Creating A Billy The Kid Documentary

[noacorre]

Hi, to preface, I am currently working on a small documentary on the life and times of Billy the Kid. I work as an assistant teacher for a 12th grade history class, so i am used to making videos for the class. However, I wanted to start making some videos on YouTube to teach people about famous figures of the American west. As many on this forum know, the details surrounding Billy's early life are very limited. I've read several books about his life (Fredrick Nolan's being, in my opinion, the most accurate) and I was wondering if there is any new information since Nolan's book that gives new evidence to the following topics: 1. His birth year (November/September 1859?) 2. Where he was born (New York?) 3. Who his biological father was (Michael? Patrick?) 4. If his brother Joseph was truly his half brother 6. Census records on the McCarty/Bonney family 7. Whether he was truly Baptized in New York in St. Peter's Church in Manhattan (as Wikipedia states). I know most, if not all questions I have aren't fully answerable, however if you have any suggestions of books or websites I should read that will give me the best information, that would be much appreciated. I am already very happy I found this forum and its posts have provided much clarity on several other topics about Billy's life. 

Thanks, Noah  

[cassandra jane]

I'd thought it was in Michael Wallis's book, but I'm not seeing it now that I'm looking again - but there was some historian who discovered information about a Missouri origin, but refused to give it away, but off-hand I can't remember who this historian was or even where I read it, if it was not in Wallis's book.

I also doubt the 1859 birthdate because I'm positive friends of Billy's said there was only months between him and them (1862 or 1863, if I remember right), but again, I can't remember which friends off-hand! If I track down the Missouri origin story, I'll pass it on (unless someone else on here can recall it right away).

[chivato88]

Sept 8, 2020 16:25:29 GMT -5 cassandra jane said:

I'd thought it was in Michael Wallis's book, but I'm not seeing it now that I'm looking again - but there was some historian who discovered information about a Missouri origin, but refused to give it away, but off-hand I can't remember who this historian was or even where I read it, if it was not in Wallis's book.

I also doubt the 1859 birthdate because I'm positive friends of Billy's said there was only months between him and them (1862 or 1863, if I remember right), but again, I can't remember which friends off-hand! If I track down the Missouri origin story, I'll pass it on (unless someone else on here can recall it right away).

[br

I think this friend you are talking about is Paco Anaya! 😀

[cassandra jane]

I thought so! Brain just drew complete blanks but I had a feeling it was him. I'm going to have to hunt out that Missouri information because I'm determined I didn't just imagine it up.

[noacorre]

Sept 8, 2020 16:25:29 GMT -5 cassandra jane said:

I'd thought it was in Michael Wallis's book, but I'm not seeing it now that I'm looking again - but there was some historian who discovered information about a Missouri origin, but refused to give it away, but off-hand I can't remember who this historian was or even where I read it, if it was not in Wallis's book.

I also doubt the 1859 birthdate because I'm positive friends of Billy's said there was only months between him and them (1862 or 1863, if I remember right), but again, I can't remember which friends off-hand! If I track down the Missouri origin story, I'll pass it on (unless someone else on here can recall it right away).

I'll definitely check out the book you suggested. I've heard about a Missouri origin aswell. However, I remember reading that there were difficulties finding the Bonney/McCarty family in the Missouri state census records, but I could be wrong (I think it was in another thread somewhere). If there are new details about Missouri being Billy's birthplace rather than New York than I would be very interested. Thanks for the info.   

[cassandra jane]

noacorre That could well be it. What might help (though my brain does have missing spots because my memory is shot), was something regarding a conference being where this historian/researcher revealed he had all this information, I think. I want to say now that his surname may have begun with H and it was quite an unusual (by my standards at least) surname, but I'll keep searching and edit this with it when I track it down.

[cassandra jane]

I decided to put this in a post on its own because it's long. So, to preface, ignore me on the 'H' surname, I'm talking crap. I do have some doubts on some of this (such as 'two or three years earlier than previously thought' re a birth date). However, most of it does rhyme with things that have been said (like Brushy's claim that his father remarried and had other kids, I think; and that Billie had blood family in Lincoln County which was confirmed by said bloody family themselves?).

Wallis's book, pp. 153-4, a man named Herman B. Weisner, discussing a Missouri lineage (quoted all below for easiness; footnotes removed but I can link them later if needed):

Of all the proponents of the premise that Henry McCarty was born a Bonney, the most credible was Herman B. Weisner. A respected New Mexico historian and longtime genealogical researcher on William H. Bonney, Weisner devoted much of his career to investigating the life and legend of Billy the Kid. Prior to Weisner's death in 1993, some of his revelations about the illusive outlaw's genealogy were closely examined by several leading Billy the Kid scholars, including Nolan, Robert Utley, Jerry Weddle, and Leon Metz. None of them refuted Weisner's preliminary findings, and Weddle was quoted as saying he was "impressed by Herman's research."

