WPA Nellie Henley Barnum
Writer: Edith L. Crawford,
Carrizozo, N. Mex.
Narrator: Nellie Henley Branum (Barbara Jeanne Branum said this was about
her grandmother Nellie Branum)
PIONEER STORY
I was born on a farm in Delta County,
Texas, in 1877 and I have lived in Lincoln
County, New Mexico for fifty eight years. I was four
years old when my father, Thomas W. Henley, my mother, one half sister, two
brothers and myself left Delta County, Texas in
October, 1880 for Roswell, New Mexico. We traveled in a covered wagon
with a chuck box in the back, a cow hide stretched under the wagon for our
cooking utensils and two kegs tied on the sides of the wagon for our water. We
carried all of our provisions and bedding and the six of us all rode in the one
wagon which was drawn by two small mules. We slept on the ground at night and
mother did all the cooking over a camp fire. She made sour dough bread and
baked it in a dutch oven. We children gathered buffalo and cow chips for our
fuel. When we made camp at night we kids would get our two sacks and start to
gather up the chips. We had a tin can with a spout on it. Mother put an old rag
in the can and pulled part of it through the spout and poured grease in the can
and that gave us our light.
We were always on the look out for
Indians but we didn't see any until we reached Lincoln County, New
Mexico. We brought all of our own smoked meat with
us. We saw Buffalo
and Antelope but they were too far away for father to kill one. The plains were
awfully dry and hot when we crossed them. But we had no trouble in finding
watering places. We crossed the Trinity River
on a ferry boat driving the wagon on the boat we were drawn across by hand with
a large rope. As we came to the small streams we camped on them for the night
and washed what clothes we had dirty and would be on our way as father was in
very poor health and wanted to get to his father's home in Roswell, New Mexico
as quickly as possible. Father's ill health was the cause of our leaving Texas and moving to New Mexico. My grandfather and grandmother
moved to New Mexico
in 1879 for grandfather's health. They owned a farm where the town of Roswell now stands. Their
houses on the farm were called "Chosas" (which means dug-outs) in those
days. They dug down in the ground about three feet and built it up with posts
to about four feet above the ground and filled in between the posts with mud.
They had dirt floors and dirt roofs. We arrived at my grandfather's late in
November, 1880, and lived in their home that winter. In the spring of 1881
mother and father left us children with our grandparents [?] and they came on
up to Fort Stanton, New Mexico, which was a military post in those days, father
took up a homestead five miles west of Fort Stanton on the Rio Bonito. Father
was a school teacher and practiced medicine in Texas. He was not a licensed doctor but he
had gone to a medical school in St.
Louis, Missouri, but
on account of finances he had to quit before he graduated. He practiced with an
older doctor while in Texas
and he always did all that he could for the sick is long as he lived. In those
days there were very few doctors and most of the farmers that lived around
close to us always sent for father. They paid him whatever they felt like
giving him as he never set a price. There was a lot of stealing and killings
going on in Lincoln
at that time. Billy the Kid
had been captured and was on trial in Las
Cruces for the killing of Sheriff Brady. He was
convicted and brought back to Lincoln, New Mexico in April where he killed his two
guards and escaped, to be killed by Pat Garrett in July 1881.
Father and mother came back to my
grandfather's and loaded up their few belongings and us four children and
started for their homestead in Lincoln County.
Father, mother and the two older children built a one room log cabin, with a
fire place for heating and cooking, for us to live in. I was too small to help
with the building of the cabin but I had to look after the baby while mother
helped. We had plenty of nice wood as father was clearing his land and cut down
lots of nice big pine trees. In the spring of 1882 we planted a crop and raised
lots of nice vegetables and feed for our stock. The second year we were on the
farm, father got a job at Fort
Stanton as blacksmith,
shoeing the horses and mules. Mother would take him down to work on Monday
morning and bring the wagon and team back as she had to have them during the
week to work the crops. Father had a yoke of oxen and my mother and sister used
them to do the plowing in the crops. That spring father started a four room
adobe house. Mother and my oldest sister would make the adobes during the week
and let them dry and when father came home to spend Sunday he would lay the
adobes in the wall and the next week they would do the same thing until we had
the walls up. We had to haul our lumber from the Dowlin Mill which was located
on the Ruidoso. We had to go to Alto and then down Gavalan Canyon
to the Ruidoso river and then about three miles up the river to the saw mill.
