver Roberts were the same person, but it is quite possible that they believed that only because he told them that's who he was. My position has long been that Brushy stepped into Oliver's identity around 1910 and anyone who met or knew him after that date (and didn't know him earlier) would have had no reason to doubt he truly was the real Oliver. His siblings who knew him as a child and knew him after 1910 would have known his claim of being Billy was fraudulent, but I've never seen any record of any of them saying that. The widely discussed family Bible referred to by Geneva Pittmon along with her letter insisting Brushy was not Billy is believed by some to be such a record. But the Geneva had no direct knowledge of his identity. She wasn't even born until after Brushy began claiming to be her uncle Oliver.

[RonBk]

I agree Wayne, it appears Cline gathered stories passed down through various persons over the years. The details may have changed over time so were left with third hand hearsay at best. Still, hearsay can be very interesting and sometimes contains truth, there’s no denying that. I wonder about Cline though, was he a respected historian? I never came across any of his books. I also wonder if we can trust Cline's manuscript wasn't tampered with at some point along the way? Wasn't it Gale Cooper who had gotten these documents in her possession before Rufus got them?

[chivato88]

Aug 29, 2024 14:21:03 GMT -5 RonBk said:

I agree Wayne, it appears Cline gathered stories passed down through various persons over the years. The details may have changed over time so were left with third hand hearsay at best. Still, hearsay can be very interesting and sometimes contains truth, there’s no denying that. I wonder about Cline though, was he a respected historian? I never came across any of his books. I also wonder if we can trust Cline's manuscript wasn't tampered with at some point along the way? Wasn't it Gale Cooper who had gotten these documents in her possession before Rufus got them?

I dont believe he was, and his book Alias Billy The Kid is just terrible. He said that Billy was a cowardly crook and did not hesitate to kill for money, lol what a joke. Everyone knows that he was rough but a coward? And did not hesitate to kill for money? Give me a break. Everyone that brings Donald Cline to the discussion board here should know better.

[chivato88]

Is it the same Donald Cline that has over 90 children Ron?

[RonBk]

Wouldn’t surprise me if it was