Chronology of the Life of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War, Part 10

• Aug. 6, 1881---Pat Garrett is presented with$1,300, raised from the citizens of Dona Ana County, and $600, from Santa Fe County.
• Sept. 19, 1881---In the Las Vegas jail, Dave Rudabaugh, along with cellmates Thomas Duffy, A. Murphy, and H. S. Wilson, picks the lock of his jail cell. The three guards, who were sleeping, suddenly awake and fight ensues. Rudabaugh, who had had a pistol snuck in to him by a friend, fires two shots, but they go wild. One of the guards does manage to shoot and kill Duffy however. Rudabaugh, Wilson, and Murphy are then contained and placed back in their cell.
• Dec. 2, 1881---Rudabaugh, J. J. Webb, and five other inmates chisel a hole in the wall of their cell and escape unnoticed. Immediately thereafter, Rudabaugh and Webb flee Vegas, with Dave probably heading west, towards Arizona, and Webb heading east. Webb eventually makes it to Arkansas, adopts the alias Samuel King, and dies of smallpox shortly thereafter.
• Late 1881---Wanting to cash in on his fame as the killer of Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett hires friend and newspaperman Marshall Ashmun 'Ash' Upson to write a book for him on the life of the Kid and Garrett's pursuit of him.
• Jan. 1882---Paulita Maxwell marries Jose Jaramillo at Fort Sumner. Allegedly, she gives birth to a son named Telesfor soon after they are wedded. Also around this time, Doc Scurlock begins teaching school in Vernon, Texas. Over the next several years, Doc also works as a farmer, doctor, and linguist, and moves his growing family several times to different Texas towns. In his free time, he also writes poetry.
• Feb. 18, 1882---Pat Garrett is finally given the official reward of $500 from the Territory of New Mexico.
• Feb. 28, 1882---In Santa Fe, Billy Wilson is convicted of passing counterfeit bills and sentenced to seven years in prison.
• Mar. 1882---Pat Garrett's book ''An Authentic Life of Billy the Kid,'' which is anything by authentic, is released. It ends up being a huge failure for Garrett, selling very poorly.
• Mar. 10, 1882---Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and others encounter Curly Bill Brocius and several other outlaws near Mescal Springs, Arizona. A gunfight erupts with Earp killng Brocius and mortally wounding Johnny Barnes before the other outlaws flee. Dave Rudabaugh is reported to be among the outlaws. Afterwards, he apparently flees south into Mexico.
• Apr. 1882---Dan Dedrick is arrested by Pat Garrett in Socorro County for stealing a $35 steer from Jim Chisum. Dedrick posts $250 bail and flees New Mexico altogether for California, being accompanied by his brothers Sam and Mose.
• May 23, 1882---Jessie Evans is paroled from prison in Huntsville, Texas. He immediately thereafter disappears.
• Spring 1882---Frank Coe and wife Helena return to Lincoln County and purchase the old ranch of Dick Brewer on the Rio Ruidoso. Frank also builds a house on the property.
• Aug. 1882---In a Trinidad, Colorado hotel, Pat Garrett happens to encounter Joe McCarty Antrim. The two go to a private room and talk for several hours. When their meeting is finished, the two shake hands and part amicably.
• Sept. 9, 1882---Billy Wilson and three other inmates escape from jail in Santa Fe. Nothing is heard from Wilson for the next couple years,
• Nov. 9, 1882---Johnny Riley, now living in Las Cruces, marries Annie Cuniffe, who will bear him three children.
• Nov. 19, 1882---At San Lorenzo, New Mexico, a John Middleton dies of smallpox. It's likely that this is the same Middleton who was a Regulator.
• Dec. 1882---Ex-Regulator Henry Brown is appointed marshal of the town of Caldwell, Kansas, a cattle town that Brown recently arrived at on a cattle drive.