It was a good two days trip. Father used the wagon and team of mules to haul
the lumber. We had a fire place in the front room and one in the kitchen for
cooking. We had dirt floors and dirt roof. Father cut small logs and laid them
very close together and put dirt on them for a roof. Father picked up a second
had stove at Fort
Stanton and it was the
first cook stove that I ever saw. Mother and Sister built a rock fence around
our place. They went up on the hill side and threw the rocks down so they could
carry them and put them in the fence. Mother and Sister did a lot of hard work
to have a place to live in and in time we had a very nice farm and house. We
raised all of our own hogs and father bought a few head of cattle as he was
able. We raised our own wheat and took it to Dowlin's Mill and had it ground
into flour and had our corn ground into corn meal. We bought our coffee in the
green bean and roasted it and ground it in an old fashioned coffee mill. The
first winter that we lived in the log cabin we had our grease pot and the fire
place for lights.
We got our mail at Fort Stanton.
Father taught us reading, writing and arithmetic the first two years that we
lived on the Bonito and when we got enough neighbors they got up a three month
subscription school. It was in a one room log cabin and about a mile from our
house. We three older children walked to school. Later on the community got
together and built a nice one room school house at Angus, New Mexico.
The men put up the building and the women folks would go along each day and
cook dinner for the men folks.
After father left Fort Stanton
he got a job at the "V" Ranche as blacksmith for the Crees. Mr. and
Mrs. Pat Garrett lived on a ranche adjoining the "V" Ranche
and Mrs. Garrett gave birth to a baby girl and my father attended her at this
birth. This baby girl is the same Elizabeth Garrett who wrote our state song,
"O Fair New Mexico." While we lived on the Bonito father would make a
trip every fall to Las Vegas,
New Mexico and buy the calico for
our dresses, shoes stockings coffee, sugar and salt as that is all we had to
buy. We raised every thing else that we ate. We lived here eleven years. Father
sold this place to George Barrett and we moved to Nogal, New Mexico where we had better school
advantages. Father hauled freight from Socorro and Las Vagas, New Mexico with mule teams. Mother died in
1915 and Father died in 1921 in Nogal, New
Mexico. My father was born on a farm near Jefferson City, Missouri
in 1840 and was a confederate soldier during the Civil War. He fought in the
battle of Bunker Hill. My mother's maiden name
was Nancy Williams and she was born in Arkansas
in 1855.
While we were living at Nogal, New Mexico I met Linza
Branum and we were married June 6th, 1894. There were six children born to us,
three girls and three boys. Mr. Branum came to New Mexico
from Putman, Texas
and located at Three Rivers,
New Mexico. He had forty one head
of cattle and the first year he was here he branded two calves, the cattle
rustlers got the rest. After we were married we lived at Three Rivers for three
years. Then we bought a ranche in Coyote
Canyon, about five miles northwest of White Oaks, New Mexico, from J.P.C.
Langston who was deputy sheriff of Lincoln County
at that time. We moved all of our cattle from Three Rivers to this ranche and
lived there twenty nine years. In 1916 we sold this ranche and cattle to the
Warden Brothers and bought the I-X Ranche, near Oscuro, New Mexico
and lived there one year. We sold the I-X Ranche to E.O. Finley in 1917. We
moved to Carrizozo and built us
a large modern home. Five of my children graduated from the Carrizozo, High School. Mr. Branum
died May 3, 1925, at Carrizozo, New Mexico.
NARRATOR: Nellie Henley Branum,
Aged 61 years, Carrizozo, N.
Mex.
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