Nellie Henley Barnum [Branum]

Edith L. Crawford, 

Carrizozo, N. Mex. 

1684 words. PIONEER STORY 	Nellie Barnum

I was born on a farm in Delta County, Texas, in 1877 and I have lived in 
Lincoln County, New Mexico for fifty eight years. I was four years old when my 
father, Thomas W. Henley, my mother, one half sister, two brothers and myself 
left Delta County, Texas in October, 1880 for Roswell, New Mexico. We traveled 
in a covered wagon with a chuck box in the back, a cow hide stretched under 
the wagon for our cooking utensils and two kegs tied on the sides of the wagon 
for our water. We carried all of our provisions and bedding and the six of us 
all rode in the one wagon which was drawn by two small mules. We slept on the 
ground at night and mother did all the cooking over a camp fire. She made sour 
dough bread and baked it in a dutch oven. We children gathered buffalo and cow 
chips for our fuel. When we made camp at night we kids would get our two sacks 
and start to gather up the chips. We had a tin can with a spout on it. Mother 
put an old rag in the can and pulled part of it through the spout and poured 
grease in the can and that gave us our light. 

We were always on the look out for Indians but we didn't see any until we 
reached Lincoln County, New Mexico. We brought all of our own smoked meat with 
us. We saw Buffalo and Antelope but they were too far away for father to kill 
one. The plains were awfully dry and hot when we crossed them. But we had no 
trouble in finding watering places. We crossed the Trinity River on a ferry 
boat driving the wagon on the boat we were drawn across by hand 

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with a large rope. As we came to the small streams we camped on them for the 
night and washed what clothes we had dirty and would be on our way as father 
was in very poor health and wanted to get to his father's home in Roswell, New 
Mexico as quickly as possible. Father's ill health was the cause of our 
leaving Texas and moving to New Mexico. My grandfather and grandmother moved 
to New Mexico in 1879 for grandfather's health. They owned a farm where the 
town of Boswell now stands. Their houses on the farm were called "Chosas" 
(which means dug-outs) in those days. They dug down in the ground about three 
feet and built it up with posts to about four feet above the ground and filled 
in between the posts with mud. They had dirt floors and dirt roofs. We arrived 
at my grandfather's late in November, 1880, and lived in their home that 
winter. In the spring of 1881 mother and father left us children with our 
grandparents [?] and they came on up to Fort Stanton, New Mexico, which was a 
military post in those days, father took up a homestead five miles west of 
Fort Stanton on the Rio Bonito. Father was a school teacher and practiced 
medicine in Texas. He was not a licensed doctor but he had gone to a medical 
school in St. Louis, Missouri, but on account of finances he had to quit 
before he graduated. He practiced with an older doctor while in Texas and he 
always did all that he could for the sick is long as he lived. In those days 
there were very few doctors and most of the farmers that lived around close to 
us always sent for father. They paid him whatever they felt like giving him as 
he never set a price.

There was a lot of stealing and killings going on in Lincoln 

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County at that time. Billy the Kid had been captured and was on trial in Las 
Cruces for the killing of Sheriff Brady. He was convicted and brought back to 
Lincoln, New Mexico in April where he killed his two guards and escaped, to be 
killed by Pat Garrett in July 1881. 

Father and mother came back to my grandfather's and loaded up their few 
belongings and us four children and started for their homestead in Lincoln 
County. Father, mother and the two older children built a one room log cabin, 
with a fire place for heating and cooking, for us to live in. I was too small 
to help with the building of the cabin but I had to look after the baby while 
mother helped. We had plenty of nice wood as father was clearing his land and 
cut down lots of nice big pine trees. In the spring of 1882 we planted a crop 
and raised lots of nice vegetables and feed for our stock. The second year we 
were on the farm, father got a job at Fort Stanton as blacksmith, shoeing the 
horses and mules. Mother would take him down to work on Monday morning and 
bring the wagon and team back as she had to have them during the week to work 
the crops. Father had a yoke of oxen and my mother and sister used them to do 
the plowing in the crops. That spring father started a four room adobe house. 
Mother and my oldest sister would make the adobes during the week and let them 
dry and when father came home to spend Sunday he would lay the adobes in the 
wall and the next week they would do the same thing until we had the walls up. 
We had to haul our lumber from the Dowlin Mill which was located on the 
Ruidoso. We had to go to Alto and then down Gavalan Canyon to

