Billy the Kid’s Funeral

So most of us know that Billy the Kid died 142 years ago. That’s relatively common knowledge and the story of his death has been widely told and retold. Instead of talking about that, let’s focus on his funeral the following day. Not a great deal has been published about his funeral so I’d like to share something with you from the book “On the Trail, The Life and Times of “Lead Steer” Potter:

“The sheriff instructed several Mexican ranch hands to remove the dirt roof of an abandoned adobe building and pull out enough ceiling planks to make a coffin, as time was too short to have new lumber shipped from Las Vegas. 

Late in the afternoon, the corpse was loaded into Old Vicente’s wood hauling wagon which proceeded to the government cemetery followed by every person in Fort Sumner, even the saloonkeeper who rarely close down his business. The sanctified Texan, who believed in predestination, preached the funeral and said that Billy‘s time had certainly come at last. 

They told me he made remarks about Billy, “our beloved young citizen, “and read from the 14th chapter of Job - “A man that is born of woman is a few days and is full of trouble, he fleeth like a shadow and continues not. “  In closing he said, “Billy cannot come back to us, but we can go to him and will see him again up yonder, amen.”

The day after the funeral Pete Maxwell had his men pull a wooden picket from the parade ground fence, saw off a foot or so and nail it in a crossbar to the longer piece. Then he printed the crude letters, “BILLY THE KID, JULY 14, 1881.”