Jose Apodaca

Edith L. Crawford 

Carrizozo, N. Mex. 

Date: April 28, 1939 

Words: 900 

Topic: Pioneer Story 

Source of Information: Jose Apodaca, Carrizozo.N.M. 

[May 1939?] 

PIONEER STORY. 

My father was Severanio Apodaca and my mother was Juanita Sanchez, both were 
born in Old Mexico and were married there. They came to the United States soon 
after they were married. (I do not know when they were born or when they 
married or the year they came to the United States.) They came to Lincoln 
County New Mexico, about 1871 and lived at Picacho, New Mexico, for a while 
and moved from there to Agua Azul, New Mexico, (which in now called Blue 
Water, New Mexico.) Agua Azul in located on the south side of the Capitan 
Mountains. Father moved there about the year 1872, and took up a piece of land 
and built a two roomed hut on the place. 

He had a few head of horses and cattle and farmed the place. There was lots of 
wild game in the Capitan Mountains in those days and they always had all the 
fresh meat that they wanted. About the first of January, 1873, while my 
parents were living at this place, a friend of theirs by the name of Marcial 
Rodriguez came to go on a hunting trip with my father. They got up at day-
break one morning and went out to look for their horses. The men had to cross 
a flat which was between the mountain and a big arroyo. The juniper trees 
which covered this place had limbs that grew very close to the ground. While 
my father and Marcial were crossing this flat a band of Indians were hidden in 
the juniper trees, and as the men came out in the open the Indians began 
shooting at them. They hit Marcial in the back and my father in the leg. The 
two men fought with the Indians all

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day and an it began to get dark Marcial told Father to make a run for the 
arroyo and try to get away and save himself, an Marcial felt that he was going 
to die and there was nothing that Father could do to help him. It was best for 
Father to go for help. Father made a run for the arroyo with the Indians after 
him, but as it was dark he was able to get away from them. Father walked most 
of the night and came out at the Casey Ranch, which was about four miles north 
of Picacho. He told the Casey men about the Indians and that he had left 
Marcial Rodriguez seriously wounded on the flat at Agua Azul. Father was 
anxious to get back to his home and to my mother. 

The Casey's formed a posse and sent word up and down the Rio Bonito for every 
man that could go, to meet them at Agua Azul to fight the Indians. The posse 
left the Casey Ranch just at day-break and went an fast an possible to 
Father's house to see about my mother, who was expecting a baby. When they got 
there they found that the Indians had been there and taken my mother away with 
them. The posse, headed by my father, took up the trail of the Indians. When 
they got to the flat at Agua Azul they found the body of Marcial Rodriguez. 
The Indians had scalped him and cut off his right arm. The posse dug a grave 
and buried him where he lay. By this time several others had joined them and 
they started out after the Indians again. They overtook them at the west end 
of the Capitan Mountains and the Indians and posse had a fight. Several of the 
Indians were killed but some of them got away. Some one in the posse noticed 
two squaws on the side of the mountain and started after them. The two squaws 
had my mother and when they saw the white men coming and knew that they could 
not get away with my mother, they split her head open with an

{Begin page no. 3}

axe and the squaws made their get away. When the men got to my mother she was 
dead and they found that she had given birth to her baby, which was alive and 
a boy. The posse dug a grave and buried my mother right there on the mountain 
side. 

My father took the baby to Lincoln, New Mexico, and gave it to a woman named 
Tulia Gurule Stanley to care for. She raised this baby and called him Jose 
Apodaca. 

The Indians that killed my mother were the [Mescalero?] Apaches. My father was 
killed by the Harrell Brothers, on the Ruidoso River, about where the town of 
San Patricio, New Mexico, now is. My father was on his way to the Dowlin Mill, 
which was on the upper Ruidoso. He was taking a wagon load of grain to the mill 
to be ground. This was about a year after my mother was killed. 

The Harrell Brothers were from Texas and had settled on the Ruidoso River. 
They had trouble with the Mexican people over water rights, which terminated 
into what is known an the Harrell War. 

I grew up in Lincoln New Mexico and was married there to Evangelesta Gamboa, 
in 1900. There were no children born to us and my wife died in Lincoln in 1916 
and was buried at Raventon, New Mexico. I have lived all my life in Lincoln 
County. I am now living at Carrizozo, New Mexico. 

Credit: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project 
Collection.

Lincoln, Valencia

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