Charlie Smith

[MissyS]

I didn’t see this posted about  this story so I wanted to post about it. In 1979 a man named Charlie Smith passed away in a Florida nursing home he was believed by many at that time to have been the oldest American, his claims put him at 137 years old, although it could be 109 according to some? but however old he really is Charlie Smith’s life story is interesting and fascinating, he told some folks about riding with the Jesse James gang and joining up with Billy the Kid to get the man who killed President Garfield, a Charles Guiteau. Since President Garfield was assassinated on July 2, 1881, and if historical accounts are correct the assassin Guiteau was apprehended shortly after the shots were fired at a train station and he was indicted on Oct, 14, 1881, the account didn’t fit the Billy the Kid’s timeline of events, so I dismissed Smith’s account as possibly another Billy the Kid he was referring to, or perhaps due to a fuzzy memory him and Billy did team up together but at a different time & for a different purpose? Since there would have been no need to apprehend Guiteau if he was immediately apprehended it seems a stretch it happened, but it stretched my curiosity nonetheless, after reading about the assassin Charles Guiteau he seemed to possibly have been in and out of trouble before the assassination, he was said to have stalked the President for sometime before he shot him, so I’m wondering about the possibility that Guiteau may have bragged about his plot to someone and if word got out about that plot, then it would have made sense for a sharpshooter or two to have been hired  to keep a watch on Guiteau or guard President Garfield before those plans took place, this is just an idea, it would mean that Billy’s escape from jail could have been helped for him to achieve such a mission if he were hired, and there are some persons that believe Garrett aided in Billy’s escape. Charlie Smith did not say exactly when he and Billy went to get Guiteau really. In an interview sometime before Smith died it sounded like he worked as a bounty hunter  and he and Billy the Kid went after Guiteau for a reward, Billy having a price on his head going after another man for a reward is hard to believe. Smith’s nickname he said the government gave him at that time was “Trigger Kid”. If memory serves me Brushy had mentioned working for a security, I wonder if Charlie Smith at sometime worked with Brushy? Charlie Smith did an interview in 1975 it can be read online and a lot of articles available about him, some links may need a subscription?