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Focus
JOSEPH C. LEA AND THE LINCOLN CONNECTION
Elvis E. Fleming
Capt. Joseph C. Lea
Photo courtesy of Elvis E. Fleming, archivist of Historical
Society for Southeast New Mexico
Elvis E. Fleming, author of Captain Joseph C. Lea, From
Confederate Guerrilla to New Mexico Patriarch, gave a presentation
and book-signing in the beautiful setting of Lavender Spring Ranch at Arabela in
the Hondo Valley Saturday, August 17. The hosts, Beth and Cliff Crouch, served
guests lavender tea and cookies. Fleming's talk about J.C. Lea, known as the
patriarch of Roswell, was well-received and he sold 25 autographed copies of his
various historical books that he had with him.
The history of J.C. Lea's ranch headquarters, then named Agua Azul
Ranch, was included in Fleming's talk. Lavender Spring Ranch is now the setting
of what had been Lea's Agua Azul Ranch. (Aqua Azul means blue
water.)
Following is the history of Lea's ranch and some of his other
holdings, excerpted from the notes of the talk Fleming gave at Lavender Spring
Ranch, which he titled J.C. Lea and the Lincoln Connection:
"The federal government program which made
it possible for Lea to buy public lands, started in 1870, when lands along the
Canadian and Hondo rivers were offered at auction. Later, it was opened for 'private
filing.'
Victor
Westphall, in his article in the New
Mexico Historical Review (January 1958), states:
… extensive
purchases at private entry were made by Joseph C. Lea along the Río Hondo from
its source to its junction with the Pecos River. From 1879 through 1885, he bought
13,386.98 acres. Other members of
the Lea family bought more than 2,400 acres in the same area.
Lincoln County
deed records indicate that one major purchase was the ranch of Saturnino Baca,
prominent Hispanic leader in the county.
Lea had a very active ranch almost from the beginning, with vast land
holdings and thousands of cattle and numerous herders and other workers.
But Lea wanted
to expand his operation. In 1883,
he organized a partnership with several other people, none of whom lived in New
Mexico. This company was the first
“Lea Cattle Company.” The other
partners furnished the finances, while Lea earned his twenty percent interest by
working as general manager for the company. Few records of this company are known to
exist.
Two years
after forming the partnership, Lea set his sights on still bigger stakes. Horace K. Thurber was a wealthy
investor in New York. Like so many
Eastern businessmen, Thurber was fascinated by the idea of investing in Western
cattle ranches. Together with John
C. DeLany, post trader at Fort Stanton and former partner of Will Dowlin in
Lincoln, Thurber incorporated the El Capitan Land and Cattle Company in April
1885.
Lea contacted
Thurber with an optimistic proposal for another big ranch at the same time that
Thurber and DeLany were forming their company. The articles of incorporation of Lea
Cattle Company include the names of Horace Thurber, Lea, DeLany, and Charles S.
Thurber, Horace’s brother. The
document, dated April 20, 1885, declares that the purposes of the corporation
were '… breeding, raising, buying and selling cattle and other domestic animals,
and buying and selling merchandise.'
The capital stock was $1,000,000 in ten thousand shares. The letterheads and bonds of the company
pictured cattle and horses bearing the 'L-E-A' and 'H-K-T brands. They called the ranch 'Agua Azul Ranch,'
after a pool where one Jesús Maes had settled in 1878 at the eastern foot of the
Capitán Mountains. The letterhead
defines the company range as 'Agua Azul, Rio Hondo, and Rio Pecos, Lincoln
County.'
The
corporation designated Fort Stanton as its headquarters. Thurber invested $500,000 in cattle and
another $250,000 to buy additional land with water rights. On June 26, 1885, the old Lea Cattle
Company sold 3,364 acres of ranchland to the new Lea Cattle Company for
$250,000. The new company bought
116 horses and mules from the old company. Thurber’s money was used for the
operation of the ranch as well as buying land and water rights. Lea sold nine thousand cattle to the
company for a quarter-million dollars.
The company paid Lea $90,000 for 1,440 acres of his land, the largest of
several such transactions.
