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Show By ELMO SCOTT WATSOW fRESS dlspntches recently chronicled the death in Japan of Dr. Henry F. lloyt who was on his way home from the Philippines where he had been revisiting the scenes of his career ca-reer as chief surgeon of the United States army there during the Filipino Insurrection. The brief mention which these dispatches made of his earlier career in the West gave only a slight intimation of the thrilling stories which he could tell of the old days when there was a frontier In America. Fortunately, however, for a posterity of Americans Ameri-cans who seemingly can never learn enough of those epic days, he left behind hlru a record of his part in "the winning of the West," and in the book, "A Frontier Doctor," published recently by the Houghton Mifflin company, there is additional proof of the fact that frontier history was made quite ns much by less picturesque but more important im-portant personages than the long-haired, buckskin-clad Bills and Dicks and Sams of dime novel fame. Before his death Doctor Doyt claimed the unique distinction of being the only man alive who had had dinner simultaneously with two characters who come nearest being the '"American Itobln Hood" Jesse James and Billy the Kid. But his claim to fame does not rest alone on this distinction, dis-tinction, which tft Romp mlrht ho n ilmtMful inn indeed. That was but a minor incident In the career of this "frontier doctor" but It is indicative indica-tive of the wealth of experience that was his. For he was a poineer In more senses than one. He was the son of a'ploreer and spent a pioneer boyhood boy-hood on a farm near what Is now the city of St. Paul, Minn. He served as a rodman in one of the pioneer surveying parties along the northern frontier. fron-tier. He was the first doctor to locate and practice prac-tice his profession in the Texas Panhandle. He was a passenger on the first stage coach to run from Bismarck, N. D. to Der.dwood, S. D. He opened the first drug store In Bernalillo, X. M.. n typical southwestern frontier town. lie was the only chief surgeon wounded on the battlefield in the Spanish-American war nnd he was the first person to utilize Chinese coolies as litter bearers in the United States army. Around that framework of pioneering achievements achieve-ments can be built a life story which symbolizes pretty well the history of America durinc the Inst sixty years. Few passages In the writing of today, either fact or fiction, have summed up more adequately or more dramatically the amazing transformation of a countrv from n rnw lvllrinr. ness to a modern, highly civilized community than the opening paragraphs of "A Frontier Doctor" which read as follows: During State Fair Week In September 1927, I vlaited a flylngr-neld at the southeast corner of Snelllnjr and Larpenteur Avenues. St Paul. Minnesota. Minne-sota. Planes were humming' through the air In every direction, when suddenly a young woman dropped from one as It passed over, a parachute unfolded, and ehe made a graceful landing but a few paces from the spot where I first appeared on the screen of life. Tn Ifir, i M. ft,. I o.u . ... -ww., ..... ;s iiciu wan a typical Minnesota farm, owned by my father, Lorenzo Hoyt, who had arrived In Minnesota, as a pioneer In 1S3. Our farm then was practically a eelf-suniclng unit. Not only did we raise all our own food. Including a coffee substitute composed of several varieties of parched cereals, but we even provided our own clothing by raising and phearlng our own sheep, carding the wool and spinning it, and on our own loom making our own cloth. There were no railroads In St. Paul In those early days. All our transportation wau by stage or steamboat. Two of my uncles were rlvermen and one of my pleusures wis driving down to the levee at tho- foot of Jackson Street to meet the boats coming up-river. from New Orleans. Sometimes as my father and I sat in the buggy watching the unloading un-loading of. tho boat, very often a fine looking-, strongly featured young man would come over and chat with us. This was James J. Hill, then working work-ing as a freight clerk at forty-five dollars a month. Many yars later, when, by his remarkable foresight fore-sight and acumen, he had rUen to bo one of the great railway magnates of the country,, the head of the Great Northern Railway Unco, I became chief surgeon of all his properties. Young Hoyt's father was not able to provide funds for a college education, so the boy set out to win one for himself. His first Inclination was to hecome a civil engineer and his first Job was with a surveying party sent out by the St Paul and Pacific railroad. In 1873 he secured a place with the government