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Edith L. Crawford, 1684 words.
Carrizozo, N. Mex.
PIONEER STORY
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I was born on a farm in Delta County, Texas, in 1877 and I
have lived in Lincoln County, New Mexico for fifty eight years. I
was four years old when my father, Thomas W. Henley, my mother,
one half sister, two brothers and myself left Delta County, Texas
in October, 1880 for Roswell, New Mexico. We traveled in a cover—
ed wagon with a chuck box in the back, a cow hide stretched under
the wagon for our cooking utensils and two kegs tied on the sides
of the wagon for our water. We carried all of our provisions and
bedding and the six of us all rode in the one wagon which was drawn
by two small mules. We slept on the ground at night and mother did
all the cooking over a camp fire. She made sour dough bread and
baked it in a dutch oven. We children gathered buffalo and cow
chips for our fuel. When we made camp at night we kids would get
our two sacks and start to gather up the chips. We had a tin can
with a spout on it. Mother put an old rag in the can and pulled
part of it through the spout and poured grease in the can and that
gave us our light.
We were always on the look out for Indians but we didn't see
any until we reached Lincoln County, New Mexico. We brought all
of our own smoked meat with us. We saw Buffalo and Antelope but
they were too far away for father to kill one. The plains were
awfully dry and hot when we crossed them. But we had no trouble in
finding watering places. We crossed the Trinity River on a ferry
boat driving the wagon on the boat we were drawn across by hand
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with a large rope. As we came to the small streams we camped
on them for the night and washed what clothes we had dirty and
would be on our way as father was in very poor health and want-
ed to get to his father's home in Roswell, New Mexico as quick-
ly as Possible. Father's ill health was the cause of our leav-
ing Texas and moving to New Mexico. My grandfather and grand-
mother moved to New Mexico in 1879 for grandfather's health.
They owned a farm where the town of Roswell now stands. Their
houses on the farm were called HOhosas" (which means dug -outs)
in those days. They dug down in the ground about three feet
and built it up with posts to about four feet above the ground
and filled in between the posts with mud. They had dirt floors
and dirt roofs. We arrived at my grandfather's late in November,
1880, and lived in their home that winter. In the spring of
1881 mother and father left us children with our grandparents
and they cane on up to Fort Stanton, New Mexico, which was a mil-
itary post in those days, father took up a homestead five miles
west of Fort Stanton on the Rio Bonito. Father was a school
teacher and practiced medicine in Texas. He was not a licensed
doctor but he hal gone to a medical school in St. Louis,Missouri,
but on account of finances he had to quit before he graduated.
He practiced with an older "doctor while in Texas and he always
did all that he could for the sick as long as he lived. In those
days there were very few doctors and most of the farmers that
lived around close to us always sent for father. They paid him
whatever they felt like giving him as he never set a price.
There was a lot of stealing and killings going on in Lincoln
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County at that time. Billy the Kid had been captured and was
on trial in Las Cruces for the killing of Sheriff Brady. He was
convicted and brought back to Lincoln, New Mexico in April where
he killed his two guards and escaped, to be killed by Pat Gar-
rett in July 1881.
Father and mother came back to my grandfather's and loaded
up their few belongings and us four children and started for
their homestead in Lincoln County. Father, mother and the two
older children built a one room log cabin, with a fire place
for heating and cooking, for us to live in. I was too small to
help with the building of the cabin but I had to look after the
baby while mother helped. We had plenty of nice wood as father
was clearing his land and cut down lots of nice big pine trees.
