Pioneer days, an old timers dictionary
by Mrs. O. C. Story. Written up by Marie Carter, Anthony NM.
A manuscript from the Federal Writers Project, 1936-1940, stored at the
Library of Congress. Keywords: Anthony NM, southwest, old timers,
Lincoln County, Dona Ana County, Mayhill, Peneasco, Penasco, Billy the
Kid, Navajo, Mescalero, Otero County, Mesquite, land prices, acreage.
There is no doubt, that to-day and not to-morrow,
is the propitious time to collect and preserve some of the true stories
of this Great Southwest. For there are not many of the early settlers or
old-timers left. Many, who were the pathfinders for us, have passed away,
leaving no records of the heroic parts they played in the historical drama
of our country.
Take one old-timer for instance--one of the
oldest pioneers of our community. Her house is old, too, but it has not
withstood the ravage of time near so well as she. When I asked her how
long she lived in Anthony, she laughed and replied:
"Gracious, child! Why don't you ask me how
long I've lived in New Mexico? 'Cause if you get any sense out of my story
I'll have to start from the beginnin; over in Lincoln County, where we
located before comin' to Dona Ana."
"What year was that?"
"1881. We moved to Anthony in 1897. My first
husband had been out in this country before, but as I told you, Lincoln
County. Before he went to Lincoln, tho, he drove a freight train across
the plains from Kansas to Colorado. It was slow travel, too, 'cause they
drove ox teams in them days. Besides, if they wasn't watchin' for Indians,
they was a slowin' up to let the buffalo go by."
"And where were you at that time?"
"Back in Missouri a waitin! and when he come
back home we was married, and started on our honeymoon. After visitin'
some of his kin folks at Farmington, Missouri we bought us a covered wagon
for the rest of the trip. The first thing we run into,
after passing the Navajo Indian Reservation a little ways, was about three
hundred redskins on horseback, and I guess the only reason they didn't
scalp us was the fact that they was too drunk to see us. Them that could
still drink was a reelin' from side to side, and them that couldn't hold
anymore were asleep on their horses' neck. They was the real thing too--feathers,
blankets, bare legs and moccasins. Some of them wore little aprons for pants.
"And on the upper
Peneasco, where we first settled, every man and women faced the same problems.
Then we moved a little lower down, to Mayhill NM, the town my father, Henry
Mayhill, homesteaded. I was the first postmaster. Mayhill, is in Otero
County. So is the Mescalero Indian Reservation. We had lots of Indian scares
and never knew what them wild Apaches were goin' to do next. I hated the
old squaws. Sometimes they'd knock at my door, and when I'd open it, there
they'd be, all wrapped up in blankets. They always traveled in pairs. They
wanted water but they couldn't understand me, and I couldn't understand
them. So they'd grunt away down in their throats, open their mouths, and
point at the hole in their faces."
Mary Coe Belvins was the wife of Jim Coe, a man who knew Billy the Kid
and liked him. She gave birth to the second white child on the upper
Peneasco, a creek, sometimes called a "river." The upper and the lower
Peneasco was seperated by a dry basin for about twelve miles.
The Coes moved to Anthony NM in the year of
1897. They homesteaded a ranch Northeast of Anthony, where they lived for
forty-five years. It was a stock farm, and they pumped their water with
a steam engine, which Mrs. Coe ran, while Mr. Coe cut wood to feed it.
After their homestead was proved up they moved into town. In 1909 they
sold their ranch to the government for a target range. Mary Coe is now
Mrs. Blevins, and is seventy-five years old. She was born in Missouri in
the year 1837, June the 1st.
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