Henry McCarty (reportedly November 23, 1859 — July 14, 1881), better known as Billy the Kid , but also known by the aliases Henry Antrim and William H. Bonney , was a 19th century American frontier outlaw and gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War. According to legend, he killed over 20 white men and a number of Mexicans and Indians,but he is generally accepted to have killed four men.
McCarty (or Bonney, the name he used at the height of his notoriety) was 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m) to 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) tall with blue eyes, a smooth complexion and prominent front teeth. He was said to be friendly and personable at times, and many recalled that he was as "lithe as a cat". Contemporaries described him as a "neat" dresser who favored an "unadorned Mexican sombrero". These qualities, along with his cunning and celebrated skill with firearms, contributed to his paradoxical image, as both a notorious outlaw and beloved folk hero.
A relative unknown during his own lifetime, he was catapulted into legend the year after his death when his killer, Sheriff Pat Garrett, along with co-author M.A. "Ash" Upson, published a sensationalistic biography titled The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid . Beginning with Garrett's account, Billy the Kid grew into a symbolic figure of the American Old West.
Early life
Little is known about McCarty's origins, but many reputable scholars of western history "contend that he was born on the eve of the Civil War in the bowels of an Irish neighborhood in New York City. If indeed, his birthplace was New York, no records that can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he ever lived there have ever been uncovered". While his biological father remains an obscure figure, some researchers have theorized that his name was Patrick McCarty, Michael McCarty, William McCarty, or Edward McCarty. There is clear evidence that his mother's name was Catherine McCarty, although "there have been continuing debates about whether McCarty was her maiden or married name". According to some accounts, McCarty was born as William Henry McCarty, Jr., but his mother preferred to call him "Henry" because she did not wish him to be known as "junior". It is generally believed that McCarty's mother was a survivor of the Great Irish Famine of the mid-19th century. Some genealogists argue, however, that the future outlaw was born William Henry Bonney, the son of William Harrison Bonney and wife Katherine Boujean, paternal grandson of Levi Bonney and wife Rhoda Pratt and great-grandson of Obadiah Pratt, who in turn were the grandparents of Mormon leader Parley P. Pratt, making him and McCarty first cousins once removed. Furthermore, the late New Mexico historian, Herman P. Weisner, contended that McCarty was of partial Hispanic ancestry. Weisner's theory was based, in part, on the outlaw's remarkable fluency in Spanish and his well-known sympathy for the Hispanic people of the New Mexico Territory.
By 1868, Catherine McCarty had moved with her two young sons, Henry and Joseph, to Indianapolis, Indiana. There, she met William Antrim, who was 12 years her junior. In 1873, after several years of moving around the country, the two were married at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and settled further south in Silver City. Antrim found sporadic work as a bartender and carpenter but soon became more interested in prospecting and gambling for fortune than in his wife and stepsons. Nevertheless, young McCarty often used the surname "Antrim" when referring to himself.
Faced with a husband who was frequently absent, McCarty's mother reportedly washed clothes, baked pies, and took in boarders in order to provide for her sons. Although she was fondly remembered by onetime boarders and neighbors as "a jolly Irish lady, full of life and mischief", she was already in the final stages of tuberculosis when the family reached Silver City. The following year, on September 16, 1874, Catherine McCarty died; she was buried in the Memory Lane Cemetery in Silver City. At age 14, McCarty was taken in by a neighboring family who operated a hotel where he worked to pay for his keep. The manager was impressed by the youth, contending that he was the only young man who ever worked for him that did not steal anything. One of McCarty's school teachers later recalled that the young orphan was "no more of a problem than any other boy, always quite willing to help with chores around the schoolhouse". Early biographers sought to explain McCarty's subsequent descent into lawlessness by focusing on his habit of reading dime novels that romanticized crime. A more likely explanation, however, was his slender physique, "which placed him in precarious situations with bigger and stronger boys".