In the spring of 1882 we planted a crop and raised lots of nice
vegetables and feed for our stock. The second year we were on
the farm, father got a job at Fort Stanton as blacksmith, shoe-
ing the horses and mules. Mother would take him down to work
on Monday morning and bring the wagon and team back as she had
to have them during the week to work the crops. Father had a
yoke of oxen and my mother and sister used them to do the plow-
ing in the crops. That spring father started a four room adobe
house. Mother and my oldest sister would make the adobes dur-
ing the week and let them dry and when father came home to spend
Sunday he would lay the adobes in the wall and the next week
they would do the same thing until we had the walls up. We had
to haul our lumber from the Dowlin Mill which was located on the
Ruidoso. We had to go to Alto and then down Gavalan Canyon to
the Ruidoso river and then about three miles up the river to
the saw mill. It was a good two days trip. Father used the
wagon and team of mules to haul the lumber. We had a fire place
in the front room and one in the kitchen for cooking. We had
dirt floors and dirt roof. Father out small logs and laid them
very close together and put dirt on them for a roof. Father
picked up a second had stove at Fort Stanton and it was the first
cook stove that I ever saw. Mother and Sister built a rock fence
around our place. They went up on the hill side and threw the
rocks down so they could carry them and put them in the fence.
Mother and Sister did a lot of hard work to have a place to live
in and in time we had a very nice farm and house. We raised all
of our own hogs and father bought a few head of cattle as he was
able. We raised our own wheat and took it to Dowlin's Mill and
had it ground into flour and had our corn ground into corn meal.
We bought our coffee in the green bean and roasted it and ground
it in an old fashioned coffee mill. The first winter that we
lived in the log cabin we had our grease not and the fire place
for lights.
We got our mail at Fort Stanton. Father taught us reading,
writing and arithmetic the first two years that we lived on the
Bonito and when we got enough neighbors they got up a three month
subscription school. It was in a one room log cabin and about a
mile from our house. We three older children walked to school.
Later on the community got together and built a nice one. room
school house at Angus, New Mexico. The men put up the building
and the women folks would go along each day and cook dinner for
the men folks.
After father left Fort Stanton he got a job at the "V"
Ranche as blacksmith for the Orees. Mr. and Mrs. Pat Garrett
lived on a ranche adjoining the "V" Ranche and Mrs. Garrett
gave birth to a baby girl and my father attended her at this
birth. This baby girl is the same Elizabeth Garrett who wrote
our state song, "0 Fair New Mexico." While we lived on the Bonito
father would make a trip every fall to Las Vegas, New Mexico and
buy the calico for our dresses, shoes stockings, coffee, sugar arvi
salt as that is all we had to buy. We raised every thing else
that we ate. We lived here eleven years. Father sold this place
to George Barrett and we moved to Nogal, New Mexico where we had
better school advantages. Father hauled freight from Socorro and
Las Vegas, New Mexico with mule teams. Mother died in 1915 and
Father died in 1921 in Nogal, New Mexico.My father was born on a
farm near Jefferson City, Missouri in 1840 and was a confederate
soldier during the Civil War. He fought in the battle of Bunker
Hill. My mother's maiden name was Nancy Williams and she was born
in Arkansas in 1855.
While we were living at Nogal, New Mexico I met Linza Branum
and we were married June 6th, 1894. There were six children born
to us, three girls and three boys. Mr. Branum came to New Mexico
from Putman, Texas and located at Three Rivers, New Mexico. He had
forty one head of cattle and the first year he was here he branded
two calves, the cattle rustlers got the rest. After we were mar-
ried we lived at Three Rivers for three years. Then we bought a
ranche in Coyote Canyon, about five miles northwest of White Oaks,
New Mexico, from J. P. C. Langston who was deputy sheriff of Lin-..
coin County at that time. We moved all of our cattle from Three
Rivers to this ranche anti lived there twenty nine years. In 1916
we sold this ranche and cattle to the Warden Brothers and bought
the I -X Ranche, near Oscuro, New Mexico and lived there one year.
We 8014 the IX Ranche to E. 0. Finley in 1917. We moved to
Carrizozo and built us a large modern home. Five of my children
graduated from the Carrizozo, High School. Mr. Branum died May 3,
1925, at Carrizozo, New Mexico.
NARRATOR: Nellie Henley Branum, Aged. 61 years, Carrizozo, N. Mex.