Much of Weisner's research into the Bonney name was unveiled publicly for the first time during a Billy the Kid symposium sponsored by the Lincoln County Heritage Trust and Recursos de Santa Fe. More than fifty noted Billy the Kid scholars and devotees attended the conference, which was held in Ruidoso and Lincoln County, New Mexico, September 11-15, 1991. Weisner's revelations about the Kid's lineage during the five-day conference were described as "bombshells" in one of the subsequent newspaper reports.

On the basis of preliminary research, mostly into census data and family histories, Weisner told the symposium participants that in his judgment, the Kid had been born a Bonney in Missouri at least two or three years earlier than previously believed. He also theorized that the Kid and his mother, Catherine, were linked by blood to a Hispanic family living in Lincoln County.

"When Billy the Kid fled Arizona after killing his first man, he was not fleeing the law--he was going home to family, a research expert says," wrote John R. Moore in a front-page storty for the El Paso Times during the conference. "He's [Weisner's] answered, for me, why Billy fled Arizona and went almost in a bee-line to Lincoln County," El Paso historian and author Leon Metz told Moore.

According to Wiesner's preliminary findings, Catherine was born in Missouri, not Ireland. Weisner further declared that her father was James Bonney, either an Englishman or an Irishman, who immigrated to the United States and settled near the start of the Santa Fe Trail in Missouri. There he fathered children with an unidentified woman. According to Weisner, one of those offspring was the Kid's mother. for several years Bonney reportedly ran a successful freighting operation on the Santa Fe Trail and made countless trips to the ancient city of Santa Fe and then back to los Estados Unidos.

Eventually Bonney abandoned his family in Missouri and settled in northern New Mexico Territory. He married Juana Maria Mascarenas, the daughter of Miguel Mascarenas, one of the grantees of the extensive Mora Land Grant. Bonney and his wife had three children, Cleofas, Santiago (James Bonney Jr), and Rafaelita.

[Texas Truth Teller]

Sept 8, 2020 15:42:33 GMT -5 noacorre said:

Hi, to preface, I am currently working on a small documentary on the life and times of Billy the Kid. I work as an assistant teacher for a 12th grade history class, so i am used to making videos for the class. However, I wanted to start making some videos on YouTube to teach people about famous figures of the American west. As many on this forum know, the details surrounding Billy's early life are very limited. I've read several books about his life (Fredrick Nolan's being, in my opinion, the most accurate) and I was wondering if there is any new information since Nolan's book that gives new evidence to the following topics: 1. His birth year (November/September 1859?) 2. Where he was born (New York?) 3. Who his biological father was (Michael? Patrick?) 4. If his brother Joseph was truly his half brother 6. Census records on the McCarty/Bonney family 7. Whether he was truly Baptized in New York in St. Peter's Church in Manhattan (as Wikipedia states). I know most, if not all questions I have aren't fully answerable, however if you have any suggestions of books or websites I should read that will give me the best information, that would be much appreciated. I am already very happy I found this forum and its posts have provided much clarity on several other topics about Billy's life. 

Thanks, Noah  

Noah,

The 1859 birth year of Billy the Kid is speculation, widely accepted, and unproven.

His New York birthplace is supported by information provided by William Antrim in his pension application.

Various researchers have speculated that his father's given name was Michael or Patrick, but remains unknown.

The marriage record of William Antrim and Catherine McCarty, witnessed by Henry McCarty and Joseph McCarty, combined with William Antrim's statement in his pension application that Catherine had two sons, is credible evidence that Joseph  McCarty Antrim was the brother of Billy the Kid.

Sedgwich county land records of Catherine McCarty have been found, but no confirmed census record.

There is insufficient circumstantial evidence to assume that he was baptized in St Peter's Church in Manhattan.

In summary, very little is known for certain about the life of Billy the Kid.  He witnessed the marriage of William Antrim and Catherine McCarty in Santa Fe; he was probably in Sedgwich County, KS, when William Antrim and Catherine each owned property before their marriage; he is listed in the 1880 census as William Bonny; he was tried by the territorial courts of New Mexico and sentenced to hang; he escaped from jail twice; and he was killed by Pat Garrrett (a fact disputed by skeptics).