expedition which was sent out to survey the boundary line between the United States and Canada from the Lake of the Woods west to the foothills of the Rockies. The military escort for this party was a company of the Twentieth infantry nnd two troops of the Seventh Sev-enth cavairy, commanded by Captains Weir and Keogh. Three years later Doctor Hoyt was to learn of the death of Captain Keogh at the hattle of the Little Big Horn and to hear that his horse "Comanche," which young Hoyt admired sn much during this surveying expedition, was the sole survivor of Custer's command which rode Into that "Valley of Death." After a series of exciting adventures with this sun-eying party. Including several attacks by Indians In-dians and narrow escapes ,froni death In both prairie fires and blizzards, young Hoyt returned to nls home and decided to become a doctor After completing his course of study in that profession MMrWf BiUy- from, Billy theKicT ifllli 11 I ie1 clency of Its kind. How or where guns were con. Xi W$$l! feWi cealed was never qulto understood, but their own- 1 KJ . iFJfLil- ' ers a11 ree43tere1 chagrin when they learned they Ere&fir!'- KltjjL--- were barred at all future Romero ballcs. he begun looking around for some "live town" In which to start his practice. Ills selection was Deadwood in the Black " Hills which was at that time (IST7) at Its heyday ns a gold camp. But in Deadwood men did not die of lingering Illnesses. They usually died quickly and with their boots on. So It did not take the joung doctor long to decide that prospecting offered more opportunities opportuni-ties than doctoring Accordingly he tried his hand at that hut after a short time tired of it nnd drifted south into New Mexico. Arriving at Fort Sumner, the young doctor's first patient was William Maxwell, son of Luclcn B. Maswell of the Maxwell Land Grant fame, who was suffering from a case of malignant smallpox and whom he was unable to save. Further down the Pecos valley he made the acquaintance of John Chlsum. "the Cattle King of New Mexico," famous for his part In the Lincoln County war which started Billy the Kid on the road to notoriety. noto-riety. To young Hoyt the cattle king suid: "Doc, over yonder is the Panhandle of Texas, a big vfuijuj, tun ui uii vinuifiiiic i smaiipox nnd no doctor. There's the place you're looking for." So to the Panhandle the young doctor went and began practicing In Tascosa. one of the wildest wild-est of the wild cow towns In the old days. But he soon found that Chisum's prophecy was too optimistic. The smallpox epidemic was soon over, the Panhandle was not "full of people" and there was little for him to do. So the next Incident Inci-dent In his career was securing work as a cowboy under W. C. (Bill) Moore, former outlaw bnt now the stinerlntendMir nt iha i v T.n, n. i . - ... lull. II, IMC scjiiur foreman of the LX was an even more famous character Charles A. SIringo, later noted ad a peace oilicer, detective and author. After a short career as a cowboy, Hoyt returned to the practice of his profession in Tuscosa and in the fall of 1S7S he made the acquaintance of Billy the Kid, who . wag just then assuming the leadership of the gang which was so soon to spread a trail of red across the Southwest Of this Doctor Hoyt writes: Konney was then eighteen years old. a handsome youth with smooth face, wavy brown hair, an athletic and symmetrical figure, and clear blue eyes that could look one through and through Unless angry he always seemed to have a pleasant pleas-ant expression with a ready smile. Ills head was wen shaped, his features reguliw, his nose aquiline, his most noticeable characteristic a slight projection projec-tion of his two upper front teeth. . . . Ellly was an expert at most western sports and dissipations with the exception of drinking, Much has been published of his exploits during drinking bouts, but it Is my opinion they are mostly fiction. I never knew of his taking a drink of liquor all the time ho was In the Panhandle. To tell the truth, .this fact helped to make me friendly with the outlaw, for I was a teetotaler myself. Reared In strict Christian principles, I had never touched liquor. Bedoubtahle as was this notorious outlaw, there was one accomplishment In which the young fron- , tier doctor excelled him. He Lells of It as follows: On a beautiful moonlight night a bnlle fdance) SliVr,,ff? at the.hom Don Pedro Romero, rtllf ?d ,J ?tcPPed t to enjoy it and Incidentally Inci-dentally strolled across the plasa, about one hundred hun-dred yards In width, to Rlnehart'a store opposite. Returning I challenged the Kid to a footrace to the dance hall. I found he could run much faster than, the Sailor" (a local sprinter whom Hoyt had defeated In