Part 3
No single figure casts quite the shadow over the history and lore of Northeastern New Mexico and the Moreno Valley as does that of Lucien Bonaparte Maxwell.
He was born in Kaskaskia, Ill., on Sept. 14, 1818, the son of a well-to-do merchant. When Maxwell’s father died, Lucien left home traveling through Nebraska and Kansas to Colorado and New Mexico and their Rocky Mountains. Along the way he learned the fur trade and in May of 1842 hired on as the chief hunter for John C. Fremont’s scientific expedition – the first of five – to explore and map lands west of the Mississippi River. The guide on the trip was Kit Carson, Maxwell’s close friend.
In January of 1841, two Mexican citizens living in Taos, Charles Baubien and Guadalupe Miranda, applied to the government for a large grant of land along the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near the Santa Fe Trail. Their request was approved in three days when Governor Manual Armijo signed off on the request. The curate of Taos, Father Antonio Jose Martinez, charged some of the lands had already been given to the Pueblo Indians and contested the grant. Father Martinez also believed the land should be given to the poor rather than the rich.
Maxwell returned to Taos in 1844, married Baubien’s daughter, Luz, and did a little farming near Cimarron. In late 1847, waiting at Bent’s Fort in Colorado for a ride home, Lucien learned of the terrible massacre in Taos a few days earlier in the Taos Revolt. He hurried home to find Baubien’s son had been killed along with Governor Charles Bent. Not long afterward Lucien and Luz’s first child, Peter, was born. With a family now to support and his exploring days over, Maxwell accepted his father-in-law’s offer to manage the Land Grant.
In April of 1849, Maxwell convinced Kit Carson to join him at Rayado, a ranch eleven miles south of Cimarron.
To Maxwell, Rayado was the perfect place not only to build a home but also to place a fort because of its proximity to the Santa Fe Trial as well as having plenty of water, a friendly climate and it being an area relatively free of Indians.
Maxwell built a large house with several smaller outbuildings. Kit Carson added a smaller adobe to the complex and by July the inhabitants of Rayado numbered more than 40.
By the spring of 1850, military officials agreed to create a small post at Rayado with Maxwell being paid to provide food, lodging and support for the troops. The following year, the Army moved into a small post ten miles north of Rayado in Cimarron and built a larger fort 30 miles south on the Mora River. Maxwell then decided to strike out on his own since most of the money he’d earned in the preceding years had gone to his father-in-law. He sold his interest in Rayado, moved eleven miles north to settle on the banks of the Cimarron River which was larger than the Rayado, plus the area provided a more fertile valley and the surrounding mesas afforded better protection from Indian attacks.
Charles Baubien had died in 1864, and Baubien’s partner, Guadalupe Miranda, had fled south after the Taos Revolt. Within two years of his father-in-law’s death, Maxwell had managed to purchase additional deeds to that part of the Grant he had not inherited. When gold was discovered on Baldy Mountain in 1866, the rush was on and land owned by Maxwell became crowded with gold and silver hunters. Rather than try to expel them by force he charged them rent, leasing out land to the miners. Mining towns like Baldy Town, Elizabethtown, and Virginia City sprouted up like weeds.
On Jan. 28, 1870, Maxwell sold almost 2,000,000 acres of land to a group of investors for $1,350,000. In October of that year, Maxwell bought and moved into buildings on the former military post at Fort Sumner. He remodeled and crafted a 20-room mansion from what had previously been the officer’s quarters. He also remodeled other buildings at the Fort to house the many employees and their families who came along with him.
After Maxwell’s death at age 56, his Fort Sumner mansion became the home of his only son, Peter Maxwell. It was, however, a legendary Old West outlaw who left his mark most permanently on Maxwell’s home: Billy the Kid.
Fort Sumner became a popular hangout for Billy and the "Kid" knew Peter Maxwell quite well. Perhaps more importantly, Billy knew Peter’s sister, Paulita, even better and she is thought to have been the main reason Billy stayed so close to Fort Sumner, even when he knew Sheriff Pat Garrett was breathing down his neck.
One night in mid-July 1881, Garrett burst into Maxwell’s home at Fort Sumner looking for Billy the Kid. He woke Peter Maxwell and asked him if Billy was around. Just as he was asking, "The Kid," who was visiting Paulita, stumbled into Peter’s bedroom and asked "Quien es?" ("Who is it?"). Sheriff Garrett spun around and shot Billy killing him on the spot.
Lucien B. Maxwell’s home in Fort Sumner would have been famous enough for just having been the home of the West’s largest private land baron. However, it gained far greater infamy as the place where one of the West’s most famous outlaws died.
Now who would have ever imagined that such paths would have crossed in such an unusual fashion?
Lucien Maxwell was said to have been a gracious host and a generous employer. His legend is everywhere in New Mexico’s northeastern area, and his shadow still looms large.
