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Pete Maxwell
Lucien and Luz's only surviving son, Pedro Menard Maxwell, was born in Taos on April 27, 1848. When his father ran into an 1858 U. S. statute that prevented him from buying the land beneath his fort buildings (it had to be purchased at auction by the highest bidder), Lucien turned over the matter to Pete to handle in 1872. Pete began to take over the ranch operations from his father in 1873.
After his father's 1875 death, Pete took complete control of his family's cattle and sheep ranch operations. He put his late father's longtime ranch manager, Jesus Silva, out to pasture. He hired Pat Garrett as a ranch hand in 1878.
Pete regarded Billy the Kid as an acquaintance. He was tolerant, but breathed easier once the Kid was dead.
Pete retired upon his father's death; submitted a winning bid on a tract of land that included the restored fort buildings in 1884, then flipped part of the purchase when he sold the buildings to a conglomerate (1884); and built a home near his mother, Luz.
His fame came entirely from his having been the only eyewitness to Garrett's killing of Billy. It was in Pete's ground-floor bedroom, in the southeast corner of the Maxwell House, that Garrett surprised and shot the Kid.
At some point, he married Sadie Lutz of Taos; they had no children. He spent most of his late father's remaining wealth during the last 14 years of his unremarkable life. Pete died at his home south of Old Ft. Sumner, on June 21, 1898. He was buried next to his father's grave in the Old Ft. Sumner Cemetery.
