PATRICK F. "BIG CASINO" GARRETT - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 03/11/1894 - HFSID 314415

 

PAT GARRETT
While traveling New Orleans in hopes of escaping his tainted reputation as the infamous killer of Billy the Kid, a somber Pat Garrett writes to his wife, "I am so lonesome and blue I wish I had not let you leave me." An Extremely Rare and emotional piece!
Autograph Letter Signed: "P. H. Garrett," 3 pages, 5x8. New Orleans, Louisiana. March 11, 1894. To his wife, in full: "I got your letter yesterday with the one from Richard enclosed. The letter from him was about a piece of land I bought from Bill Halloman and don't amount to anything. I went to see Maricio this evening (Sunday) he is doing fine but is very weak is wandering all around the hospital, but the doctor say he had better stay there for a few days, it is so mucky and wet at the track he might get sick again. It has been raining every day since you left here until today we have had a beautiful spring day warm like summer I think the race track will get good now and then I can win a race you may look for Billy home in a few days I have no money to send you wife and am very sorry but can't help. Have Milas to sell the black mare Sis if he can't get more than $50.00 then you must have some money I think will make some money tomorrow if I do I will send you some at once. I failed on the plan I told you I have to make some money don't be discouraged darling we will get along some way let us hope for the best it will rain there after while and then the country will come out allright I want to see you and the children the worst kind why don't Pon and Ida write to me. I am still here at Mr. Minssels and am writing on the same table and by the same light that we played dominos, but I am so lonesome and blue I wish I had not let you leave me but I guess it was best you went I feel alful pretty tonite because I shaved my moustache off every body says I am so handsome clean shaven don't you wish you could see me." When Garrett killed notorious outlaw Billy the Kid in 1881, he had not expected the public outrage that ensued upon him. With a tarnished reputation, Garrett turned to horse racing in New Orleans in efforts to provide for his struggling family. This letter offers a rare and emotional side of the law man, revealing his woes of not only financial distress, but his longing for his wife and children. As a man without the law to support him, he suffered, but not without hope. Garrett (1850-1908) is best known for killing the outlaw Billy the Kid. Garrett was elected sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico in 1880. As Sheriff, he captured his onetime friend Billy the Kid, who had been accused of murder. The Kid killed two guards and escaped from jail just before he was to be hanged. On July 14, 1881, Garrett caught up with him at Fort Sumner, a military post near the town of Fort Sumner, New Mexico and shot him to death from ambush in a darkened house. It was in Fort Sumner that he met and married Apolonaria Gutierrez, with whom he had nine children. In April 1882, Garrett published The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid. He lost the next election for Sheriff of Lincoln County. In 1884, he ran for the territorial Senate and lost. He moved from Lincoln County to Tascosa, a settlement on the Canadian River, in the Texas Panhandle. He served as Captain of a unit of Texas Rangers that Texas Governor John Ireland had assigned to protect ranchers from cattle rustlers. Within weeks, Garrett quit the Texas Rangers and returned to southeastern New Mexico, this time to Roswell. He set up a scheme to irrigate the desert in an area with impoverished soil and bad water. In 1890, Garrett ran for Sheriff of Chavez County, which had been carved out of Lincoln County, with Roswell as the new county seat. He lost. In 1891, he moved to Uvalde, a community in south Texas where he raised and raced horses with 22-year-old John Nance Garner, future vice president of the United States under FDR (1933-1941), before becoming deputy sheriff and then sheriff of Doña Ana County, New Mexico (1896-1902) and collector of customs in El Paso, Texas (1902-1906). Pat Garrett was shot to death by rancher Wayne Brazel near Las Cruces, New Mexico because of a land dispute. A witness supported Brazel's claim of self-defense. Brazel was tried and found not guilty but people generally suspected that it was murder since Garrett's body showed a bullet in the back of the head as well as one in the stomach. Script is light but legible. Normal mailing folds. Lightly toned. Otherwise, fine condition.