Written by
Melvin Wiley Jones (1857-1933) of Tucson Arizona
[original document also hand signed by Melvin
Jones]
As told to Mrs.
George Kitt 1932
Arizona Historical Society, Library Archives,
Tucson, Arizona
Melvin Wiley
Jones is my great grand uncle.
rhaefner@kc.rr.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BILL GRAHAM and HOW HE COME TO BE DUBBED CURLEY
BILL
In 1878 - 79, A man by the name of Rosenthal
with headquarters in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had a
contract with the government to supply a large
number of cattle to the San Carlos Indian
Agency. He had in his employ as a cattle buyer
and boss a man by the name of Jim Longwell. Jim
was an experienced cattleman, and a gentleman
and a scholar. He could rope and tie a big steer
down, wet and rub the hair down to read a dim
brand as quick as a real expert. He bought
cattle from many ranges and kept a large herd at
a corral and camp five miles above the San
Carlos Indian Agency and kept herders there to
herd them and drive small bunches to the Agency
on days they issued beef to the Indians.
Considerable numbers of cattle got away from the
herders and strayed along the Gila River. We had
cattle of our own that I looked after, and Jim
Longwell gave me a job and a list of brands to
look after the strays from their herd.
It was about November 1878 that Longwell sent me
a letter that he had a large drive on the road.
That would be due at Camp Thomas in about ten
days, that they would rest one day at the box
mesa three miles above Camp Thomas, for me to
get as many of his strays located as possible to
take on with the drive to San Carlos. During the
time until they arrived, I had put in the time
riding up and down the river looking through the
cattle at their watering places, and knew about
where to find them. So we rounded in fourteen, I
think was the number that had brands on them
like on the list Jim had given me. Jim wanted me
to go with the herd through to the San Carlos
camp which was about thirty-five miles and taken
three days to drive the cattle through, then
several days counting and tallying out different
brands. I was with the outfit one week. In the
drive that come through with the cattle there
was ten herders and two men with the grub wagon.
Jim Longwell was with the drive for a while each
day and told them where to camp. The herders
were an agreeable and easy bunch to get
acquainted with. One young fellow by the name of
Frank Brigham could sing cowboy songs and play a
harmonica, and he kept one or the other a going
about all the time while driving the cattle
along. Occasionally some one would sing out,
"He’s my fair haired Billy boy." Then some one
of them would yell out, "You lie, he my curley
Billy boy." I heard that for two or three days.
And I knew it was some kind of joke on the one
they called Bill, because while he did not get
much mad, he occasionally cussed some of them.
I got a chance to ask Frank Brigham, the
songbird they called him, what the joke was they
were running on Bill. He said on their way out
with the drive, a bunch of them went one night
to a saloon dance house and a woman sang a nice
song to them, and the chorus in part was "My
fair-haired Billy boy." That after the song,
Bill had been dancing with a Spanish girl that
could not talk much English, and after the
dance, the woman that sang put her hands on
Bills head and sang, "He’s my curley-headed
Billie Boy." That made the Spanish girl mad, and
she flared up beside the woman and said, "You
lie he my Curley Bill boy," and the two women
started to fighting. That was I am sure the
beginning of the name "Curley Bill" for Bill
Graham. His brother George was with him at this
time. They came from Texas. The name William
Brocious was given by Bill Graham when he had to
go on trial for the killing in Tombstone.
The names of two others that was with the drive
were Tom Norris and Dick Lloyd. The others must
have gone back to Texas. I never met them
afterward and have forgot their names. Dick
Lloyd was killed in Jack O’Neals saloon at Camp
Thomas, about two years after the drive to San
Carlos. I happened to be at the killing, and was
one of the coroner’s jury. There was in the
saloon at the time of the shooting Jack O’Neil,
proprietor, Barney Clark and Pete Brewer,
bartenders, Curley Bill Graham and his brother
George, John Ringo, Joe Hill, Tom Norris, Jimmie
Hughes, old man Hughes, Charley Dook, and two
others that I can’t remember their names. Jack
O’Neil claimed he acted in self-defense and done
the shooting. Anyway, I am sure that, while
Curley Bill Graham looked on he did not fire a
shot at Dick Lloyd. They were good friends. I
saw and heard of Curley Bill Graham for more
than two years, and I will add a little more to
this to tell where I saw him the last time and
what he said.
