Tom Black Jack Ketchum Death

• Tallulah Bankhead
• Tom Black Jack Ketchum Death Scene

Buildings on the south side of Folsom, New Mexico, by Kathy Weiser-Alexander

Situated on the Dry Cimarron Scenic Byway, Folsom is a semi-ghost town sitting at the junction of New Mexico Highways 325 and 456 in Union County, New Mexico.

1. This is the absolutely definitive book about the Sam and Tom 'Black Jack' Ketchum gang, and about their vagabond life and that of their outlaw acquaintances, at the end of the 19th century. Five hundred and four page hardback including 100 pages of source notes.
2. Aug 22, 2019 Dark-complected and dark-haired Tom was called 'Black Jack' after another swarthy gang leader, Black Jack Christian (who was was killed in Arizona in 1897). The Ketchum Gang included Will Carver and Elzy Lay, outlaws who had ridden with Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch. The gang robbed stores, post offices, stagecoaches, and trains.

When we traveled this route last time the 'Dry Cimarron' River, actually was flowing with water. By Kathy Weiser-Alexander.

Why You Should Pay a Visit: Along with his brother Sam, Thomas Edward Ketchum, better known as Black Jack, led the train-robbing Ketchum Gang. During an 1899 train robbery that he tried to pull off on his own, Black Jack got shot in the arm, which had to be amputated. Back in the late 1800s, Tom 'Black Jack Ketchum' was a classic Old West outlaw, part of a posse that robbed and killed its way across New Mexico and Texas. He was finally arrested and sentenced to death by hanging in Clayton, NM.

Lying in the wide Cimarron River Valley and surrounded by buttes, mesas, and old volcanic cones, this area was long utilized as hunting grounds for the Comanche, Ute, and Jicarilla ApacheIndian tribes.

The first white settlement in the area was Madison, settled in 1862 and named for its founder, Madison Emery who built a cabin at the site. As more families arrived, homes, stores, and other businesses sprang up and Emery also erected a rough hotel. In its early days, Madison was the nearest settlement to the 'Robbers' Roost' just north of Kenton, Oklahoma, which was home to a band of outlaws led by Captain William Coe in the late 1860s. When the outlaws sensed a raid on their 'Roost', they would often hide out in Madison. Coe was eventually caught in Madison by the US Cavalry with the help of Emery Madison's wife and step-son. He was taken to Pueblo, Colorado to await trial, but was lynched by a group of vigilantes before he had a chance. After Coe was captured and killed, the rest of the gang must have scattered because they were never heard from again.

In 1877 a post office was established at Madison. The coming of the Colorado and Southern Railroad in 1887 killed the settlement because the line bypassed the town. Madison's post office closed in 1888. Today there is little physical evidence that it ever existed except foundations of an old grist mill.

The Colorado and Southern Railroad cut across the northeast corner of New Mexico in the late 1880s and many of Madison's former citizens moved to the new town that sprang up about eight miles to the northeast. The railroad was the only one in the northeast part of the state until 1901. The community was first called Ragtown because the shelters and business establishments were all tents. When the bride-elect of President Grover Cleveland, Francis Folsom, stepped off the train to explore the little town during a whistle-stop, the townspeople were smitten by her charms and the town was named for her. Folsom gained its post office in 1888 after Madison's closed.

One of the first citizens in Folsom was W. A. Thompson who was the proprietor of the Gem Saloon and deputy sheriff. Arriving from Missouri, where he had been charged with murder, he quickly racked up a lurid record in Folsom. He was said to have shot and killed a friend because he visited another saloon. On another occasion, enraged at a boy for taunting him, Thompson chased the boy with a six-shooter and when he failed to catch him, turned his guns on a fellow officer and a customer emerging from a store, killing one of them. Though Thompson was captured and tried in Clayton, New Mexico he was acquitted and went to Oklahoma, where he was said to have killed another man.

