Brushy Bill's mother

[Texas Truth Teller]

Amazing coincidences:

Brushy Bill said his mother was Mary Adeline DUNN.
Martha Heath’s mother was Caroline DUNN.

Brushy Bill said his step-mother was ELIZABETH FERGUSON.
Geneva Roberts Pittmon, Oliver P. Roberts’ niece, said Oliver’s mother was Sarah ELIZABETH FERGUSON.

Brushy Bill said his niece was MARTHA HEATH.
Oliver Roberts’ half-sister was MARTHA VADA ROBERTS HEATH.

Martha Heath’s father was HENRY OLIVER ROBERTS.
Oliver P. Roberts’ father was HENRY OLIVER ROBERTS.

Martha Heath’s mother was Caroline DUNN.
Oliver P. Roberts’ step-mother was Caroline DUNN.

Brushy Bill said he was born 26 AUGUST 1879.
Geneva Roberts Pittmon said Oliver P. Roberts was born 26 AUGUST 1878.

Brushy Bill said he married MOLLIE BROWN.
Marriage records show Oliver Roberts married MOLLIE BROWN.

[Wayne Land]

Oh please. If Brushy Bill married Mollie Brown using the alias of Oliver Roberts then the marriage record would show she married Oliver Roberts. Even though the groom's "real" name was William Henry Roberts, alias Brushy Bill. Spin it any way you like but you can't prove Brushy was not the real Billy The Kid. At least not with this line of logic.

[Texas Truth Teller]

The theory that Oliver P. Roberts, a resident of Van Zandt County, disappeared without a trace is nothing but speculation based on wishful thinking. Did Brushy Bill tell Morrison he used the alias of Oliver Roberts when he married Mollie Brown? No evidence, no clues, nothing.

[Wayne Land]

Come on now. Isn't it obvious he used the name Oliver Roberts? Is that not a matter of public record? Whether he was the real Oliver is the question. Did Brushy tell Morrison he used some name other than Oliver Roberts when he married Mollie? Did he say anything at all to Morrison about what name he used? I don't think so.

[Texas Truth Teller]

“Isn't it obvious he used the name Oliver Roberts?”

Isn’t it obvious Oliver P. Roberts, son of Henry Oliver and Sarah Elizabeth Ferguson, chose to be known as Brushy Bill, O. L. Roberts, or Ollie Roberts, sometime after the 1930 census?

These are indisputable facts.
Brushy Bill said he married Mollie Brown.
The Van Zandt County marriage record is for Oliver Roberts and Mollie Brown.
O. P. Roberts had married and divorced Anna Lee in Van Zandt County in 1909 and 1910.
Oliver P. and Anna Roberts lived in the same household in Van Zandt County when the 1910 census was recorded.
Henry O. Roberts and his wife, parents of Oliver P. Roberts, lived in Van Zandt County when the 1910 census was recorded.
Oliver Roberts married Mollie Brown 21 August 1912, less than 2 years after O. P. Roberts divorced Anna Lee.

[Wayne Land]

If one believes, as I do, that Brushy Bill's birth name was William Henry Roberts then there is a very tight window for the original Oliver Pleasant Roberts to disappear and Brushy to step into that identity. But there is a window, however small. It appears that it had to have happened around 1910. I've written at length before about the extremely low "odds" that Brushy was "not" Billy The Kid. The odds that the real Oliver just happened to disappear at the same time Brushy happened to show up are also quite low. This dilemma is what keeps me interested in finding proof one way or the other.

[Texas Truth Teller]

If one believes, as I do, that no credible evidence has ever been found, or ever will be, that supports the story told by an old man. Sure, Brushy Bill was familiar with many Lincoln County events that Walter Noble Burns described in his 1926 book, “The Saga of Billy the Kid”. The only other events Brushy Bill described, supported by credible evidence, are his marriages and ownership of Arkansas land. Those are in the name of O. P. Roberts, Oliver Roberts, O. L. Roberts, and Ollie Roberts (a common nickname for Oliver). If he had been named William Henry Roberts at birth, there is no logical explanation for his use of Oliver Roberts rather than William, or Bill, Roberts in census, marriage, and land records.

Two of Brushy Biil’s friends raise further questions about the credibility of his story. Brushy Bill’s association with J. Frank Dalton, a Jesse Woodson James impostor, and Oran A. Woodman, known first as Two Braids who was captured by and escaped from Comanche, then Tommy Springfield who died in the Springfield Massacre in Texas, and finally Uncle Kit Carson, who said he was born in New Mexico but was actually born in Illinois and was not kin to Kit Carson.

[Wayne Land]

I guess the amazing thing is that I can agree with everything you said in your last post and still believe Brushy really was the Kid. We could go back and forth indefinitely. For example, you really should be willing to admit that Brushy could not have gotten "all" of his knowledge from Burns' book.

[Texas Truth Teller]

I can agree that some things Brushy Bill said about events in Lincoln County did not come from "The Saga of Billy the Kid". He made some of it up. There is no proof, credible or otherwise, that Brushy Bill was in Lincoln County at the time of the Lincoln County war. He was born in 1879, and was much too young to have been there.

[Wayne Land]

Please review the thread "Walter Said, Brushy Said". I think it was pretty clear Brushy was right about some things Burns missed.

[mckinley412]

Keep in mind if the real Billy the Kid later worked in Wild West shows then associating with imposters would not mean he was an impostor. It only means he knew them from the Shows.

[Wayne Land]

Absolutely and an excellent point. I never thought about it in exactly those terms but you said a great deal in those two sentences.