The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Badge recalls the violent 1870s, when a war broke out between several wealthy ranchers and a trio of corrupt businessmen in the town of Lincoln. The most famous participant in the conflict was William Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, better known as “Billy the Kid”, although the outlaw gained most of his notoriety during the Lincoln County War by killing the sheriff William Brady and several deputies. wearing Lincoln County insignia. The problems in Lincoln County began when town merchants Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan were joined by a third partner named John Riley in his ownership of Murphy and Dolan Mercantile and Banking. At the time, Lincoln County was the largest county in the nation, encompassing approximately 20% of all of New Mexico, but that soon changed. Governor Axtell, who was directly siding with Murphy-Dolan in the dispute, declared regulators outlawed. Undeterred, the regulators made plans to settle scores with Sheriff William Brady, whom they suspected of looting Tunstall’s store after Brady’s death. Within a month, six Regulators, including The Kid, ambushed and killed Sheriff Brady and George Hindman, another of his deputies, in the middle of Lincoln’s main street. Brady suffered at least a dozen injuries and Hindman was shot twice.
Murphy, Dolan and Riley were part of a web of corruption that stretched as far as the territorial capital of Santa Fe. They used their political connections to win government contracts with Fort Stanton and soon controlled virtually all commerce in the great county. The huge profits from the products they sold at exorbitant prices in their store, coupled with the low prices they paid smaller ranchers for their cattle, understandably angered the county’s less affluent residents.
Lincoln’s attorney, Alexander McSween, was sympathetic to the plight of the smaller ranchers. He and John Tunstall, a wealthy English rancher, opened a rival merchant to compete with the monopoly store of Murphy and Dolan. His new venture was financially backed by John Chisum, another wealthy rancher in the region who owned more than 100,000 head of cattle. The John Wayne movie “Chisum” is based on the main characters in the Lincoln County saga.
In 1878, Murphy and Dolan used their political connections to obtain a court order giving them the right to sixteen Tunstall horses as payment for a debt he allegedly owed. The gang formed by Sheriff William Brady to serve the order and the Sixteen Horses was mostly made up of criminals. Many were members of the Jessie Evans Gang, a gang of outlaws that once counted Billy The Kid among its members. The gang bided their time until Tunstall was caught alone in the open on February 18, 1878. When he objected to his presence on his land, Jessie Evans, William Morton, and Frank Baker shot him to death. Although they were too far away to prevent the assassination, several of Tunstall’s “cattle guards”, including The Kid, witnessed it from a distance. It was Tunstall’s assassination that ignited the Lincoln County conflict into a full-fledged rank war.
Outraged by the murder, The Kid and several of Tunstall’s “cattle guards” formed their own gang called “The Regulators”. Led by Dick Brewer, the foreman of the Tunstall ranch, the Regulators’ sole reason for existence was to track down and stop Tunstall’s killers. The Regulators soon expelled Morton and Baker and fought the two men in the field until they surrendered. The Regulators returned to Lincoln a few days later claiming that Morton and Baker had been killed during an alleged escape attempt. Few believed this story, given the number of bullet holes in the two men, but since regulators had warrants for their arrests charging Morton and Baker with Tunstall’s murder (obtained by Alex McSween), they were still operating within the confines of the law. albeit faintly—at that point.
He may have been corrupt, but the violent murder of Sheriff Brady and his deputy on Lincoln’s main street was enough to convince many other county residents that there were no ‘good guys’ in the conflict, as both sides in the rank the war seemed equally bloodthirsty.
John Copeland was appointed sheriff to replace the late Brady, but when he refused to take sides in the conflict, Murphy-Dolan again called on his corrupt political associates to remove him and replace him with one of their own. Sheriff George Pippin not only favored the Murphy-Dolan faction, he was on their payroll. The bloodshed continued with sporadic killings, eventually culminating in a five-day siege of McSween’s home in Lincoln, during which his home was burned down. The Regulators who had taken refuge in the house managed to escape and flee, but McSween was shot and killed, although he was unarmed when he ran out of the burning house.
In the fall of 1878, President Hayes appointed Governor Lew Wallace to replace the corrupt Governor Axtell, whose collusion with the Murphy/Dolan group was a major factor in the Lincoln County conflict. In an attempt to end the war of the ranks, Governor Wallace issued an amnesty for all combatants except Billy the Kid. The amnesty officially ended the grassland war.
Meanwhile, Kid and his gang of followers had turned to cattle rusting to support themselves and had become a serious problem for ranchers in the area, including John Chisum. In November 1880, Pat Garrett was elected Lincoln County Sheriff with Chisum’s endorsement, running on a platform to end cattle rustling in the county, with Governor Wallace offering a $500 reward for the capture. from Billy the Kid.
Sheriff Garrett and a gang tracked down and killed two of the remaining Regulators: The Kid’s closest compadres, Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre, and on July 14, 1881 they killed Billy the Kid in Fort Sumter, New Mexico. . All three are buried together at Fort Sumter. Their names are engraved on the tombstone, below an epitaph that reads simply “Friends.” After the bookmark was stolen several times, it was surrounded by a heavy wire cage to deter more souvenir hunters.
