What did Brushy really say?

[cassandra jane]

May 27, 2010 12:28:33 GMT -5 Wayne Land said:

Well this is exciting for me to share. W.C. Jameson has released an ebook with detailed description of how Frederic Bean came to borrow the original tapes of Morrison's interviews with Brushy and provides a transcript of those interviews. I'm not trying to sell the book for him, but I'll tell you it is very, very interesting. We now have a third version of what Brushy actually said which seems to be extremely creditable. Here we have no attempt to leave out the stuff that some author felt was not important and it includes Morrison's questions along with Brushy's answers.

Here's a link to the page where you can order the book:

www.billythekid-outlaw.com/blog/blog/040110034452/Historical-CSI-and-Billy-the-Kid.htm

If anyone reads it, please share your impressions here. Thanks

I would love to have this in my possession, however your link doesn't work (or, not anymore, at least).  Are there any other places I could access it from?

[Wayne Land]

It's available on Amazon now as a paperback. Here's a link,

www.amazon.com/Billy-Kid-The-Lost-Interviews/dp/0615564844

It's available from several other suppliers too, including Barnes and Noble, so you might prefer to order somewhere else. I'm guessing he took down the link I shared earlier when he was able to get it out in paperback form.

Get the book, it's very good.

Wayne

[cassandra jane]

Okay, that's incredibly helpful, thanks Wayne. That shall be coming out of my wages on Friday.  Besides that one, would you recommend Jameson as a source in general or should I steer clear?

[Wayne Land]

Actually, I do recommend him. The problem is, he likes to write books about conspiracies and such and so some discredit him for that reason. I do not. Conspiracy theories, as they are sometimes called, "are" sometimes true. Or at least partially true. Is he out to just make a buck by writing about such subjects? Well, maybe, but I believe he truly believes in what he writes. His books can have mistakes in them, yes, but then don't they all?

I have his "Billy The Kid, Beyond The Grave" and I use to own his book on John Wilkes Booth but it got ruined in hurricane Katrina. Just don't assume everything he writes, or anyone else writes for that matter, to be 100% fact.

Wayne

[royhaws]

Sept 26, 2009 18:24:42 GMT -5 Wayne Land said:

There are a number of books that quote Brushy's interviews with William Morrison. There are allegedly tapes of the actual interviews still in existence but very few people have heard them. Brett Hall, author of "The Real Billy The Kid, alias Brushy Bill Roberts" told historian, Dr. Jannay Valdez that he had been given access to the original notebooks, papers and tapes handed down from Morrison to his currently living descendants and that "his", Hall's version of Brushy's comments came directly from those materials. W.C. Jameson, author of "Billy The Kid, Beyond The Grave" claims his associate Frederic Bean was granted access to a trunk once belonging to Brushy and that "he", Bean, had the authentic data. William Morrison's book was written mostly by historian, Sonnichsen, who without a shadow of a doubt, "did" have access to the original recordings and notes.

Yet, Morrison's book and Jameson's book present quite different versions of what Brushy said. Brett Hall's book agrees for the most part with Morrison's book "Alias Billy The Kid".

Let's talk about some of the quotes and misquotes.

[royhaws]

Sept 26, 2009 18:24:42 GMT -5 Wayne Land said:

There are a number of books that quote Brushy's interviews with William Morrison. There are allegedly tapes of the actual interviews still in existence but very few people have heard them. Brett Hall, author of "The Real Billy The Kid, alias Brushy Bill Roberts" told historian, Dr. Jannay Valdez that he had been given access to the original notebooks, papers and tapes handed down from Morrison to his currently living descendants and that "his", Hall's version of Brushy's comments came directly from those materials. W.C. Jameson, author of "Billy The Kid, Beyond The Grave" claims his associate Frederic Bean was granted access to a trunk once belonging to Brushy and that "he", Bean, had the authentic data. William Morrison's book was written mostly by historian, Sonnichsen, who without a shadow of a doubt, "did" have access to the original recordings and notes.

Yet, Morrison's book and Jameson's book present quite different versions of what Brushy said. Brett Hall's book agrees for the most part with Morrison's book "Alias Billy The Kid".

Let's talk about some of the quotes and misquotes.