• Late 1882---Pat Garrett decides not to run again for sheriff and instead backs Jimmy Dolan. Running against Dolan is Garrett's former deputy, John Poe. Poe wins the election. However, Dolan, with new partners William Rynerson, John Lemon, and Numa Reymond, goes on to buy the former John Tunstall store, as well as Tunstall's old ranch property on the Rio Feliz. On this property, Dolan, Ryneron, and the others build a ranch called the Feliz Land & Cattle Company.
• Feb. 5, 1883---Ab Saunders, former Regulator and cousin to the Coes, dies at San Francisco while having surgery on his hip that was wounded during the shootout with the Seven Rivers Warriors in Apr. 1878.
• Winter 1883---Billy Mathews marries Dora Bates.
• Apr. 21, 1883---John Kinney, who was recently arrested and brought to trial in Mesilla for cattle rustling, is convicted. He is then sentenced to serve five years in Leavenworth, Kansas State Penitentiary, as well as pay a $500 fine.
• 1884 (dates unknown)---Jimmy Dolan is elected treasure in Lincoln. The same year, Pat Garrett leaves New Mexico for the Texas Panhandle, where he gets a job hunting horse and cattle thieves for the LS Ranch.
• Jan. 8, 1884---A gang of outlaws containing Billy Wilson and Tom Pickett ambush a group of several Mexicans, killing three outright and mortally wounding a forth. Soon afterwards, Pickett and Wilson leave the gang and go their separate ways, with Pickett riding to Arizona and getting a job on the Hash Knife Ranch.
• Jan. 24, 1884---Lincoln County Sheriff John Poe and a posse go after a horse thief named Nicholas Aragon. The posse catch up to the rustler at Chaperito and a gunfight ensues, in which posse member, and former Seven Rivers Warrior, Johnny Hurley is killed. Aragon surrenders immediately afterwards.
• Mar. 26, 1884---Henry Brown, still marshal in Caldwell, Kansas, marries Alice Levagood.

• Apr. 9, 1884---Juan Patron, who has been operating a hotel at Puerto de Luna for the last few years, is shot and killed by a Mike Maney in a PdL saloon. It's suspected that his murder was orchestrated by the Santa Fe Ring.
• Apr. 30, 1884---Henry Brown, Deputy Ben Wheeler, Billy Smith, and John Wesley, ride from Caldwell to nearby town Medicine Lodge, where they attempt to rob a bank. In the process Brown kills the bank's president, while one of the others kills the bank clerk. The four men flee, but are soon after caught by a posse and returned to town. That night, a lynch mob storms the jail. When Brown flees, one of the mob's members kills him with a shotgun. Nevertheless, Brown's body, along with Wheeler, Smith, and Wesley, is then hung from a nearby tree.
• July 17, 1884---John Chisum, who has been growing a cancerous tumor on his neck, travels to Kansas City, Missouri for surgery. The surgery is a failure, however, and Chisum soon after leaves for Eureka Springs, Arkansas, hoping the baths there will cure him.
• Nov. 1884---George Coe and his wife, Phoebe, return to Lincoln County under the recommendation of George's cousin, Frank. There, George resumes his life as a peaceful rancher and father to eight children.
• Dec. 22, 1884---John Chisum succumbs to his neck tumor and dies at Eureka Springs, Arkansas. He is later buried in Paris, Texas.
• 1885 (exact dates unknown)---John Riley, former partner of Dolan, leaves New Mexico for Colorado. Warren Bristol resigns from being a judge. Former sheriff George Peppin is elected director of the school board in Lincoln County. Pat Garrett returns to New Mexico and starts ranching again. He also takes part in a venture to irrigate the Pecos Valley, which eventually fails. The same year, Jose Chavez y Chavez, now a deputy in Las Vegas, confronts saloon owner and famous killer of Jesse James, Bob Ford. The two engage in a shooting match, with Chavez easily besting Ford. When Chavez then challenges Ford to a real duel, Ford flees town. Also this same year, Billy Mathews begins managing the Penasco Cattle Co. Lastly, John Poe resigns his position of sheriff, turning to banking instead. James Brent is elected the new sheriff.