The expansion
of Lea Cattle Company was quite successful. On September 7, 1885, the Las Vegas
Daily Optic stated, 'Captain Lea controls fifty miles of river frontage and
numerous springs in Lincoln County.' The ranch ran 30,000 to 50,000 head of
cattle. George Curry wrote that
after he was elected assessor of Lincoln County in 1890, he found that the Lea
Cattle Company ranch, with 40,000 cattle, was the largest cattle owner in the
county and probably in the Territory.
They also used the open range public lands, where their cattle ran
more-or-less together with everybody else’s cattle.
The cattle
company soon started plans to develop and sell their lands to farmers and other
settlers, so the Roswell town-site was platted in 1885. Because of existing
buildings, there are some irregularities in the blocks and a slight
disorientation of Main Street from the compass.
An important
development was irrigation ditches to ensure that Lea’s lands would have access
to water. In 1879, he began to
build diversion dams to take ditches out of the North Spring River, which flowed
just north of the town-site.
Four of the ditches built by Lea and his numerous partners continued to
flow across downtown Roswell well into the 20th century.
While he was
developing his ranch and related projects, Captain Lea married for the third
time on April 29, 1889. Mabel Doss
Day was a widow and the proprietor of a large cattle ranch (77,550 acres) in
southwestern Coleman County. She
was known statewide as the “Cattle Queen of Texas.”
The cattle country had
summer droughts and winter blizzards from 1885 to 1887. The bottom fell out of the cattle
market, and only those with large holdings and plenty of cash reserves were able
to survive. Lea apparently
continued to build his cattle empire even in the face of low cattle prices.
Improvement in the
finances of the cattle country was painfully slow. A severe drought hit the southern plains
in 1892-93, adding to the problems.
Finally, the Panic of 1893 ended the recovery.
The Lea Cattle Company
was already taking actions to escape financial ruin. They agreed in October 1892 with J. J.
Hagerman of Colorado Springs to sell to Hagerman all of the company’s land and
water rights in Chaves County outside of Roswell for $100,000. The transaction consisted of more than
sixty-five tracts of land, plus total or partial interest in seven different
irrigation ditch systems. In March
1893, the purchase of 11,004 acres was completed; this was not “all” of the
company’s lands in Chaves County, as called for in the earlier motion. Other tracts were sold to Hagerman over
the years from 1894 to 1900.
The reason for the
sell-off was that Thurber gave up hope of ever recovering the hundreds of
thousand of dollars he had invested in New Mexico. He stopped all funding and let the
ranches fend for themselves.
Apparently,
the company’s Chaves County business, after the 1893 transactions, consisted of
buying and selling farmland and city lots. What these developments portended for
the future of the Lea Cattle Company is unknown. The Lea Cattle Company owned thousands
of acres of land in Lincoln County, but in the absence of records it is not
clear what the status of the company ranch was in that county.
The cattle
company had issued 150 bonds to H. K. Thurber on July 1, 1885, but they ceased
redeeming coupons, payable semi-annually with 6% interest, after 1891. The company continued to wind down for
several years. In a letter to his
wife in November 1903, Lea indicates that he was disengaging from his business
connections and planning to move to Texas where his wife was living. He never made the move; he died in
February 1904.
After Lea’s
death, there were some hot disputes between his widow and his daughter over his
estate. While the wrangling was
going on, the Lea Cattle Company finally bit the dust. The principal financier of the company,
Horace Thurber, apparently died within a year or two of Captain Lea's
death. Thurber’s widow, Nancy
Thurber, filed suit for the bonds and coupons: $232,500.
On February 9, 1906,
the Fifth District Court in Roswell found in Mrs. Thurber’s favor and ordered
the sheriffs of Chaves and Lincoln counties to seize “all of the assets” of the
cattle company to satisfy the claim.
It took a while to figure out just what the assets of the company were,
but it was soon determined that the company’s assets in Lincoln County were much
more extensive than those in Chaves County. Some 185 tracts of 40 acres each,
totaling more than 7,000 acres, ranged from just east of Fort Stanton, scattered
along both sides of the Río Bonito and Río Hondo, mostly south of the Hondo, and
eastward to the Chaves County line.
Lincoln County Sheriff John Owen offered the land for public auction at
the front steps of the courthouse in Lincoln on August 7, 1906. Others bought small acreages, but the
vast bulk of it went to Nancy Thurber for her high bid of $9,876.
In Chaves County there
were four tracts of 40 acres each plus some city lots that belonged to Lea
Cattle Company. Sheriff K. S.
