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William Antrim
Long before he assumed the name of William H. Bonney, Henry McCarty had a father figure. From his earliest memories of Indianapolis in 1865, young Henry could claim that the continual, paternal presence in his life was that of his stepfather, William Henry Harrison Antrim.
But Antrim's 1873 marriage to Henry's ailing mother, a woman nearly 13 years his senior, seems to be one of convenience. Antrim remains a distant figure. He was mum about a lot of things in his life. More is known about Catherine McCarty during the last year or so of her life in Silver City than about Antrim, who was gone a lot from their Silver City home. Although he outlived his wife by 48 years (and his stepson, Henry, by 41 years), he provided no details about those relationships. Yet, Heny's famous alias begins as William H. So maybe there was something to Antrim after all. However he felt about his stepsons wasn't enough to dislodge his dream of striking it rich in order to keep them in line. For better or worse, he was the stepfather of Billy the Kid.
The fifth of eight children born to Levi and Ida Lawson Antrim of Ohio, William was the first child born in Ind., on Dec. 1, 1842, in Huntsville, 31 miles northeast of Indianapolis. His father owned and operated the first hotel there and a second one in nearby Anderson.
Named after the 9th President of the U. S., who had represented and created the Ohio and Indiana Territories (and who was the first President to die in office in March, 1841), young William was educated in a one-room schoolhouse outside Huntsville. When he was old enough, he helped with chores at his father's hotels.
During the Civil War, William enlisted as an Indiana infantryman in June, 1862, saw no action, and was mustered out a private in Indianapolis that Sept. Declining to enlist for three years, he moved to Philadelphia. There in Aug., 1863, Antrim was told to register for the draft, refused, lied about his reasons for exemption, and was taken prisoner. He filed suit in U. S. District Court, claiming he'd earlier hired someone to serve for him, and won. His case (and the outcome) attracted national attention.
By 1865, Antrim was back in Indianapolis. He lived there until early 1870, when he moved to Kansas. There he homesteaded a 160-acre farm outside Wichita. By then, he, Catherine McCarty, and her two sons had become a family. Despite Antrim's parents and siblings having moved to nearby Newton in the Spring of 1871, he and the McCartys left Wichita that Aug., and may have moved to Denver.
Soon after their March, 1873, marriage, William, Catherine, and her sons moved to southeast N. M., near a mountainous region of gold and silver strikes.
Antrim, who found jobs as a carpenter and a butcher, soon went off to seek work as a laborer in several nearby mining camps. Soon after his wife's Sept., 1874, death, Antrim sent his stepson, Joe, to the Dyers, who owned Silver City's Orleans Club, a bawdy saloon and gambling hall. He sent Henry to live with the Truesdells, who'd just bought and renovated the 10-room Star Hotel and renamed it the Exchange.
Antrim headed west to prospect near Clifton, Ariz. When Henry got off the stage there in Sept., 1875, Antrim, after learning his stepson had escaped the Silver City jail, told him, "If that's the kind of boy you are, get out." They never saw each other again. But Antrim kept in touch with his other stepson, Joe. until 1901.
In 1880, Antrim began to prospect in the gold-rich Mogollon Mountains, 75 miles northwest of Silver City. From 1880 to 1907, Antrim lived in Mogollon (where he was known as Uncle Billy), had a home, and acquired several modestly productive mines in the Mogollon Mining District. From 1883 to 1913, he also bought and sold several tracts of land in Silver City and Mogollon. These pursuits gradually rewarded him with a modicum of financial independence.
In Jan., 1893, Antrim petitioned the Federal government for a Civil War Veterans pension, was rejected, reapplied and was awarded $10 a month in 1894. Despite his modest wealth, he tried several times over the next 25 years, but without success, to have that stipend increased.
Circa 1913, Antrim, already suffering from declining health, moved to central Calif., to be near the Paso Robles home of his youngest sister, Mary Ann Antrim Hollister and her family.
In his Jan., 1913, pension application, Antrim summarized in chronological order his life's occupations: a teamster for one year, a farmer for two years, a laborer for seven years, and a miner for 33 years. In his April, 1915, pension affidavit, in answer to a question about whether his late wife had ever been married before, he wrote that he knew little about Catherine, her sons, or their lives before 1865. "She was married to a McCarty, date not known, (who) died in New York, date not known," he scribbled. "No other marriage, no military service that I know of."
In 1918, Antrim moved into the Hollister household.
Two months before Mary Ann's death at age 71 in July, 1919, the ailing Antrim sold his last and most valuable tract, the income-generating, 160-acre farm he'd homesteaded outside Wichita 48 years before. It fetched $16,000.
Under a doctor's care, the frail Antrim died of uremia and pneumonia near Paso Robles, on Dec. 10, 1922. He was buried in Paso Robles's San Miguel Cemetery, adjacent the graves of his widowed mother, Mary, and his youngest sister.
Cline, Don, Antrim & Billy (College Station: The Early Press, 1990).
Kadlec, Robert F., They "Knew" Billy The Kid: Interviews With Old-Time New Mexicans (Santa Fe: Ancient Press, 1987).
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: The Boyhood of Billy The Kid (Globe: Arizona Historical Society, 1993).
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