• 1886 (exact dates unknown)---Fred Waite moves to the Choctaw Nation. In Arizona, Tom Pickett is wounded in the leg during a gunfight, giving him a limp.
• Feb. 18, 1886---In a cantina in Parral, Mexico, Dirty Dave Rudabaugh gets into an argument with three native patrons. The argument escalates into a gunfight, with Dave killing two of the men and wounding the third. He quickly leaves the cantina, but is unable to locate his horse. Faced with this, he returns to the cantina, only to be shot several times from ambush by a group of outraged citizens. His corpse is then decapitated and the head paraded around the town plaza on a pole.
• Feb. 19, 1886---John Kinney is paroled from the Leavenworth prison and soon after gets a job running a feed lot in Kingman, Arizona.
• Sept. 29, 1886---Jimmy Dolan's wife, Caroline, dies after having given birth to their fourth child only nine days before.
• 1887 (exact date unknown)---Frank Stewart is arrested in Liberty, New Mexico on a charge of cattle theft. He quickly posts bond and flees the area, disappearing for the next several years.
• May 1887---Barney Mason is sentenced to one year in prison for stealing a calf.
• Nov. 1887---Mason is pardoned by New Mexico Gov. Lawrence Ross. Released from prison, Mason moves to Los Portales and opens a saloon. Shortly thereafter, he also starts a ranch near Willard, before eventually leaving New Mexico for Arizona to build dams.
• 1888 (exact dates unknown)---Jimmy Dolan ceases being the treasurer of Lincoln and is elected to the territorial senate representing the counties of Lincoln, Grant, Dona Ana, and Sierra. The same year, he remarries, this time to Eva Whitlock, and also builds a house in Lincoln. Fred Waite is appointed delegate to the international convention at Fort Gibson. Tom Pickett, working as a bartender in Holbrook, Arizona, marries one Kate Kelly, who dies shortly thereafter during childbirth. The child also presumably dies in the process or shortly thereafter. Shortly afterwards, Pickett gets into a gunfight with an outlaw calling himself the Cimarron Kid. By the fight's end, the Kid is dead and Pickett is unharmed.
• Late 1888/Early 1889---Jimmy Dolan sells his Lincoln store (formerly the Tunstall store) to the firm of Rosenthal & Co.
• 1889 (exact dates unknown)---Fred Waite is elected representative of Pickens County, Indian Territory and joins the police force there. Pat Garrett runs for sheriff of the newly formed Chaves County. However, he is beaten by ranched Campbell Fountain, who was supported by Garrett's former deputy, John Poe. This same year, Johnny Riley and his family return to New Mexico from Colorado, where he is elected assessor of Dona Ana County.
• June 3, 1889---Jimmy Dolan is appointed receiver of the land office at Las Cruces.
• Aug. 20, 1889---Nathan Dudley retires from the U. S. Army at the rank of brigadier general.
• 1890 (exact dates unknown)---Fred Waite is elected attorney general of the Chickasaw legislature and also serves on the national security. The same year, Tom Pickett gets a job driving the Fort Apache-Holbrook stage. Also this same year, John Poe helps found the Bank of Roswell.
• Jan. 12, 1890---Warren Bristol dies of natural causes at Deming, New Mexico.
• 1891 (exact dates unknown)---Jimmy Dolan resigns from his position as receiver of land office at Las Cruces. Also this year, Pat Garrett moves to Uvalde, Texas and starts a horse ranch.
• 1892 (exact dates unknown)---Jimmy Dolan and Billy Mathews are made directors of the Penasco Reservoir & Irrigation Company.
• Oct. 22, 1892---Jose Chavez y Chavez and others, all of which are members of a gang known as the Society of Bandits, lynch one Patricio Maes near Las Vegas.
• 1893 (exact dates unknown)---George Peppin is once again appointed a deputy in Lincoln, as well as town jailer. Lastly, John Poe is elected president of the Bank of Roswell.

• Feb. 1893---Jose Chavez and other members of the Society of Bandits kill a Las Vegas bartender named Gabriel Sandoval.