We had located a ranch on the headwaters of the
Gila River about fifty miles from any other
ranch, and started to drive our cattle from the
Camp Thomas ranch to the new ranch, about Nov.
1879. We got as far as the settlement on the Rio
San Francisco near where town of Alma and found
out that the Indians were raiding the upper Gila
River country so bad that we were afraid to go
on to the new ranch. And turned our cattle loose
there to let then drift with thousands of other
cattle, And to gather them. Again at the next
Springs roundup.
It was in June 1881, my brother and me were at
the new ranch building a log house and corral
and watching for Indians. One could stay at that
ranch for weeks without ever seeing anyone, and
it was best to keep close to his shooting irons
and watch for Indians all the time. One evening
at dusky dark, we heard horses feet coming up
the trail. Our fire had not all gone out from
getting supper. We grabbed our guns and got back
of the log wall. When at the point of a hill a
short distance away they saw the light of the
fire and stopped. I said to them, "Quien es?"
One of them spoke and said they were prospectors
and were coming there to camp. We invited them
to come on and camp with us. After they unpacked
their packhorse, unsaddled and hobbled out their
horses and come back around to campfire light, I
saw it was Curley Bill Graham and Russian Bill
Tattenbaum. Curley Bill had a bad wound in his
face and was looking for a quiet place to rest
and get well. We asked no questions, but he
explained it all by saying that a damned fool
over at Galeyville let a six-shooter go off and
the bullet hit him in the face. He was very thin
and bony faced and looked sick.
After resting there two or three days and I had
told them of an old deserted sheep ranch house
on the Negrito Creek that emptied into the Rio
San Francisco not far from the Don Louis Baca
Plaza where they could buy provisions. They left
for that place. About four weeks later we were
near the Baca Plaza gathering up some of our
cattle and I met Curley Bill Graham riding a
good horse and leading another packed with his
bed and outfit for camping. His wounded face was
about entirely well and he was looking well and
healthy. We had quite a long talk. He said that
he was leaving Arizona forever. That if he tried
to stay, he could not expect anything else but
trouble. That with the damned name, Curley Bill
and the notoriety that came from the accidental
killing of Marshal White in Tombstone, if he
tried to stay in Arizona and New Mexico, he
would be blamed for every crime committed, no
matter how far from it he was.
He cursed the Earp that hit him over the head
with the six-shooter, I believe he said Virgil
Earp, and said if he had kept off, there would
not have been any trouble between him and
Marshal White. He said it was the last time I
would ever see him in this country that if I
ever saw him anywhere again, to remember he was
my friend and his name was not to be Curley
Bill. He had been in Arizona about two years,
eight months. He was a typical west Texas cowboy
without any education at all, working for
thirty-five dollars a month and board when he
first came from Texas. He made no pretense of
being a gambler, not even to set in a poker game
with ordinary players. He would drink sometimes,
even to getting drunk. He helped drive cattle to
the San Carlos Agency a number of times, I know
some of the times he was working for wages. He
might have helped steal cattle and drive them
from Old Mexico, he might have committed other
crimes, that I never heard of. I do know that on
his first drive into Arizona he accidentally got
with the notorious name "Curley Bill" which
spread among the cowboy element as wonderful
joke. And in October, 1880 he strayed into
Tombstone and got arrested for the accidental
killing of Marshal White, and was struck over
the head by one of the Earps, when he was
surrendering to Marshall White and was put in
jail, taken to Tucson, tried and cleared. The
records show Marshall White killed October 1880.
The courts in those early times never was in a
hurry to get bad ones out of jail, so it would
be a safe bet that Bill had about three months
to nurse his sore head and get sober before his
trial and release from the Tucson jail. Then in
the spring 1881, a few months after getting out
of jail at Tucson, he was shot in the face at
Galeyville, which laid him up for the summer, up
to the time he left Arizona forever. So during
the two years and eight months that Curley Bill
was in Arizona, when were the years and months
that he played such a high hand as one writer
describes, saying, "He rode at times with thirty
or forty tall fellow’s at his back, and it was
said he could gather a hundred men at arms
within a day if needful occasion arose, All the
outlaws of southeastern Arizona owed some sort
of Allegiance to him."