I have just found this site and find it incredibly interesting.  I am a descendant of the Roberts family of Henry Oliver Roberts was my gg grandfather, Martha Vada Roberts was my g grandmother, Vada Bell Roberts Goff Emerson was my grandmother, and Eulaine Goff Haws was my mom that passed away in 2005.  Mom provided some information to Tunstill in his book "Me And Billy Are The Same"....although some of it seems to be in error.  I am pretty much 100% convinced that Henry Oliver Roberts' dad was Joseph Roberts that married a Rachel Henson and NOT Benjamin Roberts as is used by most.  I have also found another Roberts family that does start out with a Benjamin with a son James Henry Roberts with his son as William S. Roberts born May 1, 1858...the right age for Billy The Kid...but alas..he died in 1936 and is buried in San Augustine County.  I have not been able to connect the two lines of Roberts...it is, however possible that Joseph and Benjamin were brothers, but in any case...I am convinced that the James Henry Roberts is NOT a brother to Henry Oliver Roberts.  Anyway...I am early in my studies on the topic and I started out believing that Brushy Bill was indeed Billy The Kid (my mom thought so)...but I am now pretty convince that he was not.  In many families there is a crazy uncle...in my case, it appears that I had a crazy gg 1/2 uncle.  Currently I am reading all material on the subject and giving everything a fair shake...but I am convinced at this point that Brushy Bill was actually Oliver Pleasant Roberts that was born in 1879.  I think that since he showed his age of 52 on the 1930 census...and 70 on the 1940 census and since that William S. Roberts (of another Roberts family in Texas) died in 1936....Brushy got the idea of becoming Billy The Kid.  I imagine he admired all the books out on Billy The Kid (and there were many) and over the years from about 1936 to the time Morrison interviewed him...he had a lot of time to learn all of the players involved in the Lincoln county war material.  I also find that all of the things before...like the Belle Star story, meeting the James and Dalton boys a little surprising...plus AFTER the Lincoln County wars the many things with many famous situations that he might well have inserted himself in a bit fantastic....Rough Riders, champion bronk rider, Buffalo Bill show, his on Wild West Show, fighting with Pancho Villa, etc.  I will, however, keep an open mind...but I cannot find any other Ollie or Oliver in either of the two families...mine or the other one that appears to be unrelated (Benjamin...James Henry Roberts...William S. Roberts).  Also...remember...he visited the family to return stuff of Ollie to Henry Oliver Roberts' family in 1894...and Oliver P Roberts being born in 1879...would have only been 15 years old..yet, it was said that he had run away for a decade....the math just doesn't work out.  I realize that you think there might have been a different Ollie than Oliver Pleasant Roberts...but if so, it was not the Henry Oliver Roberts family unless he fathered a child at the age of about 7 (Henry Oliver was born in May of 1852.

I think my mom (Eulaine Haws) so wanted to believe...that she helped Tunstill by claiming that Henry Oliver Roberts' dad was named Benjamin....and I am quite certain that this was a mistake.  Although I think there are some errors in it...I think that Jim Johnson in his book "Billy The Kid His Real Name Was" does a decent job of disproof of Brushy Bill's story.  As far as Henry Oliver's father's name...I am now going to search for an article that supposedly exists about Hill Country in Texas published about 1890 that shows Joseph as being the father of Henry Oliver Roberts.  There have been claims that there is a family Bible that says Henry Oliver's father was Benjamin...but I don't think that exists. 

Again...thanks so much for this website...and I hope some are still reading it an participating.  I will read everything with enthusiasm.

Roy Haws

[Wayne Land]

Roy,

Thanks so much for your very, very interesting post. Regarding your point about Oliver Pleasant allegedly running away. While it is certainly possible for a 5 year old to run away, I don't believe Oliver Pleasant ran away and got killed a decade later in 1894. I believe Oliver Pleasant left home around 1910 shortly after his divorce from Anna Lee and disappeared just about the time Brushy returned to Texas and began using the alias "Ollie". The only evidence supporting this is that it is the only explanation I can think of that allows Brushy to have been the real Billy The Kid. If it did happen that way then either there was another Ollie besides Oliver Pleasant or the dead cousin who's belongings Brushy returned to the family was just another part of Brushy's story that was either confused by him or was made up to avoid telling what really happened.

Which leads me to the real point I wanted to make here. It is entirely possible if not probable that much of what Brushy said about his family lineage was either "made up" or "mixed up" even though he truly was Billy The Kid. My decision to believe he was Billy is based on photographic comparisons and his extensive knowledge of Billy's life and the LCW. Yes, he had time to read a lot and learn a great deal about the history, but evidence suggests he was not an avid reader and Morrison himself stated that Brushy's interviews contained contradictions and that he believed Brushy's advanced age was causing some confusion. In view of the fact we know Brushy was experiencing some amount of age related memory problems, can we still think he was able to describe events of the LCW and Billy's life in as much detail as he did, just by reading about it, especially when we know he didn't read that much?