Woodruff offered the lands at auction to the highest bidder on the front steps
of the courthouse in Roswell on August 18, 1906. Nancy Thurber bid $5,839 and received
title to the property.
Mrs. Thurber
was thus able to salvage some of the property that her husband had financed more
than twenty years earlier. Thurber
earned the dubious distinction of being one of the biggest financial losers in
the cattle-grazing business.
================================
The development of the
Pecos Valley caused a demand for new counties by the late 1880’s. Lincoln County was so large that it was
inconvenient for people of the Valley to do business at Lincoln, the county
seat. Capt. Lea took the lead in
the movement to create two new counties: one in the vicinity of Roswell and one
in the vicinity of Eddy. The bill
creating Chaves and Eddy counties became law on February 25, 1889.
The first building in Roswell, originally a hotel built
by Van C. Smith, it served as the J.C. Lea home as well as a boarding house.
Photo courtesy of Elvis E. Fleming, archivist for Historical Society for
Southeast New Mexico.
Meanwhile, Lea was
busy developing his town. Roswell’s
population was 343 in the census of 1890.
Roswell was incorporated as a town in July 1891.
Lea and his
third wife Mabel initiated the founding of Goss Military Institute in Roswell in
1891. It became New Mexico Military
Institute in 1893, and is still one of the nation’s foremost military
academies.
Lea was more
than the Father of Roswell. The
many recognitions bestowed upon him during his lifetime reflect the high regard
that his fellow New Mexicans had for him.
After his death, his friends continued to honor his memory. The most notable monuments to him are
Lea Avenue in Roswell, Lea Hall at NMMI, Lea Lake at Bottomless Lakes State
Park, and Lea County, created in 1917.
J. C. Lea
started his adult life as a Confederate guerrilla and went on to become a
large-scale cattleman in New Mexico and the patriarch of Roswell and Chaves
County."
Lea, Bonney and Co.; this photo of the store, one of the
first four buildings in Roswell, was taken in 1883. Photo courtesy of
Elvis E. Fleming, Archivist for Historical Society for Southeastern New
Mexico. Based upon this photo, Fleming has doubts the
building was adobe, as most people have believed. In photo, construction appears
to be some type of concrete block.
ADDITIONAL ARABELA HISTORY
Old school house at Arabela
THE FRESQUEZ FAMILY AT ARABELA
The following additional information about the property now
called Lavender Spring Ranch, and adjacent lands, was provided by a Roswell Web
Magazine correspondent, Ernesto Fresquez, a former Roswell resident who lives in
California. Members of Ernesto's family still own land in the Arabela
area.
What is now the Lavender Spring Ranch had previously been the
Lucero Ranch, had been the homestead of Ernesto's grandmother, and was where his
grandparents lived. The ranch was sold by Aristeo Lucero, Ernesto's uncle, about
four years ago to Cliff Crouch. That ranch borders the Fresquez Brothers
Ranch, which is situated above it. The former Roswell Independent School
District superintendent, Amarante Fresquez, is Ernesto's brother. Ralph
Fresquez, the recently appointed Roswell City Councilor, is also a relative. "I
tell you, everybody (who lived) up in the Arabela valley is related," said
Ernesto.
Ernesto's sister, Martha, and brother, Amarante, were born in
Arabela. Their parents helped run some Hondo Valley ranches. His other brother,
Melvin, was born in the Hondo Valley. Then in the 1950s, their family moved to
Roswell where Ernesto was born.
Their parents were Bonifacio and Lucille Lucero Fresquez.
Ernesto's grandparents on his maternal side were Amarante Lucero, born 1887 in
Arabela, and Rebecca Villescas, born 1893. His great-grandfather, Doroteo
Lucero, was born and attended public schools in Conejos, Colorado, and moved to
New Mexico in 1880. He settled in Lincoln County, married Simodosia Maes in
November, 1883. Doroteo was elected probate judge for Lincoln County in 1908,
and held that position until 1917. Source of this information (provided by
Ernesto) is from the 1913 Year Book of Lincoln County, New Mexico.
