William H. Bonney
William H. Bonney, more widely known as Billy the Kid, was born Henry McCarty in 1859 to Irish immigrants in New York City. His early life was marked by hardship, including the death of his mother when he was a teenager, which led him to engage with a rough crowd. He gained notoriety after escaping from jail and adopting the alias "Billy the Kid." Bonney's criminal career escalated during the Lincoln County War in New Mexico, where he became involved in violent confrontations stemming from a rivalry between mercantile factions. Despite being described as a charismatic individual, his actions resulted in a handful of confirmed killings. After a brief period of ranching and cattle rustling, Bonney was captured and sentenced to death, but he escaped in 1881. His life ended shortly thereafter when he was shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett. Following his death, Bonney became an iconic figure in American folklore, with varying portrayals as a notorious outlaw and a heroic figure in the rugged frontier of the American West.
William H. Bonney
- Born: November 23, 1859
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: July 14, 1881
- Place of death: Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory
Frontier-era American outlaw
Major offenses: Murder and cattle theft
Active: 1874–81
Locale: New Mexico Territory
Sentence: Death; escaped prison while awaiting execution and was shot to death three months later
Early Life
William H. Bonney was born Henry McCarty in 1859 to Irish immigrants in New York City’s slums. Not much is known about his early childhood. Sources suggest that young Henry lived with his widowed mother, Catherine, and his younger brother, Joe, in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the Civil War. In 1870 the family, along with Catherine’s future husband, William Antrim, relocated to Wichita, Kansas, where Catherine operated a laundry. Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1871, Catherine again moved her family, eventually landing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she married Antrim on March 1, 1873. The Antrims settled in Silver City, a mining community in the southwestern part of the territory. Henry, now known as Henry Antrim, attended school and reportedly was an ordinary teenager. When his mother died in September, 1874, however, the future outlaw’s life changed direction.
Criminal Career
Now lacking parental guidance, Henry began associating with rough characters. Just a year after Catherine’s death, he found himself facing theft charges after stealing a bundle of clothing from a Chinese laundry. Not wanting to stand trial, Henry escaped through the local jail’s chimney and made his way into Arizona.
Now nicknamed “The Kid” because of his youth and diminutive size, Henry worked as a teamster and cowboy around Camp Grant. During his two years in Arizona, Henry honed his skills as a gunman and horseman. While historians often describe the gunfighter as a cheerful and well-liked young man, nobody disagreed that he had a short and violent temper. That temper exploded on August 17, 1877, when seventeen-year-old Henry shot and killed Frank “Windy” Cahill, a much older and stronger man who had made a habit of verbally and physically abusing the teenager.
Now wanted for murder in Arizona, Henry escaped to New Mexico under the alias William “Billy” Bonney. Billy ended up in Lincoln County, New Mexico, where he worked as a cowboy for Englishman John Tunstall. In 1878, the county was dominated by the mercantile monopoly of Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan. Challenging the Murphy-Dolan alliance were Tunstall and a Scotsman named Alexander McSween, who sought to outbid their rivals for government contracts. Billy soon became involved in the Lincoln County War (1878–79), in which Tunstall was killed by assassins from the Murphy-Dolan faction. During the war Billy rode with the “Regulators,” a group of Tunstall employees who sought to avenge the death of their employer. For the following year, the two sides engaged in deadly retaliatory warfare. Billy’s skills with a gun and his reckless bravado served the Tunstall-McSween faction well during the conflict. On March 9, 1878, the Regulators captured and killed Frank Baker and William Morton, both suspects in Tunstall’s murder.
On April 1, 1878, Billy and several Regulators ambushed and killed Sheriff William Brady, an ally of the Murphy-Dolan faction. Just three days later, the Regulators battled Buckshot Roberts, a bounty hunter hired by the opposition, at Blazer’s Saw Mill, about forty miles outside Lincoln. After a fierce battle, Dick Brewer, the leader of the Regulators, and Roberts lay dead or dying. The Lincoln County War climaxed in a five-day battle (July 15–19, 1878) in which McSween and several Regulators were also killed. On the final day of the battle, Billy led a gallant escape from a burning building under heavy gunfire.
Legal Action and Outcome
In the years after the Lincoln County War, Billy teetered back and forth between ranching and rustling cattle. While the territorial governor pardoned most of the participants in the conflict, Billy was indicted for killing Sheriff Brady. He was arrested by the new sheriff, Pat Garrett, in December, 1880. After a questionable trial, the Kid was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Just as he had several times before, Billy cheated his sentence before it could be carried out. On April 28, 1881, he killed two guards and escaped. The Kid’s days were still numbered, as lawmen relentlessly hunted him. Finally, on July 14, 1881, Garrett tracked Billy to Fort Sumner, where he surprised the twenty-one-year-old outlaw under the cover of darkness. “¨Quién es? ¨Quién es? (Who is it?)” Billy asked as he heard someone enter the room where he slept. Without answering, Garrett fired two shots, killing Billy the Kid instantly.
Impact
Within months of William H. Bonney’s death, books and serialized stories began creating the Billy the Kid legend. During the twentieth century, Hollywood movies solidified his status as an American icon. Some described him as a swaggering, homicidal maniac. Others portrayed him as an American Robin Hood who became an outlaw to protect the innocent and the helpless. Somewhere in between these extremes is the historic Billy the Kid. He came of age in a rough frontier world where violence was commonplace. He killed when he thought necessary but not nearly as often as stories suggest. Legend credits Billy the Kid with twenty-one killings. History, however, can confirm only four killings by the Kid’s own hand and five or six in which he participated as a member of the Regulators.
Bibliography
Burns, Walter Noble. The Saga of Billy the Kid. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1926. A vivid and romanticized biography that helped create the image of Billy the Kid as an American Robin Hood.
"The Life and Legend of Billy the Kid." American Experience, PBS, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/billy-life-and-legend-billy-kid/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2023.
O’Neal, Bill. Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979. This valuable collection of 587 gunfighter biographies provides a biography of Billy the Kid along with short descriptions of his criminal exploits and gunfights.
Tuska, Jon. Billy the Kid: His Life and Legend. Reprint. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. A thoroughly researched book that examines fallacies and inaccuracies in previous books, novels, and movies.
Utley, Robert. Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. An authoritative and objective account of Billy the Kid, written by an eminent Western historian.