I am a firm believer that census records and the like do not always contain the answers to historic questions. For example, why did Brushy claim for a time that he was born in 1868? He had to know that didn't coincide with Billy's birth or Oliver Pleasant's birth. Are we to believe he just pulled that date out of thin air? It was reported on one of the censuses I think and also it was on his original tombstone. Is it possible that date was reported by Melinda? If so, it had to be that she knew he was born earlier than 1879. She didn't just pull that date out of thin air either. I believe that was the birth year of the cousin who's belongings he brought to the Roberts family. Or at least he believed that was the year. And he was still trying to use that alias up until or close to his death in 1950. Maybe there was a cousin born in 1868 who ran away around 1884 (age 16) and died in 1894. If that's true and that cousin was the son of Mary Elizabeth Ferguson, then she would have been about 13 years old when he was born. Most families at that time would not have wanted it known their 13 year old daughter had gotten herself illegitimately pregnant and given birth. There very well might have been a successful cover up.

I have a question for you. You say your Mom believed Brushy was Billy. Did she ever discuss her reasons for believing that? Was it because her mother and grandmother believed it? If so, doesn't that carry more credence than the census records and such? I mean, your great grandmother was the sister of Oliver Pleasant Roberts. I've read that she did not believe Brushy was her brother Oliver Pleasant. I've also read that she did, but that it was her husband who insisted Brushy was not Oliver Pleasant. Can you shed any light on that question? She certainly would have known whether Brushy was her brother and she certainly would have told the truth to your Grandmother who certainly would have passed along the truth to your Mom. And yet your Mom believed Brushy was Billy The Kid.

[Roy Haws]

Mar 31, 2014 3:24:58 GMT -5 Wayne Land said:

Roy,

Thanks so much for your very, very interesting post. Regarding your point about Oliver Pleasant allegedly running away. While it is certainly possible for a 5 year old to run away, I don't believe Oliver Pleasant ran away and got killed a decade later in 1894. I believe Oliver Pleasant left home around 1910 shortly after his divorce from Anna Lee and disappeared just about the time Brushy returned to Texas and began using the alias "Ollie". The only evidence supporting this is that it is the only explanation I can think of that allows Brushy to have been the real Billy The Kid. If it did happen that way then either there was another Ollie besides Oliver Pleasant or the dead cousin who's belongings Brushy returned to the family was just another part of Brushy's story that was either confused by him or was made up to avoid telling what really happened.

Which leads me to the real point I wanted to make here. It is entirely possible if not probable that much of what Brushy said about his family lineage was either "made up" or "mixed up" even though he truly was Billy The Kid. My decision to believe he was Billy is based on photographic comparisons and his extensive knowledge of Billy's life and the LCW. Yes, he had time to read a lot and learn a great deal about the history, but evidence suggests he was not an avid reader and Morrison himself stated that Brushy's interviews contained contradictions and that he believed Brushy's advanced age was causing some confusion. In view of the fact we know Brushy was experiencing some amount of age related memory problems, can we still think he was able to describe events of the LCW and Billy's life in as much detail as he did, just by reading about it, especially when we know he didn't read that much?

I am a firm believer that census records and the like do not always contain the answers to historic questions. For example, why did Brushy claim for a time that he was born in 1868? He had to know that didn't coincide with Billy's birth or Oliver Pleasant's birth. Are we to believe he just pulled that date out of thin air? It was reported on one of the censuses I think and also it was on his original tombstone. Is it possible that date was reported by Melinda? If so, it had to be that she knew he was born earlier than 1879. She didn't just pull that date out of thin air either. I believe that was the birth year of the cousin who's belongings he brought to the Roberts family. Or at least he believed that was the year. And he was still trying to use that alias up until or close to his death in 1950. Maybe there was a cousin born in 1868 who ran away around 1884 (age 16) and died in 1894. If that's true and that cousin was the son of Mary Elizabeth Ferguson, then she would have been about 13 years old when he was born. Most families at that time would not have wanted it known their 13 year old daughter had gotten herself illegitimately pregnant and given birth. There very well might have been a successful cover up.

I have a question for you. You say your Mom believed Brushy was Billy. Did she ever discuss her reasons for believing that? Was it because her mother and grandmother believed it? If so, doesn't that carry more credence than the census records and such? I mean, your great grandmother was the sister of Oliver Pleasant Roberts. I've read that she did not believe Brushy was her brother Oliver Pleasant. I've also read that she did, but that it was her husband who insisted Brushy was not Oliver Pleasant. Can you shed any light on that question? She certainly would have known whether Brushy was her brother and she certainly would have told the truth to your Grandmother who certainly would have passed along the truth to your Mom. And yet your Mom believed Brushy was Billy The Kid.

