I) Staley Acquisition from Florentino Baca; Probably 1924

According to family tradition, passed down over the past 80 years, the PAT Garrett rifle was acquired by W. W. Staley, Sr., a student at the New Mexico School of Mines, from Florentino Baca, also a former student from the School of Mines. Florentino Baca claimed a relative of his also named Baca and who was a ‘famous lawman’ had ‘taken the gun away from’ the famous Sheriff Pat Garrett. Staley and F. Baca were both students at the New Mexico School of Mines in Socorro, NM during the period; 1921 through the Spring of 1925 when Staley graduated. The 1920 U. S. Census of Socorro County, New Mexico enumerates Florentino Baca at age 16 living in the household of his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Sallie Berry in Socorro, NM.

Note: Item #2 -- New Mexico School of Mines Alumni publication, relevant pages attached.

II) Florentino Acquisition from Cipriano; 1903

Until recently it was incorrectly assumed that the ‘famous lawman’ was a referance to the well known Elfego Baca, a widely recognized historical New Mexican character contemporary to the Garrett era. It has developed, however, that the referance was to Florentino Baca’s father, Cipriano Baca who was an active and prominent law enforcement officer from the early 1890’s until the 1920’s. His official activities covered all of Southwest New Mexico in Grant County as both a Deputy Sheriff and as a Deputy US Marshal. In Luna County he was the first sheriff and in Socorro County he was the resident Deputy Sheriff in the infamous Mogollon mining camp. In Bernalillo County he was appointed as an original member and Lieutenant (second in command) of the original unit of the New Mexico Mounted Police. Florentino was born in Deming, NM on 5/23/03 of Mary Berry and Cipriano Baca. The highlights of Cipriano’s colorful career along with the genealogical relationship between Florentino and Cipriano and their antecedents has been enumerated by Charles L. Jensen, genealogist of Albuquerque, NM and published in the New Mexico Genealogist, Vol. 43, No. 4, December 2004, the official journal of the NM Genealogical Society.
            Note: Item #3 --“Cipriano Baca” article by C. Jensen, New Mexico Genealogist 43:4, December,                                                             2004, attached.

III) Cipriano Acquisition from Garrett; Probably 1896 to 1906

Cipriano Baca served in the capacity of Deputy US Federal Marshal under Marshal Creighton Foraker for most of Foraker’s administration (1897 through 1912). During that period Cipriano regularly came in contact with Pat Garrett who was also a Deputy US Federal Marshal under Foraker from 1897 until his appointment as a US Customs Collector in 1901. Even after that time period, the two men must have met both socially and officially since both smuggling and border security were within the jurisdiction of the (Foraker) US Deputy Marshals.

Because the culture of law enforcement activities of those times required these men to develop a network of acquaintances that habituated the numerous saloons, bars and card rooms and because both men were known to gamble frequently, it is assumed the PAT Garrett rifle was acquired from Garrett by Cip Baca at the gambling tables, probably in El Paso, Deming or Las Cruces. Garrett was also known to be a frequent and persistent loser at cards, which eventually ruined him financially.
Note: Item #4 -- NMG, Cipriano Baca, pp. 204 &205, attached.

IV) Evidence of Garrett’s Ownership

            There are three reasons to believe that Pat Garrett was an owner of the shortened Winchester rifle #31829. First, the story passed down to the Staleys came from a creditable source, the Baca’s. Second is that the gun alone is self-evidently a weapon that was clearly modified in a way which would only be attractive to a gunfighter of the period like a lawman or an outlaw. Third, it has Pat Garrett’s well known cattle brand “PAT” carved into the stock. The PAT brand was used by Garrett in the years 1881 through 1885 while he was the Lincoln County Sheriff (1881-82) and when he first became active in the cattle business as an owner. After those years, having sold the brand along with his ranch and cattle on Eagle Creek in Lincoln County, NM to an English investor named Brandon Kirby, Garrett began using the symbol “O” as his brand.
Note: Item# 5 -- Cattle brand newspaper notices, attached.

V) Circumstantial Evidence of Garrett’s Acquisition from Billy the Kid

            There are plausible reasons to conclude that the PAT Winchester was taken from a captured outlaw, probably Frank Wheeler, by Garrett or a Deputy based upon historical accounts and two documents, (1) court arraignment record naming Wheeler and Cook and (2) Garrett’s 10/3/1881 report to the Lincoln County Commissioners regarding both Wheeler and the Kid. The items captured from Wheeler were put, along with other seized articles, into a storage room in the jail house. Wheeler subsequently escaped leaving the gun behind along with other items like his two horses, his saddle and probably his pistol. A few weeks after Wheeler’s escape, Billy the Kid made his spectacular break-out taking a Winchester and a six-shooter along with him, all of which is well documented by several eyewitnesses. When Garrett killed the Kid two and a half months later he recovered the six-shooter and the Winchester. Later (December, 1881), at a Sheriff’s Sale in White Oaks ordered by the Lincoln County Commissioners, it is surmised that Garrett himself bought both the Winchester and the pistol, a Colt’s 44. Following is a chronological listing of explanations for these conclusions.

