Find
businesses offering goods & services to the traveling public
Visit
our video library featuring scenes from "The Land of Enchantment"
Tom O'Folliard
Tom O'Folliard was Billy the Kid's most loyal friend. He arrived in Lincoln in early April, 1878, and the Kid quickly took him under his wing. Tom was, remembered Regulator Frank Coe some 50 years later, "…over six feet tall, red-headed, and had a dark complexion. He seemed to be a couple years younger than Billy." O'Folliard, Susan McSween Barber recalled in 1927, was "…a good-natured, rollicking boy, always singing, full of life." She judged him to be about 5' 8" tall and 175 lbs. His nickname was "Big Foot".
Tom seemed to ride west all the way up into Lincoln County straight out of Uvalde, Texas, where he had been raised by maternal relatives since the age of seven. Tom, who was born in Uvalde circa 1858, was an infant when his namesake father, an Irish immigrant, and mother, Sarah Cook O'Folliard, moved to Monclova, Coahuila, Mexico. When Tom's parents suddenly died of smallpox in 1865, his bachelor uncle, Civil War veteran John Cook (who would become a Texas Ranger), brought him back to Uvalde. There John's sister, Mary Jane Cook raised O'Folliard for eight years. His uncle, John, took him in until 1875. Then Tom's grandmother, Mrs. James Cook, raised him until 1878.
The Kid eagerly taught the young and impressionable O'Folliard how to shoot a buffalo gun. Soon they were rarely apart. Tom was involved in the epic shootout at Blazer's Mill; escaped the burning McSween House in July, 1878; and helped the Kid drive stolen horses northeast to Tascosa, Tex., that Sept. During Billy's romantic interludes (when the Kid wasn't stealing horses, rustling cattle, or gambling), O'Folliard faithfully kept the Kid's horse ready, all night if necessary.
Whatever halcyon days there were for Billy and Tom stretched from late Aug., 1878, to late November, 1880.
If there was a poignant moment, it was when one of O'Folliard's relatives came to New Mexico to persuade Tom to return to Uvalde. But Billy intervened, didn't let the man see O'Folliard, and sent the relative away.
Tom died from a single gunshot wound to the torso at Old Fort Sumner on the fog-shrouded, snow-blanketed night of December 19, 1880. Garrett and his posse had waited patiently to ambush the Kid and his pals at Manuela Bowdre's place in the Old Post Hospital on the Texas Road northeast of the old parade ground. O'Folliard, who'd ridden in front, expecting a warm fire and a home-cooked meal that was just minutes away, was taken inside and placed on the floor. He quickly died from internal bleeding, and was buried the next day in the old post cemetery.
Sources:
Nolan, Frederick, The Lincoln County War: A Documentary History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992).
Nolan, Frederick, The West of Billy the Kid (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998).
Rasch, Philip J., Trailing Billy the Kid (Stillwater: Western Publications, 1995).
Simmons, Marc, Stalking Billy the Kid (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2006).
Utley, Robert M., Billy the Kid: A Short Violent Life (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989).
