Billy the Kid Territory
Deluvina Maxwell

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The Maxwell Family

Lucien Maxwell
Luz Maxwell
Pete Maxwell
Paulita Maxwell
Deluvina Maxwell

Deluvina Maxwell

Born to Navajo parents in Canyon de Chelly, Ariz., sometime in 1858 or 1859, Lucien and Luz's adopted daughter and servant girl, Deluvina, was kidnapped by Apaches circa 1867-68, taken to Cimarron, and traded to Maxwell for 10 horses (or a chunk of gold).

Deluvina befriended Billy the Kid (whom she called"...my little boy") when he first came to Old Fort Sumner. When Billy was taken there the day after his capture at Stinking Springs in December, 1880, she gave him a warm blanket for the long, cold buckboard ride to jail in Las Vegas.

She was one of 33 people who recognized the Kid as he lay dead that full moonlit night on Maxwell's bedroom floor. Deluvina attended his wake, and the short, graveside service at the his burial the next afternoon. Deluvina remained bitter about Garrett shooting and killing Billy for the rest of her life.

For years afterwards, she tended the Kids's oft-unmarked grave, and regularly placed summer flowers on it.

Deluvina continued to live near Old Fort Sumner, reminiscing about Billy for any reporters and visitors to the Kid's grave, until a few months before her November 27, 1927, death in Albuquerque. She was buried in a tiny cemetery that gave way to the 1974 relocation construction of Albuquerque High School. Where (or if) her remains were reburied is unknown.
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