• Apr. 1893---Jose Chavez and two others kill their gang leader, Vicente Silva. Chavez immediately thereafter flees the area.
• June 1893---Jose Chavez, who has been living under the alias Joe Gonzales, is arrested in Socorro County.
• Sept. 26, 1893---William Rynerson dies.
• 1894 (exact dates unknown)---The Penasco Reservoir & Irrigation Company goes bust, causing Billy Mathews to go bankrupt. He soon after moves to Roswell and becomes manager of the Pecos Irrigation & Improvement Company. Meanwhile, Jimmy Dolan has a large house, which he will call the Flying H, built on his Rio Feliz property.
• 1895 (exact dates unknown)---Pat Garrett allegedly runs into Billy Wilson in Uvalde. Wilson is living in the nearby town of Sanderson with a wife and child and has been living a law-abiding life since he fled New Mexico in 1884. Believing Wilson has honestly bettered himself, Garrett promises him he will try to use his influence to obtain a pardon for him. Also, Jim French is possibly shot and killed during an attempted store robbery in Catoosa, Oklahoma.
• June 1895---Jose Chavez y Chavez goes to trial for the murder of Vicente Silva. He is found guilty and sentenced to hang, but his sentence is eventually commuted to life imprisonment.
• Sept. 24, 1895---Fred Waite dies of rheumatism, one day after his forty-second birthday.
• Feb. 1, 1896---Col. Albert Fountain and his youngest son, Henry, are traveling from Las Cruces to Lincoln. Somewhere along the way, they disappear and are presumably assassinated by agents of the Santa Fe Ring. Shortly thereafter, Pat Garrett is hired to solve the murders and returns to New Mexico. While there, he is appointed a deputy of Dona Ana County.
• Late Apr. 1896---Sheriff Numa Reymond of Dona Ana County resigns, thereby making Pat Garrett sheriff.
• 1896---Billy Wilson allegedly receives a full pardon from Pres. Grover Cleveland, just as Garrett promised.
• Nov. 23, 1897---Jose Chavez y Chavez enters the Santa Fe Penitentiary as prisoner number 1089.
• 1898 (exact dates unknown)---Billy Mathews and Buck Powell travel to Duncan, Arizona, where they plan to start a ranch together. Their plans fall through though, when the man they hired to be their ranch foreman steals their money and disappears. Thereafter, Mathews returns to Roswell and Powell to his old ranch on the Rio Penasco.
• Feb. 26, 1898---Jimmy Dolan dies at the Flying H on the Rio Feliz, probably of his heavy alcoholism.
• May 18, 1898---Billy Mathews is appointed postmaster of Roswell.
• Spring 1898---With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, John Kinney is serving in Cuba.
• June 21, 1898---Pete Maxwell dies of natural causes at Fort Sumner.
• Oct. 4, 1898---Frank Coe shoots and kills a boyfriend of his daughter's, but he is soon acquitted of the murder.
• Late 1898---Sheriff Pat Garrett has managed to bring charges against several men in connection with the Fountain murders.
• 1899---John Poe resigns from the Bank of Roswell, which has been renamed the First National Bank of Roswell. Shortly thereafter, he helps found the Citizen's Bank and is also appointed president.
• Oct. 1899---Sheriff Pat Garrett gets into a gunfight with an Oklahoma fugitive named Billy Reed. In the fight, Garrett slays Reed. Meanwhile, the charges Garrett brought up against the men in connection with the Fountain murders have all been dismissed, leaving the case open.
• 1900 (approx.)---John Kinney is discharged from Cuba and travels to Chapparral Gulch, Arizona, where he works as a miner.
• May 18, 1901---George Peppin is charged with assault with a lethal weapon, but the charge is soon dropped.
• Late 1901---Pat Garrett, who decided against running for reelection for sheriff of Dona Ana County, is appointed collector of customs at El Paso by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt.
• 1902 (exact dates unknown)---Billy Mathews's appointment as Roswell's postmaster is renewed.