Late in the 1880s, two Dallas investors put together nearly $50,000 to build a mineral springs resort just east of town. Their plans included a hotel on the edge of a canyon and the building of a dam to create a small lake for fishing and boating. When Hotel Capulin was almost complete, the investors got into a dispute and dropped the project completely. Afterward, the investors never returned and the magnificent hotel was abandoned. Locals then used the building for parties, vagrants moved in, and bits and pieces were taken for the structure for other building purposes. The flood of 1908 finally washed away what was left.

Old homestead in Folsom, New Mexico by Kathy Weiser-Alexander.

The town prospered in its early years with the largest stockyards west of Fort Worth, Texas and a number of land speculators working in the area. Numerous homesteaders moved in and established farms and ranches. The area cowboys and farmers relied on the town for supplies and a taste of civilization. The town boomed with as many as 1,000 people in the area and the town responded with hotels, restaurants, supply stores, two mercantile stores, doctors, newspapers, and three saloons. Three school houses were built after the first two burned.

On September 3, 1897, the Ketchum Gang held up the train near Folsom. Sam Ketchum and several other men held up the train at the same site on July 11, 1899. A posse caught up with them in Turkey Canyon and a fight ensued in which Sheriff Edward Farr of Walsenburg, Colorado was killed. Sam Ketchum and Elza Lay were wounded as were five of the eight members of the posse. Henry M. Love, another posse member died of his wounds four days later. Sam was taken to the penitentiary at Santa Fe where he died of his wound. Elza Lay, who had made his escape, was later sent to the New Mexico Territorial prison

On August 16, 1899, Tom 'Black Jack' Ketchum tried to hold up the train at the same place by himself and was seriously wounded by the conductor, Frank E. Harrington. Ketchum was picked up beside the tracks the next day. His arm was amputated on September 9 while he was awaiting trial. He was hanged on April 26, 1901, at Clayton, New Mexico.

By the early 1900s, the area was still doing well but the town's population had fallen as many of the homesteaders found that the area proved unsuitable for farming

In 1908 the town had a new telephone switchboard which was operated by Sarah J. Rooke in her home on the edge of town. Sarah was an older unmarried woman. On August 27, 1908, Sarah answered her buzzer to hear a voice shouting that a flash flood was racing down the river and would strike the town within minutes. Sarah rang one phone after another warning people to get out of town before the water hit. She was still sitting at her switchboard when her own house was swept from its foundations and her body was later found eight miles below the town. Most of the town's buildings were carried away and 18 people, including Sarah Rooke, drowned. She was buried at the Folsom Cemetery south of town. A granite monument with a plaque was erected by her fellow workers. This was not the first flood in the town, as a report in the Folsom Metropolitan reported on another damaging incident in August of 1890.

A flash flood in 1908 exposed this archaeological site near Folsom, New Mexico. The site was named for the nearby town of Folsom.

Shortly after the flood if 1908, George McJunkin, an African American cowboy, amateur archaeologist and historian, who was working as a foreman on the Thomas Owens Pitchfork Ranch, discovered remains of a giant prehistoric bison in Wild Horse Arroyo about eight miles west of Folsom. Though it would be years before the site was excavated, when it finally was, archaeologists found 32 skeletons and at least 26 spear points, now known as 'Folsom Points'. This discovery changed the thinking in the world of archaeology, pushing the presence of man in North America back by at least 5,000 years to 12,000 years. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

Slowly, most of the homesteaders gave up as the weather turned drier. The remaining farmers accumulated the abandoned land into larger plots. However, as the area continued to suffer from drought, most of the farming holdouts gave up as well. Cattle and sheep ranchers bought up the farmlands that eventually returned to pasture.

A high school operated briefly in Folsom, but it only graduated three students in 1931. Folsom's elementary school closed in 1958, at which time the students were transferred to Des Moines, New Mexico. The school still stands and is used today for community events. By 1960, Folsom was called home to 142 people. The Doherty General Merchandise Store, built in 1896, stayed open until 1959.