Note: See the following attachments:

                Item # 6 -- Lincoln County District Court arraignment docket, Lincoln Co., NM, historical archives.

                Item # 7 -- Lincoln County Jail house alphabetical register pages, Lincoln Co., NM, historical archives

                Item # 8 -- Lincoln County Grand Jury 1/1/1881 and 4/15/1881 indictments and summons -- New Mexico                                   State Univ. Historical Archives, Herman Weisner Collection.

                Item # 9 -- Garrett letter to Lincoln County Commissioners dated 10/3/1881 -- NMSU, Rio Grande                                   Historical Collections.

            January 1, 1881: After his election in November, 1880, when Garrett took office on January 1, 1881, he moved into a building only just purchased by the County and in the process of being renovated with the second floor jail cell still under construction. There is no evidence that suggests there was much of an armory for the new Sheriff to start with, if any at all. The outgoing Sheriff Kimbrell certainly had no incentive to leave guns of value even though there may have been a few older, maybe obsolete models, most probably pistols. In the year preceding Garrett’s term, the old jail, known as the ‘pit carcel’, was in such disrepair that it was seldom used and because of the absence of records there is no information about what Kimbrell used for an office during that period. After the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878 he would not have been able to use the jail at Fort Stanton, so he probably used his home. When people were arrested then, as now, they were disarmed and their confiscated weapons held, probably in some corner of the Sheriff’s office, until they were released. If they escaped without their guns or were tried and convicted their weapons became the property of the County. No doubt a certain amount of weaponry was accumulated in that manner in the offices of many sheriffs.

            Early March, 1881: The record of arrests by Garrett in those first four months are now mostly disappeared or destroyed but, the few records that do exist however, indicate two well known Lincoln County outlaws; Frank Wheeler and Sam Cook were arrested and arraigned for the fraudulent selling of cattle or larceny. This is known because on the 1^st of January and on the 15^th of April the Grand Jury issued indictments for their arrest on those charges. When he was apprehended, probably in early March, Wheeler’s possessions, including his saddle and two horses and, presumably, his weapons were all confiscated. It is also known from the index of arrests that shows him as the 9^th individual (maybe not chronologically) to be put into the ‘new’ jail which went into business on January 1^st, 1881. The listing of names is probably out of the proper chronological order for the earliest entries. #3 Billy the Kid for example, was not actually ensconced until April 21^st and his name is listed before the five men arrested for the Tularosa water rights murders on April 18^th (#4 Wall, #5 Nunnelly, #6 Copeland, #7 Dobalas and #8 Grigriba). Sam Cook is shown as the 1^st ‘guest’ in the new jail when he had already escaped before the new courthouse had officially opened. Cook had been arrested on November 29^th , 1880 by Garrett acting as a Deputy US Marshal before his term as Sheriff actually started. It is speculated that Cook might have been re-arrested with Frank Wheeler in March but there is no surviving record of either the date or his seized possessions.

            April 28, 1881: When Billy Bonney escaped from the Lincoln jail, he went into the jail’s armory and helped himself to at least one six-shooter and a Winchester rifle. Because of his known preference for the lighter, shorter carbine (as opposed to the longer, heavier, octagon-barreled rifle), it is postulated that the Kid found the shortened Winchester rifle (even lighter and 8 inches shorter than the carbine) and chose that weapon intentionally although there was probably a limited choice in the armory.

            As noted above, at the time of the Kid’s escape there were the five other prisoners from the Tularosa River murders being held in the jail. Wheeler and Cook were not among them, having escaped two or three weeks earlier. At least one of the five prisoners, Alex Nunnelly, had a Winchester that had been seized by the Sheriff and which was most probably kept in the store-room that contained the ‘sheriff’s armory’. There have been stories that Nunnelly, who was an unwilling participant in Bonney’s escape, talked Billy the Kid out of taking his gun during the Kid’s break-out.

            The circumstantial evidence indicates that before the date of the Kid’s breakout Frank Wheeler had long since escaped from the jail leaving behind two horses, his saddle and most probably his weapons. It is therefore presumed that the shortened Winchester, which later became Garrett’s property, was a possession of one of the outlaws arraigned in early March. Those two, Wheeler and Cook, are each exactly the types that would be expected to carry such a weapon, as did their colleague the gunfighter, Gus Gildea, who’s well known photo shows him with a shortened Henry rifle.

            July 14, 1881: When the Kid was killed, two and a half months after his escape, the weapons he took from the jail were still in his possession. Garrett’s note to the Lincoln County Commissioners on October 3, 1881, three months after Bonney’s death, proves that both a rifle and a pistol were recovered from his effects. Note particularly that Garrett did not mention in his letter to the commissioners that he had captured Frank Wheeler’s weapons. Because of that omission it is fair to conclude that he did not mention Wheeler’s Winchester and six-shooter because he knew that Billy the Kid had them.

            Finally, there is some evidence to indicate that during the ensuing years, Garrett’s actions regarding the value of guns that could be associated with Billy the Kid, makes it clear that he would not have missed such an opportunity for personal gain.