Forced to seek new lodgings when his foster family began to experience "domestic problems", McCarty moved into a boarding house and pursued odd jobs. In April, 1875, McCarty was arrested by Grant County Sheriff Harvey Whitehill, after McCarty stole some cheese. On September 24, 1875, McCarty was again arrested when he was found in possession of clothing and firearms that a fellow boarder had stolen from a Chinese laundry owner. Two days after McCarty was placed in jail, the teenager escaped by worming his way up the jailhouse chimney. From that point on, McCarty was more or less a fugitive. According to some accounts, he eventually found work as an itinerant ranch hand and shepherd in southeastern Arizona. In 1876, he settled in the vicinity of Fort Grant Army Post in Arizona, where he worked local ranches and tested his skills at local gaming houses. Sheriff Whitehill would later say that he liked the boy, and his acts of theft were more due to necessity than wantonness.
During this time, McCarty became acquainted with John R. Mackie, a Scottish-born ex-cavalry private with a criminal bent. The two men supposedly became involved in the risky, but profitable, enterprise of horse thievery; and McCarty, who targeted local soldiers, became known by the sobriquet of "Kid Antrim". Biographer Robert M. Utley writes that the nickname arose because of McCarty's "slight build and beardless countenance, his young years, and his appealing personality". In 1877, McCarty was involved in an altercation with the civilian blacksmith at Fort Grant, a loquacious Irish immigrant named Frank "Windy" Cahill, who took pleasure in bullying young McCarty. On August 17, Cahill reportedly attacked McCarty after a verbal exchange and threw him to the ground. Reliable accounts suggest McCarty retaliated by drawing his gun and shooting Cahill, who died the next day. Years later, Louis Abraham, who knew McCarty in Silver City, denied that anyone was killed in this altercation. Records show, however, that a coroner's inquest concluded that McCarty's shooting of Cahill was "criminal and unjustifiable". Some of those who witnessed the incident later claimed that McCarty acted in self-defense.
In fear of Cahill's friends and associates, McCarty fled Arizona Territory and entered New Mexico Territory. He eventually arrived at the former army post of Apache Tejo, where he joined a band of cattle rustlers who targeted the sprawling herds of cattle magnate John Chisum. During this period, McCarty was spotted by a resident of Silver City, and the teenager's involvement with the notorious gang was mentioned in a local newspaper. It is unclear how long McCarty rode with the gang of rustlers known as "the Boys", but reliable sources indicate that he soon turned up at the house of Heiskell Jones in the Pecos Valley, New Mexico. According to this account, Apaches stole McCarty's horse, forcing him to walk many miles to the nearest settlement, which happened to be Jones' home. When he arrived, the young man was supposedly near death, but Mrs. Jones nursed him back to health. The Jones family developed a strong attachment to McCarty and gave him one of their horses. At some point in 1877, McCarty began to refer to himself as "Willam H. Bonney".
Lincoln County War
In the Autumn of 1877, McCarty (now widely known as Bonney) moved to Lincoln County, New Mexico, and was first hired by Doc Scurlock and Charlie Bowdre to work in their cheese factory. He met through them Frank Coe, George Coe and Ab Saunders, three cousins who owned their own ranch near to the ranch of Dick Brewer. After a short stint working on the ranch of Henry Hooker, McCarty began working on the Coe-Saunders ranch.
Late in 1877, McCarty, along with Brewer, Bowdre, Scurlock, the Coes and the Saunders, was hired as a cattle guard by John Tunstall, an English cattle rancher, banker and merchant, and his partner, Alexander McSween, a prominent lawyer. A conflict known today as the Lincoln County War had erupted between the established town merchants, Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, and competing business interests headed by Tunstall and McSween. Events turned bloody on February 18, 1878, when Tunstall was spotted driving a herd of nine horses towards Lincoln and murdered by William Morton, Jessie Evans, Tom Hill, and Frank Baker — all members of the Murphy-Dolan faction, and members of a posse sent to attach McSweens holdings. After murdering Tunstall, the gunmen shot down his prized bay horse. "As a wry and macabre joke on Tunstall's great affection for horses, the dead bay's head was then pillowed on his hat", writes Frederick Nolan, Tunstall's biographer. Although members of the Murphy-Dolan faction sought to frame Tunstall's death as a "justifiable homicide", evidence at the scene suggested that Tunstall attempted to avoid a confrontation before he was shot down. Tunstall's murder enraged McCarty and the other ranch hands.
McSween
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