Members History and Friendships
The Regulators were formed out of numerous small ranch owners in the Lincoln area. Many of those who became best known as "Regulators" had a long history with one another previously. William Bonney aka Billy the Kid would become the best known, most likely due to the notoriety of his name, received due to news accounts that readily attached his name to everything the Regulators did. The Lincoln County War brought him to the front, but several of the other Regulators were actually the driving force behind the events, and had a history of killing alongside one another prior to the war.
Ab Saunders, Charlie Bowdre, Doc Scurlock, and the two Coes had previously killed rustlers together. On July 18, 1876, that group had stormed the Lincoln jail, removing horse thief Jesus Largo, and hanging him. Ab Saunders and Frank Coe had tracked down cattle rustler Nicos Meras, shooting and killing him that same month in the Baca Canyon. Their association with McCarty began when, in the spring of 1876, at the time known as either Henry Antrim or William Bonney, Henry moved to Lincoln County and began working for Doc Scurlock and Charlie Bowdre at their cheese factory. He later worked, for a time, for rancher Henry Hooker, and then for Ab Saunders and the Coe's on their ranch. By the time the Lincoln County War came along, those main core members, referred to as the "iron clad", were all more experienced and closer to being actual "gunmen" than was McCarty.
Read more about this topic: Lincoln County Regulators
Famous quotes containing the words members, history and/or friendships:
“Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.”
—Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835)
“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You have known your friend so long and loved him so much, and then all of a sudden you are so mad at him, you say, I could just kill you and you still like each other, because you have always been friends and you know in your mind you are going to be friends in a few seconds anyway.”
—Anonymous Twelve-Year-Old. As quoted in Children’s Friendships by Zick Rubin, ch. 3 (1980)