New Mexico Extravaganza Part 4 - and 70/70 Quest #21 - Fort Sumner Cemetery

 

The Fort Sumner Cemetery (a very short walk from Bosque Redondo Memorial) is famous for hosting the grave of Billy the Kid.  An inexplicably glorified human being, Billy the Kid (born Henry McCarty - aka William Bonney) was involved with multiple murders including one sheriff (William Brady) for which he was sentenced to death and two deputies when he escaped from jail prior to his planned execution – all by the time he was 21. Fort Sumner happened to be the location he fled to after his jail escape and is near where he was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett. A marble headstone was placed on his grave in 1931, and is engraved with the word “Pals” marking the burial site of Billy the Kid as well as two of his outlaw buddies, Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre. A Colorado stonecutter, James Noah Warner, decided Billy the Kid needed his own gravestone so he carved one with the epitaphs “Truth and History” and “The Boy Bandit King. He Died As He Had Lived.” This was placed at the foot of Billy’s grave in 1940.

Several other graves are in the cemetery – including that of Lucien Bonaparte Maxwell (1818-1875), a very industrious fur trader and trapper who became the sole owner of the largest single tract of land owned by any one individual in the United States (land which included Fort Sumner after it was discontinued as a military base). He also founded the First National Bank of Santa Fe and invested $250,000 to help build the Texas Pacific Railroad.