The Roswell Daily Record from Roswell, New Mexico • Page 3

DECEMBER 10, 1M1. BY HEAVY 3f. M. less the road is opened the stock, ..11 perish and the people will suf- fer much," the petition said, "the Dec; petition i snow is thirty-five inches deep. which repaired eight days to reach with our power we'are unable to Santa Fe, asking for opening of set tnrougfi this snow and get the Gavilan road to forestall iminenti focd and feed tttat we ar obliged starvation' and suffering, was being' to have tp, swtafa our Hves." investigated today by Assistant Dis- At the same time a letter, re- trict Highway Engineer Guy Mayes.

from Youngsville from C. C. by 'fourteen men living Davis saying he had tried to open' the road to Gavilan with a tractor but had found it; to be impossible. JJ'ayis said there were many other persons in the area had been unable to reach. Gavilan, a remote postoffice riorthwcEt of Gallina in Rid Arraba county, the petition was carried by horseback to Youngsville and mailed.

It was written on Thanksgiving Day. "The! 'stores haye ho food for the People, no feed for the stock and -0 Record Want 4fis Get HOOTER ASMS SWMLLHMfS FOR YETERANS LOA3S Washington, Bee. President Hoover today aiiked congress to appropriate to meet demands for loans in veterans compensation certificates. kEITOfDEfG BOA'DS Santa Fe, N. Dec.

State -Treasurer Warren R. Graham Js refunding $40,000 Encino school bend's to permit a saving of interest to the school district: The old bonds paid six per cent and the refunded Bonds pay five per cent. Record Want Ads li ABTESIA TS MIDST YEBY WET COUNTRY Artesia, Dec. Highways and ranges are slowly drying out the heaviest snowstorm in twenty-five years, to visit the Artesia vicinity. Artesia nave been dismissed tor the remainder of the week because of impassable roads-in the rural districts.

More than three hundred sheep were lost in the storm and cattle also is suffering. No cotton has been" picked for ten days and, some cotton pickers, snowbound in improvised shelters haye been found suffering. The' east and west highway was reported passable today, but traffic was moving very slowly. MESSENGER ECONOMY SALE Brought Crowds! Crowds! CROWDS! The biggest crowds this 35 year old firm ever saw And did they buy? We'll say they We wish to offer our thanks and apology We Were Completely Swamped and were physically unable to properly serve every one. We exerted every effort to take care all but we know hundreds of people left our store without completing their Come back today or things will be a little quieter and we can better.

The first day oi this gigantic sale will stand as history in Roswell-but every day will offer bigger and better values! You can't afford to miss this sensational gift MORE THAN YOU BUY Farm machinery, Gas Ranges, Heating Stoves and all general hardware included. All we can say is Came and Get It! Hardware Company Roswell, New Mexico E4RLY DAYS VHEN ROSWEIi WAS SffllED AS ItD BY 01 OF THE OLD-TIMERS, J. M. MILLER FIRST HOUSES IN ROSWELL AND VICINITY; BAD MEN IN EARLY DAYS; FIRST SETTLEMENT, SURVEYING OF LAND'AND COMING OF PEACEFUL DAYS. James M.

Miller) For information, about New Mexico prior to the time I came here in 187S, I am indebted'to Major Fulton, whose office i a veritable store- hSuse of information regarding early days in New Mexico. I am also indebted to Mrs. Klassner for part of my information. She has been in this part of the country longer than any other white person in this and Lincoln county. Her memory is bright and her word is truth as she saw it.

In 1871 Van C. Smith and his partner Aaron Wilburn came to what is now and vicinity. They found 'this vast wealth of water and land unsettled and unclaimed and the land wa not even sectioned. Not a house for less than twenty miles, except an adobe house at the head of the South Spring River but in that same year a civil engineer, an Englishman, named Lothieng wa.j sent out here fronj Washington and sectionized Townships 10, 11 and 12. Van C.