Now a semi-ghost town, Folsom is a pleasant ranching community, called home to about 60 people and several historic buildings. The old 1888 railroad station was moved from the right-of-way around 1970 and is now used as a storage building and next to it, on the corner is the old Texaco gas station which was built sometime before 1946. Across the street is the Doherty Mercantile building, which became the Folsom Museum in 1966. The abandoned stone two-story Folsom Hotel still stands on the south side of Main Street along with several false-front stores.

On the north side of Main Street, is an active post office. St. Joseph's Church continues to provide services at 118 N. 2nd Street and a cemetery is situated east of the church.

Folsom is located 36 miles east of Raton on New Mexico Highway 72.

The Capulin Volcano National Monument, rising to an elevation of 8,182 feet, is located seven miles southwest of Folsom on New Mexico Highway 325.

The Dry Cimarron Scenic Byway continues north from Folsom on New Mexico Highway 456.

Tallulah Bankhead

Folsom Falls, New Mexico, courtesy Wikipedia.

About 3.5 miles northwest of Folsom, is the site of Folsom Falls, a natural spring-fed waterfall, which long served as a favorite fishing hole and picnic grounds for area residents. Unfortunately, it sits on private land behind a gate and the public is no longer allowed to visit today.

About eight miles north of Folsom, Highway 456 intersects with Highway 551. North on 551 is Toll-Gate Canyon where Charles Goodnight trailed many herds of cattle from Texas to Wyoming from 1866 to 1869. Between 1871 and 1873, Bazil Metcalf constructed a toll road from the Dry Cimarron through Tollgate Gap, providing one of the few reliable wagon roads between Colorado and New Mexico. This road remained an important commercial route until the Colorado and Southern Railway came through in the 1880s.

© Kathy Weiser-Alexander, updated March 2020.

Also See:

Sources:

Folsom Village
Miller, Joseph; New Mexico – A Guide To The Colorful State, Arkose Press, 2015
Varney, Philip; New Mexico's Best Ghost Towns: A Practical Guide; University of New Mexico Press, 1987

Thomas E. Ketchum (October 31, 1863 – April 26, 1901), known as Black Jack, was a cowboy who later turned to a life of crime. He was hanged in 1901 for attempted train robbery.

First train robberies and murders

^[1] Tom Ketchum was born in San Saba County, Texas. He left Texas in 1890, possibly after committing a crime. He worked as a cowboy in the Pecos River Valley of New Mexico, where by 1894, his older brother, Sam Ketchum, had joined him.^[2] Black Jack and a group of others were named as the robbers of an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway train that was en route to Deming, New Mexico Territory, in 1892 with a large payroll aboard. The gang supposedly robbed the train just outside Nutt, New Mexico Territory, a water station twenty miles north of Deming. Black Jack and his gang would often visit the ranch of Herb Bassett, near Brown's Park, Colorado, who was known to have done business with several outlaws of the day, having supplied them with beef and fresh horses. Herb Bassett was the father of female outlaws Josie Bassett and Ann Bassett, who were girlfriends to several members of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang. One of Ann Bassett's boyfriends and future Wild Bunch gang member, Ben Kilpatrick, began riding with Black Jack's gang about that time. Outlaw 'Bronco Bill' Walters, later noted for the legend of his 'hidden loot' near Solomonville, Arizona, is also believed to have begun riding with the gang at this time.

The second major crime attributed to Tom was the murder of a neighbor, John N. 'Jap' Powers, in Tom Green County, Texas, on December 12, 1895. However, information at the Sutton Historical Society in Texas, says that Will Carver and Sam Ketchum were the ones actually accused of killing Powers in Knickerbocker. Fearing the law, they closed their joint saloon and gambling venture in San Angelo, and hit the outlaw trail. Within six months, Mrs. Powers and her lover, J. E. Wright, were arrested for the murder, but it was too late for Carver and the Ketchums.

By late 1895, outlaw Harvey 'Kid Curry' Logan and his brother Lonnie Curry were members of Black Jack's gang. However, in early 1896, a dispute concerning their share of robbery loot prompted the Currys to leave the gang.

