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Post by MissyS on Feb 20, 2023 3:20:57 GMT -5
Things I find in old newspaper clippings that I find interesting or odd I tend to file it and forget about it and this is one I ran across that was puzzling, and I don’t remember sharing it. Some while back I was working on a post about a few articles found claiming Billy the Kid had headed to Texas a few weeks before the shooting, in one the Las Vegas Morning Gazette June 23, 1881 was about a witness that saw the Kid heading to Texas on a horse and leading another, what was puzzling was the article also mentioned that Billy the Kid sent a letter to Pat Garrett that he would meet him on August 10 in White Oak. What purpose could this meeting have been for if Billy wrote the letter? I doubt the Kid had plans to give himself up? Could this have been some kind of threat to Garrett? There was no name for the witness so I had questioned if it was true, or maybe mistaken someone else as Billy the Kid, however I did find in a different paper printed close to the same time about the Kid headed to Texas with a big group of men. chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93061631/1881-06-23/ed-1/seq-4/print/image_681x648_from_354%2C4357_to_1604%2C5548/ |
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Post by noreaster on Feb 20, 2023 8:28:20 GMT -5
Hi Missy,
Great post. Perhaps people were spreading rumors deliberately to try to confuse his trail and buy him time to create some distance. I wonder if there are any stories in the Garrett family about Billy ever sending a letter of any kind. The letter, if it existed, could also be used against Pat so I suspect if something like that did get sent, he would have destroyed it. I would not think White Oak would be a safe place for those two to meet. Great find!
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Post by MissyS on Feb 20, 2023 14:25:46 GMT -5
That’s a good theory, Thanks noreaster,  the letter used as a trick so Billy can gain distance in another direction makes sense, it seems a little odd though because the article said the witness spoke with the press yesterday which would have been June 22, and he related the story that it happened one day during the week before that , so would Billy or a pal plan ahead that far in advance to throw Garrett off his trail? It may have taken a long traveling time to consider in though? It seems the Kid should have wanted Pat Garrett to believe he went to Mexico so he wouldn’t be searching at all. The reward money could have been another reason to throw Pat Garrett or other bounty hunters off Billy’s trail, maybe a bounty Hunter that knew where Billy was gave the information but how he knew where Billy would be weeks ahead of time would be puzzling also.  |
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Post by mckinley412 on Mar 6, 2023 1:15:27 GMT -5
I saw on a YouTube comment a lady said Billy stayed with her family in Toyah, Tx in 1882 because he wasn’t killed at Ft Sumner and after Toyah he moved to El Paso. I can see the tombstones of her family online in Toyah which is basically a ghost town. And I see Charles Siringo went to Toyah in 1882 looking for rustlers.
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Post by MissyS on Mar 6, 2023 5:10:53 GMT -5
I saw on a YouTube comment a lady said Billy stayed with her family in Toyah, Tx in 1882 because he wasn’t killed at Ft Sumner and after Toyah he moved to El Paso. I can see the tombstones of her family online in Toyah which is basically a ghost town. And I see Charles Siringo went to Toyah in 1882 looking for rustlers. Awesome! The lady on the YouTube video could be added to the list of witnesses that claimed they saw Billy the Kid alive after the shooting, the list is I think around ten or eleven on the odds of the many witnesses thread. Charles Siringo wrote about meeting Billy the Kid, I don’t know where that meeting took place or when?  |
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Post by MissyS on Apr 8, 2023 14:09:08 GMT -5
Things I find in old newspaper clippings that I find interesting or odd I tend to file it and forget about it and this is one I ran across that was puzzling, and I don’t remember sharing it. Some while back I was working on a post about a few articles found claiming Billy the Kid had headed to Texas a few weeks before the shooting, in one the Las Vegas Morning Gazette June 23, 1881 was about a witness that saw the Kid heading to Texas on a horse and leading another, what was puzzling was the article also mentioned that Billy the Kid sent a letter to Pat Garrett that he would meet him on August 10 in White Oak. What purpose could this meeting have been for if Billy wrote the letter? I doubt the Kid had plans to give himself up? Could this have been some kind of threat to Garrett? There was no name for the witness so I had questioned if it was true, or maybe mistaken someone else as Billy the Kid, however I did find in a different paper printed close to the same time about the Kid headed to Texas with a big group of men. chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93061631/1881-06-23/ed-1/seq-4/print/image_681x648_from_354%2C4357_to_1604%2C5548/I found something that Brushy said that may collaborate the letter in the article of the Kid meeting up with Pat Garrett in White Oaks. Brushy said on page 101 in The Lost Interviews Book by W.C. Jameson that he sent a note to Garrett that he was waiting for him and he better come a shooting. Brushy didn’t mention where he was waiting for him. The remark was in the chapter about Brushy’s telling his actions after his escape from Lincoln jail, so the timing of it looks to have been right. I’m wondering could this note Brushy was referring to that he said he sent to Garrett be the same one mentioned in the Las Vegas Morning Gazette told by a witness, or just a coincidence? |
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Post by MissyS on Apr 8, 2023 17:54:14 GMT -5
I wanted to add that re-reading that chapter in the Lost Interview book, it’s possible Brushy may have intended that letter to go to Barney Mason and sent it to Pat Garrett to give to him, the way it’s worded. I’m not sure? Brushy said he was looking for Barney Mason in the same chapter, but either way there was a letter mentioned in the news paper article that was sent to Pat Garrett from Billy the Kid and coincidentally Brushy mentions sending Pat a letter roughly the same time after his escape from Lincoln.
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Post by MissyS on Apr 8, 2023 18:05:07 GMT -5
I don’t see how Brushy could have known about a letter sent to Pat Garrett? Since the letter was something a witness seen Billy doing at the time and gave the info to the press, I don’t believe it was printed in a book. Brushy could have read it in the newspaper if he was to find an old Las Vegas Gazette 1881 paper somewhere.  |
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the letter used as a trick so Billy can gain distance in another direction makes sense, it seems a little odd though because the article said the witness spoke with the press yesterday which would have been June 22, and he related the story that it happened one day during the week before that , so would Billy or a pal plan ahead that far in advance to throw Garrett off his trail? It may have taken a long traveling time to consider in though? It seems the Kid should have wanted Pat Garrett to believe he went to Mexico so he wouldn’t be searching at all. The reward money could have been another reason to throw Pat Garrett or other bounty hunters off Billy’s trail, maybe a bounty Hunter that knew where Billy was gave the information but how he knew where Billy would be weeks ahead of time would be puzzling also. 
