Steve McCarty's Blog (20)

I read the term "needle gun" all of the time, and finally discovered that it was an early term used for the Trapdoor Springfield Rifle. They long firing pin was called the needle.

Then I read that all rifles, fired by the use of a firing pin were also called needle guns. Someone described the rifle that Buckshot Roberts used to kill poor Richard Brewer as a needle gun. It was one of those fancy officer's model Trapdoor…

This was one of the first pictures that I found. It is very small, just over two inches high. It is also very clear and in excellent condition. No paper frame, however. I recognized the Patron's immediately, yet some question it...seems strange to…

I found this picture a few months ago and not where I found the others, provenance isn't as good, but the picture looks like Morgan photos (I've seen about a hundred of them in the town where he lived.)

Here you see the well known image and my new one. Same size face, same eyes, hair, ears (This'll make Janet happy.) mouth, etc... The known picture was probaboy taken in Missiouri, and the lower one in Lincoln County, I think at the Chisum…

Here you'll see several pictures of the Towry mom and her children. You can match them up I'm sure. Note that the women wear fancy hats and the boys have Easter baskets...Obviously taken on Easter. Tom Towry is not seen. I wonder if he died or took off. I just don't know.…

This is James Chisum, Sallie's father. There is a good picture of the two of them together when they were living in the little bungalo on the South Spring Ranch. The family lived on the SSR until 1892 as caretakers for the place. They lost it to creditors in 1890, or a little after. The picture in the Artesia Historical Society, run by Nancy Dunn shows Sallie wearing an apron and…

It seems nearly impossible to get any acceptance of these little tintypes, but I'll toss out this one. It's John S. Chisum, of course. It's my only picture of him, but as far as I know there are only three known pictures of Uncle John. So this one makes four.

When I first found this…

Here's Alexander A. McSween. Finally a picture of the fellow that looks like a picture and not a badly retouched image. If you match this to the known image you'll see many similarities. His eyes didn't line up, he had this swoopy doopy mustache, narrow nostrils and close set eyes. Alex was a red head and he was losing his hair. I found this within the group of tintypes that Sallie Chisum…

Here's a picture some of you guys might find interesting. I'm sure that you Billy fans have seen the fellow in the upper left before. It is the picture that was first published in Life Magazine in one of the early issues. It has been published many times as being an authentic picture of the Kid. I think I've got the same guy here, only a bit older, but how can we have two guys…

I read your posts and I appreciate what was said.

In my ongoing quest to get Janet to agree to my collection I am posting a tintype of Bob Olinger. I found this picture about two years ago and at the time I did not recognize Olinger. I filed it away. A few…

Since I'm being totally ignored I figure that you guys don't want to hear what I'm posting, so I'm outta here.

I enjoyed it however, but I'm tired of talking to myself.

When discussing the practice of scalping I harken back to an article on it written in an old copy of American Heritage, when it was still hardback.

The author said that there was no evidence of scalping in Europe, so it wasn't a practice brought across the pond and taught to the Indians. He also said that there have been Indian skulls uncovered over a thousand years ago that showed signs of being scalped. He also said that when the…

My goal all along has been to share my collection of LCW photos. While some collectors hord theirs I won't. I believe that the saga of Billy and his Regulator pals belongs to the American public and I'm doing my best to get them out there and into the public eye.

It seems to me that I have been frustrated at nearly every turn. I believed, naively, that when I first distributed the images on the net that the experts would cheer my find, but…

I wish that we could all agree on what Tom Folliard's real name was. We see his last name spelled Folliard, O'Folliard, Foliard, and O. Folliard. Now certainly he was given his name at birth, so what was it?

A fellow who studies this told me that there are no other O'Folliards on the face of the earth, therefore Tom's name must not be that one. He…

Now that I've copied my tintype of Tom Folliard about a hundred times, I've come to know his image pretty well, and it's obvious to me that he is the same Tom O'Folliard that we see in all of the books. In that picture he is much younger, probably a mid-teenager.

My picture has been out there for about three years now. Prior to it being shown it was thought by some that the known picture of Tom was bogus, but since my picture has been…

I've been studying my tintype of who I now believe is of Henry Brown. I cannot believe how lucky I was to find it! My knowledge of what George W. Morgan pictures looked like helped.

I matched it up with the picture of Brown and Waite in Nolan's book and my picture of Brown is perfect.…

I'm wondering how long Houston Chapman was hanging round Lincoln before he was murdered. I know he was Susan McSween's lawyer working on her case against Col. Dudley and his doings that led to Alex's death. He hooked up with him at his law offices in Las Vegas.

Does anyone out there know?

Late entry: I believe that I've answered my question re: how long Chapman hung around Lincoln. I was re-reading…