Before I start reading Masha Gessen’s “Surviving Autocracy” (ahem), I’m futzing around with some little books on NM ghost towns. Seems there’s always been plenty of strangeness around in “these here parts.”
Such as…
Elizabethtown sits at the base of Mount Baldy. (<I liked writing that.) It was once a thriving mining town and a man named Charles Kennedy ran a rest stop here, along with his young wife and 9yo son. You know, just a normal, respectable family man, right? But no, not so fast because…he killed 14 of his guests in their sleep, robbed them, and burned or buried them in the backyard. His little operation was running along just perfectly fine until one of the guests asked if there were any natives in the area, and his young son piped up, “Can’t you smell the one Papa put under the floor?”
Whoopsie. Kennedy was so enraged, that he smashed the kid’s head into the stone fireplace and killed him. The visitor was shot to death. The hysterical wife was locked in the cellar. And Kennedy drank himself into a stupor. The wife managed to escape through the chimney and walked 15 miles to find help. When they heard the story, the “townsfolk” were outraged. Charred remains and skeletons were all over the yard. He was arrested. He had a corrupt lawyer. But then there are different accounts of “the end.”
SOME SAY the two gunslingers in charge (Clay Allison and Davy Crockett, who was the grand nephew of the famous DC), put a rope around Charles’ head, attached him to a horse, and was dragged through the town until his head fell off. OTHERS SAY Allison chopped the head off with his bowie knife and stuck it on a pole in front of the St. James Inn. In either case, Kennedy’s body was buried without a head. Apparently, he had killed more than 100 men including 2 of his own children and was one of the state’s first serial murderers. I guess there’ll be plenty more to learn about!
By the way, Allison was somewhat notorious himself. He fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, had a reputation for violence including knife fights and gun fights, jail break-ins, lynchings, and a couple of killings. THEY SAY (who are all these old timey people saying things?) that once he got so drunk he rode his horse through town naked - wearing only his gun belt. He also accidentally shot himself in the foot. And he died at 45yo, when a sack of grain fell off his wagon and as he tried to catch it, he fell too and the wagon wheel rolled over him, breaking his neck. Geesh.
There are so many things I could say about this story…ahhh the good old days…when men were men…a nation born of violence…bad vs. evil…and on and on. But I’ll leave others “to say” what needs to be said because I said enough!
Sweet Dreams, kiddos.
Charles Kennedy, the Serial Murder (left) and Clay Allison, the Notorious Gunslinger (right)
