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Joseph McCarty
Little is known about Henry McCarty's brother or half-brother, Joseph, from 1865 to 1874. His nickname was Josey or Josie. He could have been older (or younger); his birth year alone is a confusion.
Two statements seem to ring true. First, when the McCarty boys were attending the first public school in Silver City beginning in Jan., 1874, Josey sat at the back of the classroom, where the older boys sat, while Henry sat up front with the younger students. Second, the public school there didn't let youngsters age 16 and older to attend.
While Chauncey Truesdell recalled in a 1952 interview that Henry was "…small for his age and kind of skinny," Josey came across as "…larger and very husky. He looked to be a year and a half or two older than Henry.
The last time Josey saw Henry was in the Fall of 1877, on a Mimbres River Valley ranch east of Silver City, three miles east of Georgetown.
In August, 1882, Josey agreed to meet with Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett in the Armijo Hotel in Trinidad, Colorado. There in the lobby, Garrett, who'd gunned down Joe's brother 13 months before in Ft. Sumner, and he talked for several hours. After clearing the air about Garrett's role in the death of Billy the Kid, they got up, shook hands amicably, and left. They never met again.
Joe's name appears only three times (in 1883 and 1885) in the local newspaper, the Silver City Enterprise. After January, 1885, he seems to disappear from Silver City. Where he went or what he did over the next 15 years remains a mystery. His name pops up again in the 1900, 1910, and 1920 Census records for Denver, Colorado. There Josey listed his 1910 occupation as a cigar store clerk. In 1915, he was a hotel clerk. On his October, 1916, Denver voter registration, Joe listed his height as 5' 9", his age as 53, his complexion as light, and his eyes as blue.
In late March, 1928, Denver Post reporter Ed Hoover was assigned to interview Joe about his many years running numbers for Denver's gamblers. Hoover regarded him as "…an old coot," and didn't know who he was. Josey, meanwhile, spoke little and was tight-lipped about divulging anything. Hoover's article (next to the only photo of a dour Joe) ran in the April 1, 1928, edition. So went one last chance to shed light on the McCartys, and a sibling who had gone on to become the Old West's most notorious outlaw.
Josey, a onetime faro dealer, died in a Larimer Street gambling house in Denver on November 25, 1930. His death certificate listed the cause of death as apoplexy (a brain hemorrhage), and his age as 76. The line denoting his place of birth was left blank. Penniless and with no known relatives, Joe McCarty was turned over to the Colorado Medical School, where his cadaver was used for medical science.
Sources:
Cline, Don, Antrim & Billy (College Station: The Early Press, 1990).
Metz, Leon C., Pat Garrett: The Story Of A Western Lawman (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1974).
Nolan, Frederick, The West of Billy The Kid (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998).
Wallis, Michael, Billy The Kid: The Endless Ride (New York & London: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007).
Weddle, Jerry, Antrim Is My Stepfather's Name (Globe: Arizona Historical Society, 1993).
