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Post by Wayne Land on Aug 26, 2018 23:28:16 GMT -5
I think most people would say the famous tintype and photos of Brushy do not resemble each other enough for them to be the same person. However, I have, on more than one occasion, shown the tintype with a photo of Brushy side by side to friends who did not know who either one of them was and gotten the opinion that they do indeed look very much alike. One person immediately said, "Yes, they are the same. You can tell by looking at the eyes."
I have also been able to show two photos that I know for a fact to be the same person at very different ages and gotten the answer, "not the same person."
I've also been told by some that the photo of Brushy at age 14 is not really him, etc., etc.
So how do we determine anything to a degree of certainty by comparing photos? We have to take precise measurements of both photos and see if there is enough similarity to indicate a match. Even there, we have some questionable reports and results. That's why I took it on myself to make comparisons on my own computer. No, I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty proficient with computer graphics applications and I was amazed at how similar Brushy's photos are to the famous tintype. In fact, the thing that convinces me the most is that similar comparisons between the tintype and numerous other photos that are "said" to be Billy absolutely do not match up as well as Brushy's do. Combine that with the overall body and stature similarities, his knowledge of Billy and the Lincoln County War, and the simple fact that he made the claim of being Billy in spite of the legal jeopardy it could place him in, and I'm convinced.
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Post by Texas Truth Teller on Aug 27, 2018 14:59:10 GMT -5
" Combine that with the overall body and stature similarities, his knowledge of Billy and the Lincoln County War, and the simple fact that he made the claim of being Billy in spite of the legal jeopardy it could place him in, and I'm convinced."
These are valid questions about the accuracy of Brushy Bill’s story of his life. Brushy said his birth name was William Henry Roberts. No credible record of William Henry Roberts’s existence has been found. Brushy claimed he was born in 1859, near Buffalo Gap. In 1859, that area had not been settled by pioneers. Brushy claimed his parents were J. H. Roberts and Mary Adeline Dunn. No record has ever been found of either of them. Brushy claimed Mary Adeline Dunn was a half-sister of Catherine Bonney. No credible record has been found that Catherine McCarty was ever known as Catherine Bonney. No record has been found that Catherine McCarty had a half-sister. Brushy claimed he had a cousin, Ollie Roberts, who left home about 1884 and died in Oklahoma. No record of Ollie has ever been found. Brushy said he returned Ollie’s belongings to Ollie’s parents in Sulphur Springs. Sulphur Springs is the county seat of Hopkins County. The parents of Oliver P Roberts lived in Hopkins County from before 1887 until after 1900. Brushy said Martha Heath was his cousin. Martha Roberts Heath was a half-sister of Oliver P Roberts. Brushy said his step-mother was Elizabeth Ferguson. The mother of Oliver P Roberts was Sarah Elizabeth Ferguson. Brushy said he married Mollie Brown. Mollie married Oliver Roberts, not William Henry Roberts or Brushy Bill Roberts. Brushy signed his WWI Draft Registration card as Oliver Pleasant Roberts, with a birth date of 26 August 1879. Oliver P Roberts, son of Henry Oliver Roberts and Sarah Elizabeth Ferguson, was born 26 August 1878.
I'm convinced Brushy Bill Roberts was Oliver P Roberts.
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Post by mckinley412 on Aug 27, 2018 21:58:46 GMT -5
Lol. Texas Truth-Teller. Just want to remind you of a couple things. Brushy didn't say Catherine's name was Bonney, he said it wasn't a family name. The authors called her Bonney. And Just because Martha is a sister of Oliver doesn't mean she won't have cousins. If Oliver was Brushy's cousin then Martha would be Brushy's cousin. Also if you steal someone's identity then you should use their birth date, signature, everything. Otherwise people will find out their true identity.
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Post by Wayne Land on Aug 28, 2018 0:49:30 GMT -5
OK. I'll bite. It's futile but I'm bored right now so here goes:
"Brushy said his birth name was William Henry Roberts. No credible record of William Henry Roberts’s existence has been found." You've also not found any record of my Aunt Elsie Bee but I "know" she existed. I met her, visited her home, etc.
"Brushy claimed he was born in 1859, near Buffalo Gap. In 1859, that area had not been settled by pioneers." There were visitors to the area by 1859 and earlier. That's a fact!
"Brushy claimed his parents were J. H. Roberts and Mary Adeline Dunn. No record has ever been found of either of them." You've also not found any record of my Aunt Elsie Bee but I "know" she existed. I met her, visited her home, etc.
"Brushy claimed Mary Adeline Dunn was a half-sister of Catherine Bonney. No credible record has been found that Catherine McCarty was ever known as Catherine Bonney. No record has been found that Catherine McCarty had a half-sister." You've also not found any record of my Aunt Elsie Bee but I "know" she existed. I met her, visited her home, etc.
