A historic hearse that’s believed to have carried the Previous West lawman recognized for killing Billy the Child to his grave is now a part of the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A historic hearse that’s believed to have carried the Previous West lawman recognized for killing Billy the Child to his grave is now a part of the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum.

The hearse was the one one accessible in Las Cruces when Pat Garrett was fatally shot in a dispute over a southern New Mexico ranch. That has created the widespread perception that the horse-drawn wagon delivered Garrett to his closing resting place.

“The possibilities are if his household determined they wished to place him in a hearse, they put him on this hearse,” mentioned Leah Tookey, the museum’s historical past curator.

However there is not any photographic proof and Garrett’s household was poor.

“The percentages are simply pretty much as good they in all probability put him behind their farm wagon and drove him to the cemetery,” Tookey mentioned.

Nonetheless, the hearse possible will draw curiosity in Garrett, who rose to fame when he was appointed sheriff of Lincoln County in what was then the territory of New Mexico and captured Billy the Child. After escaping, Garrett tracked down the Child at Fort Sumner and killed him in 1881.

“So many individuals and generations will get to see it right here,” mentioned Dona Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart. “I really like historical past and this must be preserved and displayed in one thing that is greater than an workplace area.”

The hearse has modified arms many instances through the years. It was on the Historic Museum of Lawmen within the foyer of the Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Division workplace till not too long ago when the museum closed. The museum acquired it from the late Las Cruces resident Cal Traylor, who had an curiosity in Garrett.

Garrett died in 1908 and is buried on the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces.

The Girls’s Enchancment Affiliation of Las Cruces owned the one hearse on the town from 1894 to 1912 and rented it to native residents for $10 — half of which went to the native livery steady to pay for the horse, driver and feed. The affiliation purchased it from a ranch close to Las Cruces. It had chickens roosting within the cargo mattress and was in want of restoration.

Earlier than that, individuals had been utilizing an ice wagon to move the useless.

Tookey mentioned the hearse might be displayed within the heritage museum’s important gallery together with a chuck wagon, milk wagon and farm wagon. The museum plans so as to add the names of different outstanding Las Cruces residents who died across the similar time as Garrett as a part of the show.