Old timers complain that writers want historical
facts, and when they tell the writers a true
story, they want to set a lot of names of old
timers. The old timers can hardly recognize his
story as being what he told when the writer gets
his book finished.
Take the story, for example, of the killing of
Mexican smugglers in Skeleton Canyon. That story
in fifty years has been multiplied by a large
number – at least fifty times. The tenderfoot
writers seeking historical facts about bad
outlaws of fifty years ago, have been badly
misinformed about who the worst outlaw element
was fifty years ago. They invariably take out
the cowboy element of fifty years ago the worst
outlaws of the west, when in fact the worst
outlaws were men that very seldom ever owned a
horse or saddle. It suited them better to rent a
horse from some livery corral when they wanted
to make a run out into the country and rob a
stage or holdup someone who they had been
informed by some of their pals, had a little
money. They would do anything in town rather
than go on a ranch and work as a cowboy. They
were called Tinhorn gamblers, Cappers and
Rounders for gambling games, Bartenders, and
Dealers of games, and were forever trying to get
to be deputy sheriff, or constable, or deputy
anything, so that they would have the authority
to carry a six-shooter and could swagger around
among the people and always be on the lookout
for tips as to when money was being sent out or
coming in. The Cappers and Rounders for gambling
games were forever on the look out for some one
just come to town that had money. They had many
ways to work together to rob. They usually knew
each other from other boomtowns, by names that
they had given each other like one had a big
mouth, they called him Catfish. Another when he
got money he wanted to make a big splurge they
called him Highroller. Another they called Crazy
Horse because when he lost a bet he stomped
around over the' floor.
One was called Bronk, other, Babe, Pony Deal,
Brockey Jack, Buckskin Frank, Johnny behind the
Duece, Big Dan, Blackjack and Pete Spence, one
of the most treacherous robbers and murderers
that ever was to in any town. There were dozens
of them, all belonged to the Tinhorn element
that is they tried to live by gambling, but
would commit any crime for money.
They were the element that owed allegiance to
each other. They would gamble and fight among
themselves, even to killing each other, but very
seldom would they give one of their kind away to
the law. Tombstone in its boom days had an over
supply of that Tinhorn element, and my verdict
is that from seeing and knowing the actual
conditions that the Earps and Doc Holliday were
of that same element.
As for the Clantons, Ike was no cowboy. He was
more a teamster. He liked to drink and gamble,
and would talk bad when drunk but was harmless.
Any officer that wanted to be honest and do his
duty would have put him in jail to get sober
without any trouble.
Neither Ike Clanton nor his brother Billie nor
Frank and Tom McLowery, had ki1led any one, or
robbed any stages. As officers of the law the
Earps had no legal right or excuse for killing
them the way they did.
It has been my belief for the many years that
Frank McLowery knew something on the Earps. And
it was him especially they wanted out of their
way. And through the drunken talk Ike Clanton
made, and urged on by Doc Ho1liday, they got
their chance to get one out of their way they
had been wanting to get rid of. Tom McLowery had
come to town with a spring wagon to get
groceries and didn’t know that Ike Clanton had
been there in town several days, drunk and
blowing off about what a bad fighting man he
was. Billie had come after his drunken brother
to take him home. And they were all getting
ready to leave town when a mob of four, Wyatt,
Virgil, and Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday, four
of them on three, Billie Clanton and Frank and
Tom McLowery, and yelled, "Throw up your hands!"
and began shooting at the same time. Tom
McLowery was not armed; Billie and Frank had
six-shooters but threw up their hands wanting to
surrender. And the brave gang of four went on
shooting with sawed off shotguns and
six-shooters until they killed all three, one
being a young boy, and one being entirely
disarmed, and the other wanting to surrender.
And some writers want to call the leader of that
mob, Wyatt Earp, a Hero.
Written by Melvin W. Jones of Tucson Arizona
[document also hand signed by Melvin Jones]
[Transcribed by Clay Parker 12/10/2000. There
was a lot of grammatical errors in document and
someone (Jones?) later corrected it. This
document reflected the version with the grammar
corrected.]