Smith, formerly mentioned, was a gambler and an around sport. He came from Santa Fe where he owned a large gambling hall. He built two large square adobe housesj one for a store, and one for a residence. He built one round adobe corral about where the jail now stands, then a large adobe corral just west of the storehouse. These two partners stocked their ranch with a herd of fine horses, and thoroughbred Chester white hogs and game chickens.

He put in a cockpit for rooster fighting. This ranch was designated and known to the newspapers at Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Las Cruces as the Hondo, but in. 1874 when Smith, John Chisum and other interested parties succeeded in getting a mail line down to the Hondo Ranch with a post of ice, then the "question of a name for the post office arose. The name Roswell had never been heard in New Mexico, so. Smith gave it the name of Roswell in honor of his Roswell Smith, who never saw New Mexico but lived in Illinois'.

In 1S75, three or four" bad men who had drifted in to Chisum's Ranch, stole some of Smith's fine horses. Smith kept his race mare locked up of nights. This animal had cost him $600.00. As Smith wa suspicious of these men, he inquired of Chisum as to where they came from. He was ready for them.

He with a I possee of six men followed them and overtook them, found them asleep In camp and them. They had a friend who came on from' Texas and stopped at the Chisum Ranch, and when Smith found this out he left the place in care of hfe partner and never returned. Then Wilburn and his book-keeper fell out and Frank, as he was called shot Wilburn and had to taken to Santa Fe to a doctor, then Frank ran off. After this Marian Turner and John Jones bought the little stock of goods and John Chisum bought the cattle and the hogs and Smith and Wilburn took the horses back to Santa Pe. Wilburn is still living and residing in Arizona.

Turner and Jones continued to run the small store buying their "goods Murphy Company on credit and mortgaged their little stock ot catfle that Chisum said they QUirea by branding his Mavericks. Just a few days the three day battle at Lincoln which terminated the Lincoln County War, Turner and Jones came home and sold the store to Captain Lea, and WiWy bought" the two houses and forty acres of.land and Smith's Irrigation which was taken out of North Spring River near the lower part of Haines' Dream and Turner's Improvements on the Hondo which consisted of a field of about twenty acres in vation, all on vacant land. Then Wlldy bought Turner's Homestead of 160. acres. In' all these days of lawlessness, John Chisum's Ranch was a haven of safety and hospitality to the and now that Roswell was redeemed, we had a safe place 'to lire.

But, on troth North and South at faraway Ft. "Seven Rivera -were drunkards, gamblers and murderers who reigned supreme years; Especially at Seven Rivers where no man was arrested "for so small an offense as killing a man. This tells of Major Wm. "Vfildy who came here in June, 1878 from Kalamazoo MississIppi.jVery few people in Roswell or in Jchav- es 'Coanty or ever of 'what SALME WILDY Pioneer Settler Captain J. C.

Lea have done for Roswell in rescuing the little store and postoffice i'rom a rendezvous of the worst desperados that ever disgraced southeast New Mexico, except xiJe gang they were fighting. Now, in order to give an idea of the conditions that existed at the little saloon, store, and post office and as to how uninviting the place was to desirable immigration, I will have stray a little from my subject. In the fore part of July 1878, a after Major Wildy. arrived, Billy, the iK-id, the leader' of the Chisum-McSwain faction was invited to Chisum's Ranch for a short rest. (This story I get from George Coe, one of party.) Billy had with' him Henry Charlie Eondra, Dock Skurlock, Jim Middleton, Tom Ofoliard, Jim French, Fred Wait, Henry Morris and George Coe.

While Marian Turner and John Jones, the owners of the stand at Roswell with men of the opposing faction, or' as it was called Murphy, Dolan, Riley faction, were at Roswell they started out on the Fourth of Julji with Turners and Jones' declaration that they would get the Kid if they had to burn Chisum's house. They had better long range guns than Billy's cxew. They had 10 fifty caliber Buffalo guns that would carry out of them large balls for the distance of a mile. But, Chisum's house was a veritable Port, built so as to guard off an Indian attack, but the attackers kept up the siege all afternoon and until after dark. Then seeing the futility of such an attempt, went back.

