Billy the Kid Territory
Lawrence Gustave Murphy

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Upon Lawrence G. Murphy's death, his estate owed Tom Catron's First National Bank of Santa Fe a lot of money and was forced to sell his Carisosa Ranch, 12 miles south-west of White Oaks, New Mexico, to British investors for $225,000.

In an August 18, 1883, American Field magazine article, White Oaks author Emerson Hough related that the ranch cook at the time of the October, 1882, purchase was one of John Tunstall's ranch hands, Godfrey Gauss.

The cook at Tunstall's Rio Feliz Ranch the morning of Tunstall's final day on earth, Gauss had later admitted to tossing Billy the Kid a pick that Billy had used to unlock one of his leg irons during the Kid's daring Lincoln jail break.

"The range is about 40 miles by 15," wrote Hough of Murphy's ranch. "The buildings are of the usual low, single story adobe class, but are good of their kind, the main house a model of comfort. The house is furnished throughout with a luxuriousness and elegance of style which is utterly astonishing to one accustomed to the scant comforts of the ordinary ranch. There is no lady to preside over the house-hold. The Steinway piano sits silent; the fine engravings are not too often dusted; the cowboys make their beds upon the nicely carpeted floor.

An old German by the name of Gauss," Hough continued, "who came here 30 years ago as a U.S. soldier, is the presiding deity of the kitchen. He himself is a walking volume of incident. He tells with pride how Billy the Kid once made him saddle a horse for him under cover of a rifle, after Billy had killed the two sheriffs at Lincoln. We had had enough of Billy, and asked the old gentleman to give us a relief, which he did in a choice variety of hunting stories."

Lawrence Gustave Murphy

Born in County Wexford, Ireland, circa 1831, he immigrated to the U.S. and enlisted in U.S. military in Buffalo, New York, in July, 1851, giving his age as 21. He served in Texas, where he reenlisted in July, 1857, and was sent to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. From there, he endured an arduous campaign in Utah during the Mormon insurrection of 1857.

Discharged again in April, 1861, at Ft. Fauntleroy, New Mexico, Murphy traveled to Santa Fe. There he reenlisted as a commissioned lieutenant. Sent to Ft. Union, he became (thanks to its commandant, Kit Carson) the regimental quartermaster, recruiting officer, and regimental adjutant. In 1865, Murphy was the acting Indian agent at Ft. Sumner. Later promoted to Major, he was discharged at Ft. Stanton in September, 1866.

Red-haired and fair-skinned, sporting a prematurely thinning head of hair, the mustachioed Murphy was the public face of L. G. Murphy & Co. He was the boss, nearly five feet, nine inches tall, and dressed for the part. Unlike his portly partner Fritz, Murphy was slim and fashionable in his ever-present black suits. He understood that image and comportment were everything. Murphy liked the idea of coming across to folks as a successful businessman. He was gregarious, charming and generous, and as well-connected as Fritz. Like his partner, Murphy had a clean military record, and remained a lifelong bachelor.

He was the firm's blue-eyed dreamer, planner, and schemer. Murphy was also the top dog; after all, the firm wasn't named after Fritz. He could also be ruthless when the need arose. Thanks to his quartermaster and Indian agent years, supplies and logistics were second nature to him.

When L. G. Murphy & Co. was booted off the Ft. Stanton military post in September, 1873, Murphy moved to Lincoln, into his firm's modest three-room adobe, which he would sell to the McSween in February, 1877. They would expand it to 12 rooms that summer, furnish it lavishly, and begin to entertain folks in what would become Lincoln's most elegant home. The McSweens would watch helplessly when it became the target of arson the following summer.

In March, 1869, Murphy was elected Lincoln County Probate Judge, a position he would retain until his resignation in May, 1875. During those six-plus years, L. G. Murphy & Co. had it all. It brokered deals and controlled prices with cold impunity. If local farmers and ranchers objected, they took their complaints to probate court, where Murphy ruled against them. Locals quickly learned that complaining was a waste of time. If any of them tried to skirt the firm, Murphy would send out his muscle.

When the Murphy-Dolan Store opened in June, 1874, Murphy's ailing partner, Fritz, had been in Germany a year. Murphy turned to his understudy, clerk Jimmy Dolan, who quickly became his partner when Fritz died that August. The transition was quick; ever-present Murphy ensured it was seamless. He stayed on top of things. To do so, Murphy often overnighted in his firm's Big Store in his second-floor bedroom in the northeast corner, unaware that some day it would become famous as the place where Billy the Kid was kept prisoner in April, 1881.

By 1877, Murphy was beginning to weaken from the intestinal cancer that would eventually kill him. He severed ties with Dolan in April, 1877, asked probate court in May to see if the Fritz estate owed him money or vice versa, and made out his will. He continued to live in his second-floor bedroom (one of his provisos or a Dolan concession), drink increasingly to numb the intestinal pain, and be there to advise Dolan when asked.

After the court denied any claims against the Fritz estate in January, 1878, Murphy tried to sell his Carisosa Ranch, but there were no takers. In May, 1878, the fast-fading Murphy left war-torn Lincoln for the last time. He went to Santa Fe, where he died in St. Vincent's Hospital on Octobert 20, 1878. First interred in the Masonic & Odd Fellows Cemetery, he was reburied in Santa Fe's National Cemetery, where a five-foot-high granite obelisk still marks his grave.

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