PIONEER STORY OF Francisco Gomez, EARLY DAYS IN LINCOLN COUNTY

by Edith L. Crawford, August 15, 1938

I was born at Manzano, Valencia County, New Mexico, on September 17, 1854. My father and mother moved to Lincoln, New Mexico in 1863, when I was about nine years old. I do not remember very much about the trip but we moved in a wagon with an ox team. My father settled on a place about a quarter of a mile east of Lincoln and farmed.

When I was about eighteen years old I went to work for the McSween's. I stayed with them for about two years. I remember that one winter Billy the Kid stayed with the McSween's for about seven months. I guess he boarded with them. He was an awfully nice young fellow with light brown hair, blue eyes, and rather big front teeth. He always dressed very neatly.

He used to practice target shooting a lot. He would throw up a can and would twirl his six gun on his finger and he could hit the can six times before it hit the ground. He rode a big roan horse about ten or twelve hands high, all that winter and when this horse was out in the pasture Billy would go to the gate and whistle and the horse would come up to the gate to him. That horse would follow Billy and mind him like a dog. He was a very fast horse and could out run most of the other horses around there. I never went out with Billy but once.

Captain Baca was sheriff then and once some tough outlaws came to Lincoln and rode up and down the streets and shot out window lights in the houses and terrorized people. Captain Baca told Billy the Kid to take some men and go after these men. Billy took me and Florencio and Jose Chaves and Santano Maes with him. The outlaws went to the upper Ruidoso and we followed them. We caught up with them and shot it out with them. One of the outlaws was killed and the other ran away. None of us were hurt.

When the Lincoln County War broke out my father did not want to get into it so he made me quit working for the McSween's and come home and stay there. I still live on the old place that my father settled on so many years ago. I have been Justice of the Peace of Lincoln county for about twenty years at different times and was Probate Judge from about 1900 to 1904. I got so old that I would not serve as Justice of the Peace any more.

I have lived all of my life in New Mexico and have been in Lincoln County for seventy-five years. I do not speak English, but understand it fairly well.