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the Ruidoso river and then about three miles up the river to the saw mill. It 
was a good two days trip. Father used the wagon and team of mules to haul the 
lumber. We had a fire place in the front room and one in the kitchen for 
cooking. We had dirt floors and dirt roof. Father cut small logs and laid them 
very close together and put dirt on them for a roof. Father picked up a second 
had stove at Fort Stanton and it was the first cook stove that I ever saw. 
Mother and Sister built a rock fence around our place. They went up on the 
hill side and threw the rocks down so they could carry them and put them in 
the fence. Mother and Sister did a lot of hard work to have a place to live in 
and in time we had a very nice farm and house. We raised all of our own hogs 
and father bought a few head of cattle as he was able. We raised our own wheat 
and took it to Dowlin's Mill and had it ground into flour and had our corn 
ground into corn meal. We bought our coffee in the green bean and roasted it 
and ground it in an old fashioned coffee mill. The first winter that we lived 
in the log cabin we had our grease pot and the fire place for lights.

We got our mail at Fort Stanton. Father taught us reading, writing and 
arithmetic the first two years that we lived on the Bonito and when we got 
enough neighbors they got up a three month subscription school. It was in a 
one room log cabin and about a mile from our house. We three older children 
walked to school. Later on the community got together and built a nice one 
room school house at Angus , New Mexico. The men put up the building and the 
women folks would go along each day and cook dinner for the men folks.

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After father left Fort Stanton he got a job at the "V" Ranche as blacksmith 
for the Crees. Mr. and Mrs. Pat Garrett lived on a ranche adjoining the "V" 
Ranche and Mrs. Garrett gave birth to a baby girl and my father attended her 
at this birth. This baby girl is the same Elizabeth Garrett who wrote our 
state song, "O Fair New Mexico." While we lived on the Bonito father would 
make a trip every fall to Las Vegas, New Mexico and buy the calico for our 
dresses, shoes stockings coffee, sugar and salt as that is all we had to buy. 
We raised every thing else that we ate. We lived here eleven years. Father 
sold this place to George Barrett and we moved to Nogal, New Mexico where we 
had better school advantages. Father hauled freight from Socorro and Las 
Vagas, New Mexico with mule teams. Mother died in 1915 and Father died in 1921 
in Nogal, New Mexico. My father was born on a farm near Jefferson City, 
Missouri in 1840 and was a confederate soldier during the Civil War. He fought 
in the battle of Bunker Hill. My mother's maiden name was Nancy Williams and 
she was born in Arkansas in 1855. 

While we were living at Nogal, New Mexico I met Linza Branum and we were 
married June 6th, 1894. There were six children born to us, three girls and 
three boys. Mr. Branum came to New Mexico from Putman, Texas and located at 
Three Rivers, New Mexico. He had forty one head of cattle and the first year 
he was here he branded two calves, the cattle rustlers got the rest. After we 
were married we lived at Three Rivers for three years. Then we bought a ranche 
in Coyote Canyon, about five miles northwest of White Oaks, New Mexico, from 
J.P.C. Langston who was deputy sheriff of Lincoln

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County at that time. We moved all of our cattle from Three Rivers to this 
ranche and lived there twenty nine years. In 1916 we sold this ranche and 
cattle to the Warden Brothers and bought the I-X Ranche, near Oscuro, New 
Mexico and lived there one year. We sold the I-X Ranche to E.O. Finley in 
1917. We moved to Carrizozo and built us a large modern home. Five of my 
children graduated from the Carrizozo, High School. Mr. Branum died May 3, 
1925, at Carrizozo, New Mexico.

NARRATOR: Nellie Henley Branum, Aged 61 years, Carrizozo, N. Mex. 

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

Chaves, Lincoln

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