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John Henry Tunstall
Born in London, England, on March 6, 1853, John Henry Tunstall was the cherished only son and the middle of five children of a wealthy London merchant. He cut his teeth in the mercantile business in Victoria, Canada (1872-75), in a store in which his father, John, Sr., was an investor.
After checking out investment opportunities in San Francisco (1876), young Tunstall headed east to Santa Fe, New Mexico. There on Oct. 27, 1876, he met his partner-to-be, Alexander McSween, who whet his appetite. Tunstall, who'd been bored in Victoria, was excited about the wide-open potential of Lincoln County, and arrived in Lincoln 10 days later.
A lifelong bachelor, Tunstall was tall (5' 11") and slender (138 lbs.). He had sandy hair, and was fair-complected and clean shaven, after failing to cultivate an authoritative beard. John, Jr., was nearly blind in one eye. He was well-dressed, and his saddle and blankets were expensive. He reflected quiet, outside money. Swayed by Tunstall's practiced manners and charm and wanting to liquidate his assets, an ailing Lawrence Murphy sold him six acres in Lincoln on February 9, 1877, for $1 "…and…other considerations."
"I proposed to confine my operations to Lincoln County," Tunstall confided in a March 27 letter home. "But I intend to handle it in such a way as to get the half of every dollar that is made in the county by anyone."
Tunstall, who spoke a little French and German, loved adventure and horses. He fawned on his father (who doted on him) and his eldest sister, Minnie, and spent hours at a time, writing them letters. A lifelong bachelor, Tunstall regarded his servile flatterer and companion, Richard Widenmann; McSween; and his ranch foreman, Dick Brewer, as his closest friends in Lincoln County during the 16 months of his turbulent life there.
His father invested nearly $15,000 in his son's cattle ranch and Lincoln mercantile. John, Jr., was busy in 1877, establishing his presence on the Rio Feliz ranch on April 24 (he'd file on the 3,840 acres six months later), and buying a herd of cattle at auction on May 7 and driving them to his ranch on May 30.
He also supervised the construction of his fortresslike mercantile in June and July, and watched his partner McSween's palatial 18-room home arise almost simultaneously next door. Tunstall's thick-walled adobe store (and wood-covered, steel-plated shutters on its windows) also housed a roomy law office for McSween (the firm's in-house legal department) as well as a bank (fronted by Pecos River Valley cattle baron John Chisum) that would let Tunstall and McSween keep Tom Catron's First National Bank of Santa Fe at bay and provide them independent cash flow. Tunstall's Rio Feliz cattle ranch infused them with versatility, further leverage, and future growth.
The elder Tunstall's outside investments had given the new J. H. Tunstall & Co. instant respectability and independence. Up the street, the rival House became jealous and angry.
Tunstall's new store, stocked with $3,500 worth of goods from as far away as St. Louis, opened for business on October 29. Meanwhile, the elegantly furnished McSween home next door became the center of Lincoln's social scene and a place to entertain, woo and keep clients.
Sometime in early November, Brewer hired a new Rio Feliz ranch hand, William H. Bonney.
Tunstall and McSween never had a legal partnership. Everything they did had emanated from a handshake. A formal contract signing was scheduled for May, 1878. But Tunstall never lived that long. His end had already been set in motion. Tunstall's enterprise had started to siphon off clientele from J. J. Dolan & Co. almost from day one. Already in hock to Tom Catron's First National Bank of Santa Fe for $16,000, the House decided to act.
When the deputized Billy Morton's 17-man posse ostensibly went after Tunstall's horses on Feb. 18, 1878, they were really after Tunstall himself. Overtaking him after scattering four of his ranch hands (one of whom was Bonney), the posse swept past the horses. Two of the men shot and killed Tunstall near the summit of a steep canyon.; The Tunstall party had been less than an hour's ride from the safety of Brewer's Rio Ruidoso ranch.
Tunstall's wake was held in the McSween home. He was buried behind his Lincoln store (several yards east of where his commemorative marker is today). Tunstall's death ignited the five-month-long Lincoln County War.
His murder site, first marked by a U.S. Forest Service sign in 1929, is near the summit of a rock-strewn canyon that today carries his name. The marked site in Lincoln National Forest is 24 miles SSW of Lincoln, accessible via gravel-surfaced Forest Road 443, outside the hamlet of Glencoe.
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