PIONEER STORY OF Sam Farmer, EARLY DAYS IN LINCOLN COUNTY

by Edith L. Crawford, July 25, 1938

I have lived in Lincoln County sixty-eight years, which is all my life. I was born two miles west of Lincoln on a ranch called "Henry's Ranch", named after my father, Henry Farmer. He filed on this place in 1865 and raised a few cattle and sheep and did some farming.

We were living on our ranch during the Lincoln County war but our family took no part in it. We all liked Billy the Kid and would do anything that we could for him. Once my father took myself and my two older brothers to one of the trials of Billy the Kid. He wanted to impress upon our young minds that no one can break the laws as he did and not pay the penalty.

The day that Billy the Kid killed Bell and Olinger, my father, two brothers and myself were irrigating our wheat field when Billy came riding by on a black horse. He stopped and hollered, "Hello Henry!"

Father looked up and said "Hello Billy, what are you doing here?"

Billy replied, "I am going, I don't think you will see me any more." I killed two men at the Courthouse and I am on my way, good-bye." He kicked his horse and went off up the road as fast as he could go. I remember distinctly seeing the shackles on his legs. That was the last time we ever saw Billy the Kid. Billy was killed at Fort Sumner about six weeks later by Pat Garrett.