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Henry McCarty (September 17 or November 23, 1859 – July 14, 1881), alias William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Old West who is alleged to have killed 21 men before he was shot and killed at the age of 21.
- The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid
In the weeks that followed the death of Billy the Kid,...
- Brushy Bill Roberts
Brushy Bill Roberts (August 26, 1879 [1] – December 27,...
- Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid
In 1909, [b] near Las Cruces, New Mexico, Pat Garrett is...
- Fort Sumner, New Mexico
Named after former New Mexico Territory military governor...
- John Tunstall
John Henry Tunstall (6 March 1853 – 18 February 1878) was an...
- Lincoln County Regulators
William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid or Henry McCarty, would...
- Tom O'Folliard
Tom O'Folliard (1858 – December 19, 1880) was the best...
- Lawrence Murphy
Murphy was Irish Catholic born in County Wexford, Ireland,...
- Lincoln County War
The Lincoln County War was an Old West conflict between...
- Dave Rudabaugh
David Rudabaugh (July 14, 1854 – February 18, 1886) was a...
- The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid
6 days ago · As a child, Billy the Kid went under the name of Henry McCarty. Scholarly opinion is divided over whether that or William H. Bonney, Jr. (the name he used later, as in the trial), was his true name.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- He Was Orphaned as A Teen.
- The Kid’s First Arrest Came For Stealing Clothes from A Laundry.
- He Played A Prominent Role in A Frontier Feud.
- The Kid Never Robbed A Train Or A Bank.
- He Was Involved in at Least Nine Murders.
- The Kid Made A Famous Jailbreak.
- Billy The Kid Was Just 21 Years Old at The Time of His death.
- Some Believe The Kid Wasn’T Killed in 1881.
- He’S Been The Subject of More Than 50 Movies.
Little is known about Billy the Kid’s early days, but he was most likely born Henry McCarty in the Irish slums of New York City sometime in late 1859. Raised by a single mother, he moved to Wichita, Kansas, as a boy before later migrating west to New Mexico in the early 1870s. Henry quickly adapted to life in the rugged territory and became fluent ...
Henry McCarty’s first run-in with the law came in 1875 when he assisted a local street tough known as “Sombrero Jack” in stealing clothing from a Chinese laundry. Henry hid the loot in his boarding house but was arrested after his landlord turned him in to the sheriff. The crime only carried a minor sentence, but rather than face punishment, the wi...
Billy the Kid first earned his reputation as a gunslinger in 1878, when he participated in a bloody frontier war in Lincoln County, New Mexico. The conflict centered on a business rivalry between British-born rancher John Tunstall and a pair of Irish tycoons named James Dolan and Lawrence Murphy. Dolan and Murphy’s outfit—known as “The House”—had l...
Unlike other Old West outlaws such as Jesse James, Cole Younger or Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid didn’t make his living as a bandit. The young gunslinger stole the occasional horse, but he never once held up a bank, train or even a stagecoach. Outside of his gunfighting days with the Regulators, his main criminal enterprise was rustling cattle on th...
The Kid was known for his easygoing personality, but he wasn’t afraid to draw his six-shooter when provoked. In a four-year span between 1877 and 1881, the baby-faced outlaw was involved in the shooting deaths of some nine men, at least four of whom he killed singlehandedly. One particularly legendary gunfight unfolded in January 1880 at a New Mexi...
In late 1880, Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett tracked the Kid to a cabin in Stinking Springs, New Mexico, and forced his surrender. The outlaw was found guilty of the murder of Sheriff William Brady and confined to the Lincoln courthouse. He was scheduled for a date with the hangman, but on the evening of April 28, 1881, he engineered the most d...
After his escape from death row, the Kid spent several months hiding out on the frontier and taking refuge with sympathetic locals in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. He neglected to keep a low profile, however, and it wasn’t long before Sheriff Pat Garrett and two deputies rode into town. On the night of July 14, 1881, Garrett went to the home of rancher ...
Pat Garrett became an Old West legend for killing Billy the Kid, yet as the years passed, rumors circulated that the Sheriff had either shot the wrong man or helped fake the outlaw’s death. In the late 1940s, an elderly Texas man known as “Brushy Bill” Roberts even claimed to be Billy the Kid in the flesh, but his story was largely discredited afte...
The Kid was a celebrity in his own time, but his legend only grew after his death thanks to dime novels, television shows and Hollywood films. Beginning with the 1911 silent film “Billy the Kid,” the gun-toting outlaw’s story has appeared on the big screen more than 50 times. Some of the most famous actors to play the Kid include Roy Rogers, Paul N...
- 3 min
Late 1877. The Kid assumes the alias William H. Bonney. He is arrested and jailed in Lincoln County for possessing horses belonging to cattleman John Tunstall.
- American Experience
May 2, 2007 · The young cowboy was a small-time rustler and not particularly sought by the law. He was using the name William H. Bonney, but everyone called him “Kid.” No more than 20 years old, probably younger, Kid had experienced a lot of action in his short life.
Henry McCarty, alias Henry Antrim, alias William H. Bonney, alias Billy the Kid, was buried the next day in Fort Sumner's old military cemetery, between his fallen companions Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre.
Nov 12, 2023 · Later that year, in 1877, Billy adopted his most recognizable alias, William H. Bonney, though “Billy the Kid” was often his moniker in the press. He seemed unable to stay out of trouble in New Mexico and was soon arrested and jailed in his new home, Lincoln County, for stealing horses from a powerful local man named John Tunstall .