Thanks for your response, Wayne...I will study your information carefully. I understand the photo comparisons are important to you...but the chin thing always bothered me in the comparisons. That be as it may...my primary problem with Brushy Bill being Billy The Kid is that of genealogy. I believe the tree he created was partially composed out of another family with a Benjamin then James Henry Roberts and then a son named William S. Roberts...and the naming of His alleged tree father James Henry marrying a Sara Ferguson that was actually the 2nd wife of Henry Oliver Roberts....and the fact of the name Martha with a husband of Dudley Heath (all part of our tree)...yet our Henry Oliver's father was Joseph...not Ben or Benjamin. That combined with the fact that our family knew Brushy all of his life and also the fact that according to my uncle Paul Emerson (my mom's 1/2 brother) Brushy visited the family when Paul was about 15 years old...and visited Vada Bell Emerson (Paul's mom) and Martha Vada Heath (Pauls' grandmother and the Martha from our tree...daughter of a second marriage of Henry Oliver Roberts to Sara Elizabeth Ferguson). Paul indicated to me (I called him today) that everyone said he was Martha's 1/2 brother and he had his tall tales about being Billy The Kid. No one in the family believed him at all...the age....and the fact that he was indeed Oliver Pleasant Roberts. The only one in my family that seemed to believe his story came later in my mom's life (she actually never met him...she was already married and gone) was in discussing it with Mr. Tunstill in the writing of his book. I have to say that my mom (Eulaine Haws) was just one that "wanted" to believe in things....liked the idea of having infamous kin...she was just kinda like that. I loved her dearly (she passed away in early 2005)...but she just liked that sort of thing. Actually....to be honest, I think she helped "fudge" the family Bible thing (I have never seen it) to help Tunstill link Henry Oliver's dad to the name of Benjamin instead of Joseph (as it actually is).

I will look at your information in detail...but at this point I am completely convinced that Brushy Bill (really Oliver Pleasant Roberts) was NOT Billy The Kid. This is not to say I believe that Pat Garrett killed Billy on that night in 1881 though. Too many conflicts in stories on that...I just think you have the wrong guy with our Brushy Bill (Oliver Pleasant Roberts) who just spun a good yarn. I believe that he just wanted to be someone important....found out about a death in TX of a William S. Roberts in 1936 that was born in the right age time of 1858...that had a father named James Henry Roberts and a grandfather of Benjamin Roberts. Note also...the 1936....remember, Brushy increased his age from 52 to 70 between the 1930 and 1940 census (still didn't increase it enough though...but he was working on it). Also...the statement in his interview with Morrison that his fictitious J. H. or Wild Henry Roberts second marriage was to a Sara Ferguson....when in fact, Oliver Pleasant Roberts "real" mom was Sara Elizabeth Ferguson (the second wife of Henry Oliver Roberts)...complete with a daughter of the first wife (Caroline Dunn) having a daughter Martha and married to a Dudley Heath. Anyway...the fictitious family tree that Brushy seemed to construct (Ben...J.H. or Wild Henry Roberts) does not seem to exist except with the apparent non related (unless a generation or more back, of course). Again..I will study your post and other information provided on your blog with great interest. Thanks again for your website!

[brianthedude]

Hi Roy, it's great to have input from an actual family member! I've recently acquired an odd piece of evidence, which I'll share soon, and have a related question for you. Have you ever heard of someone in your family (probably born in the 1930's) whose given name was literally "Billy the Kid Roberts?" Thanks!

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

[Wayne Land]

Thanks Roy,

I'll be taking another look into the family tree of course in view of the information you've shared. But I just think Brushy made up much of what he claimed about his lineage and the real truth of it will likely never be known. He would have had 3 possible reasons to do that, that I can think of.

1) He and Garrett conspired to fake his death back in 1881 including the murder of an innocent bystander and that story would not have helped him get a pardon.
2) He simply didn't know who his real parents, grandparents, etc. were but thought he needed to provide something in order to be believed and pardoned.
3) He was old enough and senile enough to confuse his real parents with his pretend parents and included some of both in his attempt to describe his lineage.

Or maybe there's some other reason I haven't thought of.

The apparent difference in his chin with that of Brushy's later photos, I believe, is due to the open mouth (which changes the appearance of the jawline), the presence of teeth versus no teeth, and the shadow under the chin in the tintype that can easily be mistaken as additional chin length. My photo comparisons, I believe, show that Billy's chin and Brushy's were very similar.