It is alleged that Ketchum was involved with the February 1, 1896, disappearance and presumed murders of Albert Jennings Fountain and his son Henry Fountain of Las Cruces, New Mexico. In early June 1896, after working for the famed Bell Ranch in New Mexico, Tom and Sam Ketchum, and possibly others, robbed a combined store and post office at Liberty, New Mexico, northwest of present-day Tucumcari. According to contemporary accounts, the Ketchums rode into Liberty on June 12 and purchased supplies. That evening, a thunderstorm began, and they returned to the store, owned by Morris and Levi Herzstein, who invited them to take shelter.

Returning the next morning to open his store, Levi Herzstein found that both the store and post office had been burglarized. After gathering a posse, Herzstein set out on the outlaws' trail. The posse, composed of just four men, took the two outlaws by surprise in the Plaza Largo arroyo, where a shootout immediately began. Seconds later both Levi Herzstein and Hermenejildo Gallegos lay dead. Seeing his comrades fall, Anastacio Borgue turned his horse and rode out of the arroyo. Placido Gurulé, the fourth member of the posse, also survived to give an account. Gurulé said he had been struck by a .30-30 bullet that knocked him off his horse. He landed on the ground with a blow that knocked the wind out of him. He lay in a semiconscious state as Black Jack Ketchum emptied his rifle into the bodies of Levi Herzstein and Hermenejildo Gallegos. Tom and Sam Ketchum were never tried for the killings at the Plaza Largo arroyo, but Morris Herzstein reportedly was present in Clayton, New Mexico Territory to witness the hanging of Black Jack Ketchum in 1901.

Morris Herzstein moved to Clayton shortly after the killing in Liberty, and finally into the Texas Panhandle area. This is memorialized by the inscription on a shoe brush: Herzstein's Clayton, New Mexico -- Dalhart, Texas. If it's from Herzstein's it's correct. Morris was the father of Albert Herzstein, who became one of the founders of Big 3 Industries in Houston, and is the man who helped the museum in Clayton to become a reality years later.

Joining the Hole-In-The-Wall gang

Following this event, Thomas Ketchum joined other outlaws of the Hole in the Wall Gang and continued a life of crime, focusing on train robberies, although when not robbing trains they worked for several ranches in New Mexico and Texas. Several other notable outlaws operated out of Hole In The Wall, which was a hideout for numerous outlaw gangs which operated separately. The famous Wild Bunch gang, led by Butch Cassidy and Elzy Lay, operated out of there. One Wild Bunch gang member, Kid Curry, along with his brother Lonny Curry, had previously ridden with Black Jack Ketchum and his gang. He and Ketchum did not like each other, and Ketchum avoided Curry as much as possible, as Curry was well known to be the most dangerous of the Wild Bunch gang, and would kill nine lawmen over the course of the next eight years.

During this time, Tom Ketchum was once identified mistakenly as 'Black Jack' Christian, another outlaw, and that became his nickname as well. Three of the train robberies that the gang committed were near the same location, between Folsom and Des Moines, New Mexico Territory. This was at the point where the old Fort Union wagon road crossed the Colorado and Southern Rail Road tracks near Twin Mountain.

On September 3, 1897, they committed their first robbery at Twin Mountain. Then, on July 11, 1899, the gang, without Black Jack, robbed the train again at Twin Mountain. After the robbery, Sam and several unknown gang members, in addition to Wild Bunch gang members Will Carver and William Ellsworth 'Elza' Lay, headed for the mountains southwest of Raton, New Mexico Territory. The next day, a posse consisting of Sheriff Ed Farr of Huerfano County, Colorado, Special Agent W.H. Reno of the Colorado & Southern Railroad, and five deputies found their trail and tracked them into Turkey Creek Canyon near Cimarron, New Mexico. There, the posse engaged them in a gun battle. Sam Ketchum and two deputies were wounded seriously, and the gang escaped.^[3]

Sam Ketchum's wounds slowed the intended escape, and they made it only a short distance from the initial shootout. Several members of the posse cornered the Ketchum gang a few days later, still in the same area of the Territory. Deputy W. H. Love ^[4] and Sheriff Ed Farr ^[5] engaged the outlaws in another gun battle, resulting in both Farr and Love being killed, while the posse wounded at least two unknown members of the gang. Sam Ketchum escaped, but was found a few days later by Special Agent Reno at the home of a rancher, where he was arrested.