"Brushy claimed he had a cousin, Ollie Roberts, who left home about 1884 and died in Oklahoma. No record of Ollie has ever been found. Brushy said he returned Ollie’s belongings to Ollie’s parents in Sulphur Springs. Sulphur Springs is the county seat of Hopkins County. The parents of Oliver P Roberts lived in Hopkins County from before 1887 until after 1900." You've also not found any record of my Aunt Elsie Bee but I "know" she existed. I met her, visited her home, etc.
"Brushy said Martha Heath was his cousin. Martha Roberts Heath was a half-sister of Oliver P Roberts." And a cousin to William H. Roberts.
"Brushy said his step-mother was Elizabeth Ferguson. The mother of Oliver P Roberts was Sarah Elizabeth Ferguson. Brushy said he married Mollie Brown. Mollie married Oliver Roberts, not William Henry Roberts or Brushy Bill Roberts." I thought you said Brushy "was" Oliver Roberts? If that's true then there is a record that Brushy married Mollie.
"Brushy signed his WWI Draft Registration card as Oliver Pleasant Roberts, with a birth date of 26 August 1879. Oliver P Roberts, son of Henry Oliver Roberts and Sarah Elizabeth Ferguson, was born 26 August 1878." Duh? Didn't we say Brushy was pretending to be Oliver Roberts? Did you think he was going to sign the draft card as "William Bonney"?
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Post by Texas Truth Teller on Aug 28, 2018 12:27:46 GMT -5
mckinley412, Thanks for the reminder. There is no credible evidence that Oliver P. Roberts and Brushy Bill Roberts were cousins. The genealogy chart found on p. 90 of “The Return of the Outlaw, Billy the Kid” is incorrect, and not supported by facts. Cousin does not define a specific relationship. The addition of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. indicates the number of generations between each of two individuals and their shared ancestors. The addition of 1st, 2nd, 3d, etc. X times removed indicates the difference in the number of generations between the two individuals and their shared ancestors. Martha Heath’s father, Henry Oliver Roberts, had only 2 brothers: Virgil Alexander Roberts (1847 - 1928), and Andrew Berry Roberts (1854 - 1910). Martha Heath was not Brushy Bill’s 1st cousin. Martha Heath’s grandfather was Joseph Roberts. Brushy Bill said his grandfather was Ben Roberts. Martha Heath could not have been Brushy’s 2nd cousin. Brushy Bill did not provide the name of any son of Ben Roberts. There is no credible evidence that indicates Martha Roberts Heath was a cousin of Brushy.
“The authors called her Bonney.” This sentence is found on page 33 of the 2014 edition of “Alias Billy the Kid”. “Mrs. Roberts’ half-sister, Kathrine Ann ‘Kathleen’ Bonney came down from the Indian Territory and took him away with her, being careful to avoid leaving her address lest the father should follow and claim his child.” Part, if not all, of this information obviously came from Brushy.
“Otherwise people will find out their true identity.” The theory that Brushy Bill assumed the identity of Oliver Pleasant Roberts about 1911 is contradicted by these facts. Brushy Bill did not claim that he used the alias of Oliver P Roberts. No evidence has been found that Oliver P. Roberts, son of Henry Oliver Roberts and Sarah Elizabeth Ferguson, died or left Van Zandt County about 1911. O P Roberts married Anna Lee in Van Zandt County 11 July 1909 and divorced her 10 November 1910. Oliver P Roberts and Anna were counted in the 1910 census of Van Zandt County. His parents, Henry O Roberts and wife were also in Van Zandt County in the 1910. Oliver Pleasant and Mollie Roberts, and his parents, Henry O and Elizabeth Roberts lived in Arkinda, Little River County, Arkansas, between 1918 and 1920. No evidence has been found that Brushy Bill Roberts and Oliver P Roberts were 2 different men. Only one Oliver, or Ollie, Roberts is found in the 1920, 1930, and 1940 census records of Van Zandt and Gregg Counties. No literature prior to 1948 has been found suggesting that William Henry Roberts was Billy the Kid, negating the need for an alias.
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Post by Wayne Land on Aug 28, 2018 14:32:59 GMT -5
<<“The authors called her Bonney.” This sentence is found on page 33 of the 2014 edition of “Alias Billy the Kid”. “Mrs. Roberts’ half-sister, Kathrine Ann ‘Kathleen’ Bonney came down from the Indian Territory and took him away with her, being careful to avoid leaving her address lest the father should follow and claim his child.” Part, if not all, of this information obviously came from Brushy.>>
Really? That's very interesting. You try to encourage us to believe the name Bonney was not just stated by the authors of the book by quoting a statement in the book written by those very authors. Amazing!
