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Lucien Maxwell
For Lucien Maxwell, the October, 1870, purchase of Old Fort Sumner was to be his golden parachute.
Maxwell had grown weary of the problems associated with the huge land grant he'd acquired on the east slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It had taken him 11 years, but there it was: 1,714,265 acres or 2,680 square miles. It was the size of Ireland. By May, 1869, it had become the largest tract of land owned by one person in U. S. history.
From the late 1840s until the mid-1860s, his word-as-law had ruled. After gold had been found on his land in 1868, everything changed -- for the worse.
So when Old Fort Sumner was abandoned in August, 1869, Maxwell, who'd always had a sharp eye for business, moved quickly. He bought all the old post's adobe homes and buildings -- valued at $300,000 -- from the U. S. government for just $5,000. Maxwell acquired four officers' quarters; two buildings that were the post trader's; the long building that once housed five companies of enlisted men; the quartermaster's building; the commissary building; the post hospital building; the Indian commissary building; the cavalry stables and quartermaster corral; and the Indian Issue building.
The only snag was an 1858 law that kept Maxwell from buying the land beneath his buildings. Its 13,645 acres had to be surveyed first, then chopped up and sold at public auction to the highest bidder. That wouldn't happen until 1884.
By the Spring of 1871, Maxwell, his wife and five of their children, followed by as many as 40 of his Cimarron workers and their families, some 200 people in all, had settled at Old Fort Sumner. He spent $10,000 on improvements there during 1871-72. Soon Maxwell had restored and expanded several buildings, dug irrigation ditches, and introduced a flock of Merino sheep and his Cimarron beef cattle to the open rangeland. His flocks and herds grazed the lush Pecos River Valley as far south as his nearest neighbor's place, cattle baron John Chisum's Bosque Grande. Maxwell and Chisum, in fact, had also teamed up to start a weekly mail service from Las Vegas in 1871.
Maxwell could afford to make these investments at Old Fort Sumner. It had taken him a year to set everything up, but Maxwell had finally sold his enormous land grant (the largest in state history) in two complicated, interrelated transactions in 1870. His unimproved land went for $1,350,000 that July (Maxwell pocketed $600,000 cash). Maxwell's improved land (his palatial Cimarron home, barn, corrals, animals, farm equipment, and flour mill; his mines; and a separate parcel of land) went for another $125.000 that September. The same month his improved land sold, Maxwell, who'd become the wealthiest man in New Mexico, took $150,000 cash and founded the First National Bank of Santa Fe.
By the end of 1870, Maxwell, age 52, had already lived several full lifetimes.
The fifth of 13 children of French-Irish parentage, Lucien Bonaparte Maxwell was born in the upper Mississippi River Valley town of Kaskaskia, the first capital of the then-three-week-old state of Illinois, on September 14, 1818. He was named Lucien after Napoleon's flamboyant younger brother. His maternal grandfather, Pierre Menard (1766-1844), was a strong influence. Menard, a successful businessman-politician who had built a lavish, white Creole French-style, hilltop mansion near Kaskaskia circa 1810 (today a state historic site in Ellis Grove), was renowned for mediating local settler-Indian disputes. Menard, who became the first Lt. Governor of Illinois, and his family had also adopted an Indian girl.
Maxwell, whose father, Hugh, died of cholera in 1833, was educated by students studying for the Vincentian priesthood at nearby St. Mary's of the Barrens. He soon left Kaskaskia and spent the late 1830s trapping beaver high in the central Rocky Mountains for John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company. They were among the happiest of his life. So, too, were those spent scouting and hunting for Col. John C. Fremont (1813-90), the famed explorer whose 1842, 1843, and 1845 expeditions found new pathways into and through the American West. The expeditions reached not only the Columbia River, Washingoton.; the Arkansas River, Colorado., the Great Salt Lake, Utah; and Lake Tahoe, Nevada; but also San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, California; and the Gila River in Arizizona; and Rio Grande in New Mexico.
Fellow fur trapper and renowned trader Ceran St. Vrain (1802-70) was a native Kaskaskian, too. The prominent Chouteau brothers, Auguste (1786-1838) and Pierre (1789-1865), were not only fellow trappers and traders, but relatives of his maternal stepgrandmother. The Fremont expeditions, ironically, had begun at the Kansas City, Missouri, trading post of another Maxwell relative, Cyprian Chouteau.