Tom Black Jack Ketchum Death Scene

Sam Ketchum was taken to the Santa Fe Territorial Prison, where he died from his gunshot wounds. He was buried in the Odd Fellows rest Cemetery, now the Fairview Cemetery on Cerrillos Rd. in Santa Fe.

'Elzy' or 'Elza' (William Ellsworth) Lay was born November 25, 1868, Mt Pleasant, Ohio. Lay had come out west to Denver, and became an outlaw after mistakenly believing he had killed a man. Jailed for life after the killing of Sheriff Farr after the Folsom robbery, he was released in 1906. He returned to Alma, New Mexico Territory and lived there for two years. He stayed with Louis and Walter Jones, who in 1904 had built a large merchandise store at Alma. Elzy died aged 65 in Los Angeles, on November 10, 1934.

Capture and death

On August 16, 1899, Tom Ketchum, supposedly knowing nothing of the July 11 hold-up which ended in the death of his brother Sam, single-handedly attempted to rob the same train again at the same place and in the same way that he and Sam and others had robbed it just a few weeks earlier. The train conductor, Frank Harrington, saw Tom approaching the moving train. He recognized him, grabbed a shotgun, and shot Tom in the arm, knocking him off his horse. The train continued, and the next day a posse came out and found Tom beside the tracks, badly wounded. He was transported to medical facilities at Trinidad, Colorado, and his right arm had to be amputated. He was nursed back to health and then sent to Clayton, New Mexico Territory, for trial.^[6]

At the trial, Ketchum was convicted and sentenced to death. He was the only person ever hanged in Union County, New Mexico Territory (now Union County, New Mexico). He was also the only person who suffered capital punishment for the offense of 'felonious assault upon a railway train' in New Mexico Territory (which did not become a state until 1912). Later, the law was found to be unconstitutional.^[6]

Ketchum was executed by hanging in Clayton. Nobody in Clayton had any experience in conducting hangings; the rope was too long, and since Ketchum had gained a significant amount of weight during his time in jail, he was decapitated when he dropped through the trap door.^[7]

His last words were reported by the San Francisco Chronicle as: 'Good-bye. Please dig my grave very deep. All right; hurry up.'^[7]

A popular postcard was made showing the body. Afterwards his head was sewn back onto the body for viewing, and he was interred at the Clayton Cemetery.

Western actorJack Elam portrayed Ketchum in an episode of the 1954–55 syndicatedtelevision seriesStories of the Century, tales of the American West starring and narrated by Jim Davis.

See also

Jeff Burton, Dynamite and Six-Shooter: The Story of Thomas E. 'Black Jack' Ketchum, Sunstone Press, Box 2321, Santa Fe, NM 87504-2321, 2007

Blackjack Ketchum, Desperado, Movie with no relationship to the true life of Ketchum.

References

1. ↑'NEW MEXICO LEGENDS Train Robber - Black Jack Ketchum'. Legends of America. Retrieved December 29, 2014.
2. ↑Texas State Historical Association (TSHA)
3. ↑'Tom Ketchum and His Gang'. History Net. June 12, 2006. Retrieved December 29, 2014.
4. ↑'W.H. Love'. Officer Memorial Page. Retrieved December 29, 2014.
5. ↑'Ed Farr'. Officer Memorial Page. Retrieved December 29, 2014.
6. ↑ ^6.06.1'Ed Farr'. tumblr. Retrieved December 29, 2014.
7. ↑ ^7.07.1San Francisco Chronicle, 27 April 1901 - Digital Copy.

External links

• The Spradley's Home Page at www.hal-pc.org
• 'Thomas Edward 'Black Jack' Ketchum'. Western Outlaw. Find a Grave. January 1, 2001. Retrieved December 22, 2015.