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Post by Texas Truth Teller on Aug 28, 2018 14:48:44 GMT -5
“Mrs. Roberts’ half-sister, Kathrine Ann ‘Kathleen’ Bonney came down from the Indian Territory and took him away with her, being careful to avoid leaving her address lest the father should follow and claim his child.”
Let’s see now. That sentence is not enclosed in quotation marks in the book. Quotation marks would imply that Brushy was being quoted verbatim. Since there are no quotation marks, this means these words were the words of the author, who has discovered this information. Pray tell, who, other than Brushy, would have known that someone (Bonney) came down from the Indian Territory to get him?
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Post by wannabe12 on Aug 28, 2018 16:10:29 GMT -5
Wayne did your Grandfather William live in Florida??
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Post by wannabe12 on Aug 28, 2018 19:57:32 GMT -5
Wayne,
Tell me if I get this right. Elsie B. Land was born on December 20,1911 in Bonifay, Florida to William Lee Land,and Dora Lee Sellars. Who i'm assuming was not his wife. She is the only child of William and Dora. She married James Marion Stone in 1930, they had 9 children, she passed away on August 5,1982 in Pensacola Florida. William Married Saby Bell Whitehead on October 14,1933. They had 5 children during their marriage, she passed away in 1970 also in Bonifay, Florida.
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Post by wannabe12 on Sept 17, 2018 16:42:47 GMT -5
Wayne,
So was I right, close, or way off the mark with this information.?
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Post by Wayne Land on Sept 17, 2018 16:55:27 GMT -5
Congratulations! You got me. Yes, the information is mostly correct except I do believe William and Dora were married. At least the descendants thought so. I didn't think anyone would find her.
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Post by wannabe12 on Sept 17, 2018 19:14:27 GMT -5
It was a little hard to tell if they were married. The divorce index shows Dora and William divorcing in 1933 and then the marriage index shows him marrying the same year. So I wasn’t sure which was correct.
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Post by RonBk on Apr 25, 2021 6:07:16 GMT -5
TTT, I think nmJames knows all those claims made in your post. He was asking me to cite evidence supporting Brushy. You were trying to shoot holes in evidence that supports Brushy. Well, didn't want to get into the minutia on this question but I can't resist shooting at a few of your perceived holes. 1."Brushy Bill said he was Billy the Kid, and that's firsthand knowledge." Yes, that is first hand knowledge. And it "is" evidence. I'm quite certain if you had any documentation citing Brushy as saying he was "not" Billy, you'd jump on that with both feet as absolute proof he was not. Does his own statement that he was Billy equal credible evidence? Considering the fact that making such a claim put him in legal jeopardy, and he made the claim to the Governor of New Mexico with law enforcement officers on hand, then yes, it does carry at least "some" credibility. Therefore it absolutely does qualify as "evidence." 2. "DeWitt Travis, Robert E. Lee, and Martile Able signed affidavits that they believed Brushy Bill was Billy the Kid, even though none of them had seen William Bonney before 1881." I'm not positive but I don't think any of those people actually said, specifically, that they had known Billy prior to 1881. Maybe you can cite where they said that? Take Martile for example. I've explained several times before that her husband John Ables certainly could have known Billy prior to 1881 and I assume she trusted her husband as a completely honest and credible person when Brushy visited with them "after" 1881 and was introduced to her as Billy The Kid. Therefore, she believed 100% that this person was Billy and said so when she saw him again in 1950. Her statement and the others represent "evidence" in support of Brushy's claim. Be very clear on the following points. I did "NOT" say it represented "PROOF". I said it was evidence. Evidence is not PROOF. nmjames asked me for "EVIDENCE." 3. "Servero Gallegos signed an affidavit that Brushy Bill was Billy the Kid, even though he had just said Brushy Bill was too young to be Billy the Kid." Big whoop! First he said Brushy looked to young, then he took a closer look at his eyes and agreed he was Billy. So the man isn't allowed to revise his opinion? That's a ridiculous assertion. His statement is EVIDENCE. And he absolutely "DID" know Billy prior to 1881. 4. "Brushy Bill knew many details of the Lincoln County War that were almost the same as those described in “The Saga of Billy the Kid”, published in 1926." You said it yourself, details that were "ALMOST" the same. On another thread on this site there are numerous examples of where Brushy's statements differed from that book. Maybe you should read that thread again? If the book made a statement that was accurate and Brushy made a statement that was accurate, wouldn't they then be the same? I don't see why you don't get that. Can you cite any examples where the book and Brushy made the same statements that turned out to be "inaccurate"? If so, then you have a stronger case that Brushy got at least "some" of his knowledge from that book, but you still don't have proof, and those statements he made that were clearly accurate "are" evidence. Again, none of it is proof but much of it is evidence that supports Brushy. 