Pablo Fresquez, the grandfather of Ralph Fresquez (Roswell's
newest City Councilor), and Rumaldo, great-grandfather of Ernesto, were
brothers. They were the sons of Vicente Fresquez, born in 1831 in Taos, New
Mexico. Vicente, serving with Company S of the New Mexico Mounted Volunteers,
came to Lincoln County to fight in the Indian wars.
******
The following information on the Leopoldo Pacheco home,
pictured above, was given by Rosemary Sisneros and the quotations marks shown
were included with the history she provided. Her husband, George, is the son of
Pablita Fresquez Sisneros. Until her retirement, Rosemary was the librarian at
Roswell's Mesa Middle School.
This house, seen from the Arabela road, was the Leopoldo Pacheco
home. Native rock veneer was added to this adobe house after Leopoldo's marriage
to Pablita (Pauline) Fresquez Sisneros. That was the second marriage of both
Leopoldo and Pablita; both had lost their first spouses to the 1918 influenza
epidemic. The house is currently owned by their daughter, Sally Pacheco. Prior
to his death in 1965, Leopoldo had a 50 section sheep ranch. The white stucco
building in the foreground is the "new store with filing station gas pump" that
replaced Leopoldo's original "mercantile/feed store/post office, which is across
from the "new" store.
NEW MEXICO MILITARY INSTITUTE
RWM
Like the annual migration of monarch butterflies, and the return
of swallows to Capistrano, cadets return each August to the campus of Roswell's
New Mexico Military Institute.
NMMI Public Relations officer, Major Nelson Miller, remarked to
your editor during a late spring interview a couple years ago, that the
heartbeat of the Institute stops when cadets depart at the end of the school
term. That warm and poetic remark evoked a unique viewpoint. Spring is their
fall when the Institute prepares for hibernation for their winter, which is
summer when the cadets are gone. Fall is their spring with the rebirth of the
Institute campus each new school year.
NMMI Superintendent's Residence in the foreground and the
Clock Tower and other campus buildings in the background. Photo taken January 1,
2002, the only snowfall of the year. Cadets were away on Christmas-New Year's
holiday. The campus was lifeless; it's heartbeat had stopped but would soon beat
again.
Roswell and the New Mexico Military Institute first welcomes to
its campus the Bronco football players and its cadre, which are the old cadets
designated to provide RAT leadership and training. The cadre spends
several days in training and preparation for the arrival of the RATs. Then come
the RATs, which is cadet slang for Recruits in Training. RATs are easily
distinguished by their whitewalls -- the closely clipped sides of their heads,
never before exposed to sunlight. Whitewalled RATs are at first seen emerging a
little uncertain, but one day, like butterflies coming back to a familiar place,
they will return to Roswell as seasoned old cadets and cadre to prepare the new
uncertain batch of incoming new cadets. Following RAT matriculation and RAT
Week, the yearling and old cadets, who have already experienced some NMMI
life, return and complete their matriculation. The school's athletes quickly
kick off the year with volleyball, soccer and football games.
New Mexico Military Institute is a state-supported school that
operates under a Board of Regents appointed by the Governor. Its superintendent
is its chief executive officer. The academic program is under the dean, and
assistant dean who is also the high school principal.
The Corps of Cadets has its own chain of command responsible to
the Commandant of Cadets and his/her staff. The Cadet Commandant exercises
direct command supervision over the Corps of Cadets, and he and his staff are
responsible to the superintendent for the organization, control, discipline,
training, health and welfare of the Corps.
NMMI academically offers its cadets a high standard of high
school and junior college education. The Corps is comprised of six classes,
first through sixth; those are, in reverse order, high school freshmen (cadet
6th class), high school sophomores (cadet 5th class), high school juniors (cadet
fourth class), high school seniors (cadet third class), college freshmen (cadet
second class) and college sophomores (cadet first class).
Throughout its long history, NMMI has welcomed cadets from all
parts of the world, and in 1977, welcomed its first female cadets since its
earliest days as Goss Military Institute. New cadets meet many challenging
experiences and requirements. Leading that list is to be a person of integrity,
and to develop leadership skills. First, before becoming a leader, a cadet
must learn to be a follower, to obey orders of his superiors. The moral or
academic failure of a cadet reflects adversely upon all members of his
troop and his superiors.