a race some time previously) but I led him all the way. As we neared the door 1 Blacked up. while Billy kept on at full speed through the door. Mexican adobe houses, for somo reaxon. have a threshold aout a foot high, and as the Kid flew through, the heel of one of his cowboy boots caught on It. landing him at full length on the floor In the middle of the ballroom. Quicker than a flash his prostrate body was surrounded by hla four pals, back to back, with a Colt's forty-five In each band, cocked and ruady for business. The Kid's unconventional entrance was to them an indication of something wrong, and their lightning exhibition of preparedness showed wonderful ffl- ine acquaintance between the young outlaw and the young doctor ripened Into friendship of a sort and Hoyt won the regard of the Kid by presenting pre-senting to him a ladles' gold watch which he had won In a poker game and which the outlaw wished to give to his Mexican sweetheart Attached At-tached to this watch was n long chain of braided hair and In the only known photograph of Billy the Kid, two strands of this chain can be plainly seen crossing his shirt front The result of this gift was a somewhat surprising one. When Hoyt decided to leave the Panhandle and go to Las Vegas. X. M.. Billy the Kid presented him with his favorite horse, "Dandy Dick," and In order to protect noyt In case his ownership was ever questioned, also wrote out and gave to him a formal for-mal bill of sale. This bill of sale, which Doctor Hoyt preserved to the day of his death, Is one of the few known specimens of Billy the Kid's handwriting hand-writing In existence. At that time, the origin of "Dandy Dick," a fine Arabian and well-known locally as a race horse, was a mystery. The Kid never would tell where he got him although he did admit that "there's a story connected with him." Years later. Doctor uirwugu correspondence Willi diaries A. SIringo and James Brady, court Interpreter at Car-rizozo, Car-rizozo, X. M., learned that the horse had once been owned by Major Murphy, one of the leading figures In the Lincoln County war, who had presented pre-sented it to Sheriff William Brady of Lincoln county. Brady was riding "Dandy Dick" when he was killed by the Kid I When noyt arrived In Las Vegas, he found that boom town at the "end of steel" on the Santa Fe railroad, which was then building through New Mexico, was "iuu or doctors." Anxious to secure money to continue his medical studies he put afide his scruples against gambling and "threw in" with two men In opening a faro game. But at ' the end of a month all three were broke nnd Hoyt next took a Job as a bartender In a hotel. While engaged in this occupation he had a part In the historic dinner with Billy the Kid and Jesse James. Xear Las Vegas was a famous hot Bprings and a hotel, noted throughout the country for Its dinners. din-ners. Sundays always drew a big crowd there Writes Hoyt: cki.! "e Sunday nJ found at a corner table the only vacant scat In the room. Glancing at the three guests already there, I was perfectly t0 recSn,ze the one on my left as BUlv tho Kid, urbane and smiling as ever. We shook hands, but neither mentioned a name. Wo were chatting away of old times in Texas as if we were a couple of cowboy friends, when the man on Eonnoy's left made a comment on something some-thing he said. Whereupon Bonncy said "Hoyt meet my friend, Mr. -Howard from Tennessee." The fourth man had nearly finished his meal when I Bat down, and soon retired. Mr Howard had noticeable characteristics. Ho had piercing steely blue eyes with a peculiar blink, and the tip of a finger on his left hand was missing. I mentally men-tally classed him as a railroad man. He proved to be congenial, was a good talker, had evidently traveled quite a bit. and tho meal passed pleasantly. pleasant-ly. After dinner we separated and Eilly, taking me to his room, gave me, after pledging me to secrecy, one of the surprises of my life. Mr Howard How-ard was no other man than the bandit and train robber, Jesse James. I was skeptical but Billy soon convinced me It was true. Some other unwritten history which Doctor Hoyt reveals for the first time In his hook In reading re-ading this Incident Is the fact that Jesse James made Billy the Kid nn offer to Join forces. But Billy had no desire to engage In bank or train , robbery cattle rustling ond horse stealing beiuj his favorite diversion. More than that, Joining forces with the Missouri outlaw would take him away from "tha magnet nt Fort Sumner" (his Mexican sweetheart) and for these two reasons he turned down Jesse James' offer. It requires a vivid Imagination Indeed to visualize the possible pos-sible results If these two redoubtable outlaws had joined forces I |