5. "Some believe Brushy Bill assumed the name of Oliver P. Roberts, although he never made that claim, and no evidence had been found that Oliver P. Roberts died or left the area." I'm not sure what your point is with that statement, but Brushy did claim to be Oliver Roberts, O.L. Roberts, Ollie Roberts and later, Oliver P. Roberts. Was there a typo or something in your statement? We were suppose to be talking about evidence that supports Brushy's claim. Not the lack of it in certain points like the unexplained disappearance of the real Oliver P. Roberts. 6. "The 1910 census shows Anna was the wife of Oliver P. Roberts, and his parents were born in Kentucky as Brushy claimed, but Brushy Bill did not say he had married and divorced Anna Lee." OK, again I don't see your point here. Are you trying to cite evidence for Brushy that is bogus, or do you mean to cite evidence "against" Brushy. I think you're losing sight of the original question. But I'll bite anyway. Brushy did not claim he was married to Anna Lee, but maybe he wasn't. The census of 1910 would have been taken in the second half of that year. If Brushy was already pretending to be Oliver P., then he is the one that was interviewed for the census and he is the one that reported his parents as being born in Kentucky, even though we know the real Oliver P. Roberts' parents were born in Texas and Arkansas. That census "is" evidence that supports Brushy's claim. So, why was he answering census questions on behalf of Oliver P., unless he was married to Anna. My opinion is, he must have been trying to help her obtain a legal divorce from Oliver P. who had skipped town. In my opinion, this may have had more to do with his taking on the identity of Oliver P., than the story Brushy gave us about the mother thinking he was her son. He may have made that part up in order to avoid revealing that he and Anna had deceived the authorities. Do I have any evidence to support my theory? No, none other than logic, but it's still my theory, so deal with it. 7. "Brushy Bill said he married Mollie Brown, Loutecia Ballard, and Melinda Allison, although the spouse was not identified as William Henry Roberts or Brushy Bill Roberts." Duh! He was hiding his true identity. 8. "A Spanish American War medal was found in Brushy Bill’s collection, but it was for stateside service, not for service in the Cuba campaign." OK, maybe the medal was awarded stateside? It's still evidence he was in the Spanish American War at a time when Oliver P. Roberts would have been in Arkansas. Are you suggesting stateside medals were "only" awarded to those who did "not" go to Cuba? Maybe they had run out of the Cuba medals and had to give him a stateside one? He had a Spanish American War medal. Would the real Oliver P. Roberts have one? It's still evidence that supports Brushy. I like your idea here that Brushy might have been helping Anna Lee to obtain a legal divorce from Oliver P who had skipped town. Another possible scenario here could be that Brushy had an affair with Anna Lee and then because of this Oliver P was murdered either by Brushy or Anna Lee or both of them together. Just a thought.
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Post by Wayne Land on Apr 25, 2021 13:52:15 GMT -5
WARNING! WARNING! Speculation filled post here which had little evidence to support it.
I wish someone could find some leads on what happened to the real Oliver P. Roberts. But even without it, my gut tells me Brushy started out pretending to be Oliver L., who in my opinion was the one who ran away and got killed in Indian Territory. I believe the reason there is no record of Oliver L. Roberts birth, etc. is because he was born out of wedlock to a very young Sarah Elizabeth Ferguson (later Roberts) and his very existence was hidden from outsiders to protect her reputation. Likely a big part of the reason he ran away. Now let's go back to about 1910. Brushy has shown up with Oliver L's belongings, Elizabeth Ferguson Roberts is a bit on the disturbed side and insists he is the real Oliver L. Other family members try to tell her he is not, that he is actually William Henry but she won't accept that and in order to appease her the family including Brushy decide to just go along with it. It is possible that the real Oliver P. was still around at that time but his marriage to Anna Lee was not going well. Maybe she was drawn to Brushy and maybe they had an affair that drove Oliver P. to leave town at which point Brushy posed as Oliver P. for the census and signed divorce papers as him in order to help Anna get free from the bad marriage. In this scenario, Brushy would have been very hesitant to mention Anna during his interviews with Morrison.
I WARNED you (lol), but the truth can in deed be stranger than fiction. Who knows?
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Post by RonBk on Apr 25, 2021 16:07:56 GMT -5
Yes, the truth can indeed be stranger than fiction. I would even like to propose that the truth quiet often stranger than fiction. But since for some reason we dont tend to think about the truth like that, we become sort of handicapped in our thinking. We try all the time to find the answer that is most logical, which is probably a good idea, but then again this creates a problem and hinder thinking "outside the box", we get stuck seeking "the normal" in everything. As in the often repeated mistake to assume that if a person is caught lying about one thing that means the person is constantly lying about everything. I really wish someone could get to the bottom of this Anna Lee situation.
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