Then, I believe it was July 19th, 20th and 21st of the same month that the great battle of Lincoln in which' Turner was the acknowledged leader and which terminated the Lincoln County Wars and Turner came home to Roswell and was ready to negotiate a deal with Wildy and Lea. This was the time when Wildy and Lea bought the store from Turner and Jones and Wildy bought the two houses aad 40 acres of land from Van C. Smith and his partner. Then Wildy bought Turner's house and acquired title to other lands which altogether amounted to over 400 acres, the west line of which started at North Spring River to First Street near the Hondo aad as Main Street is not on the section line; this gave Mr. a strip of land west of Main Street about 50 feet wide at the north end and 100 feet the "south end and then Captain Lea took a homestead just West of that.

Then Major Wildy gave his land to his daughter Mrs. Lea which gave her everything from that section line including the wagon road which is now Main Street East to the. Hondo, and, as she was very desirious of making Roswell an vHing place for- respectable families to enjoy, she said there would be no salooha allowed on her land, but before long, Whetstone, a civil engineer built a room bouse which was his ofifce I have been told that someone put a barrel of whiskey in the bacfc room and that thijj room was locked and that the thirsty friends go In and draw a put a Quarter on top of the barrel and walk but there was- no congregating or social drinking. It was said that late one night some one left the faucet open and the next day the nearest place one could, get a drink was Seven Rivers, or Ft. Sumner, but finally someone built an adobe saloon building just west of the Bankhead Lea's" west Tine building going up I the man did not build by It was.

then that Mrs. Lea gave up her grip on the saloon Mrs. Lea as very veryr- ambitious and, like her enthusiastic over, the splendid, resources of this. part-pf the Pecos Valley. She was one of the- most amicable of women; charitable for all the word implies, and I toQk.

advantage of and for many years TOICTI on buiiucss I neveiviiqtoed.jf}, nor paid a cent. I Si Y-' Mr. Wildy's occurejL in the Spring of 1S81 just returning to Ros.weH,. was a great loss to the early settlement Rda- well. My brother, BUI Miller, Tkriefc him well and thought Of him.

Bill said he was so enthusgd over the prospects of this part of the Valley that he did not want to talk of anything else. In 1885, there was sufficient building under way to justify the laying off and surveying: and 'a the very fortunate in getting his, Brother Alfred ALFRED LEA Who First Sun eyed Roswell Lea of Boulder, Colorado, to do the work. He could not have found a better or more competent m.in.- was acquainted with Lea Colorado when we were youngfi He as just one year my jutfTpr. was a very remarkable "lltijp biograpfiywould have "been very' ittr teresting reading. He crossed 'the Plains in 1861, an orphan boy, located in Denver without 'tb'e sjfl cr advice or kith or kin, and worked his way into a good education.

He studied civil engineering and Irtt- came an expert in that studied book-keeping and became an expert accountant, and in those days that was the field for that-business-. There was the greatest demandlfcnS ft. reliable engineer. There mining district within a fifty miles that comprised Creek County, a part Jet County 'and Gilpeh' and where there were o' mining claims and little mining towns Mr. Lea had aa excellent reputation for honesty and was kept busy for several years- at very high wages whTch made 1dm quite independent.

spoke well for him was the tact flwt while he was a Democrat and Bolder County was very strong Republican, that in 1S76 he was elected-to- represent the County I him afteiward until he was" ing Roswell Then again, had moved to Los Angeles, California in the jear 1898 when my and I visited him at his beautiful home wnich was on Bonnie Avenue one of the finest streets in Los Angeles His only ivas a very peculiarly remarkable man He received legiate education in Denver thfn took a liking for two Chin? waited upon him while pest house with, smalipox. he acquired a Chinese educ to Clnna and became the Chinese Aimy He a very interesting book have read and which, can our library I am sure that I stray 4 my subject and am making ttiUj "article too long, but It may be tftdt have biography or autobiography ''on the brain. from necord WaBt Ads Get 0 for the Op'ratoy, Voice With a Her keen alert Makes Want Ads Worth While..