A cadet is taught social graces, to be courteous and to address
adults formally. He is expected to succeed, to be proficient in every academic
subject at the highest capable level, and to be the best that he can be
physically and morally. Cadets must adhere to the NMMI Honor Code -- they must
not lie, cheat, steal, or engage in any form of academic dishonesty, nor
tolerate those who do. Violation of the Honor Code might result in
suspension or dismissal.
In other words, it is not easy being NMMI cadets, especially new
ones, but they take away with them the education, lessons and leadership skills
learned, and the close friendships acquired, into their military, graduate
school, business or corporate futures, and those things remain with them the
rest of their lives.
New Mexico Military Institute, began in 1891 by Joseph C. Lea as
Goss Military Institute, has come a long way. It has had and continues to have a
noble history and has produced, and will continue to produce, many nationally
known athletes as well as noteworthy leaders in varied endeavors, not only on
the military battlefield.
New Mexico Military Institute's long-standing tradition of duty,
honor and achievement has benefited not only the cadets of NMMI and the Roswell
community, but has had far-reaching effects around the world for the
majority of its 110 years.
***
In the past, your editor has been an ambassador parent to two
or four cadets a year. The purpose of the Ambassador program, which is under the
supervision of the Cadet Social Hostess, is to give cadets, especially new
cadets from distant states and foreign countries, a sponsor in Roswell. During
the rare times that cadets are given free time off post, it provides them a home
environment, home-cooked meals and sense of family nearby. Far more cadets want
to participate in this program than there are Ambassador families available.
This opportunity to meet fine young men and women is a rewarding and recommended
experience.
RWM
NMMI Alumni Memorial Chapel -- photo taken Jan. 1,
2002
BEWARE
We have just received the following Virus Warning by Email:
Trojan Horse posed as Antivirus Upgrade: a virus in disguise is
on the loose.
An Email claiming to be an antivirus program update instead
contains a Trojan horse that automatically installs a virus. Kaspersky Labs is
warning that an Email spoofs a Microsoft.com corporate Email account and claims
to be an upgrade to the Kaspersky virus-fighting program, but contains a Trojan
horse. Once clicked, the attachment installs a backdoor Trojan called Apher. The
program gives a remote user access to affected computers, then automatically
installs a virus called Backdoor.Death.25. For more information on this,
see the ABC News article (the following link takes you to that article published
on the Internet:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/TechTV/techtv_trojanvirus02807.html
Below is a poem about another type of computer virus.
THE VIRUS DANCE
by Joyce
Abrahamson
The other day a message came by e-mail just for me.
The
subject line of love aroused my curiosity.
I should have left that mouse
alone, I’m sorry I did click.
The one who sent their love to me, played me a
dirty trick.
Hidden in the words of love that danced upon my screen
A
malicious love virus danced in there unseen.
It danced into my documents and
sent them far and wide.
Some to folks unknown to me, who angrily
replied.
It danced into my address book and randomly chose names,
To
receive the words of love that make computers lame.
I quickly sent a message
out to all names on my list,
“Please don’t open mail from me, loves virus
does exist.”
Then I clicked on disconnect to stop the virus dance,
But now
the bug was in control, the PC had no chance.
I shut it down and pulled the
plug and took it to the shop,
Hoping they would find the way to make the
dancer stop.
I called them in the morning and I called again at
noon
Hoping that my sick computer sure would be well soon.
“Your
computer’s better now, of that I have no doubt.
It really was a tricky job to
chase that virus out.”
Other words of wisdom the repairman said to me,
“Be
sure your Norton’s up to date, so you’ll be trouble free.”
After my
experience, these words I know are true,
Having a computer virus isn’t like
the “flu.”
Who knows what evil lurks out there, just waiting for the
chance
Of sneaking in with your e-mail to do a virus
dance.
Captain Joseph C. Lea: From Confederate Guerrilla to New Mexico
Patriarch, the new book by Elvis E. Fleming, is available at the Historical
Society for Southeast New Mexico, 200 N. Lea Avenue, and also at Cobean's
Stationery, 320 N. Richardson Avenue, Roswell. The book sells for $25, with over
260 pages plus 66 illustrations. It was published by Yucca Tree Press in Las
Cruces, in cooperation with, and to benefit, the HSSNM.
The author, Fleming, is city historian, member of and archivist for
Historical Society for New Mexico, as well as Eastern New Mexico
University-Roswell professor of history, emeritus.
Rwm
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