Famed frontiersman and scout Christopher "Kit" Carson (1808-1868), however, was Maxwell's mentor. Both were best friends. From 1841 onward, Maxwell and Carson (who'd also scouted for Fremont) were also frequent business partners.
In March, 1842, Maxwell married young Ana Maria de la Luz Beaubien of Taos, New Mexico. Her father, French Canadian fur trapper Charles Beaubien, was a prominent businessman. Only the year before, he and partner Guadalupe Miranda, New Mexico Gov. Manuel Armijo's secretary, had acquired an enormous tract of land in north New Mexico. It was called the Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant. Not only had Maxwell married into land, he also discovered that his father-in-law had been educated at St. Mary's of the Barrens, too.
Beaubien's only son, Narciso, was going to homestead the vast grant. But when he was killed during the Taos Rebellion of 1847, Beaubien asked Maxwell to take over and start making improvements on it. Maxwell jumped at the chance and proved up to the task.
Maxwell and Carson moved onto the vast grant, reaching tiny Rayado Creek in April, 1849. In 1850, they built homes there. Maxwell's was a quadrangle of 16 to 20 rooms enclosing a one-acre courtyard. Dormer windows jutted from its pitched roof. It had a wide, wraparound porch, and planed sashes. Next door, Carson built a smaller, flat-roofed adobe home. Today the homes (Maxwell's was preserved; Carson's was rebuilt) anchor the hamlet of Rayado, 11 miles south of the town of Cimarron.
Maxwell's years there were prosperous. His wife, who'd given birth to a son and daughter in Taos in 1848 and 1850, gave birth to three daughters in Rayado in 1852, 1854, and 1856. During 1853, the enterprising Maxwell, who'd been raising sheep on the land grant -- eventually he'd tend 25,000-30,000 of them -- drove a herd of them 1,200 miles west to Sacramento, Calif., and returned with $20,000-$50,000. With $1,400 of that money, he bought Concord coaches to ease his growing family's travel.
In 1858, Maxwell bought Guadalupe Miranda's share of the Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant for $2,745. In late 1858 (or early 1859), Maxwell, flush with cash, moved his family north to Cimarron. There he and his wife welcomed three more daughters (in 1860, 1864, and 1869) into a larger home. Like the Rayado home, the Cimarron home had a pitched roof, dormer windows, and wide porches. But unlike the Rayado home, the Maxwell family's new home literally overlooked the village's tiny plaza and well. It towered two stories tall on adobe walls three-feet thick. Inside, its large rooms boasted high ceilings with molded trim, deep pile carpeting, heavy velvet drapes, gilt-edged paintings, and massive Victorian furniture.
The Maxwells had four pianos, two on each floor. The first floor was where the Maxwells and their guests were greeted, fed, and entertained (there were gaming tables and wheels), and where Lucien conducted most of his business. The second floor was where the Maxwells slept. There Lucien and Luz slumbered in the only bedstead; everyone else (including their children) slept on and under blankets on the floor.
In 1861, Maxwell became the town's first postmaster. In 1862, he also became its Indian Agent. Maxwell, whose land grant income came primarily from agriculture and cattle during the 1860s, earned $21,000 that first year feeding the Jicarilla Apaches and Moache Ute Indians who'd continued to live on their ancestral lands on the land grant. By 1866-67, his income from contracts to feed them -- their numbers had grown from 600 to 1,400 during that time -- had risen to $33,500.
By 1864, Maxwell built a $48,000 stone-block flour mill a quarter-mile west of his Cimarron home. Cranking out 44 barrels of flour a day, the mill was earning Maxwell, through annual contracts, over $26,000 a year by 1869. He earned $29,000 in 1867, $53,000 in 1868, and $60,000 in 1869-70.
Maxwell in Cimarron throughout the 1860s was in his prime. He welcomed guest after guest to his home on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. There were so many visitors, in fact, that Maxwell's two dining rooms (one for men, the other for women, a New Mexico custom at the time) had tables set with solid silver dishes and cutlery each day for 30 guests apiece. During dinner, guests dined by the light of candles set in solid silver stands. Maxwell's kitchen help had fresh beef killed every day or two, and 10-12 sheep killed daily. He never charged a guest to eat or sleep at his place.
In 1864, the U. S. government shifted the Indian Agency position to Fort Sumner, where the U. S. military had begun to incarcerate thousands of Navajos and Mescalero Apaches. The Jicarilla Apaches and Moache Utes refused to go. Depredations ensued.