I of course, did not know your mom, and you of course, did. So you are highly qualified to suggest that she went along with Tunstill as you say. But I have to interject that her just going along with Tunstill doesnt quite add up in the face of generalized logic. It just doesn't seem to me if her mother or grandmother ever told her the truth that Brushy really was Oliver Pleasant Roberts, she would not have accepted Tunstill's suggestion otherwise. Another question for you though. What year would that have been when Brushy visited your Uncle Paul.

Another point about logic too. Why would Brushy try to tell the family he was Billy The Kid if he was not. He would have to have been totally delusional to think his own family members who had known him all his life would believe it. For me, it just doesn't add up.

[Lewis]

I believe bushy bill is the real Billy kid people need to remember he used dozens of aliases so not all birth dates with alias will be true he would change some dates as to hide his identity his picture forensic was a match I believe pat Garrett new he shot wrong man so as to cover his mistakes he said it was billy

[Lewis]

I believe bushy bill is the real Billy kid people need to remember he used dozens of aliases so not all birth dates with alias will be true he would change some dates as to hide his identity his picture forensic was a match I believe pat Garrett new he shot wrong man so as to cover his mistakes he said it was billy

[Chris Boehm]

I'm an ethnohistorian, preparing a book on William Henry Roberts. Ethnohistorians work with oral narratives. Most of these arguments are about facts, one at a time, and this could go on forever. I also look at texts as a whole.

I found out about Henry Walker's book on JJames on this site, and reading the twelve pages devoted to Brushy were eye openers. The interview with Walker shows Brushy Bill in his exaggerative mode, a western frontiersman who not only exaggerated but lied through his teeth: I checked with the Cheyenne historians and while Brushy claimed to have won the Bronc Riding Championship in 99 under the name of Billie Cramer, in fact the photo they sent me of Cramer looked nothing like Brushy: a different face, too young to have been born in 1860, and square shoulders instead of very sloping shoulders. So Brushy Bill was gven to outright lies when he was trying to impress someone who was going to put him in a book. He also claims to have ridden the famous Midnight that year in the Walker book, telling how after his purported championship ride he rode Midnight informally for a gambler who won over 30,000 dollars on the event and gave Roberts ten grand for his winning. The problem is that Midnight flourished twenty years after 1899. I don't think this was a slip of an old mind because Midnight was the most famous unrideable horse ever, and Brushy was in a lying mode.

HOWEVER, these two lies actually testify to his credibility if you compare the Morrison interview with the Walker interview. Roberts was shrewd politically, and he knew that Morrison had laid down the law: you tell me the whole truth, or else you don't get my free legal help in going for your pardon. With this looming over him, Brushy was careful in the Morrison interview; for instance, he referred to a long list of famous horses he'd conquered, but Midnight's name was absent. He does tell about a gambler paying him ten thousand dollars for riding a bad horse, but specifies nothing about which horse. [He also claims to have had his own traveling rodeo show, which is verified by an affidavit in the Morrison book, and such a nest egg could have funded this business enterprise, which went on for two years apparently. Also, when he could have lied about something Morrison asked him, instead he clammed up. Refusing to talk, in this context, suggests that he was set on either telling the truth, as best he could at that age, or saying nothing even though his refusal didn't endear him to Morrison. Thus, the exaggerative and someimes untrue Walker Narrative serves as a control on the much more true but in some ways incomplete Morrison Narrative. The holding back appears to have been centered on the Lincoln County War phase, since when he died Brushy had destroyed just that one notebook of his life story.

With respect to a Wm. Roberts being in the Spanish American War, I doubt that this was William Henry because he used aliases so freely. The name is common enough to have cropped up by chance. I've already written to the US Govenment Archives to see if I could get copies of the Court Martial board of inquiry papers but they are only available by name or date, so if I follow up on that it will mean going to DC or Virginia; now, I'll at least try again for Wm. Roberts; I was so sure he wouldn't use his real name that I didn't even ask.

[jgaines]

This is just an observation from looking at Brushy photos, but I find it interesting that many people say he looked too young to be 90 years old, as he said he was at the time of the last photos taken, while I think you could say he looked too old to be just 70 years old, as he would be if he was Ollie P.

[Wayne Land]

Yes, very good point made. And there is a picture taken in the 1930's with two other former detectives when the real Oliver would have been in his 50's. It's not a picture that shows a great deal of detail but I think in that photo he looks more like 70 as BTK would have been.