But 1864 was brutally hard on the Maxwell family. Lucien's father- and mother-in-law, Luz's parents Charles and Pabla Lovato Beaubien, and the Maxwell's three-year-old daughter, Verenisa, died. Maxwell channeled his grief, bore down, and began to acquire Beaubien's share of the land grant by buying out Beaubien's other daughters and Narciso's heirs. He had already bought out the daughters of the late Charles Bent of Taos. Bent, the New Mexico Territorial Governor, had been killed during the Taos Rebellion of 1846. Buying them both out had taken six years (1859-65) and $12,000. Beaubien's descendants took three years (1864-67) and $17,000.
Maxwell, whose piercing blue eyes stood out against his curly, black hair and swarthy complexion, was a powerfully built man. Despite his average height, he projected a commanding presence. During the difficult years as New Mexico transitioned from the Mexican to Territorial Period, he ruled the Cimarron region. His family came first; he was obsessively protective of his own children.
On the plus side, Maxwell spoke not only English and Spanish, but French (as did his father-in-law) and several Indian languages. He was generous and hospitable to his friends and acquaintances, who called him "Mac"; brave and tough; and had an iron-willed determination (after shattering his thumb in a howitzer accident in Cimarron in 1867 during a Fourth of July celebration, Maxwell had his thumb amputated by the Fort Union post surgeon; although he waved off anesthesia and remained silent during the incredibly painful procedure, he fainted afterwards). He was gradually willing to adjust to changing situations. Maxwell's word was his bond, and his handshake as good as a contract. He didn't keep records.
On the minus side, Maxwell was arrogant and tyrannical, obstinate, and unwilling to accept the advice of others. He had a short fuse and could be violently cruel, especially to his ranch hands, who called him "Don Luciano". Maxwell frowned on interference from law enforcement. He had no patience for paperwork (he was a lousy Indian Agent and banker in that regard), and was suspicious of the policies and statutes of the U. S. government. He was casual about safekeeping his money (he once stuffed $39,0000 into his saddlesbags at Fort Union, rode home, threw his saddlebags in a corner of the stable before he turned his horse out, then spent the next week frantically looking for his money until he found it, partially consumed by his hogs); he kept no safe in his Rayado and Cimarron homes, but used the bottom drawer of a dresser.
His simplified his life during his Fort Sumner years, indulging in his two longtime vices, gambling (he was pretty good at it) and horseracing. He sold out his interest in the First National Bank of Santa Fe ("the only bank within 400 miles of Santa Fe" at the time) in October, 1871, to Santa Fe attorney Stephen Elkins and his law partner, Thomas Catron.
Although he was sympathetic to the situation the 749 Utes and Jicarilla Apaches were facing on the former Maxwell Land Grant, on one level Maxwell found it easy to leave Cimarron. On another level, it was difficult. Cimarron had represented the highest point in his life. In the northeast corner of the plaza, next to Maxwell's grand home (which would eventually fall into disrepair and burn to the ground in 1922), inside a tiny, wrought-iron fence, were the graves of his late mother-in-law and his three-year-old daughter. Leaving them and the soaring Sangre de Cristos was hard. Maxwell absolutely adored his family and those mountains.
At Old Fort Sumner, Maxwell gradually turned over the day-to-day operation of his ranch (including the outstanding matter of eventually acquiring the land beneath it) to his son, Pete. His only bad investment was his final one. In 1873, Maxwell dumped $250,000 into a Texas-Pacific Railroad that never happened. His name soon disappeared from the editions of the Territorial newspapers.
Near the end of 1874, he began to ail. On July 25, 1875 (his youngest daughter, Odile's, sixth birthday), Maxwell died of uremic poisoning (kidney failure), and was buried in the Old Ft. Sumner Cemetery (where, in 1949, his descendants erected an elaborate, six-foot-tall, granite footstone).
Sources:
Freiberger, Harriet, Lucien Maxwell: Villain Or Visionary (Santa FeL Sunstone Press, 1999).
Murphy, Lawrence R., Lucien Bonaparte Maxwell: Napoleon Of The Southwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983).
Nolan, Frederick, The West of Billy The Kid (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998).
Oliva, Leo E., Fort Union & The Frontier Army Of The Southwest (Santa Fe: Southwest Cultural Resources Center, 1993).
Shinkle, James S., Fort Sumner & The Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation (Roswell: Hall-Poorbaugh Press, 1965).
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson, The Leading Facts Of New Mexico History, Vol. I (Cedar Rapids: The Tortch Press, 1911).
Williams, Jerry L., New Mexico In Maps, Second Edition (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986).
